akdennis

Member since 9/7/2006, last signed in awhile ago.

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Interested in:Comedy, Drama, Historical Film, Language & Literature, Romance, Theater

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Tulpan

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By akdennis in akdennis Blog
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"This movie got me out of the doldrums of what looked like a lack-luster year this year at the TFF. It was wonderful. It's a story of life in rural Kazakhstan as seen through the daily life of family that survives through goat hearding. It was in Russian and Kazakh with subtitles and was 100m long but seemed longer. Some scenes had the camera frozen on them for as long as 10 minutes which is maybe why the movie seemed long to me. The director also included many camera pans around the countryside giving an in-depth view of the geography (vast and flat). Director Peter Sellars interviewed the director of this film afterward and there was a Q & A session. The director discussed his technique of editing and cutting less (less is more) to allow significant scenes to play out fully. It was truly an interesing movie, and the director is a very interesting guy who was first an aviation engineer before going to film school later. This was a great start for me at this year's festival.... ... " [More]

The Times of Harvey Milk

Re:TFF 2008 - here it comes!
By akdennis in Telluride Film Festival 2008
"[quote user="tadiv"] [quote user="akdennis"] [quote user="tadiv"] Here is the Toronto Program... Take a look and leave notes on what you think may be in Telluride as well... Tom [/quote] That's quite a long list for the Toronto fest. I've always enjoyed the surprise of the schedule at Telluride; I've never thought of actively guessing and researching what might be there. Having said that, though, I do hope you are right about "Milk." I've been looking forward to it. Even though I was quite young, I remember the event pretty well as I moved the SF bay area just after it happened. Well, back to packing for Telluride.... [/quote] Have you seen The Times of Harvey Milk? It played in Telluride before pretty much anywhere else (according to their history link)... [/quote] Yes, I have seen it several times. I rented it again recently when I heard they were making "Milk." It caught my attention when I heard about it partly because of the subject matter and partly because of the cast ... " [More]

Re:TFF 2008 - here it comes!
By akdennis in Telluride Film Festival 2008
"[quote user="tadiv"] Here is the Toronto Program... Take a look and leave notes on what you think may be in Telluride as well... Tom [/quote] That's quite a long list for the Toronto fest. I've always enjoyed the surprise of the schedule at Telluride; I've never thought of actively guessing and researching what might be there. Having said that, though, I do hope you are right about "Milk." I've been looking forward to it. Even though I was quite young, I remember the event pretty well as I moved the SF bay area just after it happened. Well, back to packing for Telluride.... " [More]

Re: A quick summary of what I s ...
By akdennis in Telluride Film Festival 2008
"Hi Tom. As you mentioned at the end of your comments, there was a signifcant problem this year with passholders being turned away; i was one of them. I've been going to the Telluride fest for about 10 years now and it was significantly different this year. I had a Festival Pass and was turned away from 3 films in a row on Saturday. That has never happened to me before. There were quite a few rumours running around as to why this happened. One was they they sold more Festival passes this year. The other was that there was an unanticipated surge in sales of Patron passes this year and they filled up all the seats. I got into the Sunday morning showing of "Into the Wild," the Q and A session, but just barely. I actually sat in the very first row (tough to see the film, but good for seeing Sean Penn). I chatted with one of the staffers later and she said that normally they would expect 20-30 Patron passes at the Chuck for a major, popular fiilm. But for this shiow, she said they ha ... " [More]

Re: Films I saw at Telluride
By akdennis in Telluride Film Festival 2008
"Here's my list: Jindabyne (Q & A showing) Infamous Civic Life Fur Little Children Severance Don't Move Signs Don't Move Calling Cards (Shorts) Sunday Seminar One of my favorites this year was one of the shorts. "Dead Letters" from New Zealand was wonderful. It had me in tears at the end (I love it when a movie does this) and as I was exiting the theatre and thinking about it, I realized that the film makers had gotten to me in 13 minutes. They developed the story, the characters and pulled at my emotions in 13 min. Bravo. The Q and A session after "Jindabyne" with Laura Linney (one of my favorites) was terrific. The movie is dark (this was the year for heavy, dark dramas and violence, wasn't it?) but very well done and I thought Laura was terrific opposite Gabriel Byrne. "Civic Life" was terrible, just like their short was last year. How did they get back in this year? People were leaving half-way through, including myself. "Little Children" and "Infamous" were ... " [More]