The Emotional Journey of Naomi Watts
Rewarding the Australian Actress’s Diverse Career
Montecito Award, Saturday, February 4, 8 p.m.,
at the Marjorie Luke Theatre.
Month: February 2006
L.A. Stories, Continued
Robert Towne’s Ask the Dust Kicks Off the Film Fest. – Even if Robert Towne had decided to quit the business a quarter century ago, his significant place in film history would have been secure and his epitaph would have read: “Here lies the creator of one of film’s most perfect screenplays.”
A Spine-Cracking Good Time
The main course of the Film Fest is joined this year by an explosive side dish of movies dedicated to sports that may kill you. Awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, and death-defying athletic antics are par for the course in the To the Maxx category-which is sure to have audience members chugging Mountain Dew and doing upside-down inverted flaming headstands in their theater seats all week long.
Dose of Reality
Sometimes we peek into people’s bedrooms or their cultures. Sometimes the subject is funny, other times it is brutal. But documentaries also express the passion and prejudices of the filmmaker, which means that they can also be self-indulgent, too long, and even wildly disturbing.
familia Filmica
If it weren’t for the Toronto Film Festival, the average American never would’ve heard of Y Tu Mam¡ Tambien or its talented and eye-pleasing star Gael Garc-a Bernal.
Eastern Exposure
“I love the Cult Asian stuff,” said SBIFF program manager Cevin Cathell, who had a former life as a real film producer. “Maybe it’s because it comes out of cultures,” she said, picking her words carefully, “where the accent is on trying to be so homogenous and mannerly. Whatever it is, these are very strange films and almost all of them are beautiful.”
Toujours Auteur
Once it ruled the art house, or so it seemed. This was the French film, from Renoir to Resnais: movies that seemed uniformly aesthetic, handsome men and iconic female beauties in adult situations worthy of a nation that spawned Flaubert, Folies Bergre, and Emile Zola-yet riddled with contrasts.
Extra Inclusive
When it comes to showing the work of local filmmakers, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has to be the most inclusive festival in the world.
Shop Talking
Looking at the matter of close encounters with the film medium and industry at the Film Festival, celebrity tributes are fine and good, and help give the festival publicity-generating glitz.
Adventures in Gearhead Paradise
From the Ocean Bottom to Mars with James Cameron – I’m on my way there now, right after these interviews are over,” said James Cameron about his home in Hollister Ranch, that paradise of cowboy surfers and rock poets like Brown and Crosby.
