The R1i Blog: Our Train of Thought

Last Sunday’s (2/8/2009) Washington Post had a nice list of film festivals coming up.  The one’s that have caught our eye:

• March 11 — FilmFest DC, the city’s annual showcase of international film, opens in local theaters and cultural institutions. Through March 22.
• March 12 — The Environmental Film Festival, which this year will pay tribute to the documentaries of Werner Herzog (”Grizzly Man,” “Little Dieter Needs to Fly”), gets underway at venues throughout Washington. Through March 22.
• April 17 — Korean Film Fest D.C. focuses on female directors this year; highlights include “The Chaser,” a thriller about to be remade in the United States, and “Night and Day,” the latest film from auteur Hong Sang-soo. Through June 10.
• June – EuroAsia Shorts marks the fourth annual festival that follows pairings of short films with discussions about issues facing different cultures today. Various venues through June 6.
• June 15 — Silverdocs, the AFI/Discovery Channel documentary festival, returns for its seventh year of spotlighting the world’s most provocative docs. Through June 22.

Check out http://dcshorts.com/ for details. We recently added the DC Shorts Film Festival to our To Participate in page.

I checked this out with my wife Rida on Friday night, and we saw Showcase 5 and the best films on there were:

1. Corner Delancey
2. En Pos De Dios
3. CU@ED’s
4. Tough Crowd was good too and worth checking out.

The Washington Post had this article on the DC Shorts Film Festival 2008 on Thursday, September 11, 2008. Going through the article, “The List” seems pretty interesting described by the post as a “brief, brutal little story on interrogation.”

Rob Raffety’s Funniest Fed 2007 Documentary was also featured in this film festival (it was premiered at the DC Independent Film Festival – here’s its page on that site), but unfortunately, it had to be shortened and as a result, the stuff featuring me was removed. .

Update: 9/15/2008:

1. Rob Raffety’s Funniest Fed 2007 won the best local film award at the DC Shorts Film Festival, so congratulations to him
2. Rob Raffety was also mentioned in the Washington Post here for his hilarious greeting (all filmmakers in the DC Shorts Film Festival have their own mailboxes which can be used to reach out to them)
3. Nice little feature in the Washington Post on Jonn Gann, the founder of the DC Shorts Film Festival, DC Film Alliance, and DC Film Salon

Now I’m not sure if this latest Mummy counts as Mummy 3 or if Scorpion King counts as Mummy 3, so we’ll stick to calling this movie by its title: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. And it’s important I clarify this title so that I can make the following statement with the necessary boldness:

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is the worst movie of 2008.

It is terrible. It was so bad, Raza, my cousin who was with me, fell asleep halfway through. It was so bad that the person behind me laid out over 4 seats and was snoring shortly after the movie started too. It was so bad, I wanted to leave but had too many people with me so I couldn’t. It was so bad I just started twittering about how bad it was (see my exhibits a, b, c).

I’m not going to even bother reviewing this. To talk about what they did wrong in this movie would take too long and to talk about what they did right would require me to think too hard. I myself had a feeling the movie was done for right after the opening
prologue. The opening fly fishing scene with Brendan Frasier was so
unfunny and painful to watch that I knew the movie couldn’t come back
from this.

The prologue actually was the only decent part of this movie. As a matter of fact, in the review from Jane Horowitz’s review in the Washington Post, her closing quote was: “Whatever. The prologue was the best part.”

So I know I’m not the only one.

There’s nothing more to say about the movie. For more good times, check out the comments on Blu-ray.com’s recent blog post on Rob Cohen saying this movie on BD will look and sound better than in the theater.

Found out about this movie in this Washington Post Article.

Here’s a cut and paste from the article:

Tomorrow

FILM “The Postmodern Life of My Aunt” Hong Kong star Chow
Yun-Fat is among the tricksters with his eye on a Shanghai woman whose
kind ways seem out of step with the need for street sense in this 2006
comedy/drama, screening tomorrow at the Freer Gallery as part of the
Made in Hong Kong Film Festival. Free. 7 p.m. (tickets handed out an
hour in advance). Meyer Auditorium, Freer Gallery, Jefferson Drive and
12th Street SW. 202-633-1000.

Like many others out there, I too plan on seeing Dark Knight twice. I luckily saw it the first time in IMAX when I was in Vegas and plan on seeing it in IMAX again. Unfortunately, if you’re in DC since The Dark Knight’s opening night, you only had one option to watch the movie in IMAX which was in Chantilly, VA. The Dark Knight isn’t opening in DC’s IMAX until 8/8. I already bought my 5 tickets for that night for me, Rida, Shahan and a couple of friends.

For anyone else in the DC area who wants to see the Dark Knight on IMAX in DC, go to this link:

http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase?organ_val=21156&venue_val=202321&event_val=J2DK

Be sure to buy your tickets in advance as they do seem like they are selling out early (at least they were in Chantilly).

Also, for reference, the DC IMAX links: http://www.si.edu/imax/

I’m adding this to my “To Watch” page simply based on the ad I ripped out of EW a while back.