White Tank Top Decides Best of SIFF 2010

I only saw a portion of the films featured at SIFF 2010 (cursed day job!), but will that stop me from handing out Golden Tank Top Awards to my favorites?

Of course not.

Best Supporting Actor
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone (below). The chilliest of the chilly. Teardrop is a reluctant participant in the search for his brother, but also the only one who commands enough respect to find him. Hawkes ghosts through the film with an understated power that makes your hair stand on end.

Favorite Song to Listen to Get Me Pumped Up for Late Night Blogging
“Prove It All Night” (Bruce Springsteen). I’m pretty sure the Boss had film festival blogging in mind when he wrote: “baby you pay the price / to prove it all night.”

Best Supporting Actress/WTT #1 Crush
Bang Chau (below). I adored her so much in Upperdog that I was compelled to visit bangchau.com, where there’s links for passable Europop (for which she’s been nominated for several Danish Grammys!).

Top Secret Real Favorite Song to Get Me Pumped Up for Late Night Blogging
“California Gurls” (Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg). I’m loving the song in equal measure to how much I’ll inevitably be loathing it in about six weeks. I can also report that the Candyland-inspired music video is brilliantly conceived. 

Best Actor
Luis Tosar, Cell 211. I didn’t see this film but I love Luis Tosar (impeccable in Miami Vice and The Limits of Control) and will trust Golden Needle voters on this one.

Worst Actor
James Franco, Howl.  In the words of Charles Barkley: Mr. Franco, your Allen Ginsberg was turrible, just turrible.

Favorite Festival-going Mystery
Why did the Inside Out pre-screening animation change about a week into the festival?  The first few times I watched the excellent short I enjoyed the bit (it comes right before we pull back into a movie audience) that appeared to be a version of the crucial diner scene in (500) Days of Summer. Then I noticed that animated Zooey and Joseph had disappeared. Were they edited out for some copyright reason? Or was I just having a fever dream that they were there in the first place? I can only hope there’s some rational explanation.

Best Actress
Tilda Swinton, I Am Love. The Douglas Sirk-style “woman’s picture” continues to be a great genre for redheads in the millennium — like Julianne Moore in Far from Heaven before her, Ms. Swinton gives the performance of a lifetime in I Am Love. She drags the film by the scruff of its neck with chiseled force of will. (Congratulations to SIFF audiences for picking Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, though — another worthy choice.)

Most Egregious SIFF Award
The FIPRESCI Award for Night Catches Us. The International Federation of Film Critics really got this one wrong. While their blurb praises the acting and cinematography of Night Catches Us they leave out the fact that the characters are grossly underwritten, delivering stiff lines through a flat climax. Apparently they had to select an American film. Why not Holy Rollers or Cyrus or Morning or one of many more worthy choices?

Best Director
Henri-Georges Clouzot, Inferno (below). Sure, he never completed Inferno, but in the Serge Bromberg documentary we saw just how committed he was to making a film the likes of which we’ve still never seen. I want a screensaver of his kaleidoscopic camera experiments with Romy Schneider.

Best Venue to Be a Passholder
The Neptune. Loved the side door entrance for passholders, away from the ticketed riffraff. Plus, when I walked in, a volunteer asked me if I needed anything! That’s the kind of VIP treatment City Arts ought to afford.

Best Documentary
This Way of Life. I already need to see it again, to marvel at the scenery and puzzle over how Peter Karena (below) can be a real person, living in the same 2010 as me. We have such different instincts, it’s like we’re two separate species. I think it’d be particularly fun to collect all of his profound thoughts on responsible parenting and send them to my dad for Father’s Day.

Favorite SIFF Volunteer
I wish I knew his name!  (He probably thought it was strange that I kept glancing at his hips to try to read his badge….) Anyway, my favorite volunteer was the main man at the Egyptian. He had awesome worn-in boots and an authoritative mien. To call in the passholder line, he simply stood at the head of the queue, stretched his arms forward then brought them to his chest. A man of few words, the Gary Cooper of SIFF volunteers. Once, on my way to the restroom, we had to pass close by each other. As I recoiled awkwardly, he stretched his arms wide and slid by me against the wall — the closest I’ve ever come to a chest bump...this has kind of morphed into an “I Saw U” message. My apologies.

Best Feature Film
Winter’s Bone. The only can’t-miss classic I saw at SIFF 2010 (which is still one more than I expected to see). Did everyone see how A.O. Scott stole all my ideas for his review in the New York Times?  White Tank Top was all over the Greek myth in the Ozarks angle!  If mass critical opinion is any indication, we’ll be hearing about Winter’s Bone all the way to Oscar time.  

SIFF's over. But you can follow White Tank Top movie reviews year-round at whitetanktop.blogspot.com and here on the CAB.