adventures of a tired coder

SIFF@Home Day 3

About a worthy effort to restore the many broken musical instruments so Philadelphia schoolchildren would have proper instruments to play on. Lots of talking heads, even if they were put in television screens. It felt like more of a great news story than a film.

The dancing was full of joy and the movie was strongest when it was letting the dancing speak for itself. It got more tiresome when it kept trying to push swing dance as the antidote for all of the world's problems. People spoke passionately about how the swing community was always there for you and it was like family, and yet the film points out that swing no longer has much of a presence in Harlem, where it all began. But the point of the film was to be uplifting, so it makes sense that it didn't go further into that. I did learn a little about the history of swing and some of the surprising locations where its revival has been popular (South Korea, Sweden).

I took a break to watch a program from the Northwest Film Forum's Children's Film Festival and I wasn't very engaged today. I think the films in this program were more truly children's programming.


Not much to this short, but it was cute. And particularly poignant since we're all feeling sad about not being in the theaters right now, so it's nice to imagine that there are happy cinema staff dancing away in the closed theaters until we can return.


Yes, finally, the right sort of festival film for me! Two former lovers reunite by chance in their old town and talk for a long time. It hit all the right emotional notes for me. It's a little bit awkward, sometimes funny, often nostalgic, a little bit painful, and very genuine. Mark Duplass and Sarah Paulson have great chemistry here, and Sarah Paulson's smile just shines. Loved this. I was actually scheduled to watch it next month, but the movie I had scheduled wasn't on Netflix anymore, and this one was a similar time and genre. It's not SIFF without some sort of tech issue? 😂


Okay, apparently I've watched this film at actual SIFF before. I remembered that it was at SIFF, but I did not remember watching it. I didn't even remember while watching the film! It wasn't until I went to rate it on Letterboxd that I realized. Guess it didn't make much of an impression, and I liked it less the first time, too. I may have just been too movied out at the time to appreciate the chickens. This is a pretty silly movie, but the chickens are great.

SIFF@Home Day 4

Started the morning with one final children's festival program, "The Cat's Meow," which was the original motivation to get the pass. It did not disappoint! So many great cat films. And it was like watching weekend morning cartoons.

I had 4 film slots programmed for today but ended up watching only 2. I needed a lighter day after yesterday, and I also had a 2 hour yin yoga class in the late afternoon. It ended up being a foreign romantic comedy day, which was perfectly fine with me. No bloodbaths!


Two attractive Korean youngsters meet by chance and continue to find and lose each other over the years. On paper, it sounds great. In practice, it was pretty unengaging and overly long. The two don't really have that much chemistry, and I'm too old to have patience for attractive people who act pointlessly mopey. It probably would have been better if it focused mainly on one of the characters and gave more insight into the character's mind and personal journey.