As we do each year just past the midway point of the Vancouver Film Festival, in today’s VanRamblings’ VIFF post we’ll take a look at what others are saying, and have written, about the 30th annual VIFF.
Of course, we’ll take a glancing blow at a few films, offering comment on a selection of VIFF offerings. VanRamblings has tried our best to dampen our oft-present curmudgeonly quality in, thus far, recording pretty much only positive commentary in our capsule reviews. Hopefully, we won’t stray too far from our mandate to remain positive in today’s VIFF posting.
First up, below, two films we could easily have done without seeing, and not have affected the quality of our existence on this Earth. Note should be made, as we have written previously, that what we are about to write in today’s post constitutes our personal opinion on the various films under consideration, and in no way should be viewed as the definitive opinion of the worth, or lack thereof, of these VIFF film offerings.

Continue reading VIFF 2011, Day 9: Catching Up With VIFF Coverage Elsewhere →

Heading into Week Two of the 30th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, those folks who are not die-hard Festival-goers (y’know, the type: VIFFers who attend 4 – 6 films each day) want to know: what are the buzz films at VIFF30, what are the must-sees in the final week of the Festival, on which films should I plunk down my hard earned cash to purchase tickets?
Lucky, lucky you: we have a few answers for you. Hang on to your hats for Part 1 of Week Two’s buzziest, ya better not miss ’em, VIFF films to see!

Continue reading VIFF 2011, Day 8: Week Two of the Festival Officially Underway →

Showers cascaded down from the heavens on a rain-drenched Day 7 of VIFF, providing cover for tear-streaked Festival-goers moved by the hopeful but melancholy fare on offer at our Vancouver International Film Festival.
As for VanRamblings, we bawled our eyes out at the screening of Wish Me Away, the powerfully affecting Chely Wright documentary, and were no less moved by programmer Shelly Kraicer’s emotionally involving tryptych of first class Hong Kong-based short films, 1 + 1 +1= 3 stories by young women, and found ourselves emotionally wrung out at an evening screening of Yoav Potash’s extraordinarily inspiring Crime After Crime.
All and all, an emotionally plangent series of Wednesday screenings.

Continue reading VIFF 2011, Day 7: A Wrenching Day Emotionally At VIFF30 →

The rain fell throughout much of Day 6 of the Vancouver International Film Festival, festival patrons a little waterlogged as a consequence, choosing in many instances to remain inside the Empire Granville 7 for one screening after another for some of the most challenging cinematic fare to come to our shores this year. We all, each and every one of us, love our Festival.
The ‘problem’ with the early morning passholder ticket line up (which we mentioned yesterday) was resolved on Tuesday, the line moving more quickly than many of us could recall had ever been the case. Thank god for small favours, and for the opportunity to get out of the rain, was the grateful morning chant among the hardy 300 in Tuesday’s ticket line-up.
According to our friend John Skibinski, the digital cinema projection problems in the Empire Granville 7’s Theatre 7 were not resolved, or at least weren’t resolved for the 1 p.m. screening of Almayer’s Folly; patrons had to put up with a muddy DVD ‘print’ instead. More work for VIFF tech.
Final note: Due to popular demand, VIFF has added a 10:30 a.m. screening of Bullhead, tomorrow (Thursday), October 6th at the Granville 7.
Tuesday we took a bit of break from reclaiming our humanity, the theme of VanRamblings’ 2011 film festival, and caught only an evening screening at the Vogue Theatre. We’ve caught other films in previous days, though, that we haven’t recorded reviews of on our site, so that’s what we’ll publish below today: three capsule film reviews, two of which (docs) are splendid.

Continue reading VIFF 2011, Day 6: In Which We Recover From Long Festival Days →