In the meantime, we wondered, what are these cocktails? What do they taste like? And who didn’t make the cut? What do our own tastebuds think? The tie went to drinks from Elements and the Biltmore, but the second runner-up came from Tonic. We set out to discover.
The buzz preceding the “Red Riding” trilogy came via film journals and British TV blogs, and the eventual screening across one long but tense afternoon lived up to expectations. Based on a quartet of novels by David Peace (one was not filmed), “Red Riding” is an exceptional crime drama, a sprawling narrative that in the UK was primetime viewing but in the States is being released theatrically.
Set in the grimy industrial north of Yorkshire, and the West Riding district, the trilogy follows a secret history of corruption, big business and serial killing. This is the dark, depressed North of the Moors murders and the Yorkshire Ripper (who makes an appearance in the middle film), but also of ex-mining towns, destitute backwater towns, and wounded and angry male psyches.
Above, Quentin Tarantino and Kirk Douglas are shown speaking at the Lobero Theatre on Sunday. At right, the two shake hands backstage after the Q & A session.
In recursive moment of movie love, Kirk Douglas and Quentin Tarantino fans gathered on Sunday afternoon at the Lobero for a meeting with the two stars. Mr. Tarantino overflowed with appreciation and love for Mr. Douglas, whose 1975 film “Posse,” was specially screened for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. In turn, Mr. Douglas revealed himself as a Tarantino fan, steering the chat away from Sunday’s film screening to tout “Inglourious Basterds,” Mr. Tarantino’s’s recent World War II drama.
These are, of course, the moments on which SBIFF has built its legacy. And Sunday’s screening also showed how SBIFF can hustle and improvise and provide special moments beyond the de rigueur tributes. The screening springs from last October, when Mr. Tarantino appeared at the Coral Casino to receive SBIFF’s 2009 Kirk Douglas Award. Starstruck himself to meet one of his childhood heroes, the two became fast friends.
From left, Michael Stuhlbarg, Saiorse Ronan, Carey Mulligan and Emily Blunt recieve the Virtuoso Award on Sunday.
ROBBY BARTHELMESS / NEWS-PRESS
Carey Mulligan, above, Michael Stuhlbarg, above center, Emily Blunt, above right in grey, and Saiorse Ronan are shown on the red carpet on Sunday before receiving their Virtuoso Awards.
Young, talented and British: that could sum up a majority of this year’s Virtuoso Award honorees at Sunday night’s special event at the Lobero. Consider the list: Irish-raised Saoirse Ronan, who plays the young murder victim in Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones.” London-born Emily Blunt, who plays the young queen in “The Young Victoria.” And Carey Mulligan, who went from Westminster to stardom as the seduced and seductive schoolgirl in “An Education.” Screams from a sparse but enthusiastic crowd gathered outside the Lobero and watching the red carpet greeted each star’s arrival.
Odd man out was Long Beach native Michael Stuhlbarg, who jumped from decades of Broadway theater work to unlikely leading man in the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man.” Mr. Stuhlbarg is more than twice the age of Miss Ronan, but to audiences, they are all fresh faces who delivered some of 2009’s best performances.
Michael Stuhlbarg talks quietly in run-on sentences, in a warm voice that’s like the light of dawn spreading into a bedroom. This marks a total change from the frantic, desperate Larry Gopnik he plays in the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man,” who wakes up from a contented middle-class slumber to find everything crumbling around him: his wife is leaving him, his kids ignore him, his job is threatened and he is tempted by a sexy neighbor, Mrs. Samsky. His comic spiritual quest for answers forms the backbone of the movie, but the flesh is Gopnik’s face, the way he moves through the scenes.
Stuhlbarg was born and raised in Long Beach, but his acting career took off in 1989 after graduating from Juilliard, and he’s been working in New York’s theater scene and elsewhere ever since. But it’s only now, in his 40s, that he’s come to Hollywood’s attention. He’s been nominated for a Golden Globe for “A Serious Man,” which itself has been nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture), and now he comes to SBIFF to receive a Virtuoso Award.
There’s no bar at Bucatini, unless you count the divider that looks into the prep area and the pizza oven. After all, watching all those delicious pizzas going in there and coming out oozing with cheese and sauce is not exactly conducive to drinking. But, mamma mia, this corner restaurant on Haley and State has a cocktail menu that it’s proud of, and they have the long-term workers to prove it.
The Farmers Market on Tuesdays means fresh ingredients at the front door, and Eddie Chavez tries to incorporate many of them into his drinks. Chavez has been here as manager for three years, after moving on from an eight-year stint at the Wine Cask, and his imprimatur is on the entire menu.
Pixar continued its string of hits in 2009 with the poignant, swashbuckling and often hilarious “Up.” As consistent as the films have been, so too have the filmmakers, as three years of interviewing the directors has shown. Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton and another one of Pixar’s original crew, Pete Docter (“Toy Story,” “Monsters, Inc.”), are all affable, talkative, friendly creators who never seem to tire of answering questions about their films. Docter grew up in Minneapolis, but he knows Santa Barbara from visiting his grandparents here, and he’ll return once again to screen “Up” and take part in the Festival’s screenwriter and director panels this weekend.
In “Up”, Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) attaches thousands of balloons to his house and goes in search of Paradise Falls to fulfill a promise to his deceased wife. He has a stowaway, Russell, an eager boy scout, and a later meeting with a boyhood hero, Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer).
All hail the Red, White and … Pink!
It’s time again for “La Vie en Rose,” Contemporary Arts Forum’s annual Valentine’s exhibition, benefit auction and fashion show. The exhibition side — featuring works from a slew of Santa Barbara artists like Stephanie Dotson, Warren Schultheis, Zacarias Paul, Mary Heebner and more — is already up, but Saturday night’s gala event is the time to really show the love.
DVD. Netflix. Video on Demand. Thousands of cable and satellite channels. It’s hard to believe that in this current climate, when most movies are available to us, that some films of the last 30 years remain impossible to see. It’s even more incredible when it’s a film like “City of Sadness,” one of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s greatest films, an important part of Taiwanese history, a winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and a gorgeous work of art to boot.
So film buffs will rejoice to know that a special new print of “City of Sadness” — still not on DVD, and no hope of it being so — screens this Tuesday at UCSB’s Campbell Hall. The last time it played Santa Barbara was as part of a Hou retrospective at the SBIFF in 1998. I wouldn’t recommend waiting another 12 years.
“This is one of the great, great masterpieces of cinema,” says Michael Berry, the East Asian Studies professor who will be introducing Hou’s work on Tuesday. “It’s the kind of film that you can walk away from and the images haunt you.”
“City of Sadness” follows the Lin family through four years of life in Taiwan. The decade was tumultuous, and not well-known in the West. From 1895 to 1945, Taiwan was colonized by the Japanese. But when Japan lost World War II, Taiwan was ceded back to Chinese rule, only to be colonized by the mainland Chinese, who were engaged in a civil war with what turned out to be Mao’s army. When Chang Kai-Shek fled the mainland, Taiwan became their domain and the Taiwanese felt betrayed. At the same time, America and the West recognized Taiwan as the “free” China, compared to “Red” China.
“This created a huge cultural tension for the Taiwanese people,” says Berry. “Some of the major political and cultural hurdles that have haunted Taiwan since that period have its roots then.”
The film’s emotional core is the 228 Incident — February 28, 1947 — a small, violent episode that exploded into riots, thousands dead, and then led to martial law and political oppression. The spark that started the fire — the beating death of a street vendor by authorities — features in “City of Sadness” and is witnessed by a member of the apolitical Lin family. By the end of the film, the once-close-knit family unit will be tragically changed forever.
One of Asia’s best-known leading men, Tony Leung (“In the Mood for Love,” “Hero”) plays one of the Lin’s four brothers, a deaf-mute photographer — possibly a stand-in for the director, and one of Hou’s main metaphors for the country’s inability to talk about the events up until his film. Hou’s mastery of space, light and shadow, and camera movement, assisted by his cinematographer Huai-en Chen, came into its own here, the film he’d been preparing to make for the first part of his career.
Despite being picked up by the same distributor as Zhang Yimou’s “Raise the Red Lantern,” the film lay neglected, and now rights issues, dissolved production companies and endless legalities mean that it’s rarely seen. With redone subtitles and a clean print, the film has a chance to find a new audience. For one night only.
“City of Sadness”
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Yi Fang Wou, Nakamura Ikuyo, and Jack Kao
Length: 157 minutes
Playing: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at UCSB’s Campbell Hall
Cost: $6 general, $5 UCSB students
Yes, the bar is small (five seats) and has a tiny selection of bottles. Serving those who are just biding their time (the short-term parking prices don’t invite regulars), we were still pleased. The Overlook could just offer a standard selection of drinks, but there is a margarita here that won’t disappoint. But Cruz likes to fiddle about in the recipe department and offers specials for those who want to try his work.