What to watch
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer
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The Hawaii International Film Festival is finally old enough to legally rent a car.
A full 25 years after it was founded, the state's largest homegrown film festival is alive, well and an international leader in the showcasing and support of Asian and Pacific cinema.
We'll let our reflections on a life lived end there. You'll get enough of that perusing HIFF's gratis and very lovely program guide (available at the festival's Dole Cannery box office and Starbucks stores). An up-to-date view of the festival's entire film schedule is at www.hiff.org.
Instead, TGIF has put together what we've determined are the 2005 Louis Vuitton Hawaii International Film Festival's 25 "most likely" flicks.
Most likely to what, you ask?
Read on, film fanatics.
"SAD MOVIE"
The film fest's opening-night world premiere is being called the Korean "Love Actually." Because that British sap-fest contained the single most offensively wimpy Liam Neeson character ever forced on film lovers, consider yourself warned.
(6:30 p.m. Thursday, 9:30 p.m. Oct. 23, 6 p.m. Oct. 25, Dole Cannery)
"RIVER QUEEN"
Its New Zealand set was flooded. Actor Cliff Curtis got into a car wreck during production. Star Samantha Morton and director Vincent Ward clashed. Ward was fired and rehired. Kiefer Sutherland grew a beard. If the film fest's closing-night flick is even half as dramatic ... ka-ching!
(6 p.m. Oct. 29, Dole Cannery)
"BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN"
Director Ang Lee's mournful, passionate tale of a pair of solitary ranch hands whose lives wind up impaired by an inability to face up to their true natures is really a love story for the ages.
(6 p.m. Oct. 24, Hawai'i Theatre)
"THE MATADOR"
Pierce Brosnan adds another flick to his anti-Bond resume as a world-traveling hit man with a taste for prostitutes, liquor and cruising hotel lobbies in nothing but Speedos and cowboy boots. Surprise! He's conflicted, too.
(8:45 p.m. Oct. 26, Hawai'i Theatre)
"A BITTERSWEET LIFE"
What's cooler than being cool? Being an ice-cold Korean enforcer yearning for a better life and who's not above systematically taking down every one of his enemies in ultra-violent and staggeringly imaginative style. Loved "Sad Movie"? Stay home.
(9 p.m. Oct. 24, Hawai'i Theatre; 12:15 p.m. Oct. 30, Dole Cannery)
"AV"
Four Hong Kong losers devise a way to sleep with adult-video star Manami Amamiya by conning the government out of $25,000 in grant money so they can hire their favorite Japanese porn star for a phony film shoot. Amamiya plays herself. The tone is more sweetly humorous than salacious. Really.
(10:15 p.m. Oct. 26, 10:15 p.m. Oct. 28, Dole Cannery)
"THE BEAUTIFUL WASHING MACHINE"
A used washing machine with a temperamental streak. A quiet and nameless young woman who seems to always accompany it like a lifelong factory warranty and who might just be its soul. As weird, original and darkly humorous as a David Lynch flick.
(4 p.m. Oct. 24, 10:15 p.m. Oct. 27, Dole Cannery)
"KAMIKAZE GIRLS"
Harajuku who? A biker chick able to walk away — luminous hair perfectly intact, of course — from an air-tossed collision with a vegetable truck meets cute with a prim and proper fashion queen prone to severe couture clashes. By film's end, there's adultery, projectile vomiting and a girl fight. Japanese buddy flicks rule!
(6 p.m. Oct. 22, 9:15 p.m. Oct. 23, Dole Cannery)
"Kim Il-Sung Manseeii!: Violent Wonders From North Korea"
Thirty-five minutes of propaganda-rich excerpts from North Korean popular entertainment. Thrill to synchronized gymnasts strutting for former fearless leader Kim Il-Sung! Gaze in wonder at citizens caressing the tire tracks of Kim Il-Sung's passing limo! And that's just the nonviolent stuff.
(3 p.m. Oct. 22, 3:15 p.m. Oct. 26, Dole Cannery)
"PRINCESS RACCOON"
A lopsided costume operetta about a young prince tossed out by his vain father after a prophet predicts the younger will be the more handsome of the two. On an isolated mountain, he meets a beautiful princess who sings and whose kind is notorious for nocturnal raiding of garbage cans. Guess who plays the raccoon royalty in human form?
(1 p.m. Oct. 22, 3:15 p.m. Oct. 28, Dole Cannery)
"HINOKIO"
Don't go scouring Toys 'R' Us for the cute remote-controlled robot who teaches a lonely 12-year-old boy to break out of a self-imposed shell and venture out into the world again. Hinokio (named after the robot's partial hinoki cypress-wood construction) was designed and animated by the ever-dazzling CGI magicians who slaved away on "Final Fantasy."
(12:30 p.m. Oct. 22, 3 p.m. Oct. 26, noon Oct. 29, Dole Cannery)
"TETSUJIN 28"
Legendary Japanese cinema go-to giant robot Tetsujin 28 is Tokyo's only hope when a mean and metallic bucket of bolts named Black Ox comes to town seeking to stomp some prime retail and office space. But wait! Tetsujin has been all but left for rusting scrap metal in the bowels of the city underground since his inventor vanished. Will justice prevail? Will the Beastie Boys show up to take Tetsujin's controls?
(3:30 p.m. Oct. 22, noon Oct. 23, Dole Cannery)
THE OTHER 13 ...
"THE SQUID AND THE WHALE"
(9:45 p.m. Oct. 22, 9:30 p.m. Oct. 28, Dole Cannery)
"EXECUTIVE KOALA"
(9:15 p.m. Oct. 28, Dole Cannery)
"GODZILLA: FINAL WARS"
(9 p.m. Oct. 22, 12:30 p.m. Oct. 23, Dole Cannery)
"DUMPLINGS"
(11:59 p.m. Oct. 22, 11:59 p.m. Oct. 28, Dole Cannery)
"THE MOTEL"
(6:15 p.m. Oct. 24, 12:30 p.m. Oct. 30, Dole Cannery)
"THE FALL OF FUJIMORI"
(6:15 p.m. Oct. 23, 3 p.m. Oct. 24 Dole Cannery)
"BEYOND OUR KEN"
(3:30 p.m. Oct. 21; 3:30 p.m. Oct. 29, Dole Cannery)
"FUNKY FOREST"
(10:15 p.m. Oct. 22, 9:15 p.m. Oct. 27, Dole Cannery)
"THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI"
(11:59 p.m. Oct. 21, 9:45 p.m. Oct. 29, Dole Cannery)
"INITIAL D"
(10:15 p.m. Oct. 28, 6:15 p.m. Oct. 29, 1:15 p.m. Oct. 30, Dole Cannery,)
"SHUTTER"
(10:15 p.m. Oct. 21, 9:45 p.m. Oct. 23, Dole Cannery)
"SECRETS OF THE ISLAND: AN INSIDER'S LOOK AT THE PHENOMENON OF 'LOST' " SEMINAR
(1:30 p.m. Oct. 23, Dole Cannery)
"DARK CITY."
(A four-part Ebert-hosted Democracy In The Dark seminar, 3:30 p.m. Oct. 24-27, Doris Duke Theatre)
Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.
