While the first day of any festival always comes with its fair share of getting into the swing of things, day one at Bumbershoot was the calm before the storm – a day of relative peace before a tsunami of eager guests tore through the floodgates.

Starting out the festival with a collection of short sci-fi films seemed suiting so to the SIFF 1 Reel Film Fest I headed. Of the collection of short films, one stood out most – Incident on Highway 73. While the others had their own bits of flair and offerings of promise, they were mostly forgettable among a lineup of shorts. Highway 73 though managed to craft an immediate sense of tension that sustained itself through its near 30-minute run time. Props to director Brian Thompson for that.

Patton Oswalt – also an attendee for all three days and a seemingly lynch pin part of many other comedic acts – gave his comic two cents in a riotous but short live stand-up bit then handed the majority of his hour long performance off to his “guests.” Thankfully, most of these featured comics were up to snuff with a raunchy, ritzy-girl persona from Natasha Leggero being the ultimate breadwinner when it came to the laugh bank.

But the first real standout came in the form of Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience – the surprise hit of the festival.  This four piece tribute band arched through a killer set of the much beloved 70s rock gods Led Zeppelin with abundantly rehearsed talent. Each note was so uncanny that if you closed your eyes you would swear you were listening to the salty croon of Robert Plant, the fiery licks of Jimmy Page and the sweet synchronization of drum legend John Bonham. But son Jason Bonham’s gushing love of his now-deceased father was moving not only in his reverent reflection of his father’s music. “I never told him this while he was alive,” Bonham says, “but I do this for the love of my Dad.”

The masses showed up on Sunday for what was easily the most packed day at Bumbershoot and the girth of humans could be felt in the ever-growing lines. The Mowgli‘s started the day off for me with their cult-alt-pop 8-man show. Belting songs about faith, togetherness and love, this LA-based ocho spewed infectiously catchy tunes to a crowd superficially embodying these benevolent ideals who, ironically enough, just couldn’t seem to stop pushing and bumping into their fellow brethren. Thus is the eternal catch-22 of the modern festival.

Back in the SIFF Theater for more shorts was a true standout going by the name of Woody, which I will say now will be a strong contender, if not a shoe in, for Best Animated Short come Oscar season. The animation was breath taking and the story was simple, heartfelt, and unique – all the elements a short needs to sustain a breathless audience and garnish the buzz needed to get the nod.

Other noticeable spotlights of the day included a top notch Main Stage show from the Canadian duo Tegan and Sara, a comedy set led by a nest-haired, but certainly not feather-brained, Morgan Murphy, and a star-bedazzled lawn performance from bubbly synth-driven alt-pop band, Matt & Kim. The two-piece Grizzled Mighty played with sloppy mania and almost had the crowd possessed if not for the regular misplacing of time from drummer Whitney Petty. This chick could certainly bang her head but keeping a regular rhythm proved quite an insurmountable issue that ultimately left the band stranded in a sea of time, in desperate hopes of a metronome.

But the main event that rose to the top of my personal to-see list ended up packing an unexpected, and largely unwanted, surprise.

The Zombies, authors of one of the best and most-underrated albums of the 1960s “Odyssey and Oracle,” came to stage in my eyes as Gods and left as mere pensioners. The culprit of this diametric perspective shift? A dangerously bipolar set. Much like watching The Rolling Stones this day and age, anything that wasn’t a certified 60s classic just felt flat. Waffling between superbly performed classics such as “She’s Not There,” “I Love You,” “A Rose for Emily,” “Tell Her No” and “Time of the Season” and a string of new tunes that felt like little more than old men’s 12 bar blues, The Zombies let old school fans and themselves down.

Even with the knowledge that these late great performers aim for a 11th hour redemption, it still feels too little, too late and a sidetrack from the show that I, for one, came to see. As a lover of all things 60s, it was a sad reality to realize that they would largely opt out of the songs that made them such a growing sleeper hit for the past fifty years and favor a bag of new tricks. The Zombies still do have a pulse, but it was weaker than I’d hoped for.

The last day, on glorious Labor Day itself, was characterized by the same mild Seattle sun and zombie-esque crowds shuffling between Russian dumplings and custom-made poster art but it was the final day which meant a requisite cramming in of all things grand.

Heading to the MainStage for two back-to-back performances from Alt-J and MGMT, I ran aground a hefty three-man security team that couldn’t seem to wrap their head around the idea of a Press Pass and so I wound up stuck in the nosebleed section for two of the bands I most wanted to see. Luckily, both shows were so packed full of energy that it was hard to let the low levels of authority and illusions of grandeur sour things entirely.

Held in place by a hypnotic light show, Alt J took to the stage crooning out some killer harmonies and pounding melodies. While they sometimes drifted too far into the down tempo, when they picked things up there was a palpable sense of talent unhinged in their staccato vocals and pounding synth.

But for all the glory of Alt J, it was MGMT who stole the show and became the highlight of the festival. Shuffling between their older chart-topping hits like “Electric Feel,” “The Youth” and “Kids“, their more underground and subculture second album  “Congratulations” and a handful of excellent tunes off their upcoming self-titled album, MGMT was simply on fire. Between the visualizer showing seagulls flying in space and reflections of Mario Kart’s revered rainbow road, this was a show all about the experience. It measured psychedelia and craftsmanship in equal doses and delivered to a jaw-agaped audience. This is a band that has improved their live performance significantly since their last show I saw back in 2010 was impressive but not nearly on the same level. They have truly become masters of arena rock. Transforming the old and the new into one singular beast may not be an easy task but MGMT has shown they can flex a muscle that few others can and that ought to be worth more than its weight in gold.

The only true piece of theater I had a chance to observe over the weekend came in the form of Audrey and Nelson, a puppet sex musical I attended on this final day. Even though the show sounds gimmicky (like an inbred cousin to the popular Broadway show Avenue Q) the script from Bret Fetzer and music by Peter Richards (of the band Dude York) married to the committed puppeteers controlling these felt-based characters resulted in a mix of steamy laughs and raunchy sing-a-longs. Complete with projector-lain images of penises, fully nude puppets, and singing vaginas, Audrey and Nelson is a worthwhile exploration of sex, love, and that weird grey area in between. While production is not currently planned to continue, the weekend long sold-out performance may shift a turn for this little stage production.

Finally, the sun set on Bumbershoot with a lengthy folk-bluegrass set by Trampled by Turtles. Closing out the festival was the five-man group playing a what’s-what of folk string instruments. The guitar, acoustic bass, banjo, mandolin, and violin were each plucked with splinter-carving frenzy as the band beamed through a set marked by up-tempoed string-alongs and mellowed-out, somber cawing from lead singer Dave Simonett, leading up to a cathartic rendition of “Alone” that symbolically book-ended the three day festival. Like Cinderella’s carriage melting into a pumpkin, as the clock struck midnight, the doors of Bumbershoot transformed back into the casual spread of Seattle Center…until next year.

Piggybacking on the recent success of films skewing towards retirees, Unfinished Song is an unabashed play towards the tissue box. The tear-jerking gimmicks are all there; a bout of cancer, strained familial relationships, death in the family and heartfelt serenades; but Terence Stamp doesn’t allow weepy schmaltz to drag his character down the maudlin road and drown in a glittery polish. Rather, Stamp gives it everything he’s got and puts in one of the finer performances of his career. The pity is that his standout performance is surrounded by a film that just isn’t very good.

Grump to the bitter end, Stamp’s unwaveringly dismal Arthur leads one hell of a sheltered life. The last vestige of humanity left in Arthur is his relationship with his wife Marion (Vanessa Redgrave). Although Arthur never comes outright and declares his love for his wife, his undying devotion is clear in the little things. The way he forces her to bed every night or whenever he over-protectively throws her friends out when she’s not feeling well are indicative of his overbearing but deeply loving nature. He’s not particularly well versed at making a good impression, or being anything short of an ass at that, but Redgrave’s unfaltering love for him never budges. She sees him for the man he is ten-levels deep; the wee-onion at the center of the tear-inducing skins. Her dedication to him amidst his snooty humbug mannerisms is as improbable as it is unconditional but Redgrave sells the performance amply.

When Marion’s cancer returns, she’s told to turn to the chips and ice cream treatment. Essentially, she hasn’t got long to live, so her medicine will be to enjoy life, and all the chips and ice cream she wants, while she can. Their grown son James (Christopher Eccleston) is silently devastated by the news but Arthur is unwilling to lend the smallest gesture of comfort to him. Their strained father-son relationship goes on to become more emotional fodder for a redemptive arc to play out in the third act but this play for dramatics is hardly anything novel. It’s yet another facet of the film that’s been done before and just another slice of the melodrama pie that Williams is so eagerly serving up.

While Arthur sees his wife’s imminent demise as a prescription for her to stay home in bed, Marion doesn’t want to waste a second of the fleeting remains of her life. Against Arthur’s wishes, she returns to her glee club to do what she loves best: belt out some tunes amongst a host of pensioners ticking off the dates on their own longevity calendars.

Leading this troop of balded-headed men and gossiping old birds is the youth, sweet and beautiful Elizabeth, an impractically endearing do-gooder who can’t seem to find a place amongst people her own age. Even though Elizabeth bookends the tale with some unnecessary voice-over narration, this is hardly her story. Gemma Arterton does the limited capacity of the role justice but she is a throwaway hotplate; just there to help the others catalyze but otherwise flat in her own character arc.

When we get to the actual glee club that inspires so much joy in Marion’s life, it seems like we’ve walked onto a Glee set 60 years in the future. The elder ensemble sing-a-longs are hokey and their intentionally uncouth but soulful nature make them grating to say the least. But when the group quiets down and Marion steps forward, the tone changes to a more reflective and somber state for Redgrave to flex her chops. Even in the throes of her looming death, Marion’s musical solo glimmers with life.

When Marion does croak (which I won’t consider a spoiler since it’s featured in the trailer and synopsis), it fractures the already limping relationship Arthur holds with his son and Arthur becomes a man left afloat in his own misery. Seeking out an unlikely friendship with Elizabeth, Arthur starts down the rocky road to redemption in the community center he once mimicked so openly. It seems he has quite a little singing voice boxed inside his grumbling Scrooge-like mouth and he seems to find joy in finally letting it loose. Overcoming his caustic nature is more a challenge than he thought as the smoke-slicked grim is so thick on Arthur’s persona that it’s hardened like a stone.

When the clandestine Arthur’s finally emerges from his shell and join the AARP gleefulites, it’s in an effort to pay tribute to his deceased wife and to find a sense of enjoyment that has always escaped him. While Redgrave’s performance was a burbling brook of tears, the real treat is contained within the stoney depths of Stamp which elicits tears by the buckets. When he finally does open up, his act is spellbinding. Stamp’s solo act is deeply personal and ultimately touching. Fearlessly, Arthur’s warbling tenor captures the audience on and off screen. It’s a soul-searching moment that reveals his true colors while extending a symbolic olive branch to his estranged son and however cliché , Stamp owns it.

The overall impression of been-there-done-that handicaps Stamp’s otherwise illustrious performance but it does allow Unfinished Song to eek by as a passable addition to the over-50 genre. One can’t help but regret the final result though. Had Williams axed the cutesy gags and allowed Stamp’s grim complexity to shape the tone of the film, this would have been much deeper than the gushing mush holding a great performance executed here. But however simple-minded and cutesy the glee-filled formula is, Stamp’s powerful and complicated performance drags Unfinished Song out of the kiddy pool and into the freeing depths of character study.

C+

 C-

In a funny way, The Bling Ring is Sofia Coppola‘s most accessible film to date. As cognizantly distant and empty-headed as the teens-on-a-tear at the center of the film are, Coppola takes aim at the celebrity-woozy, status-driven ethos of the eGeneration and blasts a cartoonish hole in the midst of it. At the center of this distorted “me, me, me” psychology is a generational confusion of money for fame that we’ve all grown accustomed to, and likely sickened by, since the proliferation of reality television. Behind the mass thievery in the film of designer clothing, excessive jewelry and cold hard cash and beyond the drivel of faux-postmodern wisdom, competent and unexpected camera work from the late Harris Savides drives Coppola’s picture towards a lingering statement on the despondent emptiness of a life pursuing status and fame.

If anyone’s the antagonist here, it’s Rebecca. Cavalier to the bitter end, she tests how far she can push the envelope, breaking into Paris Hilton’s house a total of six times, all the while tugging her gang of cohorts along by their brand-possessed principles. Hung on that leash is Nicki, played by valley girl accent sporting Emma Watson, who at home is fed Adderall like they are Skittles and schooled by her mother, in an airy bit role by Leslie Mann, in the teachings of ‘The Secret’.

As a dueling critique of Hollywood’s dazed home life and a featherbrained alibi for the perps, Copolla withholds judgment on these dazed socialites, challenging her audience to pinpoint the first stone tossed in innocence lost. At some point down the rabbit hole, society has shuffled responsibility over to this new brand of child, educated in hokey spiritual nonsense and babysat by TVs, instead of casting the blame on the real problem: these oblivious and detached hill dwelling parents. While Mann is the only parent of the group we get to spend any time with, her fruitless optimism and bloated self-righteousness is a obvious poke towards these part-time Hollywood parents.

Outside the house, these kids want all the glitz and glory without any of the hard work, just like the pop icons they envy: Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson, Brian Austin Green, Megan Fox, and Orlando Bloom (with no hard feelings towards Orlando who is definitely the odd one out here). With no shortage of burglary sequences, Coppola uses repetition to reconcile the commonplace custom that this ritual has become for Rebecca, Marc, Nicki and Co. and set up their hubris that leads to their ill-fated downfall.

The crimes of vacuous hoarding may only be piled on the young burglars but taking a second look at these undeserving, inherited celebrities, it is really them who have piled high their riches like modern day sultans. Paris Hilton is the prime example of the root of the problem.

Her gaudy omnipresence is one big show, an advertisement for herself, and with her each and every world-trotting party broadcasted, it’s no wonder no one pulled off this stunt beforehand. Her paparazzi-heavy public persona and apathetic accent to fame are the chief inspiration for these events. For Hilton, from nothing comes everything. All these kids want is a taste of that sweet nectar too. Even a partial bystander can’t entirely dismiss the teen’s stance: when Hilton can’t even notice a pair of shoes gone missing amongst a room dedicated entirely to shoes, where is the great loss?

This quandary is a most popular debate topic in philosophical ethic classes. If you were incapable of providing food for your family, would it be acceptable to steal from the rich in order to do so? How do you quantify or measure the hedonic utility acquired from the loaf of bread gained or on the other side of the “equation,” the loaf of bread lost… etc. While there’s obviously no bone-protruding starving kids here, the parallel utility, although on a much more superficial scale, they’re intriguing.

Part of the irony undercutting the film lies in Hilton’s willingness to become a part of the feature as well as offering up her actual house and belongings for the film to shoot in. Whether or not she was attempting to garnish sympathy is unclear but her gratuitous lifestyle hardly warrants any empathy from a civilized audience. While Coppolla refuses to cross the line into aggrandizing, she comments silently on the naivety of the unwarranted wealth, dissecting the ludicrous notion that one is more deserved than the other. Any commentary here is soft-spoken but still leaves a lasting impression.

Obviously there is a moral line to tow about the thievery bit but at what point do we say enough is enough? Culturally, we’ve encouraged this Bonnie and Clyde lifestyle from the legends of Robin Hood to the much more recent Now You See Me but socially, it is still a damnable offense. Regardless of our infatuation and rooting for these infractions in fictional situations, we still scoff when it goes down in real life.

It’s hard to weigh in entirely on the central issue of who is to blame because it’s not entirely clear whether Coppola’s aim was to remain impartial or if she was just empathetically out in left field but the film, like the court that throws the book at them, is almost unsympathetic to these high-school aged children branded as criminals and hauled off to federal prison. They are not heroes, they’re just dumb kids taking selfies and bragging to their schoolmates about their spoil who are sent to rot in jail. We’ve all reveled in the downfall of those elitists in our lives riding on high but, paradoxically enough, we can’t help but pity their fall.

B-

 For a film whose focus is character, Last I Heard is pretty inept at characterization. Leading man Paul Sorvino does the best he can with his ex-mobster character Mr. Joe but he just doesn’t have it in him to play the star role nor does he have any character half decent enough to adequately play off of. His eventually coming-to-terms with life outside the confines of a prison cell should have felt poignant but instead stagnates and quickly becomes adrift in mediocrity. When the walls to the stony faced character are finally broken down, even his tears feel artificial and vapid. Director and screenwriter Dave Rodriguez uses heavy-handed pathos to try and move his audience but his actors just aren’t up for the challenge.

Sorvino is certainly suited for the role as he completely embodies the look and feel of traditional Italian mafioso. His type is so suited, in fact, that you’re sure to double take when you realize that he was not indeed a regular on The Sopranos. Even as a devoted fan to that series, I was pretty much convinced that he was part of the show however a quick pit-stop over at IMDB revealed that he indeed never set foot on the glorious set of one of television’s best and most groundbreaking shows.

In that the same salad of wilted lettuce, Michael Rapaport’s Bobby is equally rotten and just doesn’t  make sense. As Joe’s neighbor, Bobby grows up admiring Mr. Joe because…he’s old school. Oh and he had nice cars. Essentially, Bobby was won over by the glitz and the glamour of Joe’s old lifestyle so when Joe returns home, Bobby is happy to help Joe acclimatize to a world that has changed tremendously in twenty years.

This involves driving Joe to the doctors, driving Joe some other place and also just driving Joe. The first thing we learn about Bobby is from his wife: Bobby “lives at work.” He’s so busy that he barely gets time to spend with his family. And yet, he appears to drops everything in an effort to take care of this washed up geezer of a mobster. On top of that, Joe is a disrespectful prick to Bobby about 98 percent of the time. Regardless, Bobby considers Joe a friend and feels a deep-seated responsibility for this neighbor. Don’t ask me why because it’s never really fleshed out to a satisfying degree but this seems to be a general theme of the film.

In all honesty, when Rodriguez does manage to accomplish something in the film, it feels more like homage than anything you could call original. Trying to channel the love for The Sopranos is an ambitious goal and one that he entirely fails to live up to. As for Sorvino, he has his moments but the people behind the camera and back in the editing rooms have done him more of a disservice than anything.

Sweeping dynamics off to the side, we’re throttled between weepy sentimentality and backwards-thinking stubbornness and it just gets…well…boring. Perhaps this seesawing might have worked better if the characters surrounding Joe weren’t as flat as a two-by-four… but they are.

D