Film / Video

We are very pleased to welcome our first guest blogger to Film/Video. Kathie is no stranger to the Walker. She is a long-time member and spent much of 2005-2006 with us as an intern. She was invaluable to the department and will likely return to us this fall to continue her work in creating our program notes and helping us keep the Film/Video train on the track.

Kathie has a wide-ranging taste in cinema and is one of the Twin Cities most steadfast moviegoers. (She is also my go-to person for all things related to Asian Cinema!) I'm sure she will lend an interesting voice to the blog. I anxiously await her presence here.

In the meantime, I asked Kathie to answer a few questions, Walker 8-Ball style, to give some insight into her filmic mind.

1. Name three films that should be required viewing, but typically fly under the radar.
Only because they are so sadly underviewed:
-Eureka (2000) Aoyama Shinji
-4 Faces of Eve (1996) Jan Lamb, Eric Kot, Gan Kwok-Leung
-The Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors aka Oh! Soojung! (2000) Hong Sang-soo

2. Who are your favorite filmmakers?
Chantal Akerman
Woody Allen
Pedro Almodovar
Robert Altman
Alejandro Amenabar
PT Anderson
Ang Lee
Theo Angelopoulos
Michelangelo Antonioni
Aoyama Shinji
Dario Argento
Fernando Arrabal
Oliver Assayas
Let me know if you want the rest of the alphabet.

3. If you could have made one film, which one would it be?
Chris Marker's Sans Soleil (1983)

4. What are the last three films that got you to a movie theater?
-The Descent
-Miami Vice
-A Scanner Darkly
More importantly, the last three films I saw that I wish were in a movie theater:
-Isabella (2006) Pang Ho-Cheung
-Eli Eli Lema Sabachthani? (2005) Aoyama Shinji
-Election 2 (2006) Johnny To

5. Favorite scene from a Wong Kar Wai film?
Two, off the top of my head, that always stick with me:

• Ashes of Time: Horse bandits are riding across the desert toward our iconic swordsman, Huang Yoa Shi. They stop; the leader pulls down his mask and scratches his mouth in an exaggerated yawn. Haung Yao Shi returns the gesture in a mute existential roar, and lets his sword fly!

• Happy Together: Black and white. Po-Wing and Fai's trip to Iguazu Falls is falling apart. Fai, with his head in his hand, is the picture of despair. The film cuts to an aerial shot of Iguazu Falls in mesmerizing blue; the water seems to be falling to the strings in the Caetano Veloso song - unattainable beauty.

6. First movie memory?
Star Wars. I was 7. What more needs to be said.

7. Fondest memory from the Walker cinema?
There are a couple:

• In the early nineties seeing Christine Vachon speak - it was a real inspiration to me in so many ways.

• 2001 when the Walker hosted the "New Asian Currents" of the Mpls/St Paul International Film Festival: Little Cheung, Platform, The Isle, Mysterious Object at Noon, and Die Bad - all hugely important films to me.

8. Most prized DVD?
Japanese Gamera Box Set 1965-1980