I love celebrities, I do, but you know what is fucking boring?
Celebrities. Walking around. Celebrities walking around upon a red
carpet, talking to John Curley about their characters from Battle in
Seattle (“My character’s pretty complicated but, you know, she’s
a cool chick,” offers Michelle Rodriguez).
The first thing I did when I got to the SIFF opening party at McCaw
Hall was to completely miss André 3000. I caught the back of him
trodding his little way toward the VIP tent and gave chase. His outfit,
mismatched double denim and the straw hat of a Dust Bowl
farmer, did not disappoint. Other sartorial highlights included
Rodriguez’s problematic white-on-white-on-bare-toe situation, which
involved white jeans raggedly hacked off just above the foot; and John
Curley’s alarming black neck stitches, holding together a mysterious
hole in our Curley’s very pale flesh.
Before the movie, the thousands of us sat through millions of
speeches, beginning with managing director Deborah Person, and ending
with Battle in Seattle writer-director-Chief Earnestness Officer
Stuart Townsend (“… you know, I just want to thank
activists“). In between, Greg Nickels presented an award to
Michael Seiwerath, someone declared Mr. Townsend “a true maverick
filmmaker,” and the owner of Ballard’s Volterra restaurant made some
weird announcement about free salt.
And then, the film. I’m not sure whose fave genre is “condescending,
sentimental agitprop,” but at least a thousand of them were in McCaw
Hall that night. Clap clap clap clap clap! I, personally, did not enjoy
watching Battle in Seattle. Maybe it was the extremely vague
sea-turtle politics (André 3000’s character, DJANGO the wise
clown, luvs the turtles because they’re his granddad’s favorite
metaphor!), or Movie Gary Locke’s claaazy accent (oh, you Asians
and your English-as-a-second-language!), or every word anyone spoke at
any point when there was a lull in the crashing and smashing: “I don’t
want the cover of some brochure magazine to be the closest we ever come
to adventure.” “You want adventure? You just signed up for the greatest
adventure of all!”
During the postshow Q&A, Townsend announced that Battle in
Seattle is “as indie as it gets.” Really? As indie as
it gets? Charlize Theron is in your movie! You are
literally a fives-of-millionaire! Maybe you are as indie as
someone who was almost cast as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings gets. Or as indie as someone who may have recently impregnated an Oscar
winner gets.
SIFF, I thank you for the calamari and the beer. Michelle Rodriguez,
no thanks for making me look at your stupid raggedy foot. André,
thanks for everything, always. And Curley, I hope your neck
wound heals with the opposite of the swiftness of a sea turtle
caught in a shrimp net. Godspeed. 
