Kevin Clarke and Travis Vogt

Dude, fuck the highbrow. Local comics and Scarecrow Video employees
(which means they know more about movies than you) Kevin Clarke and
Travis Vogt have been bringing some of the best of Seattle’s
little-comedy-scene-that-could. The duo makes dirty, dirtbaggy, DIY
video sketches about murder and ninjas and cancer and wiener fights.
What makes it all work—it’s more than just dicks ‘n’
farts—is their fearless weirdness and humble self-referentiality.
Their feature-length science-fiction movie, Steel of Fire Warriors
2010 A.D., shot on a Viewfinder or something for negative eleventy
fafillion dollars, is fucking ridiculous and actually funny. Do
more, dudes! Do more! LINDY WEST

Adam Sekuler

The Northwest Film Forum has the best program director in
Seattle. Adam Sekuler started almost four years ago, after
leaving the Minnesota Film Arts in Minneapolis, and in that time he has
brought some of the most exciting films in contemporary cinema to the
NWFF screens. This was simply an amazing year for Sekuler, who is also
a talented experimental filmmaker. He obtained Claire Denis’s 35
Shots of Rum, Barry Jenkins’s Medicine for Melancholy, and
Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light, one of the greatest movies ever
made. If Sekuler has another year like 2009, we will have to give him
something more than a shortlist mention. CHARLES MUDEDE

Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

As one of our fair nation’s gayest cities, Seattle seems a logical
home for a top-notch gay and lesbian film festival—a place to
showcase, in shiny, cinematic glory, all the trials and triumphs and
idiosyncrasies of big queer livin’. The Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film
Festival improves each year, moving away from marginalizing
clichés and toward humanizing artistry, from Edie & Thea:
A Very Long Engagement to a documentary about local boylesque
superstar Waxie Moon. As Adrian Ryan wrote of this year’s fest: “[There
are] some very, very good films… which depart entirely from the
tried-and-tired Gay Film Fest formula (victims + ‘coming of age’ +
tortured gym shower scenes + lisping queens x disco / hate crime =
movie).” Plus, they throw really good parties. LW

Alycia Delmore

Not long after being named the Stranger Film Genius for 2008,
director Lynn Shelton released Humpday, her mumblecore comedy
that earned raves from Sundance to Cannes. Crucial to its success:
Alycia Delmore, a Seattle theater actor whose first major film role
required her to brutally downsize her craft. “At first, it didn’t feel
like I was doing anything,” Delmore told me when Humpday played
SIFF, but it’s all there on the screen. As the wife of a good guy
goaded into marriage-challenging idiocy, Delmore presents an instantly
recognizable, endlessly relatable character, giving Humpday its
emotional anchor and scoring the film’s biggest laughs. She’s a
natural. DAVID SCHMADER

3 replies on “2009 Stranger Genius Awards Shortlist: Film”

  1. HEY LW USING UR INITIALS IZ LIKE HAVING THE HILLS OR THE CITY IN OUR CITY! U SUCH AN AWESOME BLONDE HAVIN FUN FLIRTY DATING GUYZ LIKE YA YA YA!

    UNFORTUNATELY LOW POINT OF UR SHOW IS UR WORK. PLZ SPEND MORRRR TIME @ PONY/CHA CHA/ETX. LESS TIME WORKING. MAKES FOR BORING TV. U ALSO LOWER QUALITY OF MAG. BUMMMZ. BIG BUMMMZ.
    I IZ HUNTING, USE HOMEMADE ATTRACTOR:

    CHONK CHONK CHONK CHONK CHONK! KNOCKING HOLLOW THINGASS TOGETHR.

    SCHMADERLA, OWEZ ME BLUNTZ. GAYZ THROW DECE PARTAY. 4 ME?

    BEST FILM IN SEATTLE. STORY OF MY LIFE. MY SOCALLED LIFE. U GUYS LIKE DAT SHOW RITE? IZ COOL? WE COOL? BE MY FREND? FUCK NAW. JOKE’S ON U! LaRiiiiM0RrrHAwtiiii696969 BEST FILMY SUBSTANCE.

  2. Thats awesome that Travis and Kevin got on the list! They have been a couple of the most talented, and over looked, comedians in Seattle for years now. They are also hosting All Freakin’ Night this Saturday at the Capital Theater in Olympia!

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