Picks for Week 3 of SIFF 2008

Choke (at IMDB)

A light dark comedy about a sex addict and his dying, grifter mother who suffers from acute dementia. Set in a place that closely resembles colonial Williamsburg, there are goats, a couple of twists and turns, and few dead ends to the plot that seem superfluous. But, the film eventually weaves its way to a relatively sane conclusion. This movie is definitely off-beat.

Encounters at the End of the World (at IMDB)

Director Werner Herzog’s newest film is a documentary about life at the South Pole–Human life that is. Much of the movie is narrated by Werner as he films the residents of McMurdo Station and the surrounding landscape (both above and below the ice). These are the types of people you’d expect to find living in an off-world settlement, maybe on the moon. There are some penguins in his movie, but Herzog seems more concerned with uncovering the birds’ tendencies towards insanity rather than exploring their cute and cuddly behaviors. And we learn about icebergs, really big icebergs.