The blind Chinese dissident who created a diplomatic standoff when he hid out in the US Embassy in China arrived in the United States over the weekend.

Chen Guangchen's release coincided with SIFF sceenings of a popular documentary about China's second best-known dissident, "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry."

pic

(Image: CS Monitor)

Ai Weiwei was actually a much better known dissident than Chen, at least until Chen's desperation move into the American embassy. He's an internationally recognized multi-media artist who's had major retrospectives around the world. He's also been a thorn in the side of the Chinese government for a couple of decades.

Among his signature and controversial art pieces is a photograph of his middle finger taken in front of Tiananmen Square (where hundreds if not thousands of protesters were cut down by government troops.) He also famously recorded himself dropping - on purpose - an ancient Han dynasty urn, as a metaphoric call to "break with the past." He attracted worldwide attention, and infuriated authorities, when he helped design Beijing's famous Bird's Nest Olympic stadium and then very publicly denounced the Games as nothing but Chinese government propaganda.

He created an even bigger scandal in China following the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake. When the state refused to turn over the names of the thousands of children who died in shoddily constructed classrooms, he and his assistants painstakingly collected the names themselves, one by one, and then posted them not only in his studio but also on the Internet. Art as silent protest. It caused a sensation inside China.

Weiwei was also so haunted by the sight of hundreds of children's backpacks half-buried in the rubble of that same earthquake that he commissioned nine-thousand backpacks to create his most striking work of art. Documentary director Allison Klayman explains that in the biggest solo show of his career, Weiwei "covered the whole outdoor face of a Munich museum with children's backpacks that spelled out a sentence that was told to him by the mother of an earthquake victim: 'she lived happily on this earth for seven years.' "

This giant installation, stories high, can be seen as a bold protest of a callous Chinese government but it's even more moving as a simple and eloquent statement of the value of every life, no matter how briefly lived.

Weiwei was arrested and imprisoned last year for over three months before being released on bail and placed under house arrest for one year. Weiwei hopes to be freed from home detention when that year is up next month. As protesters are wont to say, the whole world will be watching.

After giving me a string of beautifully bizarre flowers and plants to research, Master Gardener Ciscoe Morris, host of 97.3 KIRO FM's Gardening with Ciscoe, has stuck me with two of the most heinous enemies of the gardener. Last week, your common slug and this week, the dreaded aphid.

aphid

My task was to find out what it was about their reproductive capabilities that made them so hard to eradicate. It turns out it's their sheer number that makes them so irritatingly effective, and that effectiveness has a lot to do with their sexual efficiency.

Let's start with their number. In ideal environmental conditions, and setting aside any predators or disease, a single aphid can produce 600 billion descendants in one season. Now they're very tiny, of course (they range from between 4 tenths of an inch to 4 hundredths of an inch), but still, that's a lot aphids - 600 billion! From a single source! But when you're that small and virtually defenseless against any and all insect predators, these soft-shelled sap suckers have only their numbers to guarantee their species' survival.

And how do they accomplish such prolific reproduction? Aphids born in spring and summer are ALL females. And these females can reproduce without mates. That's right, males need not apply. Talk about efficiency. No wasting time on the mating process for these aphids. Within just a few weeks, these female aphids produce a whole new generation of all-female aphids who in turn reproduce a third all-female generation a few weeks after that. And helping to speed up the process even further, these are all "live births," meaning no time is wasted on laying eggs and waiting for them to hatch.

It's not that male aphids don't exist; they're just not very necessary. In some circumstances, like very cold weather, aphids revert to more traditional reproduction. Mother aphids in winter create both female and male offspring. And when the two sexes mate, the female does lay eggs. (Talk about old-fashioned!)

By the way, those eggs produce a batch of all-female baby aphids, so thier fabled efficiency is soon restored.

Gardening with Ciscoe can be heard on 97.3 KIRO FM on Saturday at 10 a.m. Available anytime ON DEMAND at MyNorthwest.com.

Tom Tangney interviews Lynn Shelton, director of Your Sister's Sister, which kicks off the Seattle International Film Festival 2012.

Shelton also directed Humpday, My Effortless Brilliance, What the Funny, We Go Way Back, and countless other projects. Not only is Shelton a huge fan of Seattle's film scene, she's a native.

While Shelton is perfecting her "scriptments" she's also working closely with her actors to perfect their characters. After everyone feels they know who they'll be playing in front of the camera, Shelton lets them merely use what she's written as a guide.

She says Emily Blunt really embraced her Your Sister's Sister character and just let herself improvise. She oftentimes only read her "lines" the night before filming the next scene.

Find out why actors trust Shelton and why the film industry respects her vision. Shelton is truly a rising star.

AP120421160652
The Seattle International Film Festival begins with the Opening Night Gala in Seattle on Thursday. Opening night features a film called "Your Sister's Sister," directed by Seattle's Lynn Shelton. (Image: Your Sister's Sister)

It's a big night for local film buffs, the Seattle International Film Festival kicks off Thursday at the glamorous digs of McCaw Hall.

Thursday is the fancy-schmancy side of the Festival, the Opening Night Gala at Seattle's McCaw Hall.

Everybody gets all dressed up and after the movie there's a party in the lobby with free drinks and fancy food and music.

There's added excitement this year because for the first time in its 38 year history, the Festival's Opening Night movie is from Seattle.

The film is called "Your Sister's Sister." Its director, Lynn Shelton, is from Seattle and it's filmed in the San Juan Islands. To top it off, it's a really good movie, one of those rare romantic comedies that feel real.

I hope to interview Lynn Thursday night, and let you hear from her directly on Friday's Seattle Morning News.

Speaking of Friday, that's when the Festival begins in earnest. Everybody puts away their fancy clothes and gets down to the serious business of film-going.

Dozen best bets for SIFF 2012

Here are the numbers:

For the next 25 days, we have a chance to see 273 feature films from 75 different countries at 8 Seattle theatres, plus a week's worth of films in Renton, Everett, and Kirkland.

In addition to all the movies, there are special tributes to Oscar-winner Sissy Spacek (Coalminer's Daughter, Carrie) who will do an onstage interview at the Uptown Theatre and an Evening with William Friedkin, the Oscar winning director of The Exorcist and The French Connection. He's bringing his latest film with him, a controversial movie that's been given an NC-17 rating for violence.

SIFF is the largest film festival in the country - with over 150,000 people attending each year.

Check out all that is going on at the SIFF website.

By TOM TANGNEY

dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen has been very aggressive in his promotional campaign for "The Dictator." Remember when Cohen, in character as the dictator, "accidentally" spilled ashes on Ryan Seacrest on the Oscars red carpet? All part of a stunt, of course, to raise the profile of his new movie in which he plays the leader of a fictional north African country, Wadiya.

So blatant was Cohen's grab for publicity that a suspicion arose that his new film might be a bomb. Opinion pieces started proclaiming "We're so over Sacha Baron Cohen." The forces seemed to be aligning against "The Dictator."

But surprise, surprise. The Dictator is funny. Very, very funny. The reason that's such a welcome surprise is that Cohen completely abandons his traditional guerilla- style tactics. He's made a fortune in his other films documenting real people's reactions to his fictional characters (Borat, a dimwit from Kazahkstan, and Bruno, a flaming and insufferable Austrian fashionista.) Instead, The Dictator is an entirely scripted film with real actors ( Ben Kingsley, Anna Faris, John C. Reilly, and others.) There's an actual storyline, with a narrative arc. Cohen even works in a romantic comedy component, although the romcom is patently absurd (although, come to think of it, not much more absurd than most Hollywood romcoms.)

Cohen's dictator is General Admiral Haffaz Aladeen, a brutal Middle Eastern leader reminiscent of Saddam Hussein or Colonel Khadafy. He's a full-on racist, anti-Semite, misogynist and megalomaniac. He murders people on a whim. And yes, in case you've forgotten, this is a comedy.

How is this funny? Well, first of all, his evil nature is so outrageous one can't help but laugh. For instance, his favorite videogame is the Munich Olympics massacre and he loves a Wii game called Beheadings.

The film also mocks the absurdity of any dictator's supreme power of decision-making. General Aladeen, for instance, decides to replace certain words, like "positive" and "negative," with his own name, "aladeen." This leads to major confusion in the doctor's office when a patient is given a diagnosis of "HIV aladeen."

Most of the laughs come when Aladeen visits the United States and, through a series of screw-ups, loses his identity to an imposter and has to plot how to wrest back power while incognito in America. By having to work undercover, Aladeen is forced to deal with people in a way most supreme dictators aren't used to. Let's just say, civility does not come naturally to him.

The dictator is obviously the butt of most all the jokes. But cleverly, Cohen sometimes gets us on the dictator's side, like when Aladeen rails against hotel minibars and the outrageous prices charged for hotel internet service. And when he takes up with a radical vegan feminist political activist, sure, his jokes at her expense are mean-spirited but her views are extreme enough to justify at least a little mockery. This is insult comedy at its best because it cuts both ways.

Overall, The Dictator is politically incorrect with a point. It's full of low-brow humor and vulgarity but it's also smart and knowing satire. As the dictator might put it, it's very, very aladeen.

By TOM TANGNEY

President Obama's campaign introduces a new TV ad today that attacks Mitt Romney's work at Bain Capital.

It features two long-time steel workers who lost their jobs at their mill in Kansas City after the private equity firm took it over.

"It was like a vampire. Came in and sucked the life out of us," said one former steel worker in the ad.

Going for the jugular, so to speak?

The ad intersperses clips from Romney on the campaign trail with the rather more somber steel workers.

The campaign ad ends with the steel workers questioning Romney's compassion.

"To get up on national TV and brag about making jobs, when he has destroyed thousands of people's careers, lifetimes, just destroying people," said one worker.

"If he's going to run the country the way he ran our business, I don't want him there," said another worker.

The election is generally seen as a referendum on the president's last four years in office. It looks like the Obama camp wants to point out Romney has a record to defend as well.

The ad will run in 5 battleground states - Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Colorado.

Seattle's Morning News host Bill Radke thinks it's "a little dirty."

"Mitt Romney is not Santa Claus, this is how capitalism works," said Radke.

"Investing in these weak companies that you think you can turn around, some of them go bankrupt and some of them turn into fantastic success stories," said Radke. "The Wall Street Journal says by any reasonable measure Bain Capital has been a net job and wealth creator."

Tom Tangney said he thinks the ad is effective.

"The reason it's effective is because it does raise the specter of how heartless is Romney's business plan for America."

Plus he adds, "I think all campaign ads are a little dirty."

Listen to the full discussion of the ad on Seattle's Morning News:

Seattle's Morning News can be heard every weekday morning from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. on 97.3 KIRO FM. Available anytime ON DEMAND at MyNorthwest.com.

By 97.3 KIRO FM Staff

shadows

With Tim Burton's help, Johnny Depp has created quite a string of charismatic eccentrics - Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka, Sweeney Todd, the Mad Hatter. And now we can add the 200-year-old vampire Barnabas Collins from "Dark Shadows."

Depp's Barnabas has the pasty white skin befitting a vampire, elaborate eye make-up to accentuate his power of mind-control, and carefully sculpted bangs that dart across his forehead like a demented choirboy. His fingers are unnaturally long and his fingernails are sharpened like knives. He's glamorously decked out in the full 18th century garb of a bona fide gentleman of leisure, waistcoat and all. And he speaks in the elaborate formality of the Age of Enlightenment.

It's the disconnect between his 18th-century worldview and the 1972 environment he suddenly finds himself in that is the source of much of the humor in this movie. Burton's comic take on "Dark Shadows" is ultimately a fish-out-of- water tale ... about a man who can't understand the strangeness of the 1970's. He's mesmerized by a lava lamp, for instance, and is mystified by television. When he sees Karen Carpenter singing on the tube, Barnabus' response is to exclaim "What sorcery is this? Reveal yourself, tiny songtress!" as he races around the backside of the tv set. Depp wrings a lot of good laughs out of this material but it does wear a little thin as the film goes on.

This being a Tim Burton movie, Barnabas and company live in the most fantastical environments. The Collinwood mansion is Gothic to the extreme, with cathedral-high ceilings, enormous fireplaces, imposing wood sculptures, and bejewelled chandeliers. And the costumes are every bit as gaudy and color-coordinated as the mansion itself. Burton often seems more an art director than a director, in that the look of his films often trumps the drama. That's once again the case with "Dark Shadows."

The original Dark Shadows soap opera had a completey different feel. The series, which ran from 1965 to 1971, was crudely done, thriving as best it could on a bare- bones budget and rather clumsy acting. It was all cheap sets and verbal flubs (since no retakes were possible). But despite those flaws, the dramatic heart of the story - about a tormented vampire - managed to ring true to a massive audience.

In a lot of ways, Burton's "Dark Shadows" is its polar opposite. It has the production values of a perfectionist but lacks a melodramatic heart. Burton plays the story and characters for laughs because he can't possibly take the material seriously. And having just recently watched a couple dozen Dark Shadows episodes, I personally can't fault Burton for his approach. That old series is so crickety it's hard not to laugh. But still, there's something odd about spending a fortune to do a souped-up version of an outdated tv show.

Like many Burton movies, Dark Shadows is initially quite impressive. It's slick and sleek, witty and cool, but about an hour in, I found myself asking - okay, is that all there is?

It turns out it is. And that's not quite enough.

My assignment from Gardening with Ciscoe host Ciscoe Morris this week was to find out whether there were more male or female slugs. Of course, it was a trick question. Slugs are hermaphrodites. They have both male and female reproductive organs.

And when they have sex, slugs impregnate each other. How that is done is truly astounding, and sometimes grotesque.

The great grey slug (or leopard slug), for instance, leaves a trail of slime to entice another slug. The two slugs then encircle one another, and intertwine for up to an hour, while a mucus is formed between them which in turn becomes a kind of rope from which the two slugs hang...in mid-air.

At this point, each slug extends a translucent penis from behind its head. These appendages themselves entwine and simultaneously fan out into a kind of see-through flower shape. The sperm is then transferred to each slug from the other.

This particular mating dance is unique to the leopard slug. But a much more common practice among slugs is even more bizarre. (You might want to be sitting down when you read this.) Many slugs, like the banana slug, have corkscrew penises which often get entangled in their partner's genitalia. After mating, the slugs sometimes have trouble disengaging themselves and resort to chewing off each other's penis. That's right, they chew their partner's penis off! (Sometimes they even do that to their own penis.) It's such a common practice, it even has a name - apophallation.

Slugs may not be praying mantises whose females often bite off the heads of their mates right after sex, but they come in a close second for sexual grotesqueries in nature.

Grow your garden knowledge by listening to Gardening with Ciscoe on the new 97.3 KIRO FM Weekend Saturdays at 10 a.m. and anytime ON DEMAND at MyNorthwest.com.

By TOM TANGNEY, Seattle's Morning News

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