User Reviews

SIFF has been taking place since May 17th, and I should have made more of an effort to catch some films on all my days off, but I let the opportunity go by, so today I made a point of seeing some SIFF movies. This afternoon I saw The First On The List. A young folk singer is in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets caught up with a pair of paranoid communists attempting to flee red-panicked Italy because they believe a coup is about to take place. I had a hard time picking between this and As Luck Would Have It which was playing at the same time, both of which sounded interesting. The First On the List was described in the schedule as a screwball comedy and it is one, but it takes about 20 or 30 minutes to get there. At first I was starting to regret my choice, but I ended up loving the movie. My favorite scene had the men thinking they were going through an Austrian immigration process when in fact they were being arrested and booked. Although the film making technique was unmistakably modern, there was something about the politics and humor of the thing that really felt like a product of the time in which it takes place (1970). This film was based on a true story and had the best "Where are they now?" epilogue I've ever scene, showing each of the principle actors interacting on screen with the real men they portrayed in the film. I definitely recommend this flick, with my only marks taken off for having a dull first act.