Closing Night Film: There Will Be Blood

Fantastic Fest ended on a high note to be sure. The secret closing night film turned out to be Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. The ominous title sounds like some thing from the Hammer vaults, but the film is actually about the Southern California oil boom in the early 1900s. Blood follows the rise of fictional oil baron Daniel Plainview, a man driven to succeed to the point that it poisons him and his relations to those around him.

Despite the film’s epic feel and the barren outdoor locations, the film feels claustrophobic, forcing you to be closer to Plainview than you want to at times. The unusual soundtrack by Radiohead guitarist, Johnny Greenwood, reinforces this too. But it is Daniel Day-Lewis as Plainview that propels the film. He is on fire here, making There Will Be Blood a must see. Day-Lewis should get an Oscar nod for this role.

AICN Secret Screening #3: El Orfanato (The Orphanage)

Perhaps the pre-recorded introduction by producer Guillermo del Toro set my expectations a little too high, but I found The Orphanage to be an average affair that left me shrugging and saying "meh."

Laura returns to the home that was once her orphanage with her husband, Carlos, and son, Simon. They plan on reopening it as a home for orphans with special needs. Simon starts making invisible friends, which is cute until these friends lead Simon to papers that explain secrets the parents have kept from him. Agitated by these revelations, Simon acts up on the day of the orphanage’s open house, then disappears. The hauntings begin and the parents are forced to consider that Simon’s abductors may be supernatural.

The locale, the sets, the cinematography, many aspects of The Orphanage are wonderful and director Juan Bayona builds tension with a capable eye. The problem for me was the payoffs often weren’t there; too may times the slamming door is just a slamming door which disappoints after a while. The scary musical cues run a bit heavy in the second half as well. Basically, there’s a lot of hissing fuse, but very few firecrackers. All of the pieces seemed to be there, including the surprise ending twist, but the whole was less than the parts and The Orphanage didn’t quite satisfy.

Nikkatsu Crime Retrospective: The Velvet Hustler

I’m a total newbie when it comes to Japanese cinema from the 60s, but Mark Schilling’s Nikkatsu series has set me on the path. I hope the Alamo will consider a similar retrospective in the future. This time out, Nikkatsu creates one of the coolest gangsters on the planet, Goro.

Goro kills a Tokyo yakuza boss then lays low in Kobe for a year nonchalantly running a small band of street toughs. Since director Masuda was purportedly quite taken with Godard’s Breathless, chain-smoking Goro is gifted with a superhuman devil-may-care attitude which frustrates and impresses all who know him. But Goro’s become weary of both Kobe and his mistress, and so makes plans to return to Tokyo. Sadly his previous employers merged with the opposing gang and now they’ve sent a hitman for revenge (apparently gang consolidation is big problem in the Japanese underworld since this setup also occurs in A Colt is my Passport). Goro makes alternate plans to evade the assassin while trying to win over the daughter of an embezzler, the one woman immune to his charms. Mod club scenes pop, hearts are broken, trust is betrayed, and someone makes the slickest exit in any film I’ve ever seen.

Far more than a mirror of it’s inspirations, The Velvet Hustler makes for an unique look into Japanese cinema. Check it out if you have the chance.

Moebius Redux

Hasko Baumann’s documentary on French comic artist Jean Giraud, aka Moebius. The film opens with a stunning animated sequence with music by Kraftwerk alum Karl Bartos. That’s pure magic right there. Then Redux settles into talking head interviews, but Baumann runs a tight ship by focusing on Moebius the artist first and foremost. He only delves only into the Giraud’s secretive and occasionally turbulent personal life when it furthers exploration of the man as artist. There are some rare and insightful interviews with Philippe Druillet and Alejandro Jodorowsky. And based on Q&A after the movie, Jodorowsky is quite a difficult man to catch for an interview.

If you are a fan of comics or well made documentaries, see Moebius Redux. Now, if only Dark Horse or Humanoides would reprint U.S. editions of Arzach and Airtight Garage. Anyone know how to make that happen?

TimeCrimes

Everybody loves a time paradox, right? This Spanish production should fit the bill, then. In TimeCrimes, Hector sees a naked woman in the forest behind his new house. He goes to investigate and encounters a terrifying stranger whose head is swathed in pink bandages. The stranger stabs him, forcing to flee for his life. Then the time travel begins. Half way through, this film lulls you into thinking you’ve got everything sussed out, but wait until the third act rolls around. You ‘ll root for Hector, and against him.

At its heart, Nacho Vigalando’s TimeCrimes asks how far would you be willing to go to beat time and causality. Despite the science fiction at work, this low budget film plays out as a restrained thriller relying on a solid story and subtle camera work rather than some weak special effects. I wish more scifi cinema spent time making compelling stories like TimeCrimes before cranking up the CG. Based on conversations overheard in the FF crowd, this film is the likely to be the audience favorite at the closing night awards.

Zibahkhana (Hell’s Ground)

Who knew the first Pakistani film I’d see would turn out to be a horror film? Hell’s Ground is a bloody love letter to Tobe Hooper, George Romero, and Sam Raimi. We follow a handful of modern Pakistani teens sneaking out of town to see a rock concert. After an ominous warning at a roadside tea stand, zombies attack, and O.J. the stoner kid is injured. All set for a zombie holocaust? Wait, there’s more. After their van dies leaving the gang trapped in the woods, a hulking, mace swinging manic in a burqa sets his sights on them.

The ultra low budget gives these makers some stiff limitations, but they work what they’ve got and spin it into gold. If you dig the backwoods charm of the original Chainsaw and Evil Dead the you’ll love the honest production of Hell’s Ground. You’ll laugh and groan in places, you’ll wonder where the zombies pissed off to half way through the film, but it is all in good fun. Oh, Hell’s Ground, you had me at Burqaface.

A L’Interieur (Inside)

Inside is a modern French film. Hearing that you might think stylish, deliberately paced, possibly pretentious. How does splattery grab you? This film must be in the lead for bloodiest film at Fantastic Fest. If you are pregnant, thinking about it, or even recently had a child, I’d skip this one. Seriously.

It’s Christmas Eve and lonely Sarah dreads her birth of her baby, a lasting memento from the husband she lost in a car accident. A mysterious woman bangs at her door demanding entrance. Terrified Sarah calls the police, and in the process inadvertently locks herself in with the creepy femme. A pair of scissors later and we’re on our way to a stack of bodies and blood sprayed walls as Sarah holes up behind the locked bathroom door. The deranged woman wants only one, very precious thing.

For the most part, the movie is played straight, and ratchets up the tension in an skillful, if somewhat predictable, fashion. Sadly, I couldn’t tell if Inside meant to veer into the absurd or not. Some of the events that occur in the last ten minutes are so over the top that it hurts the everything that had gone before. The parting image of the film is wonderfully creepy, though.

Nikkatsu Crime Retrospective: A Colt Is My Passport

Day number five, whew! The Lovely Wife and I are slowing down. We took off most today since we’d seen most of the films screening today, but we had check out this film out, and not just because of the brilliant name. Colt comes from the 60s heyday of crime films put out by Japan’s Nikkatsu studios. Very few Nikkatsu films ever made it to American theaters, let alone released on VHS or DVD. In fact, Fantastic Fest’s two screenings mark the first time this hard-boiled classic has been seen in North America. Since no English subtitled version exists, a special subtitle screen had to be rigged so specially transcribed subtitles could be projected. A big thanks to Mark Walkow for doing the subtitles and advancing them manually during the screening.

A yakuza gang hires a hitman and his sidekick to whack the boss of a rival gang. The pros do their job flawlessly but the rival gang pursues them and foils their plans to flee to France. Our heros retreat and formulate a plan to take a boat out of the country. Meanwhile, the two gangs unite and the deal is sealed by offering up the our heros. As gangsters close in, the hitman greets them in an impressive run and gun showdown. Jo Shishido plays the stone-faced, seen-it-all hitman in a stellar performance. Plus, the sidekick plays soulful song in the middle. You just don’t see that anymore.

If you ever have the chance to see this gem from a neglected corner of film history, do it. Hopefully the good folks at Criterion will pick this up and give it the love it deserves.

AICN Secret Screening #2: Persepolis

Having attended all the Fantastic Fests so far, I’d like to think I have a good feel for the festival and the kinds of movies that will be screened. But this year, FF feels a bit different. We’re seeing things like straight-forward action movies and such. Clearly, the scope changed, bringing more surprises. And one of those surprises is Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, based on her award-winning graphic novels.

Persepolis tells Satrapi’s story of growing up in Tehran, Iran during the fall of the Shah and the rise of the current Islamic republic. The story is ornately detailed with so many poignant details that at times you almost feel like you are intruding on Ms. Satrapi’s thoughts. The art of Persepolis is top notch. The film grabs Satrapi’s stark black and white style from her books and runs wild with it. The majority of the movie is black and white but it makes skillful use of paper textures and transitions to make pure, magical art.

I’m not sure Persepolis with its somewhat slow pace was right for the FF crowd, but I loved it. A big thanks to the FF programmer that scored this for the festival.

Kiltro

The first Latin American martial arts epic from the guys who brought you MirageMan. This film is as 80s as MirageMan was the 70s. This time around Espinoza and Zaror dip heavily into anime, video games, and spaghetti westerns.

Zaror plays Zami, love-struck leader of the Kiltros, a minor, and kind-hearted (of course!), street gang. Zami pines for Kim, a Korean-Chilean girl who won’t see him. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the villainous Max Kalba appears to settle a score with Kim’s martial arts teaching father. Turns out there is a whole web of intrigue that ties Zami, Kim, Max and a just about everyone else to secret sect of esoteric martial arts. As the web unravels Zami and Max move closer to their mano a mano showdown.

Kiltro feels very retro, a little like a long lost Van Damme flick. But Zaror brings some legitimate emotion to the unrequited love story. And these guys aren’t afraid to pull out the humor either. All this lifts Kiltro above a few of the corny, stock set pieces that appear. I did find that the overly cartoony CG blood geysers distracted from the kick-ass choreography going on. So if I had to chose, I’d pick the gritty look of MirageMan over the 80s slickness of Kiltro by a hair. Espinoza and Zaror, keep making films, and keep bringing them Austin!

Son of Rambow

Like Persepolis, a complete and total FF surprise. Props to Garth Jennings (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) for making such a touching movie.

Rambow tells the story of Will, a boy isolated by his religion and loss of his father, and Lee, the class bully with no friends. They bond over their effort to make a junior-sized remake of First Blood which changes direction when Lee sees the story Will really wants to make. The boys’ fantasy project helps them grow up and come to terms with their real life predicaments. When other kids get involved, Will and Lee find themselves at odds with each other.

There’s a lot of heart here and the richness of growing up in 1980s England is captured nicely. The child leads in Rambow steal every scene they’re in. When they say don’t work with kids and animals, these are the boys they warned you about. Fortunately, Son of Rambow has distribution, so you’ll be able to check out their fine work soon enough.

Fantastic Fest Secret Screening #4: Dai Nipponjin

Tim League likes surprises, and boy, did he deliver. This late addition to the FF schedule received a light smattered of applause. Then, Dai Nipponjin (aka Big Man Japan according to Tim) sort of snuck up on the audience and crushed it like a giant foam rubber foot.

This mockumentary starts slooowly building up to reveal that our subject, Masaru Daisatou, is actually Dai Nipponjin, the gigantic defender of Japan. The talking heads are frequently interrupted by Ultraman-like kaiju action. Sadly, Dai Nipponjin’s outings end poorly. He’s really not very good. So bad in fact, that he has to rent out parts of his giant body as billboard space. But life isn’t all monster bashing, there’s the ex-wife and the senile granddad (who also transforms, but remains senile) to take care of. And just wait until the ending comes around….

Not for everyone, but if you have a soft spot for Japanese kaiju and Christopher Guest, check this one out.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Apparently an updated retelling of a popular Japanese young adult novel, TGWLTT takes that certain melodramatic romance that the Japanese do so well and adds a time-travelling twist. Young Mokoto gains the ability to literally leap backwards in time (from what appears to be walnut). Once she refines her ability in the pursuit of pudding and infinite karaoke, she is caught up in an ever-widening spiral of interlocking cause and effect as romance intrudes on her one-of-the-guys friendship with Kosuke and Chiaki.

This languidly paced comedy has some clever gags and appropriately tear-filled moments in all the right places. Worth checking out if you are looking for something a bit different from the standard anime fare.

Alone

You’ve seen J-horror films, time for some T-horror. Thai Horror, that is. Pim and her husband Wee return to Thailand when Pim’s mother is hospitalized by a stroke. As they watch Pim’s family home, she begins to see the apparition of her dead sister, Ploy. They were conjoined twins until their teens when they were separated. Wee watches in horror as Pim’s apparent schizophrenia grows until, he too encounters the enraged spirit. Once the secrets of Pim and Ploy start popping up, they can’t be buried again.

Alone doesn’t really break any new ground, but does a solid by-the-numbers job at piling on the tension until the ending pops like watch spring. If most J-horror frustrates you, check out Alone. This haunting has a purpose and plays by some rules.

AICN Secret Screening #1: Southland Tales

I wanted to like this one, I really really did. I absolutely loved Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, so my expectations were high. Sadly, Southland Tales turned out to be a bit of an unfocused mess.

Any attempt to summarize the sheer number of sprawling storylines in this parallel universe story would take fill paragraph after paragraph. Here’s as short as I can go: missing person and action movie star Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson aka the Rock) resurfaces with amnesia in LA with a scifi screen play about a fourth dimensional apocalypse. Meanwhile, drug-addled officer Jason Taverner (Seann William Scott) gets pressed into a neo-Marxist plot against the security theater the Republican’s created after the nuking of Abilene. Drug dealers, Republicans, neo-marxists, HSA agents, messiahs and pop-porn stars all scheme and betray one another on the eve of a very real apocalypse.

Sounds like a lot? Sure is. Tales has four times the story threads and four times the casting needed for any one movie. I felt like I was watching several Cohen brothers films stewed with Repo Man and Strange Days. As fun as it is to watch everyone from Sarah Michelle Gellar to Wallace Shawn run about trying to come out on top, nothing quite coalesces into a satisfying ending. Kelly divides the film into chapters four, five, and six, relying on the audience to be familiar with chapters one through three as captured in the Southland Tales graphic novels. Seems like a poor plan for a movie’s success. This film might satisfy fans of the books, but I doubt it will make many new converts.

Oh, and my head still hurts from seeing Justin Timberlake lipsync The Killers’ "All These Things That I’ve Done" in a very Dude like moment.

Sex and Death 101

After giving us the very wicked Heathers, he stumbled a bit on his some of his other outings, with Sex and Death 101, writer/director Daniel Waters returns to form. Here Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) receives and email detailing every woman he has and will ever sleep will. As he comes to terms with the fact that his fiance is only number thirty-one on a list of a hundred or so names, a mysterious female serial killer is drugging men into permanent comas. Roderick stumbles down a debauched trail destined to collide with so-called Death Nell.

In the hands of other directors, Sex and Death 101 could have been a bland paint-by-numbers mainstream comedy. But remember, this guy did Heathers. The loads of laughs here are tempered with some cutting, bittersweet insights into the world of sex and dating for those in their thirties. Baker does a great job in this balancing act. He’s smug enough to be the ladies man but has the chops to make you believe the hard revelations he comes to.

And props to Patton Oswalt for the best introduction at FF 07 so far: "I’m the kale. We’ll bring down that Australian creme brulee, Simon Baker, after the movie. You gotta choke this shit down right now."

Postal
Uwe Bolls latest video game movie. Yes, the guy that did House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Alone in the Dark, etc. There’s a whole internet full of trash talk about Boll and his career, so I won’t waste the pixels here. You should google it some time, it’s actually funny, unlike Postal. This movie is the worst film I have ever seen. Really. And trust me, I’m counting all the arty, ineffective student films I’ve ever seen too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr. Boll, I know you wanted to shock and out Southpark Trey Parker and Matt Stone but sorry, I was only shocked how devoid of humor the film was.

The QnA was worth staying for, however. Postal star Zack Ward (aka Scut Farkus from The Christmas Story) upstaged the always angry and dour Boll (sporting a Boll Power t-shirt, no less). Zack displayed all the charm, wit, and current events awareness of a really boring beer-shotgunning rawker who would have been in Heavy Metal Parking Lot if they hadn’t left his scenes on the cutting room floor. The very drunk Ward spouted off for about forty-five minutes leaving very little time for Boll to do his thing. At the end of the QnA, Boll sat there massaging the bridge of his nose and wondering if perhaps the whole "any publicity is good publicity" idea was really working out.

Rug Cop

Ah, Japan. You know just how to take western culture and twist it just so. Rug Cop offers a send up of seventies cop shows with a definite Zucker brothers flair. Robert Mitchum-esque detective Zura is transfered to a rinky dink Tokyo substation for being too good. There he works with a band of misfits each with their own talent. There’s Shorty, the pint-size powerhouse. Fatty, the prodigious eater and master of the offensive flop sweat. And Big Willie, who has some kind of subtle Star Wars reference working for him. Zura is not with his own talent; with a flick of his wrist, he takes out bad guys with his sentient boomerang wig. As the team gets to know their new member, the mysterious criminal mastermind, Hades, steals uranium and holds Tokyo for ransom. It is up to Zura and crew to shut down Hades evil plan.

Either the above made sense to you and you can sit through this movie or you can’t. This movie offers retro cop action, obligatory schoolgirls, slapstick comedy, a training montage, a sing-along… it’s got everything. And I have to say, Fuyuki Moto’s work as world-weary, stone faced Detective Zura is inspired.

MirageMan

Latin America isn’t know for its martial arts action movies… yet. But Chilean duo actor/coreographer Marko Zaror (body double for the Rock in The Rundown) and writer/director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza are working hard to change that. MirageMan, their second outing, brings you 70’s retro ass-kicking action. If you remember Chuck Norris (before Walker, natch) and Nicholas Hammond armed with the worst web-shooter of all time, you immediately get the idea here.

Zaror stars as Maco, a strip club bouncer and driven martial artist who stops a home invasion/robbery after donning ski mask. One of those he rescues is TV reporter Carol V., who praises and thanks the mysterious hero on air. Soon all of Chile is taken with MirageMan including Maco’s younger brother, Tito. See, Tito is in an institution after the brutal assualt that killed their parents and left both Maco and Tito damaged in different ways. Mirageman fever has pulled Tito out of his near catatonic stupor and onto the road to recovery. Once Maco irons out the kinks in the MirageMan costume, he faces increasingly dangerous odds and increasingly dangerous media coverage leading to confrontation with a gang of kidnappers who target young children.

MiracleMan is good fun with some really talented lo-fi camera work. And Zaror’s skills don’t hurt either. He is a Screen Presence whose sweaty training scenes had the women in the audience sighing and bouncing in their seats. But it isn’t just the biceps, he shows some genuine emotional depth in the scenes involving Tito and the loss of his parents. Taking a cue from the Steve McQueen school, Zaror lets the other actors get the lines while he works the strong, silent, and emotionally damaged type. More action stars should learn how to do this rather than practicing their delivery of the next one-line zinger.

There is room for improvement, though. MirageMan’s lighter, comedic tone goes very dark in the second half. It gets so dark that I wondered if the comedy I saw in the previous hour really was as funny as I thought it was. But any hero has trouble changing in public and rocks the 70’s Spiderman "knife-hands at the ready" stance is alright in my book. Not the best martial arts movie you will ever see, but definitely worth seeking out for a change of pace. I’m really looking forward to Kiltro, Espinoza and Zaror’s other martial arts flick also screening at FF07.

Weirdsville

Fantastic Fest must have broadened it’s horizons beyond horror-sf-fantasy this year seeing as how Weirdsville is pretty straight forward a stoner/buddy caper comedy. In this case, the stoners are Royce and Dex experiencing the worst night of their lives. Omar, their dealer, wants to be paid by the end of the night or bad things will happen. Too bad Royce and Dex have to worry about dead girlfriend who knew the combination to a safe loaded with money. But see, these Satanists er sorry, those who bask in the glory of the dark lord, need the dead girlfriend. Oh, and this marauding band of little people from a ren faire have a bone to pick with the cultists. You get the idea.

Lots of constantly crossing paths that eventually all wrap each other up. Scott Speedman’s Dexter and Maggie Castle’s Treena plus some nice lighting and camera work elevate this a little above average.

[  Mood: Happy ]
Diary of the Dead

Having found the sprawl of making Land of the Dead "annoying", George Romero reboots his zombie mythos in his latest Dead film. Diary follows a crew of film students who, in the face of the emerging zombie armageddon, head to Scranton, PA in mobile home. Armed with a camera, one of the students is determined to record everything for posterity, aka YouTube. Along the way, nerves are rubbed raw, zombies attack and the number of survivors drops away.

Diary is a wonderfully low budget affair and stays true to the first-person camera work a la Blair Witch so, there is a lot of shaky and out of focus footage. As we are reminded several times, "If the camera didn’t see it, it didn’t happen." And that’s where we run into trouble. Romero has always used strong themes to stand above much of the horror crowd and in Diary, he takes on today’s pervasive, invasive, and easily manipulated media. This makes for a fine target and the premise of the movie is well-suited for it. But unfortunately, the audience is beat repeatedly over the head with the "cameraman as voyeur" stick way too many times. It honestly takes half the voice over work that went into the effort to remind (nudge, nudge, club, club)us the audience gets enjoyment from a similar act of voyeurism. That plus some very wooden acting throughout mars the film.

The horror master himself attended the screening and gave a great QnA. He drilled us on the rules for zombies. There’s no infection, so no matter how you die, you’re going to come back with an appetite for human flesh. Oh, and of course zombies are slow, if they tried to run, they’d snap off at their little rotting ankles.

Finishing the Game

May 10, 1973. Bruce Lee collapses and dies in a Hong Kong hospital, leaving only a few minutes of fight footage for what should have been his magnum opus, The Game of Death. How will the Game’s producers finish the film? Easy, find another Bruce.

Justin Lin’s mocumentary, Finishing the Game, follows the casting crew and several hopefuls on the audition trail for the next Bruce Lee. There’s much to like here despite the need to go for some obvious jokes at times and the drag in middle of the movie. When Finishing the Game swings, it hits a home run more often than not. Roger Fan’s smarmy, confident Breeze Loo rules over almost every scene he’s in. And lordy! The Golden Gate Guns, in all its Streets of San Francisco glory, nearly stole the show. I say check it out with two one-inch thumbs up.

As an extra treat, Alamo Lars MC’d the Bruce Lee Scream-alike contest. After a shy start, the audience (and Alamo staff) warmed up to it. Check it out here.

End of the Line

Maurice Devereaux offers one seriously bloody ride on the Montreal Metro. Karen (Ilona Elkin), a nurse at a psychiatric hospital takes the late train home after one of her worst days ever. After being rescued from a horny creep in the subway by an average nice guy, things go from bad to worse. Horrific flashes of a dead patient are interrupted when members of Christian cult all receive the call to start some hard-core apocalyptic ministering on anyone they can find. Once the blood starts running on the Metro, it doesn’t stop until the credits.

Once you get past an over use of jump scares early on, this low-budget survival horror tale gets rumbling down the tracks with some solid acting and cinematography that squeezes every drop out of the minimal locations. Patrick (Robin Wilcock) chews up every scene he is in, top notch! During the QnA, Devereaux mentioned that he self-finances his films. Well, either l’homme has a large bank account or has some really talented friends that work on the cheap. There’s a lot of gore effects and they look fantastic, even when a fetus mugs for screen time after the worst C-section ever.

There’s nothing deep here, just some good B-movie fun. Props to Deveraux for making such a solid indie film with no irony or winking. I hope to see more of his work in the future.