Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world, starts here in Austin in just three days! Over the next several days, I’m previewing the movies I plan on seeing and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.
DAY FIVE
Ronnie is a bastard. And not just any bastard. Ronnie is an EXCEPTIONAL bastard. The hardest of the hard men, a gleefully heartless collector of debts and dispenser of violence whose world comes crashing down around him when a taste of his own violence splashes back upon himself. The near-death experience leaves Ronnie questioning the meaning and value of his life up until that point. But not so much that he doesn’t want revenge on the person who left him near-dead.
A richly complex, beautifully executed character piece adapted from his own graphic novel by first time writer-director Guido van Driel, RESURRECTION OF A BASTARD showcases a sly sense of gallows humor, attention to detail, and an easy way with characters that puts many better established, more widely known filmmakers to shame. Like last year’s Fantastic Fest award-winning PLAN C, RESURRECTION OF A BASTARD fleshes out its truly remarkable writing with such fabulous performances and an understatedly slick sense of style that it leaves you wondering what exactly is going on in Holland to produce such unique, strong voices. Fans of the Coen Brothers and recent Scandinavian fare such as A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN should take note: You’re about to discover a new favorite. (Todd Brown)
Matt and Owen are probably an awful lot like most members of the Fantastic Fest audience. They’re a pair of generally well-meaning cinema-obsessed geeks who are far faster with a movie quote than any sort of word to a member of the opposite sex. They’re clumsy and awkward, quick-witted and funny, and very much a prime target for the roving gang of bullies that roams the school hallways – a group that they refer to amongst themselves as The Dirties.
The solution for the pair appears to be a harmless bit of escape fantasy, a film project in which they indulge their violent revenge against their tormentors. It really is harmless, but exactly the sort of harmless that schools tend to frown upon. So when the duo’s project is shut down, it triggers an escalating cycle of violence as the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur and what was once a harmless school project begins to bleed into the real world.
Winner of the top prize at Slamdance, THE DIRTIES is a remarkable piece of lo-fi DIY filmmaking, a strikingly authentic and affectionate piece of work unafraid to go into some very dark places as it creates an unsettling portrait of schoolyard violence and those caught within it. Though heavily improvised and imbued with a ramshackle charm, it quickly becomes obvious that there is a very deliberate plan at work here and that director-star Matt Johnson and his tight team of creative collaborators are a fiercely talented group who we’ll be hearing much, much more from in the future. (Todd Brown)
On the night that Miller’s comet is supposed to pass near the Earth, a group of old friends get together for dinner at the home of hosts Lee and Mike. Lee works for Skype while Mike is an actor, desperately trying to find new roles and hoping he didn’t peak with his appearance as a series regular on the TV series “Roswell.” They are joined by power couple Hugh and Beth, each with very different perspectives on science and reality. Then there’s Emily and Kevin, still figuring each other out. Em is passionate and creative but worried about making the wrong move, while Kevin is a go-getter, chasing what he wants. Finally there’s Amir, the lovable bachelor with his squeeze-of-the-week Laurie, a confident vixen who just happens to have a steamy past with Kevin. Dinner is cut short when the lights go out across the neighborhood, leaving only one strange house with power down the street.
What starts as a simple dinner party, quickly turns into a sci-fi meltdown. When Hugh and Amir come back from checking out the illuminated house, Hugh is bleeding from the head and Amir is carrying a locked metal box. While the group tries to decipher the meaning of the box and its contents, tension rises and emotions get heated. Another party is dispatched to the strange house only to discover an even stranger phenomenon.
COHERENCE is cerebral low-budget sci-fi that dives headfirst into a pool of quantum mechanics and theoretical physics. It’s a tightly focused, intimately shot film that quickly ratchets up the tension and mystery. COHERENCE is relationship drama turned on its head, giving you plenty to think about without spoon-feeding you any answers. (Luke Mullen)
The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears
Dan returns home to his apartment, nestled inside a dazzling art-nouveau building, to find his wife missing and the door locked from the inside. Even more peculiar, his elderly neighbor invites him over and recounts the story of her husband being taken by someone in the walls after he climbed through a tiny hole in their ceiling. Is it possible that Dan’s wife has been taken too? Why is there a woman standing naked on the roof? And what’s with the knife-wielding maniac?
Anyone familiar with Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s previous film AMER or their segment in THE ABCS OF DEATH will immediately feel comfortable with the look, feel and sound of THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS. In this film, as in those, style is king and the pair aren’t so much concerned with aping Italian horror as much as invoking the feelings one has while watching gialli. To that effect, every moment of the film is carefully constructed both visually and aurally, and the directors’ fearless camera probes the beautiful spaces in which the film is set, as well as every corner of the human body.
As he finds himself going deeper into the hidden worlds behind his walls, familiar music cues from the likes of Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai help to further envelop the audience in Dan’s increasingly bizarre nightmare. We can’t tell you exactly what the film is ultimately about, but we can guarantee that seeing in on the big screen will be one of the most unique experiences you have at Fantastic Fest this year. (Brian Kelley)
Ten years ago, the Kitagawa yakuza clan attacked the Muto yakuza clan at Muto’s own home, only to have Muto’s wife fight back. This unexpectedly left the Kitagawa clan in shambles, with their top hitman Ikegmai wounded and Muto’s wife in prison. Despite the carnage, the most unfortunate fallout from this attack is when Muto’s beloved daughter, Mitsuko, has her adorable toothpaste commercial taken off the air. Now, Ikegami seeks revenge, while Muto only has one desire: to have his wife return from prison to see Mitsuko star in her first movie. Enter The Fuck Bombers, an eager but untalented group of wannabe filmmakers whose dreams of making movies have come crashing down after ten years. Circumstances have brought them to this fateful moment where they’ll be able to film the climactic battle between yakuzas in an epic, over-the-top ending for the ages.
If you’ve seen Sono’s Fantastic Fest’s 2009 entry LOVE EXPOSURE, you know that no one can mix genres like he can, and WHY DON’T YOU PLAY IN HELL is equal parts yakuza action and star-crossed romantic comedy. Normally, Sono elevates his films with biting but spot-on social commentary, but here, he goes back to a script he wrote fifteen years ago to incorporate his love for cinema and especially 35mm film. The result is among Sono’s best work as his trademark excess and outrageousness is infused with an affection for the Japanese films that have come before it. This is Sono at his most endearing and it’s awesome. (James Shapiro)