The balls-to-walls Korean crime drama The Yellow Sea electrifies with creative bloody combat using a machete, kitchen knives, and even a dog leg, intense chase sequences, and a riveting story. Cab driver Gu-nam, living in Yanji City, a Chinese region between North Korea and Russia dominated mostly by Joseonjok (Chinese citizens of Korean ancestry), goes deeply into debt to send his wife to Korea for work. After not hearing from her in six month, he fears she has left him. When largely due to his gambling problem, Gu-nam begins missing repayments to local thugs, he accepts an opportunity from powerful crime boss Myung-ga to wipe the slate clean. He must journey to South Korea and kill a man! While there, Gu-nam searches for his wife. Things goes horribly wrong and Gu-nam must escape the police and gangsters. The Yellow Sea is sure to thrill even the most jaded crime film fan.

Invasion of Alien Bikini opens when Young Gun, dressed in blue shorts, a yellow slicker, and perhaps the worst fake mustache to ever appear on screen, saves Ha Monica, a beautiful young woman, from the attacks of several men. Back at his place, Monica attempts to seduce the chaste hero. Turns out she is an alien that needs human sperm to propagate her species. Fun lunacy ensues with her trying a variety of methods to extract the fluid. A fake ad and “experts” explaining some of the more obscure aspects, cleverly interrupt the narrative. About 2/3 in, a sudden, massive tonal shift occurs that completely derails what up to then was an intelligent and light-hearted story. Then even more jarring, the movie attempts to return to the original light hearted feel. It fails.

Nacho Vigalondo, director of the lauded Timecrimes, returns for his second feature film Extraterrestrial. The hungover Julio wakes up in a strange bed. After re-acquainting with his hook up from the previous evening Julia, the pair realizes that the TV, phone, and Internet do not work. The streets are oddly deserted. Then they discover the giant spaceship hovering high above the city. Julia’s creepy next door neighbor brings news of an alien invasion. Her live-in boyfriend Carlos comes home, further complicating matters. The quartet begin to adjust to the strangeness of their lives while attempting to uncover exactly what happened.

One of the most anticipated premieres of the festival, founder Tim League revealed Extraterrestrial was the single most requested screening. An extra row of folding chairs were brought into the theater to accommodate some of the demand. Even with that I heard of many people who couldn’t get tickets. To further excite the crowd, free Shiner Bock was available (one pint per customer).

Vigalondo did not disappoint the crowd either with the movie or his post-feature interview.

During the interview, Producer Nahikari Ipiña said the movie only took 3 weeks to shoot! Vigalondo confided that he was drunk after drinking a bottle of wine while watching the world premiere of his newest film. Extraterrestrial is so different from Timecrimes in story and tone largely because he feared being typecast as a director ala M. Night Shyamalan. On the metaphors that occur throughout the movie, Vigalondo laughingly reveled that most of them were accidents but prefers people to “pretend I had my metaphors in mind… that I’m so clever.”

The complex romantic comedy offers plenty of laughs and mystery. Vigalondo expertly combined superior direction with his intelligent, witty script replete with shocking ending. The odd yet familiar tale features unusual props such as a tennis ball cannon, a large jar of peaches, and a giant coffee cup. Alongside Let the Bullets Fly and The Yellow Sea, Extraterrestrial delivers one of the early highlights of Fantastic Fest ’11.

Day One highlights

Fantastic Fest Day Three: Of Superheroes and Gangsters

At last the 2011 Fantastic Fest begins.

I managed to score tickets to all three movies I wanted to see today. Despite worries of a meltdown due to the potential of some 1500 people accessing the system at once, the online ticketing service worked perfectly. When I logged on I was 147 I in the queue and 15 minutes later I was good to go.

I could go on about the two t-shirts I got at the Festival, but let’s get on with the reason you are here: the movies.

My initial FF film, Let The Bullets Fly quickly establishes the picture’s exquisite tone from the opening sequence. A lone train car–steam spewing from it spout—being pulled by a team of horses along railroad tracks. After gunshots are exchanges, events quickly lead to an exaggerated comedic train derailment in the finest Chinese movie slapstick fashion. With 1920s China as the backdrop, screen legends Chow Yun Fat and Jiang Wen (who also directs and wrote the screenplay) deliver virtuoso performances as the power hungry, greedy gangster and the Robin Hood style bandit, respectively. The thinly veiled pro-Chinese Revolution story abounds with fun fight scenes, intriguing interactions, and as the title promises, abundant gunplay, all wrapped within the epic feel of a Sergio Leone western. The perfect beginning to this years festival.

Kill Me Please, a comedy centered around a Swiss euthanasia clinic, offers some fascinating and often humorous insights in the bleak world of assisted suicide, but ultimately falls short of greatness thanks to some inexplicable character actions late in the film. Director Olias Barco, who spoke after the movie, cites the Japanese attitude toward suicide as his inspiration and even visited an actual Swiss suicide clinic. Barco does an excellent job of demonstrating the absurdity of people who protest against assisted suicide actually killing those who run the place ala anti-abortion (“pro-life”) terrorists. Shot in b & w, Barco wrote only 45 page script, encouraging the actors (all excellent headlined by Aurélien Recoing and Saul Rubinek of Warehouse 13 fame) to improvise their scenes. Many of the revelations are surprisingly true.

This Brazilian import fails on the most essential aspect of the low budget movie: the script. While the inferior quality of the film stock, special effects, settings, and even the acting may all be forgiven, Pólvora Negra delivers a story littered with abundant plot hole and illogical character reactions—primarily framed to allow for stereotypical fight sequences. The magnetic star Nicolas Trevijano recalls favorably a younger and slimmer Hugh Jackman. While not a terrible movie, Pólvora Negra offers nothing new or better than its many revenge film predecessors.

Fantastic Fest Day Two: Extraterrestrial Cometh or Free Beer

Fantastic Fest Day One was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

At last the 2011 Fantastic Fest begins.

I managed to score tickets to all three movies I wanted to see today. Despite worries of a meltdown due to the potential of some 1500 people accessing the system at once, the online ticketing service worked perfectly. When I logged on I was 147 I in the queue and 15 minutes later I was good to go.

I could go on about the two t-shirts I got at the Festival, but let’s get on with the reason you are here: the movies.

My initial FF film, Let The Bullets Fly quickly establishes the picture’s exquisite tone from the opening sequence. A lone train car–steam spewing from it spout—being pulled by a team of horses along railroad tracks. After gunshots are exchanges, events quickly lead to an exaggerated comedic train derailment in the finest Chinese movie slapstick fashion. With 1920s China as the backdrop, screen legends Chow Yun Fat and Jiang Wen (who also directs and wrote the screenplay) deliver virtuoso performances as the power hungry, greedy gangster and the Robin Hood style bandit, respectively. The thinly veiled pro-Chinese Revolution story abounds with fun fight scenes, intriguing interactions, and as the title promises, abundant gunplay, all wrapped within the epic feel of a Sergio Leone western. The perfect beginning to this years festival.

Kill Me Please, a comedy centered around a Swiss euthanasia clinic, offers some fascinating and often humorous insights in the bleak world of assisted suicide, but ultimately falls short of greatness thanks to some inexplicable character actions late in the film. Director Olias Barco, who spoke after the movie, cites the Japanese attitude toward suicide as his inspiration and even visited an actual Swiss suicide clinic. Barco does an excellent job of demonstrating the absurdity of people who protest against assisted suicide actually killing those who run the place ala anti-abortion (“pro-life”) terrorists. Shot in b & w, Barco wrote only 45 page script, encouraging the actors (all excellent headlined by Aurélien Recoing and Saul Rubinek of Warehouse 13 fame) to improvise their scenes. Many of the revelations are surprisingly true.

This Brazilian import fails on the most essential aspect of the low budget movie: the script. While the inferior quality of the film stock, special effects, settings, and even the acting may all be forgiven, Pólvora Negra delivers a story littered with abundant plot hole and illogical character reactions—primarily framed to allow for stereotypical fight sequences. The magnetic star Nicolas Trevijano recalls favorably a younger and slimmer Hugh Jackman. While not a terrible movie, Pólvora Negra offers nothing new or better than its many revenge film predecessors.

Fantastic Fest Day Two: Extraterrestrial Cometh or Free Beer

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 tomorrow.

As a lead up, I’m previewing the movies that I’m planning on attending and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.

Thursday, September 29th

THE LOVED ONES
Sean Byrne 2009 | Feature, Guest in attendance, Horror, Thriller | 84 min.

There are always certain films that you catch that unexpectedly stick with you for days, weeks, and often, months. You can’t stop thinking about them because their contents are so powerful and they touched you in some way or another. If you could drill a hole in your head and let those film bleed out, you wouldn’t; it becomes a happy burden. This year at Fantastic Fest, one of those films (maybe the film) will be Sean Byrne’s THE LOVED ONES.

Brent (Xavier Samuel) is a lost cause. In the first scene of the film, he kills his father in a car accident. It wasn’t his fault, there was a young man covered in blood walking in the middle of the road. Months later, Brent descends on a downward spiral of self-inflicted wounds to still feel something – to still feel alive.

Our protagonist then becomes a victim of torture – first figuratively, then literally – when he kindly rejects classmate Lola’s (the very excellent Robin McLeavy) proposal to the school prom. We soon find out Lola isn’t nearly as naive as she appears, but sick and sadistic – when she and her daddy (John Brumpton) kidnap Brent and take him to their own prom – a “prom” much more terrifying than anything you can possibly imagine.

In his feature film debut, writer and director Sean Byrne perfectly synthesizes graphic violence with genuine dialogue and honest teenage emotions to tell a great horror story. THE LOVED ONES could have turned gross for the sake of being gross, but Byrne assures the audience that the violence used was necessary to push the narrative forward. In Byrne I trust. (Chase Whale)

THE STOKER
Alexey Balabanov 2010 | Drama, Feature | 87 min.

screens with…
PROFILE | Timo Pierre Rositzki 2011

The work of Russian director Aleksei Balabanov has become a constant at Fantastic Fest. The reason is simple. Balabanov’s past films — CARGO 200 and MORPHIA — provide a window into the ugliest aspects of humanity with skill and morbid wit. THE STOKER (Kochegar) continues this fine tradition of nihilistic feel-bad cinema.

A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.

THE STOKER, which is set against the backdrop of the Russia’s transition from a command economy, presents a series of interlocking stories that revolve around the life of Ivan Skryabin. Russia is presented as a cut-throat environment where only the strongest survive. War vets whose specialized skills are no longer needed by the government find new opportunities with the mafia. A world of opportunity is opened up for the younger generation, yet the path to prosperity is paved with jealousy and greed. The lives of the characters eventually intersect in an ironic — and brutal — fashion. (Rodney Perkins)

COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE
Morgan Spurlock 2011 | Documentary, Feature, Guest in attendance | 88 min.

Producer Harry Knowles, James Darling (lead role) and Se Young (lead role) live in person!

One of the most potentially traumatic situations in my position is having a friend submit a film they have either produced, written or directed. At first you are thrilled for the person for even completing such an epic task. That thrill is quickly tempered, however, by the dread of having to let them down gently if it doesn’t quite measure up. With such dread in my heart did I drive up to festival co-founder Harry Knowles’ house last month to check out a screening of COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE in his living room. Harry is a producer on Comic-Con and helped Morgan Spurlock navigate some of the more hard-core corners of the epic convention.

I had a sinking feeling that Spurlock himself would be in front of the camera snarking around the festival in a stormtrooper outfit taking low-blow potshots at our nerd family like some sort of schoolyard bully. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Instead of a SUPER SIZE ME deconstruction, Morgan Spurlock chooses to show us the magical journey that is Comic-Con. Seven disparate individuals are all planning to attend, each with their own hopes, dreams and aspirations. A soldier wants to become a comic artist; a San Bernardino goth girl makes animatronic monsters in her garage; an oldguard comic-book vendor is concerned about the changing marketplace of the convention; a twenty-something movie geek is looking for romance; and a bartender at perhaps the nerdiest bar in the known universe aspires to be a graphic illustrator. We are along for the ride from beginning to riveting conclusion.

In the end, Morgan Spurlock has respectfully captured the magic and wonder of nerddom better than any other filmmaker. Harry was reticent to suggest playing the film at Fantastic Fest, but I forced the issue. No other film I have seen this year captures the spirit of the Fantastic Fest audience like COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE, and I am proud to select it as our 2011 Closing Night fi lm. (Tim League)

My reviews and coverage of events begin tomorrow (or maybe Friday morning depending on my energy/time).

Preview Day 6

Fantastic Fest preview Day 7 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

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 tomorrow.

As a lead up, I’m previewing the movies that I’m planning on attending and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.

Thursday, September 29th

THE LOVED ONES
Sean Byrne 2009 | Feature, Guest in attendance, Horror, Thriller | 84 min.

There are always certain films that you catch that unexpectedly stick with you for days, weeks, and often, months. You can’t stop thinking about them because their contents are so powerful and they touched you in some way or another. If you could drill a hole in your head and let those film bleed out, you wouldn’t; it becomes a happy burden. This year at Fantastic Fest, one of those films (maybe the film) will be Sean Byrne’s THE LOVED ONES.

Brent (Xavier Samuel) is a lost cause. In the first scene of the film, he kills his father in a car accident. It wasn’t his fault, there was a young man covered in blood walking in the middle of the road. Months later, Brent descends on a downward spiral of self-inflicted wounds to still feel something – to still feel alive.

Our protagonist then becomes a victim of torture – first figuratively, then literally – when he kindly rejects classmate Lola’s (the very excellent Robin McLeavy) proposal to the school prom. We soon find out Lola isn’t nearly as naive as she appears, but sick and sadistic – when she and her daddy (John Brumpton) kidnap Brent and take him to their own prom – a "prom" much more terrifying than anything you can possibly imagine.

In his feature film debut, writer and director Sean Byrne perfectly synthesizes graphic violence with genuine dialogue and honest teenage emotions to tell a great horror story. THE LOVED ONES could have turned gross for the sake of being gross, but Byrne assures the audience that the violence used was necessary to push the narrative forward. In Byrne I trust. (Chase Whale)

THE STOKER
Alexey Balabanov 2010 | Drama, Feature | 87 min.

screens with…
PROFILE | Timo Pierre Rositzki 2011

The work of Russian director Aleksei Balabanov has become a constant at Fantastic Fest. The reason is simple. Balabanov’s past films — CARGO 200 and MORPHIA — provide a window into the ugliest aspects of humanity with skill and morbid wit. THE STOKER (Kochegar) continues this fine tradition of nihilistic feel-bad cinema.

A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.

THE STOKER, which is set against the backdrop of the Russia’s transition from a command economy, presents a series of interlocking stories that revolve around the life of Ivan Skryabin. Russia is presented as a cut-throat environment where only the strongest survive. War vets whose specialized skills are no longer needed by the government find new opportunities with the mafia. A world of opportunity is opened up for the younger generation, yet the path to prosperity is paved with jealousy and greed. The lives of the characters eventually intersect in an ironic — and brutal — fashion. (Rodney Perkins)

COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE
Morgan Spurlock 2011 | Documentary, Feature, Guest in attendance | 88 min.

Producer Harry Knowles, James Darling (lead role) and Se Young (lead role) live in person!

One of the most potentially traumatic situations in my position is having a friend submit a film they have either produced, written or directed. At first you are thrilled for the person for even completing such an epic task. That thrill is quickly tempered, however, by the dread of having to let them down gently if it doesn’t quite measure up. With such dread in my heart did I drive up to festival co-founder Harry Knowles’ house last month to check out a screening of COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE in his living room. Harry is a producer on Comic-Con and helped Morgan Spurlock navigate some of the more hard-core corners of the epic convention.

I had a sinking feeling that Spurlock himself would be in front of the camera snarking around the festival in a stormtrooper outfit taking low-blow potshots at our nerd family like some sort of schoolyard bully. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Instead of a SUPER SIZE ME deconstruction, Morgan Spurlock chooses to show us the magical journey that is Comic-Con. Seven disparate individuals are all planning to attend, each with their own hopes, dreams and aspirations. A soldier wants to become a comic artist; a San Bernardino goth girl makes animatronic monsters in her garage; an oldguard comic-book vendor is concerned about the changing marketplace of the convention; a twenty-something movie geek is looking for romance; and a bartender at perhaps the nerdiest bar in the known universe aspires to be a graphic illustrator. We are along for the ride from beginning to riveting conclusion.

In the end, Morgan Spurlock has respectfully captured the magic and wonder of nerddom better than any other filmmaker. Harry was reticent to suggest playing the film at Fantastic Fest, but I forced the issue. No other film I have seen this year captures the spirit of the Fantastic Fest audience like COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE, and I am proud to select it as our 2011 Closing Night fi lm. (Tim League)

My reviews and coverage of events begin tomorrow (or maybe Friday morning depending on my energy/time).

Preview Day 6

Over the weekend two new Klaw-crafted works premiered.

First my latest piece for Blastr, “8 great sci-fi movie car chases guaranteed to get your pulse racing.”

And then there’s my monthly Nexus Graphica column.

Twice the Klaw… was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Over the weekend two new Klaw-crafted works premiered.

First my latest piece for Blastr, "8 great sci-fi movie car chases guaranteed to get your pulse racing."

And then there’s my monthly Nexus Graphica column.

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 2 days.

As a lead up, I’m previewing the movies that I’m planning on attending and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.

Tuesday, September 27th

JULIA X
P.J. Pettiette 2011 | 3D, Black Comedy, Feature, Guest in attendance, Horror | 92 min.

Credited only as The Stranger, Kevin Sorbo’s character in JULIA X 3D (much like in real life) is completely irresistible to women. Turns out the ladies should learn to exercise a bit of caution for, you see, The Stranger is a serial killer. Meeting women on the Internet and setting up dates, The Stranger brings his victims back for a little bit of torture and murder and then brands each one with the next letter in the alphabet. He’s been up to it for a while, too, as his latest victim sports a “W.” However, things don‚Äôt go quite according to plan on his latest excursion as Julia is on to his game and has no intention of becoming his “X”.

The fun of JULIA X 3D comes in the form of some clever bending of expectations and surprises peppered throughout. Sorbo is as charismatic as he’s ever been and his interactions with Julia- their relationship becoming increasingly complicated far exceeding one of just simply hunter and prey- are hilarious. Things do get violent and bloody as other characters are introduced into the mix (including an appearance from Joel Moore) and power struggles get heated.

Director P.J. Pettiette never lets JULIA X 3D’s tone become too serious, it’s a horror movie hellbent on the audience having as much fun as possible. However, it does have a few interesting things to say about gender politics which it does by providing characters that both flip stereotypes in inventive ways and ones that adhere painfully to them. Which is all well and good but, really, it’s all about Sorbo in 3D! (Brian Kelley) Presented by REAL D 3D

HAUNTERS
Kim Min-suk 2010 | Action, Feature, Thriller | 114 min.

50% horror movie, 50% superhero film and 100% Korean thriller, this is one dark, super-powered ride that became a big hit when it was released. Seoul, 1991: A little boy with a prosthetic leg is blindfolded, stumbling through the rain, clinging to his mother’s wrist. She orders him not to remove the blindfold, but when they reach home his abusive father begins beating his mother. In response, the boy removes the blindfold and uses his strange, glittering gaze to make Dad snap his own neck. When his mother fails to kill her telepathic spawn in his sleep, he wanders off into the night, a white-suited phantom lurking on the fringes of humanity, with only his model city to keep him company. From his vantage point, the rest of the world simply looks like…toys.

Seoul, 2010: Kyu-Nam (TV star Koo So) is an out-of-work laborer looking for a new gig. He answers an ad from the local pawn shop and everything seems to be going well until, on his first day of work, the silver-haired mystery man (Korean heartthrob, Gang Dong-Won, of Secret Reunion and M fame) walks in and begins robbing the till. Everyone in the store is helpless against his omnipotent glittering eyes – everyone except Kyu-Nam. So begins a mind-bending game of cat and mouse, with an entire city set against our working-class hero, who must band together with his screwed-up, foreign pals to take down an evil, psychic god who uses every single soul in Seoul as his pawns in a deadly hunt to eradicate the one man who can stand against him.

The directorial debut of Kim Min-Suk, the screenwriter behind The Good, The Bad and the Weird, HAUNTERS is the dizzying lovechild of Unbreakable and The Fugitive, a genre beast that mixes pulse-pounding thrills with gut-wrenching moments like a woman forced to toss her helpless baby in front of a speeding train. This box office hit from Korea shows the dark side of the X-men, portraying a world where the only people with superpowers are psychopaths and it’s up the normal folks to step up and shut them down. (NYAFF)

Melancholia
Lars von Trier | Drama, Feature, Sci-Fi | 120 min.

Not-so-enfant-terrible Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves) managed to get himself tossed out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival for allegedly voicing sympathy for the Nazis, but this didn’t stop his latest picture, Melancholia, from being nominated for the Palme d’Or. The story is a mash up of Armageddon and The Celebration, with Ingmar Bergman’s Persona tossed in for good measure. It takes its title from the name of an outsized planet lurking behind the sun which threatens to obliterate the earth and end life as we know it. But the approaching Melancholia quickly becomes a metaphor for the emotional malaise of two sisters, played by Kirsten Dunst, in the finest performance of her career (she won Best Actress at Cannes), and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Also catch Kiefer Sutherland and Alexander Skarsgard in supporting roles. Played the New York and Toronto film festivals.

Preview Day 5

Preview Day 7

Fantastic Fest preview Day 6 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

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 2 days.

As a lead up, I’m previewing the movies that I’m planning on attending and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.

Tuesday, September 27th

JULIA X
P.J. Pettiette 2011 | 3D, Black Comedy, Feature, Guest in attendance, Horror | 92 min.

Credited only as The Stranger, Kevin Sorbo’s character in JULIA X 3D (much like in real life) is completely irresistible to women. Turns out the ladies should learn to exercise a bit of caution for, you see, The Stranger is a serial killer. Meeting women on the Internet and setting up dates, The Stranger brings his victims back for a little bit of torture and murder and then brands each one with the next letter in the alphabet. He’s been up to it for a while, too, as his latest victim sports a “W.” However, things don‚Äôt go quite according to plan on his latest excursion as Julia is on to his game and has no intention of becoming his “X”.

The fun of JULIA X 3D comes in the form of some clever bending of expectations and surprises peppered throughout. Sorbo is as charismatic as he’s ever been and his interactions with Julia- their relationship becoming increasingly complicated far exceeding one of just simply hunter and prey- are hilarious. Things do get violent and bloody as other characters are introduced into the mix (including an appearance from Joel Moore) and power struggles get heated.

Director P.J. Pettiette never lets JULIA X 3D’s tone become too serious, it’s a horror movie hellbent on the audience having as much fun as possible. However, it does have a few interesting things to say about gender politics which it does by providing characters that both flip stereotypes in inventive ways and ones that adhere painfully to them. Which is all well and good but, really, it’s all about Sorbo in 3D! (Brian Kelley) Presented by REAL D 3D

HAUNTERS
Kim Min-suk 2010 | Action, Feature, Thriller | 114 min.

50% horror movie, 50% superhero film and 100% Korean thriller, this is one dark, super-powered ride that became a big hit when it was released. Seoul, 1991: A little boy with a prosthetic leg is blindfolded, stumbling through the rain, clinging to his mother’s wrist. She orders him not to remove the blindfold, but when they reach home his abusive father begins beating his mother. In response, the boy removes the blindfold and uses his strange, glittering gaze to make Dad snap his own neck. When his mother fails to kill her telepathic spawn in his sleep, he wanders off into the night, a white-suited phantom lurking on the fringes of humanity, with only his model city to keep him company. From his vantage point, the rest of the world simply looks like…toys.

Seoul, 2010: Kyu-Nam (TV star Koo So) is an out-of-work laborer looking for a new gig. He answers an ad from the local pawn shop and everything seems to be going well until, on his first day of work, the silver-haired mystery man (Korean heartthrob, Gang Dong-Won, of Secret Reunion and M fame) walks in and begins robbing the till. Everyone in the store is helpless against his omnipotent glittering eyes – everyone except Kyu-Nam. So begins a mind-bending game of cat and mouse, with an entire city set against our working-class hero, who must band together with his screwed-up, foreign pals to take down an evil, psychic god who uses every single soul in Seoul as his pawns in a deadly hunt to eradicate the one man who can stand against him.

The directorial debut of Kim Min-Suk, the screenwriter behind The Good, The Bad and the Weird, HAUNTERS is the dizzying lovechild of Unbreakable and The Fugitive, a genre beast that mixes pulse-pounding thrills with gut-wrenching moments like a woman forced to toss her helpless baby in front of a speeding train. This box office hit from Korea shows the dark side of the X-men, portraying a world where the only people with superpowers are psychopaths and it’s up the normal folks to step up and shut them down. (NYAFF)

Melancholia
Lars von Trier | Drama, Feature, Sci-Fi | 120 min.

Not-so-enfant-terrible Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves) managed to get himself tossed out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival for allegedly voicing sympathy for the Nazis, but this didn’t stop his latest picture, Melancholia, from being nominated for the Palme d’Or. The story is a mash up of Armageddon and The Celebration, with Ingmar Bergman’s Persona tossed in for good measure. It takes its title from the name of an outsized planet lurking behind the sun which threatens to obliterate the earth and end life as we know it. But the approaching Melancholia quickly becomes a metaphor for the emotional malaise of two sisters, played by Kirsten Dunst, in the finest performance of her career (she won Best Actress at Cannes), and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Also catch Kiefer Sutherland and Alexander Skarsgard in supporting roles. Played the New York and Toronto film festivals.

Preview Day 5

Preview Day 7

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 3 days.

As a lead up, I’m previewing the movies that I’m planning on attending and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.

Monday, September 26th

JUAN OF THE DEAD
Alejandro Brugués 2011 | AMD Next Wave, Comedy, Feature, Guest in attendance, Horror | 100 min.

50 years after the Cuban Revolution, a new one is about to begin. That revolution is zombies; filthy flesh-eating zombies. The Cubans face a large enough challenge dealing with a zombie infestation (allegedly started by U.S.-backed radical groups), but their procrastinating hero Juan (Alexis Díaz de Villegas) has to overcome his lazy lifestyle to save the world.

At first, Juan doesn’t pay the growing chaos in Havana any mind. When the rampant “social order disturbances” escalate and start to affect his routine, however, he realizes that the perpetrators are not in fact “dissidents” but rather are bonefide walking dead. Sensing an opportunity for a fast buck, he bands together a ragtag militia and commercializes a zombie cleaning service, “Juan of the Dead,” to rid households of unwanted, undead loved ones.

In the same vein as, well, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, JUAN OF THE DEAD clearly pays homage to George Romero’s original undead masterpieces. The film sets itself apart by taking the story of the zombie infestation in a different direction and like SHAUN, JUAN’s kills are often hilarious, unique, fresh, and definitely blood-drenched. That’s no small feat for a plotline as well-trod as the zombie apocalypse.

The most compelling aspect of Juan of the Dead is the complete infusion of Cuban attitude, politics, humor, music and even cocktails into the film. First time writer/director Alejandro Brugués delivers a progressive cultural essay encompassing not only the cultural revolution but also the current state of affairs in Cuba, all within the confines of a zombie comedy. Kudos to both Brugués as well as Raul Catro’s new regime for launching Cuba’s very first horror film. We hope this is the start of a long tradition! (Chase Whale)

THE SQUAD
Jaime Osorio 2010 | Action, AMD Next Wave, Feature, Guest in attendance, Horror | 107 min.

screens with…
COST OF LIVING | BenDavid Grabinski 2011

In the foggy mountains of Colombia, nine soldiers trudge through muddy terrain in search of an outpost that they believe has been invaded by guerrillas. As they approach their target, one of them is brutally injured, forcing them to prematurely enter the base instead of waiting for backup. Once inside, they’re greeted a pile of dead bodies and a series of ritualistic markings meant to ward off the devil. After discovering a lone, traumatized survivor and a cryptic event log, the men wait, sifting through their own differences with each other. Trapped, confused and cut off from the outside world, they begin to feel the strain of isolation closing in around them. They’ll grasp at anything to resolve what happened there…and what is going to happen to them.

First time director Jaime Osorio Marquez is already a master of storytelling. From the first frames of the film, the characters are in turmoil, engaging in terse, heated snippets of interaction that allow the exposition of their emotional baggage to come out in slow enough drips to keep the audience guessing. Utilizing carefully chosen, confining medium shots, Marquez and his cinematographer Alejandro Moreno build the most suffocating atmosphere since DAS BOOT, one where even the vastest openings are filled with the thick fog of the cloud cover. For most of the movie, neither the characters nor the viewer can see more than a yard in front of their faces, reinforcing the sense of impending doom and keeping you on the edge of your seat.

Featuring a stellar ensemble cast and a searing, pervasive score that builds uneasiness in the pit of your stomach from the first note, THE SQUAD reminds us that, under the right circumstances, the most real of demons are on the inside. (Michael Lerman)

A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI
Yoshihiro Nakamura 2010 | Drama, Fantasy, Feature, Romance | 109 min.

Director Yoshihiro Nakamura blew Fantastic fest audiences away in 2009 with his “punk rock saves the world” movie FISH STORY and then, last year, he returned with the ultimate conspiracy thriller, GOLDEN SLUMBER. Now he takes a radical turn and brings us….a family film? You may already be turning the page, but wait! Because if you know anything about Nakamura you know that his family film is going to be stranger and more immediate than any other flick you’ve seen in a while. And that’s the case with A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI, the tale of a boy, a samurai, time travel, pastries, chef vs. yakuza battles, absent fathers, and single mothers.

Yusa is a single mom, desperately doing her best to get her young son, Tomoya, off to school, remember his books, hold down a boring job that pays the rent, and provides microwaved dinners ready for him when he comes home. The last thing she needs in her life is a time traveling samurai, but that’s exactly what she gets when Kajima (played by popular TV idol, Ryo Nishikido) winds up stranded in her apartment complex after being inexplicably plucked by random forces from the Edo Period.

Not knowing what to do, she invites him to stay but soon, frustrated by his inability to cope with modern day Tokyo, she starts to use him as a babysitter and then as a cook and housekeeper, even though he’s still terrified of the ringing phone. But while doing this, Kajima realizes that he doesn’t like hacking people up in duels over honor and respect. He likes making pastries and wants to turn pro.

Based on a popular manga by Gen Araki, A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI is the perfect male weepie. Ultimately, however, it’s a movie about time travel. And isn’t growing up, after all, a kind of one way time travel? (New York Asian Film Festival)

Japanese films at Fantastic Fest 2011 are presented by WELL GO USA ENTERTAINMENT

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Fantastic Fest preview Day 5 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon