The Hunger Games

It's unfortunately obvious that they were forced to compress an extensive novel into one film, what with all the knowing gazes that clearly imply history not explained to the audience.  I expect there's an extended cut with significant back story.

Nothing really seemed new, so I wasn't all that impressed.  It doesn't even attempt to set up a satisfactory conclusion, as if the rest of the series being funded is already assumed.


The Hunger Games
2012, 142 minutes, directed by Gary Ross

Spider-Man 2

I know the scenarios are laughable, the plots contrived, the dialog drippy.  But I love the casting of the 2002-2007 trilogy.  Kirsten Dunst, Tobey Maguire, James Franco, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, J.K. Simmons - they all work for me in these roles.  I'm not sure if I'll watch the reboot.  It may leave me with too much regret for what might have been.

Spider-Man 2
2004, 127 minutes, directed by Sam Raimi

District B13

Leïto, a product of Paris bario B13, wants to clean up his home and rescue his sister Lola.  Damien, a go-it-alone cop, needs to defuse a bomb captured by the B13 thugs.  Together they need to bring down the crime boss Taha, save the girl, and save the city.

I liked the idea of putting two very physical actors together on screen, though I have to admit their respective solo work at the start of the film exceeds their group scenes.  Still the story is solid enough and the action sequences are good.  I'd watch it again.

District B13
2004, 84 minutes, directed by Pierre Morel

Citadel

Citadel is a story of urban and mental decay, and the struggle to fight for order and justice.  Tommy, a young father, is stricken with agoraphobia after witnessing his wife's brutal assault at the hands of a mysterious gang of street youth.  Held to the area by his wife's coma, he's certain that the gang plans to return for his son.  Can he escape, or is the option to face them in their stronghold, the abandoned tower block known as the Citadel?

I felt many of the decisions made in this script were harsh and brutal, yet exactly right for the dystopic wasteland of the urban renewal project and the devastated mental state of the main character.  It's not a particularly scary film, but it does a very good job of conveying Tommy's absolute terror, starting with simple things like stepping outside, but ramping up to far, far worse.

Citadel
2012, 84 minutes, directed by Ciaran Foy

Black Pond

The papers called the Thompson family murderers. They say it was the only decent thing to do. Why did they invite a stranger to their home, and when he died bury him in the woods?

Like many British mockumentaries, this is a slow-burner punctuated with dry witty humor. I would have liked it better if I was working on more sleep.

Black Pond
2011, 82 minutes, directed by Will Sharpe and Tom Kinsley

"The downside of a tedious life is you have a tedious life. But the upside is you have a swimming pool in the summer."

Compliance

Stupid, gullible people do uncomfortable things when told to by someone they perceive to have authority. It would be inane if it wasn't based on true events. Based on how everyone out here is talking about it, though, I think it's a cinematic success.

Compliance
2012, 90 minutes, directed by Craig Zobel

V/H/S

Five short horror stories are tied together loosely by a sixth, centered on the theme of "found footage" shakey-camera work.  I wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped to be.

V/H/S
2011, 115 minutes, directed by Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, and Radio Silence

Under African Skies

When Paul Simon heard the music of South Africa, his only desire was to meet the artists and record with them.  However, in doing so, he "violated" the cultural ban enacted to oppose apartheid.  Twenty-five years later he returns to South Africa to reunite the original band and perform a reunion concert, as well as meet a former African National Congress leader and lay the controversy to rest.

The film includes video of original recording sessions in South Africa, New York, and London, as well as video of the reunion rehearsals and concert and meetings between Paul and ANC leadership.  The one thing it lacked was full-length songs, leaving me hanging each time they fade out...

Under African Skies
2012, 108 minutes, directed by Joe Berlinger

Gayby

In this uncomfortable but funny situation comedy, Jenn and her best friend Matt decide to have a baby.  Except Matt is gay and Jenn isn't.  And they decide to try the old-fashioned way.  Dating and sex hilarity ensues.

I'm not sure if they were trying to direct it just towards an LGBT audience, but it plays well for a general crowd of open-minded people.

Gayby
2012, 88 minutes, directed by Lonathan Lisecki

Shut Up and Play the Hits

When James Murphy was 38, he made an album.  When he was 41, his band LCD Soundsystem announced their final show, performed it, and quit music.  Why?  A documentary filmmaker followed him for the week before the show, the final performance, and the next day.  Note that the film features many songs from the concert in their entirety, so fans of LCD Soundsystem are the preferred audience.

I will note that, for whatever reason, I had a really hard time understanding the dialog in this film.  I with someone from the film had been there for Q&A so I could casually ask how they did sound work, just to make sure I never do it that way myself.

Shut Up and Play the Hits
2012, 110 minutes, directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern

Iron Sky

In a world where Sarah Palin is president, the Moon Nazis return...

Iron Sky
2012, 93 minutes, directed by Timo Vuorensola

I spent an hour in line chatting with acting hopeful Samantha Davilry.  I'm noting her name so I can keep an eye out for film credits.  Good luck!

Girls Against Boys

Abused and insulted, Shae and her new friend Lu go on a sadistic rampage against every man they meet.  Quite a performance by Nicole Laliberte, but it's senselessly brutal.

Girls Against Boys
2012, 87 minutes, directed by Austin Chick

Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters

I'm fascinated by Gregory Crewdson's work.  His photos have a production cost rivaling an independent film, and his prints sell for up to $125k.  His eight-year photo epic "Beneath the Roses" features 50 photos taken in Massachusetts, documenting the decay of the northern small town as capitalism fails.  And yet he insists his photos have no plot, storyline, character, or development; each exists just in one moment, in his head and on film.

Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters
2012, 77 minutes, directed by Ben Shapiro

Intruders

This is a tale of two children, separate but alike, haunted by Hollowface, who comes in the night. He steals their faces to wear as his own, for his face is long, long gone. But he does not realize how far parents will strive to keep their children safe and alive.

Intruders
2011, 93 minutes, directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

Extracted

This film is about inhabiting other people's memories.  No, this isn't Inception.  Tom Jacobs invents a machine that allows a person to enter the mind of another, and experience his or her memories.  No, this isn't Inception.  When something goes wrong, he's trapped in the mind of another, unable to escape.  No, this isn't Inception.  Can he find a way to escape and get back to the real world?  No, this isn't Inception, it's better, because the film solves its dilemmas via engaging character interaction and growth, rather than special effects and running around a lot through a city.

Writer and first-time director Nir Paniry wrote the first draft of the script in 2008.  When Inception came out, as he put it, he "fucking freaked out".  And yet they were able to finish the film and bring it to the festival market.  I don't know if it will get distribution, but I'm quite pleased to have had an opportunity to see it.

Extracted
2012, 88 minutes, directed by Nir Paniry

WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines

Per the documentary, 3% of decision-making positions in media companies are held by women, so most comics, films, and TV shows that feature women are designed or approved by men.  The result can range from the occasionally empowering to the usually inane.

This documentary looks at all three of the mentioned media types, but it starts and finishes with Wonder Woman, from her formation in the early 1940s, through the years when she was mostly helpless and even gave up her powers, to her resurgence as a symbol of feminism and girrrl power.

WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines
2012, 65 minutes, directed by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

Lovely Molly

In Lovely Molly, director Eduardo Sanchez (of Blair Witch fame) follows the same trend as the [REC] franchise, moving away from first-person "found footage" back to a mix with traditional camera work. Molly and her husband, newly married, move back into her childhood home. The demons of her past - drug use, insanity, the memory of her father - quickly reemerge as she struggles in her new old setting. Are the demons all in her head, or does her father's legacy live on? SXSW bills the as "what happens before the exorcist arrives". I think of it as Paranormal 4: Less Scary More Nudity.

Lovely Molly
2011, 95 minutes, directed by Eduardo Sanchez

See Girl Run

Emmie, a married 30-something, isn't sure her life is heading in the right direction. What if she wasn't supposed drift away from her first love, the one where she "never broke up, just moved away?" What if he thought the same? What if?

"You can't live your life on 'what ifs'. Eventually they make you crazy," says her father. It also doesn't help that her ex is a friendly yet creepy stalker who never figured out the best way to show how you feel is to get the hell out of her life and let her be happy her own way. I thought this film would be insightful but instead it was just uncomfortable and sad.

I'm going to find a horror film to watch and forget about this.

Run Girl Run
2012, 89 minutes, directed by Nate Meyer

Her Master's Voice

Nina Conti was ten years into her stand-up ventriloquism career when she decided to give it up. Before she had a chance to tell her mentor and former lover Ken Campbell - the man who introduced her to her career - he died, unexpectedly leaving her his entire collection of books, tapes, and puppets. She deduced to make one last trip, to a ventriloquist convention in Kentucky, and to donate one of Ken's puppets to Venthaven, a museum and resting place for puppets of dead masters.

That's the plot, at least, but it isn't the story. What really matters is that Nina is at a crossroads, scared and unsure, yet she shares her deepest most inner thought through her puppet Monkey and through those of Ken she voices. A lot of the film is her having conversations with herself - and it works. It really works well.

Her Master's Voice
2012, 59 minutes, directed by Nina Conti

Modus Anomoli

I really got angry with the protagonist of this outdoor survival horror. Carrying around a flashlight when being hunted outdoors falls in my stupidpeople category. There's a full moon. Do you have no night vision?

In the end, though, they explain everything, albeit in a way that leaves me baffled for an hour until it clicks. If you start to watch this definitely see it through.

Modus Anomoli
2012, 87 minutes, directed by Joko Anwar

The Raid: Redemption

Brutal.

The Raid: Redemption
2011, 100 minutes, directed by Gareth Huw Evans

This film is worth upgrading your sound system for.

WE ARE LEGION: The Story of the Hacktivists

This feel-good activism documentary chronicles the story of Anonymous and it's offshoots, from its origins on 4chan, early operations against Hal Turner and Scientology, through the Lulzsec activities of 2011. It does a good job of marketing the Freedom ethos, but there's little time spent on opposing viewpoints if you want an apolitical account.

If you don't believe the government will always protects ALL your freedoms, you too rely on Anonymous. I expect though that only those who agree with film will ever see it.

WE ARE LEGION: The Story of Anonymous
2012, 89 minutes, directed by Brian Knappenberger

Keyhole

The director of this film describes it as "gangsters meet ghosts" turned into an autobiography of a house. Ulysses returns to his family home, determined to reach his wife Hyacinth on the top floor. To get there, though, he must navigate the other rooms of the house and their unearthly inhabitants.

Or at least that's how it's billed. I describe it more as surreal experimentation. Or a black & white cinematic study of how many actors (young and quite old) you can get full nude and acting like a crazy ghost on film.

It's not really for me.

Keyhole
2012, directed by Guy Maddin

Sinister

SXSW's not-so-secret screening was the first public screening of Sinister, exactly as everyone thought.  While I appreciate all the effort they went to for the film to screen here, it just didn't work for me like I'd hoped.  Ellison (Ethan Hawke) is a true-crime writer seeking his second Big Novel, having suffered several unspecified failures.  He moves his family - wife Trace (Juliet Rylance), son Trevor (Michael Hall D'addario), and daughter Ashley (Clare Foley) into the house of his latest focus, a family of five where four members were hung from a tree in the back yard, and the final member, a daughter Stephanie, disappeared.

Very quickly the scope of the crime grows when Ellison finds a box of "Home Movies" in the attic, along with a Super 8 film projector.  The first film shows the murder of the family - a film the police never found.  The other four films show the deaths of similar families, each killed by a different method, each in a different state, and each (as he later learns) with a missing child, stretched out over the past 45 years.  At the same time the supernatural events in the house lead him to believe that maybe the killer never left...

I didn't think Ellison's actions were plausible, something admittedly I can overlook (as I often must) for horror films.  The real problems though were in the ending.  I have BIG SPOILERS below the film info below.  Read on only if you have seen the film or have no intention of doing so.

Sinister
2012, directed by Scott Derrickson










THESE ARE SPOILERS!  Things that just didn't work:
1. The biggest problem is the slow, all-cards-on-the-table ending.  We just didn't need everything spelled out like that in passionless film.  First the kids should not have already been mindless automatons when they killed their families.  It would have been better if they were doing it scared shitless and crying, while being forced to by the Boogie Man.  And what Ashley does after Ellison dies seems redundant.  Who cares that the kids live in the film?  The movie should have ended the instance Ellison was killed, his family dying first.
2. When Ellison learned that one dead family previously lived in a home that was itself the scene of an earlier film, it was obvious the same would be true for all the other murders.  It also meant that "family piles into the car and flees" would never be a suitable ending.  Either they'd need to fight and win, or they wouldn't make it.  That's all fine, except that the phone call from the deputy at the end where he explains all of this is completely pointless.  I got it already, thanks, don't slow things down.  Maybe the only useful bit is the deputy's comment that his action might have "accelerated the schedule" which was somehow true but really never explained.  Why'd they need to die the day they moved?  The other families clearly lived at least a little while in their new homes based on the films.
3.  Why did the Boogie Man switch to Super 8 in the 1960s?  Was that when he stopped using photographs?  During the course of the film - which could also double as an Apple product instructional video - Ellison proves the editing superiority of digital cameras and a computer.  I think it would have been more satisfactory somehow if Ashley was filming on her dad's digicam at the end, with a USB stick dropped in the Home Movies box if that clip isn't cut (as it wouldn't be I guess if they want a sequel segue.)  The Boogie Man needs to keep up with the times or else he'll be stuck with a family that doesn't even know what the Super 8 projector is.

Safety Not Guaranteed

I'm old enough to be sentimental about things. In the film they say "It's not about a girl, it's about a time and a place." But it's not. It's really more about finding who you want to be right here and right now.

Darius (Aubrey Plaza) and two coworkers follow a classified ad:
"WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. 'Safety Not Guaranteed.' I have only done this once before."

Safety Not Guaranteed
2012, 85 minutes, directed by Colin Treverrow

The Announcement

AIDS is the medical story of our generation. It appeared as a modern-day plague, became a death sentence, then evolved into a tragic yet chronic and manageable disease. And for all of that Earvin "Magic" Johnson was there. I didn't follow basketball and I knew about his announcement. November 7, 1991. Other than a lady who spoke at an assembly at my junior high, he was the only person I knew who had AIDS/HIV. And yet, over the years, he didn't...die. I saw this today to understand why.

What I got was so much more, focused on his uplifting spirit. At first I wasn't sure about having Magic narrate his own film, but ultimately as a story of optimism there's no better choice. And for the record, he takes the exact same cocktail as everyone else lucky enough to have insurance and treatment.

The Announcement
2012, 75 minutes, directed by Nelson George

The Imposter

Thirteen-year-old Nicholas Clayton disappeared from his San Antonio home in 1993.  Three years later, a 23-year-old French imposter claimed to be him, having been kidnapped and held as a sex slave.  His hair color didn't match, his eye color didn't match, and he spoke English with an accent.  And yet you won't believe how far it goes...

The Imposter
2012, 95 minutes, directed by Bart Layton

[REC]³ Génesis

 When you're whole premise - demonic zombie infestation film with shakey cam - becomes a cliché, what should you do?  For Paco Plaza, the answer is kick it out, literally in this case, and fortunately not that long into the film.  This leaves the third installment of the [REC] franchise (Quarantine per the U.S. remake) with a very different feel than the first two.  It, too, has lost the claustrophobic charm of its predecessors, set this time in the spacious buildings and grounds of a reception hall.  It's her wedding day, and nothing is going to keep the bride from her groom.  This isn't a demonic zombie film.  It's a love story.  With demonic zombies.

[REC]³ Génesis
2012, 80 minutes, directed by Paco Plaza


Scott, people don't ask questions during your Q&A for a reason.  First off, you ask 60% of the questions yourself.  Then when you cajole a question from the audience, you take the gist of it, come up with a different question of your own, and "restate" it to the director so he'll answer your version.  And you interrupted the director while he was talking to put words in his mouth!  Twice!

The Cabin in the Woods

Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon don't want anyone to talk about this film.  It's hard not too because it was fucking awesome.  You think you have it figured out?  Oh no you don't; check out this.

What happens when five young college students set off for a weekend alone in the woods?  Mayhem of course.  If you would ever watch a horror comedy, make sure you watch this one.

"This came from a place of love.  Joss and I just love horror movies." - director Drew Goddard at the world premiere Q&A on opening night of SXSW 2012.

The Cabin in the Woods
2012, 105 minutes, directed by Drew Goddard




"No, no, no.  It's not an angry raping tree.  It's an angry molesting tree." - Drew

Outbreak

I think this is the first film I've ever seen with Dustin Hoffman in the lead role.  In truth, he struggles somewhat as an archetypical "good guy" without a character to absorb.  He stars as USAMRIID agent investigating a new disease that has appeared in sub-Saharan Africa.  As it spreads to the United States, he struggles to find the source, save his wife, and fight the establishment determined to suppress the spread through any means necessary.

Outbreak
1995, 127 minutes, directed by Wolfgang Petersen