Antiviral

Well, here it is, the end of another film festival.  This is my 34th screening including shorts series; it's my 35th event including the awards ceremony.  With a last-minute change to my planned film, I'm walking in mostly blind to Antiviral.

This film focuses on the cult of celebrity.  We (as a culture, not me) follow every moment of their lives, good and bad, desperate to grab at shoestrings and remnants of their lives.  Is celebrity mania so strong that people would pay to get celebrity diseases?  Would you eat celebrity cell steaks?  It's an interesting topic, and one delved into whole-heartedly by this story.  I find it refreshingly different that the lead actor must act sick for the entire film, as he falls deeper into the underworld of society.

Antiviral
2012, 108 minutes, directed by Brandon Cronenberg

Red Dawn

Sure, this remake of a 1984 classic is all moving and stuff.  America is my home, too, and I don't think we take too kindly to unwelcome guests.  But it's that very point that makes the film so comically unbelievable in this era.

The producer at the Q&A mentioned that they didn't talk to John Milius prior to or during the remake.  I'm not sure they talked to the rest of the world, or really watched the TV or read the internet either.  The film simply does not work in this day and age, and while it will likely do well riding on the coat tails of Chris Hemsworth's popularity, they could have made an actually sensical film using him instead.

Red Dawn
2012, 129 minutes, directed by Dan Bradley


First, look at it from the pro-America standpoint.  Is that really all the resistance a town of that side would see?  Seriously?  And where is the national guard?  The EMP that knocked out the power grid didn't hurt anybody's cell phones or any car electronics, so most military weaponry would be fine.  And where's the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps.?  I have every confidence in our military to handle a situation like this.  Someone has seriously underestimated them.

Point two, where are our allies?  They mentioned Texas at one point in the film.  Assuming somehow that the invaders took Fort Hood, why isn't the Mexican Army marching in to assist?  Where's Canada?  Europe?  For all they call it a "Self-Defense Force", the Japanese military is plenty formidable, and at this point they would certainly come to our immediate assistance vs. North Korea, knowing that they would likely be next.

Finally, and the most important point, what about the worst aspects of America?  Let's assume the Army is decimated, the Air Force grounded, the Marines all dead.  Let's assume all of our allies abandoned us, laughing all the way to the bank.  The U.S. Navy has enough of a nuclear arsenal deep underwater to obliterate the planet.  If our allies don't assist and the situation looks suitably grim, it's hard to imaging we wouldn't squeeze off a few nukes to push North Korea underwater and make a few holes where major Russian cities used to be.  America truly going down would be a flailing, wild, evil beast.

So anyway, that's what I spent too much of the film thinking about.

Wrong

In this Drafthouse Films Quentin Dupieux special, Dolph Springer has to deal with: his missing dog, coworkers at the office, the clingy pizza operator, his gardener, a private detective, and the police.  And none of it makes any damn sense.  A lot of the audience was laughing at this but I found it incredibly stupid.  Why did anyone pay money to film this?  I would have rather stayed home and ironed my clothes.

Wrong
2012, 94 minutes, directed by Quentin Dupieux

I can't even tag this as a commentary.  It isn't funny unless you're high.

Doomsday Book

This film is actually a series of three shorts, created together as a single motion picture, all focused on (as you may guess) doomsday scenarios - from a Korean perspective.  The first - Brave New World - is a straight-up zombie scenario as told via patient zero.  For the second short - Heavenly Creature - the definition of "doomsday" is stretched to include singularity, as a UR International robot awakens as Buddha.  Finally the third film - Happy Birthday - takes a new look at asteroid apocalypse in the modern age.

I won't call the film epic or particularly enthralling, but if you like the Future States shorts or similar looks at future probability - and are willing to tolerate a little silliness on the side - then this film provides more footage for you.

Doomsday Book
2012, 115 minutes, directed by Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim

2 Coelhos (Two Rabbits)

Two Rabbits is an ably-told crime story, with misdirection and subterfuge to keep the audience in the dark until the very end.  It's a story plenty well told, sure; I just didn't like it.

2 Coelhos (Two Rabbits)
2012, 108 minutes, directed by Afonso Poyart

It's too late in the festival to watch things that turn out like this.

Cloud Atlas

This epic, interwoven adventure tells not one, not two, but six stories across time.  Past lives, past loves, past loss.  It's all connected.  It's seriously the most epic film I've seen since The Fountain.  Alas, Cloud Atlas didn't touch me in the same way, but I appreciate everything the Wachowski's, Tykwer and the actors did to realize this on screen.  Unfortunately, given it's scope and very intellectual overriding motives, I doubt it will do well in mainstream American theaters.  I want to see more films like this made, even if this wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

Cloud Atlas
2012, 164 minutes, directed by Tom Tykwer, Lana Wakowski, and Andy Wakowski

Flimmer (Flicker)

The hapless employees of a remote Swedish electric and communication company try to live their lives amidst the local 4G roll out and a band of anti-EM terrorists.  I think it has a very subtle, very northern sense of humor, meaning most people won't find it funny at all.

Flimmer (Flicker)
2012, 100 minutes, directed by Patrik Eklund

Come Out and Play

This disturbing remake of 1976's Who Can Kill a Child? is set in Mexico, not Spain, but features the same chilling path of desperation and tragedy until the lead characters face the choice to die or kill their assailants.

Come Out and Play
2012, 110 minutes, directed by Makinov

Dead Sushi

Rina Takeda, who looks surprisingly familiar despite me never seeing any of her previous films, stars as Keiko in the latest action comedy by Japanese director Noboru Iguchi.  Raised by an overbearing father to be a sushi chef, but spurned as not capable of mastery, Keiko runs away to work at a holiday spa.  Comedy ensues as she tries to satisfy the spa owners and guests from a major corporation, but things go awry when a mysterious stranger arrives with flying, animated sushi, seeking revenge...

Dead Sushi
2012,  109 minutes, directed by Noboru Iguchi

Earlier this week I sat next to Rina Takeda at the first ABCs of Death screening, the intro of which featured Tim League and the audience downing a can of Shiner beer "high school style."  She and the other Japanese female guests didn't participate. =P So while I have no proof or record of her being there, I know that she and her friend, film stars, somewhere out there have photographs of me shotgunning a beer for what I hope is my one and only time.

That kind of random connection makes me an instant fan, and I hope to see her have continued success.

Sightseers

Ahead of this screening, the first "secret" screening of Fantastic Fest 2012, I had heard from an apparently-not-so-reliable-source that this would be the big-budget film Cloud Atlas.  Disappointed as I am that none of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, or Hugo Weaving were here, the film was instead a delightful British comedy Sightseers featuring a cast of unknowns and just the right amount of horror to make such a film fit in at the festival.

Chris takes his new girlfriend Tina on a caravan holiday, her first real vacation from an overbearing mother.  Things quickly go awry, and she attempts to adapt.  I really don't want to say more, but it was very enjoyable.  As my friend Joel put it, the characters have depth.  They grow on you.

Sightseers
2012, 88 minutes, directed by Ben Wheatley

No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest of the Wicked)

I've watched several films this week featuring good-cops-with-a-side-business, where they're put in a bad situation and need to bring forth their best side to save the day.  Santos is not one of those cops.  He's downright evil.  Set in Paris ahead of a G-20 summit, this feature finds him very quickly murdering three people late night at a strip joint.  A witness escapes, forcing Santos to ditch his G-20 surveillance responsibilities and take on investigation of the club's contacts.  Meanwhile, Chacón, a police investigator, takes on the murder case, forging ahead into the same investigation from a different angle, thinking terrorism.  Can she catch Santos before he eliminates the witness, or is something more going on here?

No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest of the Wicked)
2011, 114 minutes, directed by Enrique Urbizu

Graceland

Marlon, driver for a dirty Congressman in the Philippines, is taking both his and his boss' daughters home from school when a kidnapping attempt goes wrong.  Rather than take the Congressman's daughter, the kidnappers kill her and take Marlon's by mistake.  He has to find a way to get his boss' help to get his daughter back without him knowing his daughter is already gone.

This is a very dark and gritty film, with almost no one coming out untainted.

Graceland
2012, 99 minutes, directed by Ron Morales

King of Pigs

Children have limited filters for emotion, and while at their peaks they are angelic, at their depths their brutality is sickening.  This Korean animated film starts by sticking a knife in your gut, and then just keeps twisting for two hours.  Kyung-min, seemingly calm after an unexplained opening scene, contacts old friend Jong-suk.  It's been 15 years - since middle school - since they've talked, and it's time to catch up on old times.  Prepare to be depressed.

King of Pigs
2011, 97 minutes, directed by Sang-ho Yeon

Here Comes the Devil

The devil knows no depths he will not sink.

Here Comes the Devil
2012, 97 minutes, directed by Adrián García Bogliano

Grup 7 (Unit 7)

Late 1980s: Ceville, Spain.  The city prepares for the 1992 world expo.  A group of four narcotics detectives - from a rookie to a brutal, hard-nosed detective - work the streets to clear them of heroin ahead of the world's attention.  Their actions quickly get out of hand as they try to stay one step ahead of internal affairs and the drug traffickers.

The plot in this film is, let's say, subtle.  Think of it more as five-years-in-the-life of four detectives.  A strong, quality film.

Grup 7 (Unit 7)
2012, 95 minutes, directed by Alberto Rodriguez

Holy Motors

Is Monsieur Oscar a master of disguise?  The ultimate odd-jobs man? Or is he and the entire Paris population simply insane?  Prepare to have your head rattled with Holy Motors.  Warning: people going into this film expecting a plot tend to be disappointed.  Think of it more as a day-in-the-life of the Most Interesting Man in the World.

Holy Motors
2012, 115 minutes, directed by Leos Carax 

Cockneys vs Zombies

With the exception of one short film, this festival has suffered from an extreme lack of zombies. I rectified the situation in a midnight screening of... Cockneys vs. Zombies.

Alan Ford (Brick Top from Snatch) owns this film as the grandfather, a WWII veteran and general badass.  And there are a few new tricks to a zombie film - zombies chasing a guy with a walker, a zombie with an iron plate in his head - but overall it's pretty run-of-the-mill except for Ford's performance.  The planner for the festival who introduced the film said that every third film they screened was a zombie flick, and every third film they saw sucked.  I can see this as the best of a lot of dredge, sure, but overall the genre is getting spent.

Cockneys vs Zombies
2012, 88 minutes, directed by Matthias Hoene 

Fuck Up

Ignore the title; I think there are maybe two swear words in the entire film.  Instead it's another good-crook-gets-in-trouble story, perhaps the third I've seen this week (Break Out, Plan C).  Jack, Robin, Glenn, Rasmussin - four longtime friends - get in over their heads when a drug smuggling job goes awry, leaving Jack and Glenn in trouble with the local mafia.  Jack, also in the midst of family drama, is fully aware of his faults and spends most of the film trying to make things right, to the best of his ability.

It's a tight crew - the entire cast and crew have a show together - and the interactions work.  This is a very enjoyable film.

Fuck Up
2012, 95 minutes, directed by Øystein Karlsen

$2M budget per the director

Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman

Santiago is a young DJ in the wrong place at the wrong time when he overhears crime boss Che Longana put a $300 million peso hit on the Machine Gun Woman (Fernanda Urrejola), a spurned ex-girlfriend-assassin of the mob kingpen.  To save his skin he swears he knows the girl and can bring her in, but how?  An excellent mix of story and video game tracks his progress as he finds and wins over the Machine Gun Woman.

This film lacks the raw physical action of Ernesto Diaz Espinosa's previous works; during the Q&A the director said that Fernanda had only two days of training (one for hand-to-hand combat, one for guns) prior to shooting, so a lot more of the action is carried by swagger and gunfire than physical activity.  That said, I still appreciate Espinosa's flavor as he puts a video game spin on his latest creation.

Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman
2012, 75 minutes, directed by Ernesto Diaz Espinosa

Errors of the Human Body

Geoff (Michael Eklund) is a controversial geneticist due to his research into embryo screening, based on (and using) the death of his newborn son to a unique genetic defect.  Former student Rebekka (Karoline Herfurth) lures him to the Max Planck Institute in Dresden after he's forced out of work in the U.S.  Slowly he realizes that there's some Days-of-Our-Lives-style backstabbing and intrigue going on at the institute - I say slowly because it took me a while to realize that this was the real plot instead of more exposition - and he steps right into it, while also dealing with the loss of his ex-wife and rekindling of an old affair with Rebekka.  Then the plot wakes up and gets very personal for Geoff, and it seems like the climax has passed and the film will end.  Only at this point it doesn't; the denouement is stretched out for 30 minutes so the writers can make one final point before they let the film end.

There's very little sci fi at Fantastic Fest this year.  Vanishing Waves is the best of the two I've seen, with Errors of the Human Body a disappointing second due to pacing issues.  I shouldn't spend the first part of the film wondering when it will finally start, and the last part of the film wondering when it will finally end.  I totally wanted to love this film and I didn't.

Errors of the Human Body
2012, 100 minutes, directed by Eron Sheean 

Vanishing Waves

Lithuanian scientists experiment with brain-wave capture, in the hope of connecting human minds.  The first experiments with human-human contact find Lukas (Marius Jampolskis), a lead researcher, dropped in the dreams of coma patient Aurora (Jurga Jutaite), trapped since a car accident which took her husband.  Their immediate, deep connection troubles Lukas, who has to hide his experiences to dig deeper into Aurora's soul and bring her back from the depths.  It's such an intimate look into the woman's mind that I can overlook the story not going as I expected.

Vanishing Waves
2012, 124 minutes, directed by Kristina Buozyte

Tebana Sankichi: Snot Rockets

Japanese people are weird and repressed. I was very tired for this screening, and my legs ached, making it difficult to keep them still. I think both actually enhanced the film experience. ADHD sufferers will enjoy this.

Tebana Sankicki: Snot Rockets
2012, 79 minutes, directed by Yudai Yamaguchi

ABCs of Death

In what I think is the first Drafthouse Films-funded venture, Tim League and Ant Timpson enlist 26 genre film directors to each produce a short, each based on death and a letter of the alphabet.  As is usual, I don't review shorts except when they are produced together to form a feature film.  I'm not going to attempt to review every story; it's sufficient to say some were funny, some were bizarre, and some were downright disgusting.  I can't recommend it for anyone with a stomach or conscious.

ABCs of Death
2012, 123 minutes, directed by Angela Bettis, Hélène Cattet, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza, Jason Eisener, Bruno Forzani, Adrián García Bogliano, Xavier Gens, Noboru Iguchi, Thomas Cappelen Malling, Jorge Michel Grau, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Banjong Pisanthanakun, Simon Rumley, Marcel Sarmiento, Jon Schnepp, Srdjan Spasojevic, Timo Tjahjanto, Andrew Traucki, Nacho Vigalondo, Jake West, Ti West, Ben Wheatley, Adam Wingard, Mikael Wulff, Yudai Yamaguchi, and Lee Hardcastle




The list of deaths below is for my own reference.  I don't recommend reading it, whether you plan to see the film or not.
Apocalypse
Bird
Cycle
Dogfight
Exhumed
Far
Gravity
Hydro-Electric Diffusion
Itchy
Jidai-Geki
Kapoo
Libido
Miscarriage
Nature
Orgasm
Parama Ribo (Pressure)
Quack
Rice
Speed
Toilet
Unsuspecting
Vagitist
XXL
Yeti
Zymosis

Plan C

Ronald, a Dutch cop, is down on his luck.  In debt to the local Chinese mafia and constantly frittering his illegal side-cash away on gambling, just waiting for luck to turn to his side.  When the mafia threatens his son, he has to take action.  Plan A: win enough to pay back his debt gambling.  Fail.  Plan B: borrow enough money to pay the mafia in time.  Fail.  Plan C: steal the money by enlisting help and robbing his gambling house....

Plan C is a thoroughly enjoyable story from start to finish.

Plan C
2012, 95 minutes, directed by Max Porcelijn

Taped

A Dutch couple, on vacation in Argentina to rekindle their failing marriage, witness a police shooting.  With no where to turn, tension rises as their situation grows increasingly desperate.  As the title might imply, part of the film is recorded shakey-cam style using the couple's camcorder.  Fortunately for the audience, though, that genre is falling out of favor, and the film quickly adopts a hybrid style where a professional third-party camera is used more than half the time.

I think the film hits all its marks, and while the overall plot is somewhat predictable the individual twists and turns make for a good, if suspenseful, adventure.

Taped
2012, 90 minutes, directed by Diederik Van Rooijen

Toata lumea din familia noastra (Everybody in the Family)

The description for this film said that I shouldn't know anything about it going in, and that I should stop reading right away.  My mistake was following their guidance.  Right off the bat they tell us that it was a all a trick; this isn't a genre film at all, but instead a family drama.

Marius, the father, wants to pick up his daughter for his brief custody week.  Only his ex-wife, Otilla, is a conniving schemer who wants to keep him away from his daughter.  Oh, Marius is also incredibly stupid when put into bad situations.  The only saving grace is their daughter, Sofia, who (played by five-year-old Sofia Nicolaescu) is put in the middle as her parents, her grandma, and her mother's boyfriend ratchet up the insane.  None of them should be allowed near children.

Toata lumea din familia noastra (Everybody in the Family)
2012, 107 minutes, directed by Radu Jude

Cold Blooded

Cold Blooded is a police crime drama centered around a strong female lead ("Lauren" in Lost Girl apparently, if you watch it), with a single bit of gore right in the middle to ratchet up the tension.  But that's not important.  What's important is that this is one of the best films I've seen in a good while, and all of you that would ever watch a police crime drama should find a way to see this.  The cinematography was great, the acting solid, the special effects amazing for a $2M film.  And in the Q&A, when the producer said that the actual budget was $275k and it was shot in just two weeks, the audience (myself included) was astounded.  It's after 2 AM and I just sat through the screening, but if I had a DVD of this I'd put it on again.  This film deserves nationwide release and it needs an audience of devoted fans to get one.

Cold Blooded
2012, 86 minutes, directed by Jason Lapeyre

Miami Connection

Yes this is a 1987 film.  Why I am seeing it at a festival?  Because it was billed as "the BEST unseen movie in HISTORY!"  An American-Asian martial arts film from their heyday, this low-budget flick faded into obscurity until it was rescued by the Alamo Drafthouse.  The screening today featured a reunion of the entire Dragon Sound ensemble, the band around which the centers.  (I sat along side them, next to Vincent Hirsch and his wife.)

I'm not sure if this would appeal to many people.  The dialog is awful, the facial hair is straight outta the '80s and the plot is served with queso on top.  My sister-in-law would love it.

Miami Connection
1987, 120 minutes, directed by Woo-sang Park and Y. K. Kim

The Conspiracy

Two Canadian directors set out to create a documentary film about a local conspiracy theorist.  But when their subject goes missing a few months into production, the filming doesn't end.  Tracking down his work, the filmmakers continue to put the pieces together, tying -everything- together and to a mysterious world cabal.

The film explores how conspiracy theorists create un-refutable positions to ensure that no reality can interfere with their beliefs.  Then the film shows how far the conspiracy really goes...

One of the director's comments was particular interesting.  As he said, if athletes dressed up in the woods and conducted pagan rituals, the media would be all over it.  But when the people who actually run the world do it (e.g. Bohemian Grove), the media is generally silent.

The Conspiracy
2012, directed by Christopher MacBride 

The Warped Forest

I'm not really sure what I just watched.  Even having seen Funky Forest, the weirdest thing on film, I'm at a complete loss for how that formed a coherent story in the mind of writer/producer/director's Shunichiro Miki's mind.  It's Japanese.  Picture strange creatures, unusual currency, and über technology.  For God's sake, don't let it splash the dumplings!

The Warped Forest
2011, 82 minutes, directed by Shunichiro Miki 

La Memoria Del Muerto (The Memory of the Dead)

Three films in one day?  Why yes, it is the start of another Fantastic Fest!

As the director puts it, La Memoria Del Muerto (The Memory of the Dead) is not a horror film; it's a love story.  Or, as I see it, a story of horrible love.

Five friends of Jorge reunite with his widow to remember his life.  And when the dead start to return, it seems the reunion is something more... Be prepared for emotional scars to be ripped off and eaten as the guests reunite with the ghosts of their pasts.

La Memoria Del Muerto (The Memory of the Dead)
2011, 89 minutes, directed by Valentín Javier Diment

Black Out

In this Netherlands crime comedy-drama, Jos:

• wakes to find a unknown corpse in his bed.
• discovers he stole and lost 20 kilos of cocaine, and both "owners" want it back.
• has a hole where the last two days of memories should be.

Oh, and he's getting married tomorrow.

He thought he'd left this life behind a decade ago, but somehow he's been pulled back in.  An ensemble cast of criminals interact to weave the story of one important day in Jos' life.  It's not remotely new or anything - it's been more than a decade since Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels after all, but I still enjoy the hell out of the genre.

Black Out
2012, 89 minutes, directed by Arne Toonen

Frankenweenie 3D

There's little need to run through the plot Frankenweenie.  It is what you expect it to be, a feature-length rewrite of one of Tim Burton's early shorts.  That's not why the film is awesome.  It's awesome because of the attention to detail in creating a vast 3D, claymation world, and framing that world in the confines and freedoms of black and white film.  It's awesome because of Tim Burton's macabre sense of humor and how readily it can be conveyed through puppets.  Forget your kids (seriously, don't bring them under 8 years old or so); this film packs plenty of emotional punch for adults.

Frankenweenie 3D
2012, 87 minutes, directed by Tim Burton

In the spirit of the film, the Alamo sponsored a Monster Ball for patrons and their (under 20 pounds) dogs in costume.  And as part of the multi-cast world premiere, one of the theaters allowed pets - but fortunately not my theater.

Showdown at Area 51

When the newer guy on Burn Notice crashes from the sky, chased by a big guy in a gas mask wielding nanobot shurikens, only some B-movie actor dude and Chiana from Farscape (strangely, as a human) can save the world.

This isn't a very good movie.  It's especially not very good late at night on Siffy when I should be asleep, with regular breaks so Jimmie Johnson can hawk Extenze.

Showdown at Area 51
2007, 96 minutes, directed by C. Roma

The Book of Eli

I knew this film had religious undertones, but whoa.  Still, this was a good story of the re-emergence of hope in world where it had long passed.  And there's a decent bit of knife combat.

The Book of Eli
2010, 118 minutes, directed by Albert and Allen Hughes