Wastelander Panda

Why -hasn't- a live-action post-apocalypse Australian wasteland survival story starred mutant pandas before?

Be warned: it's not a comedy.  But it's spectacular.  Available as a web series later this week.

Wastelander Panda

2014, 71 minutes, directed by Victoria Cocks

Fasandraeperne (The Absent One)

Two murders, twenty years ago.  A missing girl.  Powerful tycoons.  And detectives Carl and Assad, driven to solve the case and bring the guilty to justice.

Based on a book series, the film plays out like a novel, with a rich background that implies more than it shows.  There's a second film and more to come, so if you're looking for a new crime series to love be ready to dive in.

Fasandraeperne (The Absent One)

2013, 119 minutes, directed by Mikkel Nørgaard

The Hive

If you like zombie survival and Memento go see this film, but seriously try to learn as little else as possible going in.  You won't be disappointed.

The Hive

2014, 89 minutes, directed by David Yarovesky

"I love you Katie."

Grand Piano

If you've ever wanted to see a suspense thriller starring Elijah Wood, set in real time during and amidst a classical orchestra concert where Elijah actually performs the works while facing off against a threatening sniper, you have oddly specific desires and prepare to be satisfied.

Grand Piano
2013, 90 minutes, directed by Eugenio Mira

I finally lucked into the correct theater.  Hooray for no simulcast!

Machete Kills

Robert Rodriguez has a vison.  It's called Machete Kills Again... In Space! and it's the pre-announced title for the third film in this gritty Mexican action series.  At the end of the first film, Machete (Danny Trejo, in a role he's made for) has joined the U.S. ICE with partner Sartana (Jessica Alba).  At the start of the third film, Machete is tracking down the evil silver-masked villain on a space station.  To get from A to B, they had to make a film, and Machete Kills is the result.

To say it's a bridge film is an understatement.  It's a plot conveyance.  Masked assassins kill Sartana and steal a U.S. nuclear weapon.  POTUS (Carlos Estevez, yes that one) commissions Machete as the only person able to drop into Mexico and get it back.  But when things go awry, Machete is left with a captive with a deathwish and 48 hours to get back to the United States.

The cameos are one of the strong spots, with a role specially made for Cuba Gooding Jr., Lady Gaga, and Antonio Banderas (yes, all of them).  And I swear one of the guards at Mendez the Mad's compound looked like Bruce Campbell.  But overall, it's a bridge to a contrived story, one that Robert Rodriguez would much rather tell.

Machete Kills
2013, 107 minutes, directed by Robert Rodriguez

"Machete Happens"

Pete and Toshi Get a Camera

In 1955, facing prison and banned from performing by the McCarthy witch hunt, Pete Seeger and his wife Toshi set out to make films. Eventually they decide to film their musician friends, and expand to American folk singers, the last Texas prison work crew that knew the old work songs, coal miner banjo pickers, etc.

Finally, in 1963, the McCarthy case is dropped, and Pete can again travel abroad. He and his family set out on a whirlwind 11-month tour of 28 countries around the world, recording and re-performing folk and native music while his wife filmed. This archival footage, complete with excellent audio, is coupled with modern interviews to tell the tale of their journey and the music they found and shared.

Pete and Toshi Get a Camera
2013, 88 minutes, directed by William Eigen

Snap

A schizophrenic's psychotic break, set to dubstep.  What more should you want?

Snap
2013, 88 minutes, directed by Youssef Delara and Victor Teran

Hawking

Why would the world's most celebrated physicist narrate a biographical feature documentary?  To make sure it's filled with his own dry humor, of course.  Hawking is such a film, covering the highs and lows of Cambridge Professor Stephen Hawking's life, from youth through college, discoveries and marriages, and the continuing decay of his body.  "I felt like some sort of tragic character," he says, so "I took to listening to Wagner."

While clearly a person who's self ambition has been the focus of his life, he nevertheless recognizes the impact that his life and career has had on those around him, and on public culture in general.  I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about him in his own words, and in those of his friends and family.

Hawking
2013, 86 minutes, directed by Stephen Finnigan

Plus One

Just one year out of high school, Jill is diving into college life while her boyfriend David stayed behind. A stupid kiss is the impetus to tear them apart, and David thinks he has just one night - at the ultimate Spring party - to win her back. Thanks to extraterrestrial interference, though he may have more chances than he expects.

Meanwhile, Teddy is simply looking for the time of his life, and gets more than he bargains for. This is a story of understanding, of decisions, of consequences, of what it means to be you. All of which is set in the midst of young nudity and debauchery and a good bit of science fiction.

Plus One
2013, 95 minutes, directed by Dennis Iliadis

Milo

Ken has stress issues: an asshole boss, an overbearing mother with a young virile husband, a deadbeat dad, and a wife who desperately wants a family. All the stress leaves him with constant GI issues. Compounding these issues are the bloodthirsty parasite living in Ken's colon that comes out for revenge...

This is the best film I've seen so far this SXSW. I could easily see this become the Army of Darkness of the current college generation.

Milo
2013, 85 minutes, directed by Jacob Vaughan

Burma

Seven years after last abandoning his family, Christian's father shows up unexpectedly on the eve of a family weekend. None of them - Christian, his brother, or sister - particularly welcome their father's arrival, but tepidly accept him to hear his explanation for his disappearance.

A dialog-driven drama, the film explores the bonds of family and the impact when those are torn apart.

Burma
2013, 81 minutes, directed by Carlos Puga

Tiny: A Story About Living Small

With no building experience, no tools, no blueprints, and no materials, Christopher Smith and his friend Merete set out to build a small little tiny (oops, must use correct term every time) house. Intermixed with their progress are interviews with others who live in and build such homes, usually 200 square feet or less. The film seems condescending at times to those who choose to live in more space - even to me in my 1000 square foot "mansion" - but I don't think that's intentional and it passes.

Meanwhile, they hope to inspire ecological- and soul-enriching movements towards living living for time rather than money, including with another kickstarter scheduled to start soon. I wish them both the best of luck.

Tiny: A Story About Living Small
2013, 62 minutes, directed by Merete Mueller

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.

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

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

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

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 

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.

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.