this week's entry features local heroes, the gourds, as the subject of doug hawes-davis' new documentary, all the labor (2013). it is screening three times during the sxsw film festival next week. get on out and support the boys.
Showing posts with label sxsw film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sxsw film. Show all posts
3.06.2013
3.13.2012
trailer tuesday
sxsw rolls on and today's entry celebrates the eternal desire to rock. at the age of 70 this beautiful woman decided to make music and now she can't stop, finding music in everything she touches. ladies and gentlemen, kristín björk, orri jonsson and ingibjorg birgisdóttir's grandma lo-fi: the basement tapes of sigrídur níelsdóttir (2012).
3.06.2012
trailer tuesday
the sxsw film festival starts friday and, as always, there are too many things to see and too little time. to get things off on the right foot, this week's entry is for one of my most anticipated festival films, poull brien's charles bradley: soul of america (2012). at some point this week i will be somewhere in austin, watching this, probably crying like a baby.
3.19.2011
sxsw film 2011 - the award winner
i have only been able to make it to a handful of films this time around, but i was lucky enough to get into robbie pickering's natural selection (2011) on friday night and was pleased to find that it lived up to expectations.
pickering's film won both the audience and jury grand prize in the narrative feature competition, in addition to best editing, score, screenplay and breakthrough performance awards for its two leads, rachael harris and matt o'leary. i can't say how deserving it was, as i didn't see any of the other films in the narrative feature competition, but i can say i enjoyed it a great deal. it tells the story of linda white, barren, devout christian, suburban texas housewife. after over two decades of marriage, she discovers that her husband abe has been surreptitiously donating to a sperm bank for almost the entire time. this comes to her attention because abe has a stroke one day, mid-donation. in the hospital, she takes his slurred, fevered, potentially final ramblings to be a request for reunion/reconciliation with the seed he parted company with so many years ago. she manages to dig up information for one long lost son, raymond, from a list of what looks like dozens, maybe hundreds, of wildly scattered offspring, and heads to tampa to bring him back. from there, it becomes a road movie that (mostly) manages to avoid the conventions of the genre. the oddball chemistry of the two leads combined with a script that's mindful of the comedy that comes from navigating our own personal minefields makes for a satisfying end result.
rachael harris was the real revelation here. i knew her from some of her television/internet comedy work, so i was familiar with how sharp and funny she is. i was not aware, however, of what a fine dramatic actress she is. she was playing a woman whose life had essentially been suspended in amber since she was sixteen. the march of time was never going to bring the thing she wanted most, a child. she was already moving forward on willpower, filling that void with duty, and now betrayal by her husband had cut her completely adrift. she is facing a monumental loneliness and harris conveys every little nuance of it. with only her puffy jacket to protect her, she ventures out into the dangerous and unfamiliar world. this is a film about rebirth, in no uncertain terms. both raymond's emergence from a lawnmower bag womb in the opening credits and her escape from her suburban texas shell are the beginnings of new lives, in more ways than one. she faces this challenge with a mixture of good cheer, naiveté and dogged determination that makes it nearly impossible for the viewer to do anything but hope she gets everything she wants. what makes it interesting is that we get to go alongside her as she is truly discovering exactly what that is, for herself, for the first time. if you know me, you know my general opinion about most coming of age stories, but i don't think i have ever seen such an effective one that's actually about a middle-aged woman. she is so plainly beautiful and wide-eyed that sometimes it almost hurts. there is a moment or two that stretches the suspension of your disbelief to its limit and the questions that go unanswered leave a few gaps in the narrative, but her pluck, growth and new-found self-reliance are worth your investment. it's not a perfect film and it resides squarely in "indie with heart" territory, but this character (based on pickering's mother) and her story are unique enough to avoid most of the clichés and harris' performance is fantastic. it's a wonderful effort from pickering, especially for a debut feature.
aside from the films i have already written about, the only other things i managed to catch during the festival were a couple of midnight movies, both full of recycled genre elements, neither of which was particularly notable. the first was adrián garcía bogliano's cold sweat (2010). of the two midnight offerings i caught, this was the far better film. a pair of kids stumble into the hands of a pair of killers who are the remnants of a group of revolutionary political activists whose ideological battles have dwindled in scope to the point that they are now focused on eradicating foolish kids, lured via the internet, with a twenty-five year old case of explosives. the best thing this film had going for it was the argentinian spin bogliano put on this particular set of horror tropes. from the political nature of the back story to the fact that the scantily clad damsel in distress actually has some hips on her, it makes for an interesting experience when you filter a lifetime of watching horror films through another cultural perspective. the nitroglycerin as weapon of choice was also a nice touch. none of that was enough, however, to raise it above average. the second midnight offering was james wan's aptly titled insidious (2010).
ok, to be fair, it's not just a rip-off of poltergeist (1982). it blatantly steals from dozens of other superior movies as well. the twins from the shining (1980) are in it, all grown up and apparently suicide girls, to name just one. almost everything about this movie was laughable. the "demon" in the climactic confrontation looks more like he's getting ready to go to burning man than take your soul. it's about as scary as an aerosmith video. the titles were interesting. that's about the best thing i can say about this derivative, anemic piece of tripe. don't waste your time. go see ti west's film instead.
and, as a parting shot, here is one of joe nicolosi's bumpers from the festival. kind of clever.
pickering's film won both the audience and jury grand prize in the narrative feature competition, in addition to best editing, score, screenplay and breakthrough performance awards for its two leads, rachael harris and matt o'leary. i can't say how deserving it was, as i didn't see any of the other films in the narrative feature competition, but i can say i enjoyed it a great deal. it tells the story of linda white, barren, devout christian, suburban texas housewife. after over two decades of marriage, she discovers that her husband abe has been surreptitiously donating to a sperm bank for almost the entire time. this comes to her attention because abe has a stroke one day, mid-donation. in the hospital, she takes his slurred, fevered, potentially final ramblings to be a request for reunion/reconciliation with the seed he parted company with so many years ago. she manages to dig up information for one long lost son, raymond, from a list of what looks like dozens, maybe hundreds, of wildly scattered offspring, and heads to tampa to bring him back. from there, it becomes a road movie that (mostly) manages to avoid the conventions of the genre. the oddball chemistry of the two leads combined with a script that's mindful of the comedy that comes from navigating our own personal minefields makes for a satisfying end result.
rachael harris was the real revelation here. i knew her from some of her television/internet comedy work, so i was familiar with how sharp and funny she is. i was not aware, however, of what a fine dramatic actress she is. she was playing a woman whose life had essentially been suspended in amber since she was sixteen. the march of time was never going to bring the thing she wanted most, a child. she was already moving forward on willpower, filling that void with duty, and now betrayal by her husband had cut her completely adrift. she is facing a monumental loneliness and harris conveys every little nuance of it. with only her puffy jacket to protect her, she ventures out into the dangerous and unfamiliar world. this is a film about rebirth, in no uncertain terms. both raymond's emergence from a lawnmower bag womb in the opening credits and her escape from her suburban texas shell are the beginnings of new lives, in more ways than one. she faces this challenge with a mixture of good cheer, naiveté and dogged determination that makes it nearly impossible for the viewer to do anything but hope she gets everything she wants. what makes it interesting is that we get to go alongside her as she is truly discovering exactly what that is, for herself, for the first time. if you know me, you know my general opinion about most coming of age stories, but i don't think i have ever seen such an effective one that's actually about a middle-aged woman. she is so plainly beautiful and wide-eyed that sometimes it almost hurts. there is a moment or two that stretches the suspension of your disbelief to its limit and the questions that go unanswered leave a few gaps in the narrative, but her pluck, growth and new-found self-reliance are worth your investment. it's not a perfect film and it resides squarely in "indie with heart" territory, but this character (based on pickering's mother) and her story are unique enough to avoid most of the clichés and harris' performance is fantastic. it's a wonderful effort from pickering, especially for a debut feature.
aside from the films i have already written about, the only other things i managed to catch during the festival were a couple of midnight movies, both full of recycled genre elements, neither of which was particularly notable. the first was adrián garcía bogliano's cold sweat (2010). of the two midnight offerings i caught, this was the far better film. a pair of kids stumble into the hands of a pair of killers who are the remnants of a group of revolutionary political activists whose ideological battles have dwindled in scope to the point that they are now focused on eradicating foolish kids, lured via the internet, with a twenty-five year old case of explosives. the best thing this film had going for it was the argentinian spin bogliano put on this particular set of horror tropes. from the political nature of the back story to the fact that the scantily clad damsel in distress actually has some hips on her, it makes for an interesting experience when you filter a lifetime of watching horror films through another cultural perspective. the nitroglycerin as weapon of choice was also a nice touch. none of that was enough, however, to raise it above average. the second midnight offering was james wan's aptly titled insidious (2010).
ok, to be fair, it's not just a rip-off of poltergeist (1982). it blatantly steals from dozens of other superior movies as well. the twins from the shining (1980) are in it, all grown up and apparently suicide girls, to name just one. almost everything about this movie was laughable. the "demon" in the climactic confrontation looks more like he's getting ready to go to burning man than take your soul. it's about as scary as an aerosmith video. the titles were interesting. that's about the best thing i can say about this derivative, anemic piece of tripe. don't waste your time. go see ti west's film instead.and, as a parting shot, here is one of joe nicolosi's bumpers from the festival. kind of clever.
p.s. sxsw, in general, was a bad scene this year. the dfa 1979 and screeching weasel nonsense was just the tip of an ugly iceberg. stay home.
3.13.2011
sxsw film 2011 - check out time
sxsw can be a harsh mistress, a fact i was reminded of more than once today. it looks like this one film a day thing might be par for the course this year, after being shut out of alison bagnall's the dish & the spoon (2010). fortunately, the films i am managing to make it into have been quite good. day two found me at the paramount theater for ti west's ghost story, the innkeepers (2011)
the story is basic haunted hotel fare. restless, ultimately homicidal, spirits are knocking about a connecticut hotel that, itself, is in its death throes. the lack of business has necessitated closing the old girl down and we have checked in for its final weekend. seeing to our needs and procuring our towels are claire and luke, the skeleton crew desk staff who also happen to be amateur ghost hunters. not much new ground covered, as far as premise goes. the real draw is the way ti west tells a story.
the way that contemporary horror films function are anathema to ti west, and bless him for that. instead of filling his films with characters that spend their time snarkily bickering in between over the top kills, he provides us with real people, people you care about and actually would prefer to not see die. crazy idea, i know, having a protagonist you can invest in. in this case, sara paxton is our lead and does a great job. the current crop of mouse trap films can keep their never ending cycle of miss dr. pepper boat show candidates. give me a kind of lanky, kind of goofy, asthmatic girl next door every time. we spend the majority of the first half of the film just watching the interaction between her and her fellow desk clerk, eavesdropping on the types of conversations you generally have with co-workers and becoming familiar with just where they are in their lives at this point. dead-end pretty much sums it up. the hotel, the yankee pedlar, is one of those places you ending up spending years, before you know it, waiting for what you're supposed to be doing to come along, but, as luke says, everything happens for a reason. no one just ends up at the yankee pedlar.
what west excels at is letting the story take all the time it needs. there was a brilliant scene in his previous genre throwback house of the devil (2009) in which jocelin donahue roams from room to room in the house where she is babysitting, nosily picking through things, getting the lay of the land. the mood grows ominous as she snoops through one room after another, ratcheting up the tension. the payoff? nothing happens. it's a masterstroke, thumbing its nose at lazy horror conventions. you just spent the last few minutes with her, indulging her/your curiosity, moving ever closer to the edge of your seat, waiting to be scared when it turns out you were just getting to know the character better. this sort of thing turns up frequently in innkeepers, particularly in a comic scene with claire simply taking the garbage out, a scene that west said during the q & a was his favorite thing he's ever filmed. these mundane shared experiences contrasted with the occasional moments of shock make for a significantly more satisfying payoff than the standard body count horror.
the sound design and score are also particularly effective, expanding the claustrophobic world of this small hotel beyond the margins of the screen. true to form, the ending is wholly satisfying while simultaneously being the ending you least hoped for. things are not set right, order is not restored and everyone left standing will be forever shaken by the experience even while life and its mundane routine carries on. if that is not the definition of real-life horror then i don't know what is. by employing a classic style of storytelling and completely ignoring anything having to do with the climate of horror films today, west has assembled something clever, fun and spooky, traditional and modern all at once. if your idea of horror involves the most gruesome mechanisms imaginable and obligatory nude scenes, look elsewhere. if you enjoy actual dialogue and atmosphere and the potential for fright in the world we actually inhabit, you will likely enjoy what west does.
so if you see this poster at your local cineplex anytime soon, go show some support for genre film that is both fun and not an insult to your intelligence. a packed house at the paramount certainly enjoyed it. it was good to see a smaller genre film get such a prime slot/venue at the festival and it was even better to see such a large and enthusiastic crowd in attendance. sxsw folks, you have two more chances to catch it this week. it will be at westgate on monday, 3.14.11, at 9 p.m. and it will be the midnight movie at the alamo ritz on wednesday, 3.16.11. go get spooked.
the story is basic haunted hotel fare. restless, ultimately homicidal, spirits are knocking about a connecticut hotel that, itself, is in its death throes. the lack of business has necessitated closing the old girl down and we have checked in for its final weekend. seeing to our needs and procuring our towels are claire and luke, the skeleton crew desk staff who also happen to be amateur ghost hunters. not much new ground covered, as far as premise goes. the real draw is the way ti west tells a story.
the way that contemporary horror films function are anathema to ti west, and bless him for that. instead of filling his films with characters that spend their time snarkily bickering in between over the top kills, he provides us with real people, people you care about and actually would prefer to not see die. crazy idea, i know, having a protagonist you can invest in. in this case, sara paxton is our lead and does a great job. the current crop of mouse trap films can keep their never ending cycle of miss dr. pepper boat show candidates. give me a kind of lanky, kind of goofy, asthmatic girl next door every time. we spend the majority of the first half of the film just watching the interaction between her and her fellow desk clerk, eavesdropping on the types of conversations you generally have with co-workers and becoming familiar with just where they are in their lives at this point. dead-end pretty much sums it up. the hotel, the yankee pedlar, is one of those places you ending up spending years, before you know it, waiting for what you're supposed to be doing to come along, but, as luke says, everything happens for a reason. no one just ends up at the yankee pedlar.what west excels at is letting the story take all the time it needs. there was a brilliant scene in his previous genre throwback house of the devil (2009) in which jocelin donahue roams from room to room in the house where she is babysitting, nosily picking through things, getting the lay of the land. the mood grows ominous as she snoops through one room after another, ratcheting up the tension. the payoff? nothing happens. it's a masterstroke, thumbing its nose at lazy horror conventions. you just spent the last few minutes with her, indulging her/your curiosity, moving ever closer to the edge of your seat, waiting to be scared when it turns out you were just getting to know the character better. this sort of thing turns up frequently in innkeepers, particularly in a comic scene with claire simply taking the garbage out, a scene that west said during the q & a was his favorite thing he's ever filmed. these mundane shared experiences contrasted with the occasional moments of shock make for a significantly more satisfying payoff than the standard body count horror.
the sound design and score are also particularly effective, expanding the claustrophobic world of this small hotel beyond the margins of the screen. true to form, the ending is wholly satisfying while simultaneously being the ending you least hoped for. things are not set right, order is not restored and everyone left standing will be forever shaken by the experience even while life and its mundane routine carries on. if that is not the definition of real-life horror then i don't know what is. by employing a classic style of storytelling and completely ignoring anything having to do with the climate of horror films today, west has assembled something clever, fun and spooky, traditional and modern all at once. if your idea of horror involves the most gruesome mechanisms imaginable and obligatory nude scenes, look elsewhere. if you enjoy actual dialogue and atmosphere and the potential for fright in the world we actually inhabit, you will likely enjoy what west does.
so if you see this poster at your local cineplex anytime soon, go show some support for genre film that is both fun and not an insult to your intelligence. a packed house at the paramount certainly enjoyed it. it was good to see a smaller genre film get such a prime slot/venue at the festival and it was even better to see such a large and enthusiastic crowd in attendance. sxsw folks, you have two more chances to catch it this week. it will be at westgate on monday, 3.14.11, at 9 p.m. and it will be the midnight movie at the alamo ritz on wednesday, 3.16.11. go get spooked.
3.12.2011
sxsw film 2011 - opening night
well, it's here. sxsw is officially upon us with the opening of the film festival last night. circumstances and schedules limited my opening night festivities to precisely one film, but it certainly was the right one. i eschewed the main event at the paramount, duncan jones' source code (2011), and didn't join the other cult members at the (newly re-opened!) state theater for zal batmanglij's sound of my voice (2011), instead opting for the meditative pleasures to be found in r. alverson's new jerusalem (2011).
on its surface, it's a simple story. sean (colm o'leary) is an irish immigrant, freshly returned from serving his adopted home country on a non-combat tour in afghanistan. head and heart without mooring, he drifts through his workdays, occasionally suffering severe anxiety attacks, alternately looking/not looking for the thing that is going to ground him, that will make him feel settled. ike (will oldham), his co-worker at a nondescript richmond tire shop, wants to help alleviate his rootlessness and, being a devout evangelical christian, sets about trying to help sean find the peace that faith has afforded him. plot is minimal. it's more a series of vignettes where we watch the relationship between these two men develop, ebbing and flowing as sean mulls over the promise of the eternal. the strength of the film is in the nature of the conversation that passes back and forth between the two men. it's when they are sharing themselves this way that the film truly shines, partly because those moments are filled with just as many banal observations and stale jokes as they are subtle revelations. in short, it conveys the actual process of becoming friends. it leaves nothing out and you get the sense that no topic is off limits, as evidenced by sean's willingness to take every one of ike's sometimes awkward questions at face value. it's a lovely irony that we see more than once, the fact that the character with the most conservative values is actually the most brazen. he risks more than anyone by the simple fact that he is willing to be so emotionally honest. love is hardly safe - even platonic, as it is in this case - especially to express to another man in a blue collar environment in a southern town, but buoyed by his faith, he does just that. his compassion for his friend's existential plight even sustains him, to a degree.
and that is really the crux of the matter in this film, the symbiotic nature of friendship, the need the believer has for the non-believer and vice versa. for ike, sean provides an avenue to serve, to employ christlike humility and love. for sean, ike represents the unattainable joy of simple surety. sean was once a self-described pious child, but close observation of a pair of prayer cards given to him in his youth led to the first in a series of epiphanies that undid his faith, chief among them being that you can't trust the man delivering the message. ike does all he can to earn that trust back, even going as far as to humbly wash sean's feet in his kitchen. it's a surprisingly powerful little scene and i am grateful that it isn't overplayed. the scene, much like the rest of the film, is warm and direct and, in parts, oddly funny. ultimately, though, none of it is enough to convince sean to abandon all the other paths of exploration that life offers. it simply is not the answer for him. sean's refusal exposes a crack or two in the veneer of ike's faith, as ike's response is to momentarily use love as a blunt instrument. it's an understandable, all-too human response. it is not easy when someone turns their back on whatever it is that makes the most sense to you. compounding this crisis of faith, ike's father has a stroke, leaving him almost as without mooring as sean was when the film started. sean's role has not changed. he is still the observer, listening patiently and still acting as a repository for ike's ideas about faith and grace but now that ike needs those ideas reflected back to him, it has become more complicated for both men. to do that would be disingenuous, for sean and for the film, so, again, i am grateful that alverson doesn't opt for the easy reconciliation.
one last note. hands are an important motif throughout the film. early on, especially, it seems that there is not a frame that doesn't prominently feature the human hand - approximations of penitence, actual penitence, engaging in transactions, taking medicine, busy with work, caring gestures - and it underscores just how much we rely on them as instruments of communication and industry. it also underscores how much we simply hold each other up, how much work there is to do, both for saints and we secular types, and how vital the work that each does is for the other.
you have two more chances to get a ticket for this in your hands during the festival. it is showing monday, 3.14.11, at 10:45 a.m. at the state theater and again on friday, 3.18.11, at 5 p.m. at the rollins theater. i highly recommend it.
on its surface, it's a simple story. sean (colm o'leary) is an irish immigrant, freshly returned from serving his adopted home country on a non-combat tour in afghanistan. head and heart without mooring, he drifts through his workdays, occasionally suffering severe anxiety attacks, alternately looking/not looking for the thing that is going to ground him, that will make him feel settled. ike (will oldham), his co-worker at a nondescript richmond tire shop, wants to help alleviate his rootlessness and, being a devout evangelical christian, sets about trying to help sean find the peace that faith has afforded him. plot is minimal. it's more a series of vignettes where we watch the relationship between these two men develop, ebbing and flowing as sean mulls over the promise of the eternal. the strength of the film is in the nature of the conversation that passes back and forth between the two men. it's when they are sharing themselves this way that the film truly shines, partly because those moments are filled with just as many banal observations and stale jokes as they are subtle revelations. in short, it conveys the actual process of becoming friends. it leaves nothing out and you get the sense that no topic is off limits, as evidenced by sean's willingness to take every one of ike's sometimes awkward questions at face value. it's a lovely irony that we see more than once, the fact that the character with the most conservative values is actually the most brazen. he risks more than anyone by the simple fact that he is willing to be so emotionally honest. love is hardly safe - even platonic, as it is in this case - especially to express to another man in a blue collar environment in a southern town, but buoyed by his faith, he does just that. his compassion for his friend's existential plight even sustains him, to a degree.
and that is really the crux of the matter in this film, the symbiotic nature of friendship, the need the believer has for the non-believer and vice versa. for ike, sean provides an avenue to serve, to employ christlike humility and love. for sean, ike represents the unattainable joy of simple surety. sean was once a self-described pious child, but close observation of a pair of prayer cards given to him in his youth led to the first in a series of epiphanies that undid his faith, chief among them being that you can't trust the man delivering the message. ike does all he can to earn that trust back, even going as far as to humbly wash sean's feet in his kitchen. it's a surprisingly powerful little scene and i am grateful that it isn't overplayed. the scene, much like the rest of the film, is warm and direct and, in parts, oddly funny. ultimately, though, none of it is enough to convince sean to abandon all the other paths of exploration that life offers. it simply is not the answer for him. sean's refusal exposes a crack or two in the veneer of ike's faith, as ike's response is to momentarily use love as a blunt instrument. it's an understandable, all-too human response. it is not easy when someone turns their back on whatever it is that makes the most sense to you. compounding this crisis of faith, ike's father has a stroke, leaving him almost as without mooring as sean was when the film started. sean's role has not changed. he is still the observer, listening patiently and still acting as a repository for ike's ideas about faith and grace but now that ike needs those ideas reflected back to him, it has become more complicated for both men. to do that would be disingenuous, for sean and for the film, so, again, i am grateful that alverson doesn't opt for the easy reconciliation.
one last note. hands are an important motif throughout the film. early on, especially, it seems that there is not a frame that doesn't prominently feature the human hand - approximations of penitence, actual penitence, engaging in transactions, taking medicine, busy with work, caring gestures - and it underscores just how much we rely on them as instruments of communication and industry. it also underscores how much we simply hold each other up, how much work there is to do, both for saints and we secular types, and how vital the work that each does is for the other.you have two more chances to get a ticket for this in your hands during the festival. it is showing monday, 3.14.11, at 10:45 a.m. at the state theater and again on friday, 3.18.11, at 5 p.m. at the rollins theater. i highly recommend it.
3.03.2011
sxsw film 2011
we are just about a week away from austin's biggest annual event, the south by southwest music, film and interactive conference.
the film portion of the conference runs from 3.11.11 through 3.19.11 and will play host to 130 features from around the globe, 60 of them world premieres, in addition to a full slate of shorts, music videos and the like. add to this about 80 panels and workshops and you have the makings of a seriously busy week or so. there are a handful of things that i am looking forward to in particular.
the documentary feature competition: these eight films, all world premieres, look solid from top to bottom. they chronicle a diverse range of fighters, chefs, would-be rock stars, con men and kids lost to war, lost to their parents, lost to the indiscretions of youth. each of these looks like a good bet.
takashi miike's 13 assassins (2010).
the prolific and provocative miike makes what may be the most surprising move by playing it straight this time with an old-fashioned feudal epic. in the twilight of the samurai era, a group of assassins is assembled to put an end to the tyranny of a sadistic lord. the climactic battle sequence is an astounding 45 minutes long. i hope i can get a ticket to this one.
alison bagnall's the dish & the spoon (2010).
bagnall wrote buffalo '66 (1998), so she's no stranger to melancholy, unconventional romance. the chemistry between greta gerwig and olly alexander is supposed to be worth the price of admission. we shall see.
werner herzog's cave of forgotten dreams (2010)!
the film portion of the conference runs from 3.11.11 through 3.19.11 and will play host to 130 features from around the globe, 60 of them world premieres, in addition to a full slate of shorts, music videos and the like. add to this about 80 panels and workshops and you have the makings of a seriously busy week or so. there are a handful of things that i am looking forward to in particular.the documentary feature competition: these eight films, all world premieres, look solid from top to bottom. they chronicle a diverse range of fighters, chefs, would-be rock stars, con men and kids lost to war, lost to their parents, lost to the indiscretions of youth. each of these looks like a good bet.
takashi miike's 13 assassins (2010).
the prolific and provocative miike makes what may be the most surprising move by playing it straight this time with an old-fashioned feudal epic. in the twilight of the samurai era, a group of assassins is assembled to put an end to the tyranny of a sadistic lord. the climactic battle sequence is an astounding 45 minutes long. i hope i can get a ticket to this one.
alison bagnall's the dish & the spoon (2010).
bagnall wrote buffalo '66 (1998), so she's no stranger to melancholy, unconventional romance. the chemistry between greta gerwig and olly alexander is supposed to be worth the price of admission. we shall see.werner herzog's cave of forgotten dreams (2010)!
herzog was allowed unprecedented access to the chauvet-pont-d'arc cave in southern france that contains the earliest known cave paintings in the world, literally the beginning of art. finally, a legitimate argument for 3D technology.
the entire sxfantastic lineup of midnight shows. fantastic fest is far and away my favorite festival and they handpicked some special genre madness for night owls.
and that's just a small sampling of what's going on. if you would like to see the full slate of films, with synopses, trailers, venues and times, go here. i am going to try to see as much as money, work and band schedules will allow. if you're coming to town, let me know. we'll catch a show.
the entire sxfantastic lineup of midnight shows. fantastic fest is far and away my favorite festival and they handpicked some special genre madness for night owls.
and that's just a small sampling of what's going on. if you would like to see the full slate of films, with synopses, trailers, venues and times, go here. i am going to try to see as much as money, work and band schedules will allow. if you're coming to town, let me know. we'll catch a show.
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