Tag Archives: cinema

OK, so respect to all filmmakers, but some of the movies from the fest I was unhappy with. No 1/5s this year, I don’t completely regret seeing any of them, but I wouldn’t recommend someone watch them unless they are super into whatever its subject in and even then I’d have some notes.

And in the category of “bad”, I had some utter chaos IRL – I had to miss two showings due to a killer hailstorm partially destroying my house. 0/5 no bueno, would not recommend.  Maybe good fodder for a natural disaster film better than Acide. But once I got my shattered windows and skylight covered and called my insurance company, there was really nothing to do but go back to the fest!

Divinity, a very impressionistic black&white film about… immortality serum and… hard to be sure what else exactly. It is directed by Steven Soderbergh but do not let that lead you to think it is good or has a budget over $100k. Has angels (maybe), hookers (pretty sure), scientists (pretty sure), fetus milking (I think) and some stop motion animation for the final scene (real sure). And completely incomprehensible plot. Some interesting visuals at least, 2/5

The Origin aka Out of Darkness, where cro-mags 45000 years ago struggle to survive in Scotland, a blasted and inhospitable wasteland in the best of millennia.  Like Prey or 13th Warrior but less fun. High realism survival… or lack thereof. Dirty and boring mostly, but some suspense, 2/5

Kennedy – An Indian crime drama with our antihero being an ex-cop working as a hit man for crooked cops (and as an Uber driver?) and seeking revenge for his blown up boy. Nice and slick and well acted but way, way too long. 2/3 of the way through you’re like “I know how it’s gonna end let’s just get there eh?” Also he sees dead people but not in any plot relevant way. Cut a half hour or better yet 45 minutes out, put it on Netflix, people will watch it. 2/5

We Are Zombies – A “Z Nation” low-caliber production set in a world where the living and non-brain eating living dead (or “living impaired”) coexist.  Plot is about three slackers ripping off a zombie “humane disposal” company by getting there first and selling people’s former loved ones to a performance artist. “Zilf webcam shows” is the height of humor here.  2/5 and that’s me being generous.

100 Yards – Decent Chinese period martial arts fighting marred by a convoluted plot, frankly baffling character motivation, and indifferent acting.  Not enough martial arts per minute.  And in the end the victor is…. The French post office?  In a surprise last minute victory over… old people? Yes, seriously. I shoulda slept in.  2/5.

Baby Assassins 2 – two Japanese girls (not really babies, more like GenZs) cope with life as assassins guild members when they really just want to eat.  Two similar lads decide they need to kill them to get their spot in the guild and hijinks ensue.  Decent action and super annoying acting. A John Wick premise with an Aggretsuko execution.  Ok but forgettable, except that the Matthew Lillard looking one liked to snack on Churus (the cat treat), which was funny. 2/5

One-Percenter – a Japanese action star really knows him some action and unleashes it on some Yakuza in a “Die Hard in a factory” scenario when they interrupt his filming.  It was ok but the kills (well, takedowns) were a little weak. Floppy fake guns were distracting and I had seen things like flashlight beat downs done much better at the same film festival. And there was too much “meta” actor/stuntman self congratulatory stuff for me (hey film people your film’s audience is not just filmmakers, if you want to make more than $20 that is). 2/5

Saw X – Normally I wouldn’t go to a Saw movie but it was a secret screening so I was already seated by the time it started (though about ten people rushed the door to leave once it was announced).  I haven’t watched many Saw movies so had to figure out that the old guy was Jigsaw and the chick was his apprentice, but I got there.  Jigsaw has brain cancer and goes to an international clinic but it’s a scam so it’s torture murder time.  But man there was a lot of plot relative to the torture murders, unusually, which made it better for me than the average Saw movie. Torture porn not my thing 2/5

The Deep Dark – French miners (well, one is French, the rest are the European version of diversity, a Spaniard, Italian, Moroccan, and so on) dig too deep at the behest of some visiting archaeologist and find some Lovecraft, and get chased around the mines by a Spirit Halloween display.  Started well but lagging pacing and fully showing an unconvincing puppet monster hurt it (have you read no Lovecraft!  Fear of the unknown yo, don’t show the monster so much). 2/5

Not every film can be great, but these are decent and if you’re into whatever their niche is you should give them a try.

The Other Laurens, a French neo-noir (but high color saturation style), a private detective’s estranged twin brother dies and his niece dupes him in to investigate and you know, rich people, bikers, smuggling, betrayal. Slow burn but enjoyable, watch if you like French noir, 3/5

The Silence Project aka Project Silence, where a bunch of squalling Koreans get stuck on a bridge with escaped military-enhanced murder dogs.  Modern, slick, serviceable. For God’s sake Koreans in crisis shriek and yowl and beat their breast and fall down in an outpouring of emotion a lot. They go for a satisfying “punch the guy in charge after the rescue” ending but the lead character was a dirtbag politician until close to the end which robs it of some of the satisfaction. Think of it as “Train to Busan but not as good.”  Watch if you are super into Korean movies, 3/5

Tiger Stripes – A Malaysian girl gets her period and as is traditional that turns into body horror, and ends up with some possession by/turning into a tiger (maybe?).  Looks at the separation that happens between children and young women when they hit that age. Good child actors!  And I liked the look into Malay culture. Well done, 3/5

Eileen – Based on an Ottessa Moshfegh novel (which I then bought at the fest book fair!) in which a young Massachusetts lady is working in a prison and taking care of her drunk widower ex-cop dad in a realistically unpleasant New England. She has her sexual awakening, like most of us, via Anne Hathaway, who plays an elegant prison psychiatrist. Some great lines like “Did she seem angry to you?” “It’s Massachusetts, everyone is angry.” It goes quickly from coming of age story to crime investigation to crime committing. Sometimes it’s not a good idea to liberate the quiet ones, 3/5

Acide – French movie about acid rain attacking.  I was excited and from the intro and opening I thought we were gonna get something good, but then… The color was trash, like ultra compression artifacts trash, but I heard from someone later that was our projection setup not the movie. But then there were very very few people-melts, and I had been led to expect many.  Was it not finished?  There was a blank spot for 15 seconds when I think horses were getting acid rained on…  And like I get it, they’re French, but the amount of flopping to the ground when in danger and total lack of survival skills was shocking.  Not gonna put some plastic sheeting over that car eh?  Gonna wrap your feet in aluminum tins not plastic bags?  No one has baking soda or hydrogen peroxide to treat getting splashed by acid?  The choices (repeatedly) to drive around screaming in the rain instead of just parking inside something was infuriating. I have never said the sentence “Roland Emmerich should remake this” in my life, but now I am. 2/5 but that is influenced by the poor video quality of the version I saw, may be 3/5.

Plenty of perfectly good movies of various types at this FF!

The Animal Kingdom, a French movie where some people start gradually turning into one animal or another, causing French style social unrest. A boy and his dad move to a smaller town to be close to “the center” the mom has been remanded to when the boy starts showing signs of animalism too…. Well shot and well made. We all watch tv with subtitles on nowadays, let’s get this going here in the US.  4/5.

Saltburn – Very well made Harry Potter slashfic I saw as a secret screening.  The lad from Banshees of Inisherin goes to Oxford and meets a rich boy who takes him back to his manor house of Saltburn to hang out with his decadent/goofy family leading to both homoeroticism and The Talented Mr. Ripley style supplantation.  Suspenseful, with some super gross scenes causing the audience to scream “oh god why” a couple times – like Babylon x2. 4/5 or 3/5 if you have a weak stomach. [Editor’s note from a year later – this came out in theaters and made a good splash.]

The Last Stop in Yuma County – A fun entry in the “stuck in a diner under threat of violence” genre, with great characters which is what you need out of one of those.  Various people with various agendas, some criminal, drop in on a diner out in the middle of nowhere and things start to get tense. Good writing and acting and use of the location. The producer sold his house to make it, which is a little drastic but I think it’ll pay off. 4/5

Cobweb – A fun Korean movie about the rigors of moviemaking, which I was prepared to dislike because I don’t like filmmakers masturbating about how cool they are but Jee-woon Kim successfully subverts expectations.  Song Kang-ho does a great job as the director who is trying to re-shoot his movie to make it Brilliant(tm) despite the government censors being against it, although I am not sure any of the performances count as “nuanced.” The spider won me over, 4/5

Dream Scenario – A secret screening. Nicolas Cage (well, his character, an average Joe professor) starts appearing in people’s dreams, it turns into an Internet meme once people clue in, and then it all goes bad.  Less blood-covered shrieking Cage than many of his recent movies – but not zero.   Good A24 type stuff, though a little heavy handed on the social media/cancel culture theme.  4/5 [Editor’s note from a year later – this also came out in theaters and made a good splash.]

Dogman – A secret screening. Luc Besson directed (but all American English) movie about a… drag queen dog whisperer in a wheelchair!  It was really interesting, and mostly hinged on Caleb Landry Jones’ virtuoso performance.  As an aside, that is one Joker looking son of a bitch if ever I saw one, DC needs to call him up. Anyway, very interesting narrative structure, mostly “The Usual Suspects” style extended interrogation flashback style.  Similarities to The Professional in that it ends up in a bit of apocalyptic shootout but also in that it has real heart and compassion for its characters.  Really enjoyable. I appreciated that drag was part of the main character’s ongoing healing process from his abusive childhood, not related to his “crimes” in any way. No distribution in North America yet because of the anti-Besson sentiment. 4/5

Spooktacular! – A documentary about the Spookyworld theme park that rose and fell in the 1990s in the Northeast and spurred the rise of the modern hardcore haunted house industry.  Mixes park content with business realities and social change and its interaction with the park.  And plenty of Alice Cooper and Tom Savini, who were involved at points. Really interesting, and makes me wish I had been to Spookyworld!  We have House of Torment here in Austin but it only does a third of what these folks did! 4/5 at least in documentary terms. https://www.spooktacularthemovie.com

When Evil Lurks – an Argentinian movie following two brothers who desperately try to escape a demonic presence that moves and spreads kinda like Legion but with more people being affected. I like that the government has standard protocols for handling this but generally is inefficient and sucky so it gets out of hand before they start actually following them.  Reminds me of the Mexican movie “We Are What We Are” I saw a previous year at FF where cannibals on a rampage were called in by the police as a “code 17”, a concerningly low number for such an event. The seven rules for dealing with the “corrupted” are basically “run” which is what they do.  Shocking violence against kids. Some holes but fewer than most modern horror movies! 4/5

Your Lucky Day – a $156 million lottery ticket winner in a bodega at night close to the holidays results in a robbery gone wrong, the winner and a policeman getting capped, and then the survivors – a robber, the clerk, and a married and expecting couple, deciding “well… maybe we should cook up a story about what happened and split the winnings.”  Needless to say such plans are unstable and things go from bad to worse as more people get involved, with the increasing body count resulting in yet more convoluted schemes. P.S. ACAB.  4/5

Sri Asih: The Warrior – Indonesian Wonder Woman, basically, in the “Bumlangit Cinematic Universe” which is as much or more fun and high budget as the DCEU. A girl is born during a weirdly supernatural volcano eruption, grows up in an orphanage, gets adopted and trained as a MMA fighter as visions of a fire goddess try to convince her to unleash her anger and give in to the dark side… and then basically she becomes a superhero! She then combats the ever popular combination of supernatural evil, the criminal rich, and the patriarchy.   Good mostly practical fight scenes,  top quality cinematography, action choreography by the company the Raid guy founded. Great work here, better than most DC movies and at least half of the Wonder Woman movies. 4/5

I’ll Crush Y’all, aka Os reviento – Spanish movie where a boxer and ex-criminal trying to just live a clean life gets caught up in a bunch of accidentally colliding criminal schemes after his father dies of old age, requiring him to beat the stuffing out of various waves of local goons.  His brother and ex-girlfriend and new would-be girlfriend and father’s old flame put in appearances as well, and you understand the relationships between the various groups here they’re not just arbitrary unrelated criminal armies like in so many less good movies. Bloody and funny with a lot of friendly fire and self injuries by the street level thugs as the bodies pile up. Got the Fantastic Fest audience award, I wouldn’t go that far but it was fun and violent, 4/5

Totally Killer – A Blumhouse joint in the vein of Happy Death Day’s vibe and a plot that’s Halloween crossed with Back To The Future. A modern gen-Z girl has parents whose friends got serial-killed back in the 1980s by a masked killer leading up to Halloween, and the killer suddenly returns and kills her mom!  This then leads her to get her friend’s time machine she’s been developing (eye roll) to to back in time to stop the murders. Most of the humor is from a modern kid being back in the unsafe 1980s, and it’s pretty funny, it doesn’t spend time on cheap pop culture references, but shows her culture shock with the lack of security and such.  A ride in a station wagon with all all windows rolled up and completely full of cigarette smoke with kids in the back gave me IRL flashbacks. Fun, silly, stabby, 4/5, take a point off if you weren’t around in the 80’s.