Femme Fantastique - Volitant Gallery

My good friend Angel Polacheck has some work in a show opening at Volitant Gallery in Austin today- "Femme Fantastique".
The only way I can describe Angel and her art would be to take a DVD of Valerie and her Week of Wonders, soak it in Absinthe, set it on fire and then cut your face up with it. When you wake, you will be surrounded by beautiful cross-species taxidermy experiments and the sounds of mellifluous ocean-harps will take you out to sea.

Inside

Fantastic fest is an annual cinematic Olympics that crowns a culture as the most deranged for the year. Will it be the Japanese? The Danes? The Koreans? The French?
The Ain't it Cool News 'Secret Screenings' are just obstacles in this mighty contest, press bait. They can effectively be ignored by those who really care which mighty national neurosis will take home the gold. The match was tight this year- Never Belongs to Me, Offscreen, and The Warped Ones are some of the most balls-to-the-wall crazy films I have seen. The Warped Ones was my favorite film of the festival. Beautiful, musical, crisp and painterly; not to mention morally reprehensible, and if they ever release a decent DVD in America (and I continue to list it as a favorite movie), I'll be missing out on a lot of dates. But Inside made me cringe more than any other movie I saw this year. Relentlessly sadistic and gory, but technically precise and visually keen, this movie made my womb hurt and I don't even have one. It's rough sailing, and reportedly there was some audience vomiting at the screening before the one I attended. Watch at your own risk.

Magic Horse

I've completed my video for Horse + Donkey's song "Magic Horse". If you are allergic to QuickTime, there is a flash version on my myspace page. (This post was a little test to see if I could get the video to open properly on the iPhone, and it works!)

Timecrimes

Boy, the Spaniards are really rocking lately. Timecrimes is a taught, well crafted time travel puzzler that entertains the whole ride and doesn't collapse into an incomprehensible mess like Primer did.

The warped ones

I'm too deranged on barleywine to express myself properly, but The Warped Ones was phenomenal. For a movie supposedly inspired by breathless, I found it more vital and precise in its vision than breathless- not to mention the photography was nothing short of stunning. Crystal clear, stark, every drop of sweat on every forehead a piece of sharp glass. Unrestrained and chaotic but studied and rythmic like some crazy goddamn dance.

Sent from my iPhone

A Colt Is My Passport

Fantastic Fest 2007 Presents : Colt Is My Passport, A

Last night kicked off the first in the Fantastic Fest Nikkatsu Action Series, with Colt is my Passport, starring Jo Shishido, the chipmunk-cheeked star of Branded to Kill. I can already tell this series is going to be a big highlight of the festival. The Drafthouse brought authour Mark Shilling (No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema) to talk about the movies and sign his book, and Marc Walkow from Subway Cinema and the New York Asian Film Festival set up an ingenious subtitling system, wherin a sub file was video projected on a long strip under the screen proper. A lot of people at the screening (myself included) found it preferable to seeing burned-in titles.

Offscreen

There's a stark difference between a film like The Girl Next Door, which claims authenticity by virtue of being based on a true story, and one like Offscreen.
Now that audiences can explicitly see anything, from breathing dinosaurs, to hardcore sex and unflinching murders, the most powerful cinema experiences don't always come from "seeing" a thing, but by feeling that that thing is somehow authentic. A million inept "Blair Witch" rip-offs have taught that style alone can't accomplish that. Some combination of performance, style, vision, and the acceptance of accidents, of real life intruding into the film, is needed. As Walter Murch termed it, not a "black box" film but a "snowflake". The girl next door wears its badge of authenticity on its sleeve (although the actual story differs enough from the events in the film to make the claim of 'based on a true story' mostly meaningless) but with its (albeit hard-core) tv-movie style it becomes indistinguishable from so many other true-crime dramas. "Offscreen's" claim to authenticity is less obvious. An actor and a director play themselves. A rough combination of dv and consumer mp4 footage bind our perspective with an amateur filmmaker. But somewhere in the mix of compelling performance, real life, and lo-fi style, the film becomes more 'real', more disturbing and more memorable than a thousand horror films with any level of polish, of unflinching views of atrocity, of 'true-story' payload.

Sent from my iPhone

Uncle's paradise

A magical sex comedy wherein a man masturbates on a live snake. That's
about all I can say about that one. Funny and wrong in some deeply
perverted yet strangely innocent way.

Sent from my iPhone

"That will learn you to mess with hair!"

Exte and the hilariously excellent short The Bird, the Mouse and the Sausage were a one-two punch to my freaky-bone tonight. I haven't decided if I should pass my Funky Forest award for asian cult insanity from Never Belongs to Me to Exte. I can say i really enjoyed Exte, and it wasn't just because I really enjoy looking at Chiaki Kuriyama. It's goofy and ridiculous with a weird dark edge that occasionally surfaces and adds a strange extra dimension to the cartoon-y picture it paints. I still haven't seen Suicide Club but most of the people I talked to preferred it, without diminishing Exte. I'll have to dive into Sion Sono's movies now.

Must sleep now.

Flash Point

Donnie Yen's new action film starts out conventionally, but delivers some of the most satisfyingly brutal fighting I have seen. Mixing grappling moves, parkour, and traditional kung-fu, Flash Point delivers a great payoff, if you miss old-school Hong Kong action films.

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Never Belongs to Me

So far my annual Funky Forest Award for sheer insanity in asian cult cinema goes to Korean WTF-fest Never Belongs to Me; a tale of a man with a gun for a penis, his half-tiger brother, and the cyborg prostitute ghost he loves. It starts out ambling along and mutating into a different movie every ten minutes or so, clumsy at first, then gradually finding its legs and then finally becoming an absurd but intriguing tale of crippling sexual guilt that could only have come from a Korean Catholic- one of the weirdest groups of people outside of gay republicans.

We're still only just starting day three. Some secret screenings today. I'll write as I hit pockets of downtime.

Day one

The first day of the festival began with meat and goat-skull stuffed pinatas, An entrail-loaded air gun, hot sauce tasting and hors d'oeuvres. The first movies I caught today were Wicked Flowers (A few cute props, but mainly an insubstantial appetiser of a J-twilight-zone episode). Larry Fessenden's earnest The Last Winter, and the gleefully demented Aachi and Ssipak.

The Last Winter had a good hook, some decent performances, and a nice, building tone of creepiness that was all but ruined by Fessenden's newfound bad habit of interjecting quick-cutting motion graphics and farts of 'spooky' sound design to remind us that something scary and supernatural is happening. This, and some cloying voiceover narration, pulls you out of what could be a geniunely scary story (Although I was excited to see that he pulled some clips from Herzog's excellent Lessons of Darkness for one of these otherwise unnecessary sequences). I had a problem with the style in Wendigo as well, and I miss the simple, paired down minimalism of his earlier film Habit. Fessenden should concentrate on what he does well; namely direct actors, and get away from nu-horror music-video stylings. These were quick mistakes, and overall I liked the movie (great ending, great apocalyptic overtones), but they still mar what could have been a really memorably good film.



Aachi and Ssipak is the movie my friends and I would have made if you had introduced us to psychedelics before we hit puberty and then put us in charge of an animation studio. That's not meant as an insult either, it's unrestrained, juvenile, raunchy, violent fun, with some genuinely well choreographed action scenes. Good close for a good first night.

Weird Wednesday's Lars' FF picks

Link

My Fantastic Fest Schedule

This is actually my friend Scott's schedule, but I'm in agreement with all his picks so far, so I'm sticking to it unless I hear good buzz about something else.

Thur, Sep 20

6:45 PM
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (93 min.)
Feature, Guest in Attendance, Horror | 188 adds | 874 views
Alamo S. Lamar 2

9:30 PM
Last Winter, The (107 min.)
Drama, Feature, Horror, Sci-Fi, Supernatural | 126 adds | 602 views
** Note: Plays with short film: The Suityman
Alamo S. Lamar 1

11:40 PM
Aachi and Ssipak (90 min.)
Animation, Asian, Feature | 150 adds | 1525 views
** Note: Plays with short film: Tyger
Alamo S. Lamar 2

Fri, Sep 21

12:45 PM
Rug Cop, The (80 min.)
Asian, Comedy, Crime, Feature, Japan | 78 adds | 338 views
** Note: Plays with short film: Everything Will Be OK
Alamo S. Lamar 1
Buy Tix

3:30 PM
Never Belongs To Me (90 min.)
Asian, Fantasy, Feature, Sex | 87 adds | 468 views
** Note: Plays with short film: Gary's Touch
Alamo S. Lamar 2

6:30 PM
Mirageman (90 min.)
Action, Feature, Guest in Attendance, Next Wave, Super Hero | 89 adds | 336 views
Alamo S. Lamar 1

Sat, Sep 22

3:30 PM
Alone (95 min.)
Asian, Drama, Feature, Horror | 119 adds | 403 views
** Note: Plays with short film: The Lump
Alamo S. Lamar 1

6:00 PM
AICN Secret Screening #1 (120 min.)
Feature, Guest in Attendance | 189 adds | 558 views
Alamo S. Lamar 2

9:00 PM
Sex and Death 101 (100 min.)
Comedy, Feature, Guest in Attendance, Sex, Suspense | 107 adds | 819 views
** Note: Plays with short film: In the Wall
Alamo S. Lamar 2

11:55 PM
Exte: Hair Extensions (108 min.)
Asian, Feature, Horror, Japan, Supernatural | 108 adds | 726 views
** Note: Plays with: The Bird, The Mouse and The Sausage
Alamo S. Lamar 1

Sun, Sep 23

1:00 PM
Uncle's Paradise (64 min.)
Asian, Fantasy, Feature, Japan, Sex | 64 adds | 613 views
** Note: Plays with short film: Maquina
Alamo S. Lamar 1
Buy Tix

3:00 PM
AICN Secret Screening #2 (120 min.)
Feature | 184 adds | 264 views
Alamo S. Lamar 2

6:15 PM
Son of Rambow (95 min.)
Action, Comedy, Drama, Feature | 97 adds | 334 views
Alamo S. Lamar 2

9:00 PM
Dirty Carnival, A (141 min.)
Action, Asian, Crime, Drama, Feature | 59 adds | 455 views
Alamo S. Lamar 3

11:30 PM
Fantastic Fest Secret Screening #4 (120 min.)
Feature | 95 adds | 190 views
Alamo S. Lamar 1

Mon, Sep 24

1:30 PM
Blood, Boobs and Beast (75 min.)
Documentary, Feature, Guest in Attendance, Horror, Sci-Fi | 81 adds | 2344 views
** Note: Plays with short: The Little Gorilla
Alamo S. Lamar 3

4:00 PM
Offscreen (93 min.)
Drama, Feature, Suspense | 57 adds | 428 views
** Note: Plays with short film: Happy Birthday 2 You
Alamo S. Lamar 3
Buy Tix

6:45 PM
Maiko Haaaan!!! (120 min.)
Asian, Comedy, Fantasy, Feature, Japan | 68 adds | 363 views
** Note: Plays with short: Sniffer
Alamo S. Lamar 4

9:00 PM
Colt Is My Passport, A (84 min.)
Asian, Crime, Feature, Japan, Nikkatsu Retrospective | 59 adds | 286 views
Alamo S. Lamar 1
Buy Tix

Tue, Sep 25

4:30 PM
Flash Point (88 min.)
Action, Asian, Crime, Feature | 80 adds | 284 views
Alamo S. Lamar 2

6:25 PM
Timecrimes (88 min.)
Feature, Guest in Attendance, Sci-Fi | 115 adds | 1222 views
** Note: Plays with short film: Un-Gone
Alamo S. Lamar 1

9:00 PM
Warped Ones, The (75 min.)
Asian, Feature, Japan, Nikkatsu Retrospective | 44 adds | 229 views
Alamo S. Lamar 1
Buy Tix

Wed, Sep 26

4:00 PM
Wicked Flowers (85 min.)
Asian, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Feature, Japan | 76 adds | 585 views
** Note: Plays with short film: X-Pression
Alamo S. Lamar 3

6:15 PM
AICN Secret Screening #3 (120 min.)
Feature | 167 adds | 193 views
Alamo S. Lamar 2

9:15 PM
Velvet Hustler (97 min.)
Action, Asian, Crime, Feature, Japan, Nikkatsu Retrospective | 53 adds | 245 views
Alamo S. Lamar 1
Buy Tix

11:55 PM
Taxidermia (90 min.)
Feature | 71 adds | 304 views
** Note: Plays with short film: Mebana
Alamo S. Lamar 3

I'll be blogging and taking pictures via iPhone between screenings, so we'll see how that works out. If anybody has any cute iPhone blogging tricks they want to share other than just using the moblog email for blogger, let me know. (for instance with lifeblog I used to send an sms to google with the name of the place I was at, then attatch the address google sent me back to a picture and then blog it. You can't really copy and paste or stick an sms in an email on the iPhone, so I can't really do that any more as far as I know. So any cool little tricks like that, I am interested in...)

Space War

Bob Sabiston played this short by Christy Karacas with a handful of others at his birthday party at the Alamo Drafthouse, before playing his wonderful new short 'the even more fun trip'. This cartoon really stuck with me because of it's simple but intricate style and playfulness. Makes me want to try more traditional line animation.

R.I.P Madeleine L'Engle

Via NYT, Author Madeleine L'Engle has passed away. The Wrinkle in Time trilogy had a profound impact on me as a young child- they got me interested in science and reading. I've tried to pass the books on to young relatives and friends' kids at every opportunity.

Fantastic Fest 3

The full lineup for Fantastic Fest has been posted. I'll be attending again this year and blogging the whole thing. Last year was the most fun I've had at a film festival and I expect that experience to get topped this year.

Diagonals and Horse+Donkey at Beauty Bar, Friday the 7th