This Week In Tickets: 7 October 2013 - 13 October 2013

The relatively abundant white space on this page doesn't let on just how much I was wearing myself out over the course of the weekend. I was dead tired afterward.



The week started off, as is rapidly becoming traditional, with the Gathr Preview screening, The Other Shore. Not bad, although I really do wonder if it wound up being the movie the filmmakers intended to make. Or, if it was, whether it was the movie they wound up intending to make. It's complicated.

I wound up in Davis Square for much of the weekend. Friday night, the movie was Escape from Tomorrow, which is worth justifying one's curiosity with. Then, it was a fairly quick turnaround to be back at the Somerville Theatre by noon for the kick-off of the Boston Terror-Thon.

The Terror-Thon is a bit of an odd event this year. At one point, it was listed on the theater's Facebook page as a sci-fi marathon for a couple of days, and the focus was certainly on the intersection of science fiction and horror. I gather the guys that do the February sci-fi marathon are involved, though apparently more in terms of the newer indie horror that played over the next few days. Kind of like the "festival" and "marathon" portions of the sci-fi event, the two halves seem a bit oddly disconnected. Still, the set-up for the marathon itself was pretty cool - all 35mm, (roughly) one movie from each decade, starting in the 1920s and running to 1990. The movies were The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Invisible Man, Dr. Cyclops, Forbidden Planet, Planet of the Apes, Westworld, Buckaroo Banzai, and Tremors, along with a bunch of trailers and cartoons which stretched things out to 2am. Long night.

... Especially since I made the pretty foolish decision of DVRing the first game of the American League Championship Series and opted to watch it when I arrived home at 2:30am. I had avoided anything about the game when checking my phone between movies, so I didn't realize I was in for a painful near-no-hitter. Fortunately, I wound up pretty numb by the time it was over. Didn't get enough sleep, though. Left to my own, I might have slept until 2pm or so, but my brother Matt and his wife Morgan had made lunch plans with me for 12:30, and from how much effort they were putting into locking it down, I kind of knew something was up.

And, it was - my parents, brothers, and nieces were waiting at Redbones for a belated 40th birthday dinner. Which was pretty great - good food, I don't get to see the Maine contingent as often as I'd like - it's been months since all four of the nieces were at the same place I was. Those opportunities look like they might be getting rarer, so it was good to grab one and even better to spring an early birthday present on Matt - two of the three bleacher seats I'd purchased for that night's second game of the ALCS. I've never seen someone so blindsided by a gift that they actually asked if it was real.

The game itself? Pretty great. Sure, the game had the same sort of "Sox can't get a hit" start, and then the Tigers built a pretty good lead, but... Well, things turned around. We had great seats in center so we had a great look at Torii Hunter falling into the bullpen chasing Ortiz's grand slam. It's the most bonkers I've ever seen Fenway get in person, although (as of this writing) Saturday stands a decent chance of beating it.

Now, the next couple of days were the logical end to that sort of weekend, in that they were a harsh reminder that I am 40 rather than 25, but that's a matter for next week's post. So let's just get to the Terror-Thon movies.

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 12 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Terror-Thon, 35mm)

It feels like I've been trying to find an opportunity to see this movie all the way through, but even though somebody always seems to pick it up for Halloween screenings, but this German Expressionist movie has knocked me out every time. Seeing it at noon with Jeff Rapsis on the organ countered that.

And I dig it. The movie's not really that much for story, in ways that I often find really frustrating in other movies, but Robert Wiene does so great at generating atmosphere as to get away with it. What I particularly love is how Wiene's constant build-up of tension and fear twists into madness by the final acts. It could be cheap, but instead it's very natural.

I've got to admit, though, I'm going to be very disappointed when I someday go to Germany, visit a small rustic town, and do not find it filled with bizarre, asymmetrical architecture that's never heard of a right angle.

The Invisible Man

* * (out of four)
Seen 12 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Terror-Thon, 35mm)

Sometime I'm going to come up with a good reason why I tend to conk out during the second movie of a multi-movie day. Is it just some sort of weird conditioned response of thinking that 45 minutes or so after a movie ends is bedtime, my brain knowing that the really good stuff is coming up later, so get some rest now.

That would certainly explain why I took a fair-sized nap during The Invisible Man. It just never clicked with me and this time around was no different; to the extent it annoyed me lest, it's because I saw less.

Dr. Cyclops

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 12 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Terror-Thon, 35mm)

Dr. Cyclops isn't really a very good movie, but the 1940s were relatively lean times for fantastical cinema. It is kind of amusing in how it uses the mythological roots of its title less literally than literarily - until the end, it's more focused on how the Cyclops of myth was a man-eating giant than a beast with one eye - but make no mistake, it's very much a B-movie whose pretty Technicolor photography doesn't really make up for how paper-thin its characters and plotting are.

On the other hand, movies where people get shrunken down to doll-size are fun. The story possibilities are limited and by now people are well-enough aware of how absurd the science is, but over-sized props are a blast and cats become vicious monsters at that size. The characters, no matter how alpha-male (or female) they may be otherwise become automatic underdogs, and straightforward problems require ingenious solutions. Dr. Cyclops never takes the next step of becoming really clever, but once everybody gets small, it does an impressive job of not squandering the inherent joys of the shrinking movie (even while displaying a mean streak that's impressive for the Hays Code era).

It actually reminded me why Edgar Wright's Ant-man movie for Marvel could wind up being a real kick - sure, it seems like the stakes could be low for a big action-adventure, but if Marvel taps into the joy of it and makes it an offbeat comedy, that might not matter.

Forbidden Planet

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Terror-Thon, 35mm)

It's pretty darn impressive how this sci-fi picture from the 1950s manages to age so gracefully. It's dated in its attitudes, sure, but not obnoxiously so. The special effects and design are futuristic-for-the-fifties, but have a believable practicality to them. Where so many other movies of its era tried to stretch smaller budgets to do too much, this one always seems to know how much is just enough.

It's still pretty great, even when you know it by heart; it's got a great, seldom-matched grandeur, a set of very likable performances in the lead (young Leslie Nielsen never fails to surprise me with his crisp confidence), and nice attention to detail. And while it may seem an odd match for a Halloween-oriented event, the genuine feeling of horror that overtakes its characters as they solve the central mystery certainly qualifies it, giving the movie plenty of dramatic weight as well.

Link to the review I wrote a while back, when the HD-DVD was new.

Planet of the Apes

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 12 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Terror-Thon, 35mm)

This one, on the other hand, doesn't fit the Halloween theme quite as well. There's certainly a world-turned-upside-down horror vibe to it, but it doesn't really manifest itself in a scary way. The movie's too satirical about humanity in general, as opposed to telling a story where Taylor is personally tormented. Heck, he's too cynical to actually be horrified.

Still, as much as I don't have much interest in the rest of the franchise, this entry always winds up looking a little better every time I see it (in this case, literally; projectionist Dave Kornfeld mentioned that this was one of the best prints he'd ever shown of this film). The crash and escape from the spaceship took me aback for just how tense and well-shot it is, for instance, while on the other end, the politics of its last act and how willing those in power are to treat others as sub-human (or, in this case, sub-simian) has yet to lose its sting. As unpleasant as Charlton Heston's character often is, it blends perfectly with his desperation, and even the dated references hold up.

Link to another review that's been kicking around a while.

Westworld

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Terror-Thon, 35mm)

There's been talk about remaking Westworld for a while, with the latest action apparently taking the form of a pay-cable series, and I can get behind that. It's a movie filled with strong concepts and fun genre-bending that doesn't quite stitch it all together into something great. Something good, fairly often, but either the resources are lacking to make a masterpiece, or things are hobbled by writer/director Michael Cricthon's tendency toward blunt cautionary tales.

There's a lot going on here beneath Crichton's tale of androids run amok in a theme park where visitors can live out their western/roman/medieval fantasies - the question of whether living out such vivid power trips is healthy, the ethics of creating this sort of autonomous being only to be killed again and again, the sort of corporate callousness (and absurd security design) he returned to with Jurassic Park. And the final act, when all hell breaks loose resulting in the sci-fi trappings to take center stage while characters crossover between genre areas, has great potential. It just never quite achieves what it could; Crichton has stories half-develop and then get thrown out of the way, and doesn't quite seem to realize the potential of the plot device beyond a way to get the story kicked off.

Still, enough works out well that the movie's worth seeing. Crichton's cheerfully amoral screenplay is full of twisted humor. The characters are kind of bland, but the cast isn't bad (though I can't quite see why Yul Brynner often seems to be considered iconic rather than just clever casting in this role). It's a fun little movie. I look forward to someday seeing a great version.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

* * * (out of four)
Seen 12 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Terror-Thon, 35mm)

Huh, the print for this one was from the UK, and I could have sworn it was different from the one I've seen before; I can't recall ever seeing the flashbacks with young Professor Hikita and John Lithgow's Emilio Lizardo becoming possessed by Lord John Whorfin. Must have, though.

It's a weird one, deliberately so, but interesting in the how of it. It's a very peculiar combination of rinky-dink and impressively realized, cutting from terrific special effects to sets designed to save every bit of money possible when the opposite seems the case more often (maintain a certain baseline and eke out just a bit more). Writer Earl Mac Rauch sets the thing in an elaborate pulp universe like that's no big deal, with director W.D. Richter on the same low-key page, both enhancing and undercutting just how bizarre the movie is. And maybe I'm missing something, but this seems like one of the first times American pop culture really tried to integrate Japanophilia, as opposed to dubbing things or fetishizing the strangeness James Clavell-style. Here, there's a real sense that the future of cool is going to be a fusion of the American and the Japanese.

Maybe that's reading too much into it, but it was late then and it's late now and that was what ran through my head during this movie that lives right on the border of being too cool for its own good (but never quite falls on the wrong side).

Tremors

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 12 13 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Terror-Thon, 35mm)

Believe it or not, I've actually heard people talk shit about Tremors, like it was a not-very-good movie, only to be surprised when I responded that I like it not just as a guilty pleasure, but as a genuine quality piece of work. For real. But it's true - although it looks like a guilty pleasure movie, there's no part of it that the whole has to overcome. Every element works.

I don't think I convinced the people who said that at the time, but there's good reason why people smile when this movie's name is mentioned and why, whenever a half-decent monster movie with a fun cast of characters comes out, this is the one we compare it to. This really is close to the ideal form of this type of movie, well worth staying up until 2am for.

I said much the same thing last year.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 18 October - 24 October 2013

Weird throwback weekend at the multiplexes. Sort of. Well, maybe not really.

• Surprise opening at Boston Common: Chinese Zodiac, Jackie Chan's latest action/adventure movie. It's a sequel to his popular Armor of God and Operation Condor pictures from twenty years ago, although word from when it came out in China last December seemed to suggest it was a lot more like his American movies than his Hong Kong classics. Still, Jackie Chan punching and kicking - take it while you can.
  
  Speaking of action stars still hanging on, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzeneggar have their first for-real team-up in Escape Plan, with Sly as a prison beta-tester of sorts who is thrown into a new high-tech prison, with Arnie as a convict there. It's at the Capitol, Apple, Fenway, and Boston Common. There's also a remake on tap, Carrie, with Chloe Grace Moretz in the title role and Julianne Moore as her mother. Seems unnecessary, but it's also the only mainstream horror movie coming out this Halloween. It's at Somerville, Apple, Boston Common, Fenway, and the SuperLux.
  
  There's also The Fifth Estate, a fictionalized version of the WikiLeaks saga with Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange, and Bill Condon in the in the director's chair. It's at Somerville, Kendall Square, Fenway, Boston Common, and the SuperLux. Fenway also picks up Bollywood action/comedy/drama/everything feature Boss - which, interestingly enough, does not seem to be playing at Apple Cinemas.
  
  If you want to head out a little further from the city, most of those movies are also playing at Showcase Revere, which also has I'm in Love With a Church Girl, starring Ja Rule as a former drug dealer whose past causes friction with a new lady played by Adrienne Bailon; it seems to be produced by one of those little companies that targets the religious community specifically. They're also opening The Snitch Cartel, Colombia's submission to the Oscars from last year; it's a fact-based crime-drama (and actually hit screens there back in 2011). Closer to home, Boston Common has special screenings of The Matrix on Sunday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon/evening.
• In other very-limited openings, The Capitol in Arlington has Broadway Idiot, a documentary on Green Day transforming their album American Idiot into a Broadway show, all week. The October horror show this weekend is the original Night of the Living Dead at 10:30pm on Friday & Saturday
• In addition to The Fifth Estate, Kendall Square has a pair of documentaries. The Summit chronicles the "deadliest day on the world's most dangerous mountain", when eleven climbers died or vanished while attempting to scale K2. The Trials of Muhammad Ali, there for a one-week booking, is about the courtroom battle that ensued after Ali refused to fight in the Vietnam War. Two of his attorneys will be on-hand for the 4:30pm Sunday show.
• The Brattle Theatre has a pair of openings this weekend. I Used to Be Darker has the evening shows; it's the new one by Matt Porterfield about an Irish girl who runs away to American relatives only to find their family falling part. Co-star Kim Taylor will be at Friday's shows for a Q&A and perhaps a few songs (as music appears to be a big part of the film). Also running from Friday to Saturday at 9:30pm is Johnnie To's newest, Drug War, his first crime drama made in mainland China. It's pretty darn thrilling; shame it took until right around the movie's home video release to get here (though it's better with a crowd).
  
  Sunday afternoon is the first of several special presentations with guests: From the Ground Up! is a documentary on a sustainable program to fight child malnutrition pioneered by a group of Harvard students; some of them will be present along with the filmmakers. Tuesday has a special screening of Jesus Christ Superstar with stars Ted Neeley & Barry Dennen there for a Q&A. Local critic Peter Keough will be presenting a Kathryn Bigelow double feature of Zero Dark Thirty (on 35mm) & Point Break on Wednesday, signing books and answering questions in between. And on Thursday, the Boston Asian American Film Festival kicks off with special guest Ang Lee introducing The Wedding Banquet; Linsanity also plays later that evening.
• No new openings at The Coolidge this wekeend, but they're continuing their three-pronged Friday/Saturday midnight attack during October: The witch movie is, well, The Witches, directed by Nicholas Roeg and with effects by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. That's upstairs; the main theater holds the haunted house movie, the original Insidious (crazy-popular sequel still in theaters!). And the screening room as two last chances to see Jim Mickle's We Are What We Are, since it left the Kendall after just one week (for shame, Boston!). The Halloween vibe continues with Monday's "Science on Screen" program, as a Tufts Biologist discusses Young Frankenstein (playing in 35mm).
  
  There's also a Sunday-morning German film from Goethe-Institut, Free Fall, in which a cop with a pregnant girlfriend finds himself in an uncomfortable situation when attracted to a new male colleague.
• The first half of the week at The Regent Theatre is music-oriented, with new documentary Jimi Hendrix: "Hear My Train A-Comin'" playing Friday night; there's also a Hendrix-themed tribute CD release concert on Saturday. The Gathr Preview Series feature on Tuesday is also musical, as Autoluminescent chronicling the life and death of Australian post-punker Roland S. Howard.
  
  Then, starting on Wednesday, they play host to The Arlington International Film Festival, a combination of local and global features that will run through Sunday.
• The Harvard Film Archive is mostly loaded up with short films this week: Friday and Saturday feature Scott MacDonald, author of a book on Cambridge-based documentary filmmaking, curating two programs of documentary shorts with filmmakers in attendence. Sunday afternoon has a program of films by Chris Marker of "La Jetee" fame at 4pm, and two longer (but not quite feature-length) works - "Letter from Siberia" and "Sunday in Peking" - at 7pm. Monday evening's presentation is still Marker, but at the opposite end of the length spectrum, with the three-hour A Grin Without a Cat.
• The MFA is all about The Boston Palestine Film Festival with their film screenings this week, with various shows playing Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday; check the site for details. It will continue on through the 27th.
• ArtsEmerson finishes up their tie-ins with the Boston Book Festival on the weekend of the actual event. The encore screenings involved include Hal Hartley's Henry Fool on Saturday afternoon, The Bling Ring Saturday night (with original author Nancy Jo Sales in person for a Q&A), and Adaptation Sunday afternoon. They've also got the original Nightmare on Elm Street on Friday night (director Wes Craven is at the festival). The Bright Lights programs include a Friday afternoon showcase of Provincetown and Emerson student shorts as well as the regular weekday programs, both documentaries: David Lunch: Meditation, Creativity, and Peace plays on Tuesday, while Family Talk plays Thursday. The Sierra Leone doc will be followed by a discussion with producer Libby Hoffman and anthropology professor Gillian Goslinga.
• The UMass Boston Film Series is on Tuesday this week, with director Roger Ross Williams on hand to answer questions after a free screening of God Loves Uganda, a look at how American evangelicism is gaining a strong foothold in Africa.

My plans? Chinese Zodiac, Baseball (hopefully a lot!), Escape Plan, The Summit, Machete Kills, and whatever else I'm behind on.

Escape from Tomorrow

Ugh, my plan was actually to get this written up Friday night and posted Saturday morning, but between a whole lot of things, that just did not happen. Suffice it to say, it was an insane weekend (as I'll explain in the next TWIT post) which knocked me for a loop over the next couple of days.

It annoys me, because I go to independent/less-reviewed movies on Friday evening with the intention of getting a review up quickly enough that other folks in Boston can have a reminder to catch it (or not) while it's still in theaters, and Escape From Tomorrow had a crazy-limited window here: Friday was the only day there were shows after 6:10pm, and there were no shows at all on Saturday, as the schedule space for the Somerville Theatre's October "TerrorThon" events wound up coming at this movie's expense. It's available on-demand, at least, but I really did want to get it up before there were just Thursday 4pm/6pm shows left.

I wasn't alone in the theater, and it wasn't close, which isn't always the case for little movies like this (it doesn't hurt that Somerville has its own website while the likes of Boston Common & Fenway don't really have a way to let locals know they're getting something interesting). Like I say in the review, a good chunk of the audience was sort of in screw-Disney mode from the outset, which is fair, if not necessarily for the reasons this movie goes with. Disney's cheerful and upbeat and polished, and there's room for that. The perpetually extended copyright thing...

I have to admit, I wish I had read more than scattered page scans of Air Pirates Funnies that you can find online. I think they've got a fair amount in common with Escape from Tomorrow, in that both use poking the Disney bear as a way to get attention. Which isn't to say either is insincere, just that Randy Moore was pretty savvy in making something that would get the attention of raising Disney's ire but which is just smart enough to not get crushed.


One last thing: I highly doubt that the preview for Saving Mr. Banks was "APPROVED to ACCOMPANY THIS FEATURE".


Escape From Tomorrow

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 October 2013 at Somerville Theatre #2 (first-run, DCP)

Someday, perhaps soon, folks may accuse Randy Moore of selling out. After all, while most of the crowd for the opening-night showing of Escape from Tomorrow seemed to be there to cheer on poking a finger in the Walt Disney Company's eye, it wouldn't be shocking for him to make the jump to big mainstream pictures. As much as this movie is rebellious and satirical, its venom isn't scathing, and it's as much a demonstration of his ability to handle technical challenges as his desire to stick it to the man.

This is the movie which was filmed in Walt Disney World and Disneyland without any sort of permits or permissions (kind of a big deal was made of this when it played Sundance), and it happily uses the name of Siemens AG where a generic corporation would do. There's no denying that there's something genuinely enjoyable about the ballsiness of it; aside from the knowledge that the filmmakers are getting away with something, the fact that what the audience sees on screen is not necessarily a strawman created for the sole purpose of being mocked gives that mockery some teeth. When things do get crazy - which is almost right away - it wedges its way into the audience's real-world experience.

On a technical level, there's little denying that Moore and his cinematographer Lucas Lee Graham have managed something fairly impressive. For all that much of Escape from Tomorrow must have been shot like a found footage film, it doesn't look like one; the camera doesn't shake and the lighting doesn't waver. Most of the effects work is fairly good - there are some scenes that were obviously shot in front of a green screen with park footage added in later, but that's balanced by a couple of pieces that are very slick for a low-budget indie, and others where looking jarring and incongruous is part of the point. The movie is presented in sharp black and white, and that's a clever decision; aside from capturing the feel of old home movies, it gives the movie one unified look, rather than changing as the film moves around the park.

Full review at EFC.

Fantasia 2013 screeners: Tiger Mask, After School Midnighters, Les 4 Soldats, The Battery, The Grand Heist, Horror Stories, and Across the River

I may not be the absolute worst about requesting screeners for the films I miss at festivals and then never actually watching them, but I will put my track record on this matter up against any well-intentioned film reviewer who also has a day job. I've got a pile of DVDs in envelopes on my coffee table that is nearly a foot tall and they go back the better part of a decade, and it might just be time to accept that I'm not going to be putting reviews with a tag of "SCREENED AT THE 2007 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL" up on eFilmCritic for people to scratch their heads at. Indeed, if I look elsewhere, I may be able to find a screener or two on VHS that I didn't watch.

I feel guilty about it, honestly; the wall of DVDs and Blu-rays that has built up over the same period is either a waste of money or a hedge against the day I really want to watch something and it's not streaming that month, but each of those discs represents a bit of a broken promise, and as folks who have asked me why/how I see so many movies at a festival (really, to the point where it might not sound fun anymore), I do feel there's a sort of deal between filmmakers, festival programmers, and the media: The festival does not give me a pass just so that I can enjoy myself, but because they want the event and films to get the attention they deserve, and I don't want to be a parasite. On the other hand, it's very easy to put things off when you've got the disc there; my rationale is usually that I don't want to watch it until I've got time to write about it immediately afterward, and that never happens, what with the regular This Week in Tickets schedule or wanting to push things that are now or will soon be out in Boston to the head of the line.

So, by that standard, it's probably a good thing that Fantasia moved most of their screeners on-line this year. There were some films that were only available in the viewing room, and maybe I could have gotten discs if I'd asked, but the bulk of things were either on their Cinando site or at links provided via email, and when I asked, I was told that the ones on Cinando would expire on 5 September. Thus, as you see, a whole lot of late-August/early-September dates, as I tried to see as many as I could in that window. Labor Day helped a lot. Then I wrote three-ish paragraphs on each for the TWIT post that I could circle back to later (much later than I'd have liked!), just as I did with the stuff I wrote for the "Fantasia Daily" posts.

It's actually an interesting trade-off - I think that those posts are the closest things I've done to rough drafts in a long time. It's not that most reviews and blog posts are entirely one-pass jobs, but I seldom write, stop, and revise. I probably should, but, time. I'm not sure whether it's helped the actual reviews or not; with the revision so relatively far from actually seeing the movie, who knows what details have been lost?

At any rate, I think that over two months after the three-week festival has finished, I'm done writing about Fantasia 2013. I do feel bad about not having written up the short films like I'd hoped to, but it's been too long and with too few notes, I couldn't do them justice. Next year, I'll try and find a way to do it properly.

Tiger Mask (Taiga Masuku)

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 27 August 2013 in Jay's Living Room (Fantasia International Film Festival, Cinando screener)

It doesn't seem like it should be especially difficult to combine pro wrestling and superheroes, especially if you're willing to let yourself be a bit of a mark for the duration of the story and accept that the feuds and angles of the wrestling half have something to them. Given how popular both have been in Japan historically, it's no surprise that Tiger Mask, a comic about a wrestler/hero, was so popular and had so many adaptations; it's just a shame that the most recent isn't what it could be.

This latest iteration starts about fifteen years ago, when trouble-making orphan Naoto Date and his best friend Ruriko Wakatsuki are visiting the zoo. A tiger seems to speak to Date, and soon he is being taken to the Tiger's Cave, where he and other runaway children will spend their childhood and teen years training under the eye of Mister X (Sho Aikawa), looking for the ones who will be worthy of wearing his three power-granting Tiger Masks. Eventually, Date (Eiji Wentz) earns that right, as do his best friend and a rather more selfish fighter. They fight in secret arenas to earn money for the international syndicate that Tiger's Cave belongs to, but when Date happens to meet Ruriko (Natsuna Watanabe) and finds out their old orphanage is in dire straits, Mister X's philosophy of only looking out for oneself starts to ring even more hollow.

Tiger Mask is disappointing in a way that resembles lack of ambition, but may very well just be low budget problems. After all, during the first act, my jaw was regularly dropping about how genuinely nuts it seemed to be; it's not very long at all after the tiger that seems to talk to Date before you've got a whole passel of orphan boys being trained by whip-wielding women in tight leather dresses, all aiming to be the one that gets to wear the skill-enhancing Tiger Masks made by Mister X. And while the idea of funding a criminal network by having these guys participate in underground pro-wrestling deathmatches is goofy, it can certainly work in this story's world. It's silly, yes, but in the gloriously unrestrained way a late-1960s comic for ten-year-old boys should be, with director Ken Ochiai and his three co-writers adding just enough edge to make it work for a later generation.

Full review at EFC.

After School Midnighters (Hokago Middonaitazu)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 31 August 2013 in Jay's Living Room (Fantasia International Film Festival, Cinando screener)

Go to Fantasia (or any large festival) enough times, and you start to notice little quirks in the scheduling. One which has emerged in recent years is that the animated features from Japan tend to run at or before noon on weekend mornings, probably because they attract an extremely dedicated fanbase that will fill the theater when many other festival-goers are hungover. This one, though, slotted in there as Saturday Morning cartoons, which is totally appropriate - just like it's more fun to watch horror movies when it's dark outside, kids' cartoons in general and this one in particular are more fun when you're alert and maybe feeling a bit of a sugar rush from breakfast.

Certainly, that's the state of one of its five-year-old characters - Mako (voice of Haruka Tomatsu) is highly excitable, always running at full speed. During a visit to the strangely spooky elementary school she'll be attending in the fall, she get separated from the main group along with snobby rich girl Miko (voice of Sakiko Uran) and insect-loving spooky girl Mutsuko (voice of Minako Kotobuki). They cheerfully vandalize the anatomical model in the science room, not knowing that after the kids come home, he comes to life, and Sir Louis Thomas Jerome Kunstlijik (voice of Koichi Yamadera) is not pleased with being used as a coloring book! He sends and invitation out to get the girls back to the school, dreaming of revenge, but his skeleton friend Mr. Goth (voice of Hiromasa Taguchi) suggests that maybe, instead, Mako, Mi, and Mu might be able to help prevent their home from being demolished.

For all that this movie clothes itself in spookiness, a self-contained loop of a time-travel subplot, and some weirdly adult references (although if Animaniacs could have a regular bit based on GoodFellas twenty years ago, why shouldn't a Japanese CGI cartoon give gun-toting bunnies names from The Godfather?), After School Midnighters is unabashedly for kids. It leaps past explanations or much in the way of logic the same way a kid's brain does, propelling things forward with raw energy, cuteness, and just plain being silly. The pace and loose narrative may leave grown-ups dizzy, but seldom bored. Director Hitoshi Takekiyo and co-writer Yoichi Kmori do go for a level of gross-out humor that I suspect would get the film slapped with at least a PG-13 in America at times, but never as anything truly malicious or humiliating.

Full review at EFC.

Les 4 Soldats (The Four Soldiers)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 1 September 2013 in Jay's Living Room (Fantasia International Film Festival, Cinando screener)

I gather writer/director Robert Morin is kind of a big deal in French-Canadian film, which doesn't surprise me from watching Les 4 Soldats; it's a very confident, assured independent film, impressive for how it can take relatively minimal activity and still make something very dramatic. Even though Quebeçois film has started to travel a bit more lately with the likes of Monsieur Lazhar and Starbuck, this low-key genre film will probably stay somewhat obscure despite telling its story quite well.

The film opens with narration that describes the status quo as a sort of economic civil war, although the situation mostly seems like armed chaos. A group of rebels take in orphaned teen Dominique (Camille Mongeau), with hard-edged Matéo (Christian de la Cortina) especially serving as her protector. In another abandoned house, they make a new friend in Big Max (Antoine Bertrand), a burly but gentle sort prone to talking to himself. When the larger group settles in to make camp, they include reserved, dreadlocked Kevin (Aliocha Schenider) in their shelter. As the unusually long period in one place continues, these four become very tight-knit, so when the leadership assigns new recruit Gabriel (Antoine L'Écuyer) to bunk with them, they're not sure whether or not they want to share the beautiful pond they've found with him.

Working from a novel by Hubert Mingarelli, Morin spends a few sentences establishing the reasons behind this civil war at the beginning but he doesn't have much interest in actually fighting it; the action is reserved for a few scenes at the start and end of the movie and the cause is rather beside the point. He mainly uses it to isolate his characters, shearing them away from what prior attachments they might have, shrinking their world physically, emotionally, and in terms of direction. The idea is to show them forming a family rather than just a unit, and Morin finds a few interesting ways to do so: The cheery-looking storage shed Big Max finds for a shelter while other groups are building lean-tos out of scrap metal, or the bickering over who gets to watch the iPod. Eventually, their ties to each other supersede those to the group, and the ethics of that is probably a question that the filmmakers could play with a bit more.

Full review at EFC.

The Battery

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 1 September 2013 in Jay's Living Room (Fantasia International Film Festival, Cinando screener)

There's a case to be made for The Battery, although it involves an premise that I'm not hugely fond of - that the filmmakers aren't really making a zombie movie, but exploring the bond and antagonism that form between two men thrown together by chance, and that survivors of the zombie apocalypse is just the hook. I suppose you could say that it does what it's looking to do fairly well, The question, then, is whether this is a story worth telling.

Maybe if World War Z had been adapted as an anthology television series as it arguably should have been, this would have made a nice hour-long entry. It follows two independent-league baseball players - pitcher Mickey (Adam Cronheim) and catcher Ben (Jeremy Gardner), who have been making their way across New England ever since the outbreak. Mickey's the lean one in a state of denial; Ben is bearded, husky, and taking to the new abnormal surprisingly well. Their in Connecticut now, practiced at avoiding attacks, but thrown a curve when they hear another voice on the walkie-talkies they use to communicate.

The standard play, perhaps, would be for Mickey & Ben to meet up with the seemingly organized group and discover that they're better off just trusting each other, but the other group says they don't want other people and they mean it. As a result, Ben & Mickey tend to find themselves at the edges of bigger stories that might have made for the plot of a fine story-based zombie movie but wind up being less of a focus here. It's an approach that allows for some good moments between the characters, but can also allow the movie drag at points, most egregiously the end. That end is rather frustrating, both in "we're leading up to this?" terms and requiring a certain lack of common sense to get there.

Full review at EFC.

Baramgwa hamjje sarajida (The Grand Heist)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 2 September 2013 in Jay's Living Room (Fantasia International Film Festival, Cinando screener)

For all the noir, caper, and pulp material I've consumed in my life, I don't know how many times I've ever actually heard someone refer to the jewels they were looking to steal as "ice", and I don't know if that's part of the vernacular in Korean. Even taking that as a given, the gimmick of The Grand Heist - a rag-tag group of thieves who are actually looking to steal big blocks of ice - still makes me grin. That it turns out to be a pretty entertaining caper movie on its own doesn't hurt.

It's not a silly thing - ice was a precious commodity in 19th-century Korea, and Baek Dong-soo (Oh Ji-ho) takes his job guarding it very seriously. Lee Duk-moo (Cha Tae-hyun), on the other hand, is more interested in books than anything else; he spends his time minding and practically living in the book store of Mr. Yang (Lee Moon-sik) while he travels the world. When the previously-antagonistic Duk-moo and Dong-soo are framed them for a crime that Minister Cho Yung-chul (Kim Ku-taek) him consolidate his hold on the government's ice-distribution business. He doesn't anticipate Duk-moo deciding to fight back and using everything he's ever read to hatch a plan that makes use of not just Dong-soo's fighting skills, but explosives expert Suk Dae-hyun (Shin Jung-keun), master of disguise Kim Jae-jun (Song Jong-ho), transport specialist Kim Chul-joo (Kim Gil-dong), disgraced archaeologist Hong Suk-chang (Ko Chang-seok), and information source Yoo Sul-hwa (Lee Chae-young).

There are two things an audience wants this sort of movie to do well: First, it has to set up a robbery that is sufficiently complex to take up a full-length feature but whose parts can be grasped fairly readily - and which can be swapped out by last-minute snafus or hidden for double-crosses and surprises - and which the audience doesn't really mind happening. Then it must assemble a team to do it which is a lot of fun, both in terms of the odd couple leading things and the entertaining array of specialists who help out. It's a tricky balance; the whole thing is no fun if the plot is simple, but make things too complex and not only does one risk losing the audience, but the things that must happen off-screen just to save time and preserve a few surprises start to feel unfair. Kim Min-sung's script turns out to be a nicely balanced thing; everybody's got their part to play, and while there are some surprises and reversals later on, it never feels like cheating.

Full review at EFC.

Mooseowon Iyagi (Horror Stories)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 2 September 2013 in Jay's Living Room (Fantasia International Film Festival, Cinando screener)

You could get a lot of horror anthology action at Fantasia this year, between this Korean picture, Hong Kong's Tales From the Dark, and (mostly) America's V/H/S/2. One thing that I find interesting, looking at the three, is that curation can in some ways be as important as individual scary segments. Tales had a common author's works as source material, and V/H/S/2 had a unifying feature that at least had room for variety. Horror Stories seemed to be four or five teams working separately and pasting things together, and while they come up with enjoyable segments, the end result wasn't quite the sum of its parts.

The unifying element for the story is a high school student (Kim Ji-won) who has been kidnapped by a young man (Yoo Yeon-seok) who explains to the chained girl that that he has a rare condition that he can manage while he wakes, but to sleep, he needs the scariest stories can come up with to chill his blood. Naturally, she's going to try to escape,although to do that she needs to get him to sleep. Writer/director Min Kyu-dong's premise is silly, sure, and Yoo isn't the most threatening villain, but it will hold for four stories, and Kim establishes herself as a protagonist who is quite easy to cheer for.

The first proper story is "Sun and Moon" (or "Don't Answer the Door"), written and directed by Jung Bum-sik. In this one, grade-schoolers Sunny (Kim Hyun-soo) and Moon (No Kang-min) are driven home to an empty apartment by their English teacher (No Hyeon-hee). Their mother (Ra Mi-ran) calls to tell them to expect a package but not let anyone in. It's a nifty set-up, and Director Jung does good work in making everyone outside (and potentially) inside the apartment seem like a threat to the kids, even to the grown-ups in the audience. It can be hard to do a slow-burn thriller within the relatively constrained time of a short, and that leads to a bit of an awkward climax as Jung tries to tie everything together, but up until that point, it works.

Full review at EFC.

Oltre il Guado (Across the River)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 3 September 2013 in Jay's Living Room (Fantasia International Film Festival, Cinando screener)

I had the feeling when I saw Across the River (Oltre il Gaudo in Italian) that when the time came to expand the capsule I wrote for my blog to a full entry, I would not have a whole lot to say. It is, after all, a pretty minimalist movie, and the folks who try to write a lot about those tend to find more than is actually there out of necessity. So let's keep it simple. Lorenzo Bianchini has made a creepy little movie, in part because he gives the audience the chance to fill in some early blanks which are already in interesting shapes.

It is a very basic set-up: Guy goes alone into the woods, weird stuff happens, and there's a real possibility that nobody is coming out again. There's almost no dialog and backstory is parceled out in miserly fashion toward the end - it's an hour into the movie before there is any reason to say Marco Contrada's name out loud or given an inkling of what his reason for being in these woods and the abandoned village he finds there.

Filmmaker Lorenzo Bianchini does pretty well in the atmosphere department. Start from how the woods is inherently creepy, add a crossing of running water that he makes far more portentous than it logically may be, and give away so little that it's not even clear whether what's hidden in these woods is cryptozoologic or paranormal - or what Marco's motives are, and things get thoroughly unnerving. There's something sinister about watching a man set up cameras and record other information without explanation, and by not telling the audience whether Marco is doing legitimate research or preparing to spy on other people, it's along time before the audience can get comfortable enough to do their own classifications of what they see on-screen.

Full review at EFC.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 11 October - 17 October 2013

There is too much this weekend, and that's before you get started with baseball. Or, heck, before you look at the studio stuff. To be honest, the amount of special programming this weekend is absurd to the point of overbooking.

• Let's start at The Somerville Theatre, which opens Escape From Tomorrow, a film much-buzzed-about at Sundance for being covertly shot at Walt Disney World - but apparently worth a look for its merits as a movie about a man possibly losing his mind amid the fantasy world of the magic kingdom.
  
  It might be wise to catch it Friday, as it looks to be the film taking the hit in terms of showtimes as the theater begins its October Boston Terror-Thon. It kicks off with a noon-to-midnight "Journey Through Time & Space" marathon that leans toward science fiction with 35mm prints from eight decades - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (with Jeff Rapsis doing the music), The Invisible Man, Dr. Cyclops, Forbidden Planet, Planet of the Apes, Westworld, Buckaroo Banzai, and Tremors. After that, they've got 8pm screenings of indie horror - Bad Milo on Sunday, Night Monster on Monday (also known as Monster Killer and playing Wednesday at 10pm), The Last Will & Testament of Rosalind Leigh on Tuesday (with a guest), Apparitional on Wednesday, and a 35mm Canadian horror double feature on Thursday, The Changeling and Ginger Snaps.
  
  And that's not even counting Wednesday's Halloween on the Tube, where Chris Hallock will be showing various Halloween specials and TV episodes in the micro-cinema; drop in and make a donation to UNICEF. A little way up Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington, The Capitol is running Hellraiser at 10:30pm on Friday and Saturday
• Not your sort of Marathon? The Brattle Theatre has two Watch-a-Thon events this weekend: On Saturday, they have a mostly-35mm Cult Classic Marathon of Beetlejuice, The Terror of Tiny Town (16mm), Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, I, Monster, Big Trouble in Little China (DCP), and a secret 25th anniversary screening of a sci-fi classic (guess: Killer Klowns). Sunday, they switch things up with the Classic Cult Marathon, still mostly 35mm, and featuring The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (DCP), The War of the Worlds (a new print!), The Wild One, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (DCP), We're No Angels, and the awesome and insane Beat the Devil.
  
  The latter two were relocated from elsewhere in the Best of Bogart program, which continues on from last week wtih Friday's double feature of Sabrina (DCP) & The Barefoot Contessa (35mm); Monday's big time 35mm double-shot of Casablanca & The Maltese Falcon; and a DCP of The African Queen on Tuesday. There's a sneak preview on Wednesday, and then a Balagan program of "Temporary Ocean (in Light & Sound)" on Thursday, a mix of 16mm and video shorts, several of which use the the image to produce the optical soundtrack.
• The Coolidge also has a bit of a glut of special programming, with three "@fter Midnite" things to catch in two days. One is much-delayed-by-Weinstein-distribution-bullshit All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, a pretty great slasher-tinged thriller - or at least, that's what I thought when I saw it at Fantasia in 2008. Director Jonathan Levine has made several pretty darn good movies (including 50/50 and Warm Bodies) since. The haunted house is a 35mm print of The Entity, but the big draw is apparently the "witchcraft" entry, Hocus Pocus - that Bette Midler/Sarah Jessica Parker/Kathy Najimy picture has been apparently getting some of the Coolidge's fastest presales ever.
  
  They've also got a 35mm "Stage & Screen" showing of Network, with playwright Stephen Belber discussing the themes that unite it and his play The Power of Duff on Monday. Thursday brings a package of short films from the Provincetown Film Festival. And the opening actually popped up on Thursday - documentary Free the Mind, about professor Richard Davidson's attempts to apply Tibetan meditation techniques to PTSD & ADHD.
• Two high-profile movies open in the mainstream theaters: Captain Phillips is a fact-based thriller with Tom Hanks as a merchant marine captain whose ship is attacked by pirates. Paul Greengrass directs, and real-world drama is what he does best. It's at the Capitol,Apple, Fenway, Boston Common, and the SuperLux. What Robert Rodriguez does is crazy casts and over-the-top action, and he brings Danny Trejo back for Machete Kills, with Mel Gibson of all people playing the villain. It's at Apple, Boston Common, and Fenway.
  
  There's also a new version of Romeo and Juliet, starring Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld. It's been 17 years since the Baz Luhrmann version, and I don't know whether that is more or less time than one should expect between big-screen adaptations. It's at Boston Common, Fenway, and Kendall Square. Boston Common also has Linsanity, a documentary on the phenomenon of Jeremy Lin, who became a hero to many Asian-Americans when he made the New York Knicks and went on an excellent run a couple years ago.
• In addition to Romeo and Juliet, Kendall Square brings in We Are What We Are, Jim Mickle's downright fantastic remake/inversion of a Mexican film about a family with a dark secret. There's also A.C.O.D., a comedy starring Adam Scott as an adult child of divorce who thinks he is past all that until his brother gets married and the whole family descends upon him (it also plays twice a day at Boston Common). The one-week booking is IFFBoston alumnus Muscle Shoals, a documentary on how a small town in Alabama became a rock & roll recording mecca.
• The Regent Theatre has another busy week. Locally produced thriller Mark of the Dog Rose has its premiere Sunday, with cast and crew in attendance and free admission to an after party. CBGB on Monday is also written as a premiere; it's about the legendary NYC music club and has a pretty nice ensemble cast. I'm rather looking forward to Tuesday's Gathr Preview Series offering, Big Sur; I don't know much from Kerouac but a new Michael Polish movie is generally interesting, if nothing else, and executive producer Jim Sampas will be on-hand to introduce and take questions afterward.. There's a second screening of Surge on Wednesday, and Thursday features Aerosmith concert flick Rock for the Rising Sun.
• I missed the Harvard Film Archive's screening of Dead Birds on the 10th, but its director Robert Gardner visits on Friday night with Dead Birds Re-encountered, a 45-minute documentary where Gardner revisits New Guinea and catches up with the subjects of the previous film. Admission is free. Not the case on Saturday, when Billy Woodberry will be in town to present Bless Their Little Hearts, a 1984 film that the HFA meant to show in April as part of their series on black independent cinema, but which was cancelled after the marathon bombing. Sunday and Monday wrap up the first half of the Songs of Struggle - The Radical Documentaries of Shinsuke Ogawa series, with Report From Haneda (5pm Sunday, no English subtitles), Sanrizuka - Heta Village (Sunday 7pm), and Sanrizuka - The Skies of May, the Road to the Village (Monday 7pm). There's a VES screening of The Naked City on Tuesday and a free screening of "La Jetee" on Thursday.
• The MFA has the last screening of Herb & Dorothy 50x50 on Friday evening. The next day, Suitcase of Love and Shame plays with director Jane Gilooly present for a discussion of her anthropological examination of a 1960s extramarital affair. The National Center for Jewish Film Mini-Festival continues Saturday and Sunday, while there are two screenings of Hispanic Heritage Month short films on Monday as part of their fall open house.
• ArtsEmerson has two screenings of Sunset Boulevard on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, tied into next weekend's Boston Book Festival. That program also includes a Saturday afternoon screening of Adaptation and screenings of Hal Hartley's Henry Fool on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. The Bright Lights programs include the experimental "Transformative works: A Presentation of Fan Vids by Cameron Salisbury" on Tuesday and compilation film Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood with writer/curator Richard Barrios on Thursday

My plans? Escape From Tomorrow, Terrorthon, Baseball. The other stuff will just have to wait.

Gathr Preview Screening: The Other Shore

Up until a couple of weeks ago, this weekly trip to the Regent involved me getting off the bus, grabbing some take-out from Elton's, and then sitting in the open space around the corner from the theater and opening the laptop for about forty-five minutes. Now, it's too dark to do that, so I'm walking down Mass Ave for a bit and finding some food.

In related news, Retro Burger makes a good cheeseburger.

There were a few people in the audience this time, and maybe if that number picks up, the typical steps I execute before actually sitting down will feel less like going through the motions. After all, even tough I'm paid up through December, I still go to Gathr's site, reserve my seat, go through another couple of pages to actually print out my pass, which I hand over to the guy at the Regent's box office. He gives me a ticket (by now calling me by name), which no usher rips. Granted, I like having stubs to put on TWIT pages, but it's kind of crazy, isn't it?

Funny thing is, someone from Gathr wrote me the other day asking if I'd like a free ticket to next week's Big Sur, like I wasn't already a big chunk of their audience. (Granted, the answer would have been "yes", because new Michael Polish film.)

The Other Shore

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 8 October 2013 at the Regent Theatre (Gathr Preview Series, digital)

"Are you a swimmer?" asked the man at the ticket booth who knew full well I was there because I had a season pass for this film series. I said I wasn't, and he pointed out that even in that case, Diana Nyad was "an inspiring story. An inspiring story." The funny thing is, I'm not necessarily sure director Timothy Wheeler felt that way by the time he finished his documentary on her attempt to swim from Cuba to the Florida Keys after turning sixty.

She had tried it before, back in 1978, when she had made a name for herself not just by winning races but for completing other marathon swims. She retired soon after, moving into broadcasting and not setting foot in the water for almost thirty years before announcing her intent to try again in 2010, at the age of sixty. This is not a thing to be attempted lightly, although her trainer and longtime friend Bonnie Stoll thinks that the mental aspect may be the most important, and Diana has that in spades.

Perhaps too much so. There comes a point in activities like this where the challenges go from "risks" to "dangers", and the way Nyad continues to talk herself into pressing forward certainly seems to cross the line from admirable daring to something that feels more like hubris by the time everything has been said and done. Stoll certainly seems to think so - or at least, that's the impression she givesin the final edit. It makes for an uneasy last act, as the audience can feel a movie that started out with the intention of being inspirational becoming a cautionary tale. It's a shift which is kind of fascinating and unexpected, but the ending doesn't really satisfy either; the end of the narrative literally happens alongside the closing credits, leaving no time for Nyad, Stoll, and company to ruminate over what it means.

Full review at EFC.

This Week In Tickets: 30 September 2013 - 6 October 2013

My birthday was Wednesday. On Friday, the Sox played their first playoff game in a few years and Gravity came out, so I had no problem celebrating then, especially since everybody (rightfully) thinks of the 2nd as my now-seven-year-old niece's birthday anyway.



Not-Technically-Stubless-But-The-Printout-Doesn't-Fit: The Etheria Film Festival, with shorts and Best Friends Forever, Saturday 5 October 2013, 5:15pm, Somerville #4

Lots of play-in baseball to watch this week, which combined with things not lining up with my commute quite right made for a quiet week. I was excited to see The Broken Circle Breakdown as part of the Gathr preview series on Tuesday, with a live bluegrass performance a bonus, and wound up being even more impressed than I expected.

I started Friday off with Gravity on the RPX screen at Regal Fenway. I debated between that and the Imax screens at Boston Common and Jordan's Furniture, but figured this would give me some time to eat and arrive on time for the pre-game ceremonies. I wound up using an (expired) Groupon at Sweet Caroline's for lunch - some not-bad fish & chips and apple crisp, winding up somewhat alarmed when I looked up and out the window and saw the rain coming down quite hard. Fortunately, it tapered off while I was standing under cover in the concourse trying to charge my phone (on that day, I think my phone was draining faster than the cord was supplying power whenever I tried to do anything).

Fortunately, it turns out that playoff baseball is even more awesome than regular baseball! It opened with a long-ish ceremony honoring Patriot's Day people (which was cool other than using "Boston Strong", which I'm reasonably sure came into being as a phrase to sell T-shirts that week), but then the game started and... Well, baseball. The best kind, as there wasn't a lot of worrying about the longer season or getting people some work in. It was just play all-out, with the fans so into the game that the wave didn't even get started. Being in the center-field bleachers, I got to hear a lot of mocking Wil Myers for the rest of the game, but all in all, it was a good time.



That didn't hurt, either. Pretty enjoyably decisive

I pushed my luck later that night, though, heading to the Coolidge's midnight show of The Keep even though it had already been a long day. As a result... Well, I hope they break their print out again sometime next year.

Saturday was spent at the Somerville Theatre, first with Prisoners and then with The Etheria Festival. Then it was back there again for the second look at Safety Last in a year, this time on 35mm.

Gravity

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 4 October 2013 in Regal Fenway #13 (first-run, RPX/RealD 3D)

I'll probably write up a full review after a second viewing, and let the very fact that there will be a second viewing tell you all that you need to know about how I feel about this movie: I think the last time I was making plans to see something on the big screen several times before it left theaters was Hugo, for pretty similar reasons: Brilliance combined with astonishingly good 3D.

And this really is an amazingly great bit of movie. Alfonso Cuarón has built a lean, suspenseful thriller in a pretty basic way: Give the characters a very difficult problem to solve and don't let their personal issues overwhelm the story, even if they do become important enough to give the movie some emotional weight beyond just being tremendously exciting. It's straightforward, but relentlessly so, one brilliantly constructed sequence after another.

Those big action scenes are eye-popping, especially since they often start off with something in the background before exploding into eye-popping chaos. Practically every sequence is in free-fall and the effects, 3D, and staging. The science isn't perfect, but it's better than usual and a great example of what I like about "interplanetary era" sci-fi - it's built out of things we know and understand but which are stranger and more amazing than the far-future stories built to make things convenient.

Plus, I love the cast. This will probably wind up Sandra Bullock's signature role; she's fantastic even if the character's background is a little difficult to make fit at times. George Clooney is himself, which is exactly what his part needs. And even if we only hear Ed Harris's voice, it would be an assuring and ideal one even if it didn't stir up happy memories of Apollo 13.

The Keep

N/A (out of four)
Seen 4 October 2013 in the Coolidge Corner Theatre #1 (@fter Midnite, 35mm)

So, yeah, I conked out midway through this, and I couldn't put the story together if I tried. A shame, because I really liked what I saw at both ends. It starts with rational, pragmatic people approaching something creepy and supernatural in a rational, pragmatic way, even if they are Nazis who don't know what they're getting into. It ends with the whole situation have gone completely nuts with screenwriter/director Michael Mann having no problem just throwing something absurd-looking on the screen. Honestly, I watched it and wondered why DC Comics/Warner Brothers hadn't sued the heck out of Paramount for doing a movie with Darkseid as the villain thirty years ago.

In between, though... Well, I was tired and the movie was slow to get things moving, so I'm not totally sure how things got from point A to point B, or where Ian McKellan came from. I suppose I could watch it on Amazon, but it's one of those movies where the streaming services seem to be running off a cruddy pan & scan VHS master rather than the spiffy print the Coolidge has.

In fact, the story of why the Coolidge Corner Theatre could quickly substitute this when the print for The Amityville Horror they received was unusable was some of the most entertaining stuff of the night - apparently this was so disavowed by everyone and caught in legal limbo that Paramount never insisted they ship it back, it wound up in the theater's basement, and whenever they opened the cans to see what was in them, the heads on the reels said "keep", so they kept it. Thus, thirty years later, they had a really great-looking 35mm print. Here's hoping they pull it off the bench again, so I can watch it while less wiped out.

Prisoners

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 5 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #3 (first-run, 2K DCP)

It's an odd thing - Prisoners is somewhere between three and four times the length of an episode of a television police procedural, and yet, where Law & Order is built around running down blind alleys and developing theories that don't pan out, the shape of this film's mystery is almost too clear. It fits together too well, and by the time storylines climax, they really don't have much opportunity to surprise.

So, what's left? Acting and darkness. They're fairly well intertwined, with everybody given an opportunity to look very serious and tortured as they ponder the terrible things that may be happening to two missing girls off-screen. And the cast handles it well, if with a tendency toward the grandiose. It's a familiar set of moral quandries and questions of how many lines one is willing to cross to see justice done and how wrenching a missing child can be, but the cast handle it well.

And so it goes. Prisoners is the sort of crime movie that makes an attempt to impress with its and horrific themes, but is mostly well-polished pulp. Good pulp, and too grim to be called escapist, but basically a decent crime story with a nice cast.

Safety Last!

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 6 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Silents Please!, 35mm)

With this screening just three and a half months since the last time it popped up in Boston (as part of the Brattle's DCP debut) and with another booking planned for the Coolidge this December, there is a lot of Safety Last! around here in 2013. Not complaining, just saying there's not a whole lot more to write about it. I still like it and find the final act as breathtaking as ever, even if the lying that leads up to it is still problematic.

This time around, the print was 35mm, Jeff Rapsis was on the keyboard, and Annette D'Agostino Lloyd, author of a Harold Lloyd biography, was on-hand to introduce. She spent a fair amount of time talking about co-star Bill Strother, the human fly who inspired the picture, and also doing the whole "if only more people were like this character..." bit, which kind of overlooks how the hero is a pretty irresponsible liar.

One of the interesting things about seeing silents in the theater is that you might get a new soundtrack with each viewing, and this time around was a pretty good example of how it can change the character of a movie. In this case, Jeff Rapsis really pounded the keys hard and seemed to build the movie's sound around the death-defying stunts of the last act as opposed to the light, comedy-emphasizing scores I've heard before. It didn't work in opposition to the comedy, but it occasionally had the feeling of adventure themes played funny rather than comedy themes played thrilling, a different but still enjoyable way to experience the same material.

Once more, a link to the review I wrote in 2004.

Etheria Film Festival 2013: shorts & Best Friends Forever

I suspect much of what I've got to say about the Etheria Film Festival itself will be a repeat of what I said last year, when they had their first Saturday at the Somerville Theatre courtesy of All Things Horror: That it's a cool event that I hope to see succeed, both because I like science fiction in all its forms and because I'd like there to be more forms.

There can seem to be a weird paradox motivating Etheria, its sister festival Viscera, and the like: That they're important and necessary both to get women a chance to make their marks in a male-dominated field and to create works that are specifically female-oriented. I honestly can't imagine what it must be like to be a woman who loves science fiction, horror, action, superheroes, and the like, and also wants to contribute. They get enough static from certain quarters for loving the underpinnings, and so much of actual product out there is still close enough to the pulp and exploitation ancestry of the genres that one can feel the need to parse what one likes, and the science fiction fanbase can be weirdly conservative. Still, folks persevere.

The festival seemed a bit smaller this year, but that might just be a function of there being no guests this time around. There were apparently a few technical difficulties with the short documentary that started the event ("Beast Wishes: The Fantastic World of Bob & Kathy Burns") that led to it being moved to the micro-theater and starting late, so I wound up plowing through a bit more of my book than I expected before the shorts started. This year, it was just one block rather than the separate sci-fi and fantasy blocks of last year in order to make room for a feature (Best Friends Forever). I like that as a choice; there seemed like much less filling-out and, besides, three hours can be a lot of shorts.

At any rate, not a bad afternoon/evening's worth of sci-fi and fantasy for $15. As is usual with niche festivals like this, I hope that eventually it's more about wanting to see a different perspective than needing to break out to be visible.

Etheria 2013 Short Film Competition

Seen 5 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #4 (Etheria Film Festival, digital)

"Warnings from the Bathtub" - Who is going to take Karen Black's place now that she's gone? The world needs an actor with a recognizable name who just keeps working, no matter how small or strange the project is. Granted, she's not the star of this short; she plays a hallucination of the main character's dead mother talking to her from the bathtub where said mother committed suicide. But, honestly, that's not the weirdest thing about Elizabeth Appel's short, in which Deborah Pink plays a woman who has, apparently, given up on men for furniture. It's a weird premise that plays out just as strangely as one might expect, but Pink rolls with it all the way up to the expected "twist" ending.

"The End of the Night" - This one's a nicely-assembled medieval fantasy by French-Canadian Emilie Rosas, and is okay as such things go. It's admittedly not my thing, all grim enmity and characters who are less individual personalities than people who fill Positions With Capital Letters. For me, it was though to work out what makes this particular millieu and group of characters interesting, but that's personal taste and par for the course.

"The Culling" - This one's a futuristic dystopia from Australia, where Kerinne Jenkins posits a teenage boy apprenticed to his doctor father who balks at the titular part of their job. It, too, occasionally feels like a sketch that could use a little filling out, but the story works and the cast is able, and there's a neat but understated bit of suspense at the end.

"Butterflies" - This animated entry is also from Australia, with Isabel Peppard presenting a homeless street artist who is sucked into a soul-killing greeting card factory. It can be a little tough to get past the look of the film - nothing in it is conventionally pretty - but it does a fine job of illustrating the grotesqueness of both the artist's youth and the factory, as well as how that impacts her work. The story's simple, but well-told.

"The Rift" - Maybe the best of the shorts, this one tells the story of a wife and mother who is understandably obsessing over a phenomenon where people vanish into a mysterious light after her daughter and later husband are taken. Belinda McCulloch does a fairly impressive job of establishing her premise without much in the way of exposition or more detail than is necessary, with Samantha Faircloth fairly good in the lead role. It's an easily-relatable allegory for survivors' guilt, but the fantastical elements intrigue enough for the audience to want to see more.

"Render" - A cute enough short by Canadian Surita Parmar. It's got a somewhat amusing idea - self-aware clip-art people in an architectural rendering notice that their arbitrary world doesn't quite add up - but doesn't have more than one or two jokes to squeeze out of it. At least those couple of jokes are kind of amusing.

"The Storymaker" - Funny thing; I remember this being one of the more visually striking entries in the package, but a few days later, pretty much nothing specific from it lingers in my mind. It was another one about an artist being consumed by the corporation, but beyond that... An example, I guess, of how imagery sticks better when hung on a solid framework, and maybe that storytellers telling stories about the obstacles they face getting stories told might want to ease back on the navel-gazing a bit.

"Monster" - Is it just me, or is this short about an apparently post-apocalyptic tribe sarificing a girl to a creature who is Not What They Think the closest thing Jodelle Ferland has ever done to playing a regular, well-adjusted kid/teen? Sure, it's a dark, gloomy world that director Deborah Burns insets her into, but she's downright cheerful! It's a fairly entertaining little movie for that, with the expected double-twist so that nobody gets disappointed.

Best Friends Forever

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 5 October 2013 in Somerville Theatre #4 (Etheria Film Festival, digital)

Brea Grant has thus far had the sort of career that leads to a movie like Best Friends Forever - after a few instances of being the pretty good thing in disappointing productions and not having it lead to bigger and better things, it only makes sense to take matters into one's own hands and make a star vehicle rather than wait for one to come along. To a certain extent, Grant and co-star/co-writer Vera Miao have made another flawed picture, but being at the center rather than in supporting roles allows them to boost it a bit higher than they usually can.

The movie starts off with Los Angeles roommates Harriet (Grant) and Reba (Miao) throwing a party to celebrate Harriet getting into grad school to study library sciences in Austin. Goodbyes will be delayed a bit as Reba accompanies Harriet on a road trip to Texas, but it turns out to be a weird one, as the road seems strangely abandoned, they get carjacked by a trio of hipsters, and there just may be something to the apocalyptic rantings on the radio.

Both Grant and Miao have had writing credits before this (Grant in comics, Miao on a short film), but they are actors first, and they write like it. It's not hard to believe that there are complete, well-thought-out backstories for both characters that they can draw on as actors. And while there are moments when they appear to be hitting specific things fairly hard, the general feeling is of two people whose contrasting personalities complement each other very well. Grant's given herself a character that could fail to ring true because of how deliberately off-kilter she's meant to be, but she's able to rein the tics and selective self-awareness in to the point where Harriet is both deadpan funny and kind of sweet. Miao, meanwhile, is able to play Reba as much more relaxed and natural, although she plays well off Grant and proves capable of carrying both funny and tragic scenes as needed.

Full review at EFC.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 4 October - 10 October 2013

It was my birthday on Wednesday, but since that day has more or less been taken over by my niece, I'm just going to call tomorrow "Jay's Birthday (Observed)", what with the Red Sox having their first postseason game in a few years and Gravity opening.

• And Gravity is the main event this weekend, the first new film from Alfonso Cuaron in a few years. It features Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts in orbit when disaster strikes. Previews have looked amazing, early reviews are fantastic, and this looks like the sort of movie that is made to my personal specifications. It's at Somerville, Apple, Fenway (including 3D RPX), Boston Common (including the 3D Imax screen), the SuperLux, and Jordan's Furniture (3D).
  
  The other major opening is Runner Runner, with Justin Timberlake as a grad student who discovers an exploit in an online poker site, Ben Affleck as the guy who runs it that hires him, and Anthony Mackie as the cop investigating Affleck. Gemma Arterton's in there, too, probably as a girlfriend of some sort. It's at the Capitol, Apple, Belmont Studio, Boston Common, and Fenway.
  
  In addition to moving its continuing matinees of The Wizard of Oz to a regular 3D screen, Boston Common has another family-friendly picture, Grace Unplugged, with AJ Michalka as a young musician whose father has been through all the faith-testing things she will go through. They've also got Parkland, an ensemble drama set in the aftermath of the JFK assassination.
• Kendall Square has two films opening: Wadjda, whose title character is a 10-year-old girl from Saudia Arabia who takes part in a Koran recitation contest to raise money for something her teachers would find terrible (a bicycle!). They've also got a one-week-booking of Mother of George, with Danai Gurira as a Nigerian immigrant with an extraordinarily demanding mother-in-law. It is, by all accounts, a beautiful film, and producer Carly Hugo will be at the 6:55pm screening on Friday.
• The Somerville Theatre has two special programs this weekend: The Etheria Film Festival is back for a second year courtesy of All Things Horror; it's a group of science fiction films made by women, this year including a documentary featurette, a short film program, and the feature Best Friends Forever. It starts at 4pm Saturday and continues on into the evening. Then on Sunday, the "Silents, Please!" film series returns with Jeff Rapsis accompanying a 35mm print of Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! at 1pm.
  
  Meanwhile, at their sister theater in Arlington (The Capitol), an October classic horror series kicks off with The Shining at 10:30pm on Friday & Saturday. Both theaters do some second-run rearranging of screens, with 20 Feet From Stardom coming to the Somerville from Kendall Square and pushing The World's End to Arlington.
• The Coolidge is getting into the Halloween spirit with no less than three "@fter Midnite" programs Friday & Saturday night: First, Bad Milo! has its local premiere in the screening room; it's cute-but-bloody horror-comedy about a parasite that climbs out of Ken Marino's inestine when he feels threatened. They also have The Craft, featuring a group of young witches played by actresses who were pretty darn popular at the time (Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True), on the upstairs screen, and special free 35mm screenings of The Keep in the main screen (it's a last-minute substitute for a messed-up print of something else, and likely free because of the legal mess that's kept it from appearing on DVD yet).
  
  Those aren't the only special screenings, though - Sunday morning, Talk Cinema has their second show of the current schedule wtih See You Tomorrow, in which a man in need of money opens a funeral home in a town where everyone is over the age of eighty - and surprisingly healthy. Tuesday has the monthly "Open Screen" program, as well as a British National Theater presentation of Othello (with Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear). And Thursday has a preview screening of Free the Mind, a documentary about the study of how various mental states manifest in the brain, with a number of local scientists.
  
  In addition to all the special screenings, they open Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction in the screening room; it's a documentary on the great character actor that also gives audiences a look at his work as a folk musician.
• The Brattle Theatre has matinees of Good Ol' Freda through Sunday, but gives most of the schedule over to their Best of Bogart series of double features: High Sierra & The Petrified Forest on Friday, To Have and Have Not & The Big Sleep on Saturday, Casablanca & The Maltese Falcon on Sunday, Key Largo & Dark Passage on Monday, In a Lonely Place & Dead Reckoning on Tuesday, The Caine Mutiny & The Desperate Hours on Wednesday, and a single feature of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre on Thursday. Most are on 35mm, although some will be DCPs.
• The Regent Theatre is actually running movies most of the week. Sunday has a charity screening of Graceland, a pretty terrific Filipino thriller along the lines of High & Low, while Monday's screening of The Triumph: The Battle Has Begun benefits Comunita Cenacolo. Tuesday's Gathr Preview Series entry is The Other Shore, chronicling swimmer Diana Nyad's multiple attempts to swim from Cuba to Florida. Wednesday features Surge from Acquire the Fire, a Christian/motivational event which has a lot of music involved. Thursday wraps the week up with "Reel Rock 8", a collection of mountain-climbing short films.
• With not just a new month but a new quarter upon us, the the Harvard Film Archive starts up an entirely new schedule. It kicks off with three connected films in the new Songs of Struggle - The Radical Documentaries of Shinsuke Ogawa series. They include The Battle Front for the Liberation of Japan - Summer in Sanrizuka at 7pm on Friday, Sanrizuka - The Three Day War at 9:15pm (playing with Sea of Youth - Four Correspondence Course Students, as they are both fairly short features), and Sanrizuka - Peasants of the Second Fortress at 7pm on Sunday. The collaborators from Sea of Youth also worked together on Monday's film, Forest of Oppression - A Record of the Struggle at Takasaki City University of Economics.
  
  In between, director Joshua Oppenheimer will be in town on Saturday to show the longer director's cut of the already-harrowing The Act of Killing. An earlier featurette of his, "The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase", will screen at 5pm Sunday.
• The MFA has one last screening of The Legend of Cool "Disco" Dan on Saturday, while Herb & Dorothy 50x50 continues with screenings on Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. There are also two more screenings from The National Center for Jewish Film Mini-Festival on Wednesday and a chance to see and vote on the films of the Manhattan Short Film Festival on Sunday morning. There are also several screenings of Who Takes Away the Sins: Witnesses to Clergy Abuse (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) with a panel discussion after each one.
• ArtsEmerson looks at India this weekend, with Midnight's Children (an adaptation of Salman Rushdie's book about children switched at birth as India split from Britain) plays Friday night, while 1986 Bollywood thriller Nagina plays Sunday afternoon. In between, there's a screening of The Bling Ring on Saturday night. The Bright Lights programs include a sneak preview of Escape from Tomorrow on Monday, Tey with director Alain Gomis on-hand Tuesday, and two short films by Emerson grad Julian Higgins ("No Wind, No Waves" and "Thief") on Thursday.
• Not only are the iMovieCafe guys opening Besharam at Apple Cinemas, but it's playing at Fenway as well. It stars Ranbir Kapoor as a well-meaning car thief who aims to change his ways to make things up to the love of his life.
• The UMass Boston Film Series has Big Men on Thursday, with director Rachel Boynton on hand to discuss her documentary on the frantic world of the African oil industry.

My plans? Gravity & baseball Friday, Etheria Saturday, The Other Shore Tuesday, and hopefully squeezing Runner Runner, Herb & Dorothy II, some Bogie, and maybe Big Men in around them. Plus The Keep, because who knows when else I'll get to see that?

Gathr Preview Screening: The Broken Circle Breakdown

It was a last-minute thing, but Gathr and the Regent Theatre did something kind of cool by having local bluegrass band Southern Rail there for a forty-five minute set before this bluegrass-infused film.



It was a nifty way to start the night; I've never been a particular fan of the style, but it was a nice show. The folks in the front row seemed to be friends/fans of the band, and either left or moved to the back after their set. The band themselves, though, seemed pretty excited to see the film.

I hope they knew what they were getting into. The Broken Circle Breakdown is a pretty great movie, Belgium's submission for the "Best Foreign Language Film" category at the Academy Awards. I'm not sure why they still persist with that system, as this one would be eligible even if they were using the same rules as everyone else. It's scheduled for release in the US on 1 November, although I don't know when it will reach Boston.

Unlike a lot of the Gathr previews, I knew something about this one going in - it was a selection at Fantasia, but I had conflicts both times it screened - with Lesson of the Evil the first time and the tail end of of Library Wars the second. The folks I talked to who did see it, though, raved about it, particularly Kurt Halfyard. I still did expect it to be quite as good as it was, though.

The eFilmCritic review goes into most of why, but I would like to talk about the end after the review.

The Broken Circle Breakdown

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 1 October 2013 at the Regent Theatre (Gathr Preview Series, digital)

Just about everybody who buys a ticket for The Broken Circle Breakdown will know going in that it's designed to break his or her heart, but how and how much is easily underestimated. Director Felix Van Groeningen and company construct their tale of love, bluegrass music, and disaster so well that it's sometimes hard to tell whether the moments of joy make the tragedies worse or bearable.

The film opens with a song and then moves to 2007, where Elise Vandevelde (Veerle Baetens) and Didier Bontnick (Johan Heldenbergh) are in the hospital with their six-year-old daughter Maybelle (Nell Cattrysse), only to be told that the tests are positive, and she has cancer. Just as that's really sinking in, it's 2001, when Didier & Elise spent their first night together in a camper on his run-down farm just outside Ghent. Though Didier has no interest in getting tattoos from Elise's shop, she's soon a member of his bluegrass group, and it seems like nothing could be more powerful than their love.

Star Johan Heldenbergh co-wrote the play that this picture was based upon, although that must be a very different thing from the film. Van Groeningen and his collaborators do a number of screen-specific things very well, with the most important and noteworthy being how things are cut together. The Broken Circle Breakdown may be the best-edited film you'll see for some time, with Van Groeningen and editor Nico Leunen doing something impressive at just about every level: There's not a scene that feels flabby or like it's missing anything. Montages (often keyed to a lyric-heavy song that doesn't leave a lot of room for error) deliver information concisely without slowing down or doling out exposition. The time period shifts back and forth without the need for on-screen titles, always showing the events that are most appropriate right at that moment, even if it's not always the obvious choice. Questions and events can be left dangling in the air without the feeling of cheap, artificial suspense.

Full review at EFC.

SPOILERS!

One thing that intrigued and rather impressed me was how religion and the lack thereof figured into the latter acts of the picture. Didier is an atheist, and while Elise isn't particularly religious, she sort of uses it as the default setting the way many people do. Heck, even Didier does, in a certain way, feeling he can't simply be matter-of-fact about death with his daughter, and that would probably be the case if she weren't dying as well. It's a scary, difficult thing to acknowledge that the universe does not have a special place picked out for you, and it can be hard to make the leap from that to all life being even more precious because of it. Similarly, I love the metaphor he later makes to Maybelle about how the light from a dead star continues to spread throughout the universe forever, but it is a metaphor rather than assurance.

And yet, for all that I think Didier's perspective gets a little more play than Elise's, the amazing thing is that the movie features him losing his faith. He doesn't believe in God, but he does believe in America, with the sort of true belief that doesn't need to be expressed fervently. It's why he loves bluegrass, though - as he describes its origins, it represents an idealized version of America, where people from many lands join together to make something beautiful. It overlooks that they all came together by being parts of the underclass, of course, and he doesn't quite notice how President Bush is invoking God when making his post-9/11 speech. It's not until after Bush is vetoing stem cell research that he really sees that the thing he has faith in is just as problematic as conventional religion.

In some ways, I'm still chewing on the end. On the one hand, Didier is still alive - that he's been abandoned by his dream of America sucks, but it's a manageable betrayal. There's no potential comfort in death for him, and that there's no meaning to life but what he gives it means that said meaning can't be yanked away like it has been for Elise. But on the other hand, this world view has left him alone without any sort of solace. It's no wonder he eventually asks Elise to say hello to Maybelle; this is exactly the sort of situation where one grasps at anything. And we, the audience, have already seen some sort of spirit, ghost, or out of body experience for Elise at that point. Maybe it's an admission that there is some sort of afterlife, or maybe Didier (and the audience) creates it because they need to.


What's most impressive, though, is that Van Groeningen creates the same sort of impulses in the audience. Maybe any given viewer believes in God, maybe he or she doesn't. The funny thing is, though, even the most religious will often decry the heavy hand of a creator when watching a film or reading a book; we expect the author to "play fair" as opposed to pulling something completely external out at the last minute. And yet, in the last moments of The Broken Circle Breakdown, we're playing for a miracle - we want there to be some way to return Elise's spirit to her body. We can feel ourselves willing it to happen, even though we might feel like it would be betraying the movie's themes. And in making the audience go through with it, the filmmakers have demonstrated just how innate this impulse toward belief in a higher power is, even for those who think it causes many of the world's ills.

That's an extraordinary accomplishment on the part of the filmmakers, I think, and it's arguably not even the primary focus of the film.

!SRELIOPS