Fantasia 2018.10: The Traveling Cat Chronicles, The Outlaws, Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, Knuckleball, Amiko, and RokuRoku: Promise of the Witch

Sometime I've got to go back over my old Fantasia programs and blogs to see if the makeup of the festival is changing, or at least what I see - this one has been pretty Japan-heavy, but that always seems to have been the case. I tend to think it's got something to do with more top-tier stuff from China and Korea getting regular releases (I've already seen two of this year's Korean movies), but it may just be me.

Anyway - visitors!



First visitors of the day were for Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires. I was kind of surprised to see it was made in the UK, since it's set in America and the accents aren't awful, but Mike Mort (center) is Welsh, and did half the voices, so go figure.

He talked a lot about how, when he does the next one, he's going to need to find a way to automate mouth movements, because it would take days to do it manually. Stop-motion can be a bit of a beast; one 38-second wide shot actually took a month!



Knuckleball is Canadian and therefore got a fair number of guests, including Michael Ironside up front (from my perspective), and, moving back, composer David Arcus, co-star Munro Chambers, star Luca Villacis, and director Michael Peterson. Ironside warned the audience that he would kick our asses if we used our phones during the movie, which was nicely imposing.

Ironside was especially talkative during this Q&A; he saw the film about being the lack of communication in families, and I guess that's a way to look at it. Really proud of it as a Canadian, too, imploring everybody to get their friends to see it when Raven Banner releases it theatrically (it's apparently getting a much smaller U.S. release as well), since it's a Canadian movie made in Canada about Canadians (although it does refer to an "interstate" and the "northwest" in the early going, so it certainly sounds like it's meant to be set in America).

Fun group, although Villacis is one of those kid actors that's kind of unnerving in how they talk about their craft in adult terms. They also mentioned that he watched The Revenant every night to get into things and, man, that's weird for an 8-year-old, right?



Last guest of the night is Amiko director Yoko Yamanaka, who made this movie when she was 19 and was pretty excited about it bringing her halfway around the world, and also about discovering that they had fried oysters in Montreal, joking that those were one of the few things she really liked about living in Japan and that finding them in Canada was a game-changer. It was an interesting thing to say, considering a moment or two in the movie and how she got bored and frustrated at university, eventually dropping out and then lying around home reading manga and watching movies until she finally decided to just up and make Amiko.

It's a strikingly solid work, even if it is a little rough at times, impressive as heck for something this borderline-underground. She sounded like she's got plans for something both a little more high-budget and more independent.

(I also like that she mentioned that Japan, especially, has a lot of underground movies like this made in six or seven days with no breaks for sleeping and eating, and she couldn't work like that, and they mostly filmed three days a week for a month or two. I suspect that might just be a lot of her cast and crew also being in school, but it seems much healthier than burning yourself out!)

After that, I stuck around for RokuRoku: Promise of the Witch, the new one from Yudai Yamaguchi which had a midnight screening added just before the schedule went to press, so it was kind of sparse (but, if you want to see it and Montreal Dead End, not much choice). I'm apparently just not up for midnights this year, as I nodded off at a couple points, and really noticed it when the end credits initially showed all the monsters and I couldn't remember a couple.

Worth noting: It had a 2014 copyright on it, although the program shows it hitting festivals in 2017/2018. I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it was shelved - it's not great, but just decent enough that I could see a studio looking for the right spot rather than just dumping it on VOD or something.

Strangely, after not getting to bed until late after that one, I got up relatively early on Sunday, where the plan is Fireworks, Loi Bao, Our House, and The Witch: Part 1 - The Subversion.

Tabineko ripôto (The Traveling Cat Chronicles, aka Tabineko Report)

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

Fine, sure, let's get the day's crying done early and have fun with the rest of the movies.

Yes, this is the sort of movie that tries to soften the blow of something sad with cute animals, but since it's cats instead of dogs, it's kind of no-nonsense about it; Nana is smart and not sentimental in her narration (or his; the subtitles use male pronouns despite the female voice), with a default expression of annoyed indignation. It's just enough tartness to cover the fact that, yes, the movie is that sort of thing.

But it's that sort of thing in a good way, telling some funny stories while doing a nice job of misdirecting and holding what it's going to be about in, and even the big revelation is kind of secondary to how the film is generally about taking both animals and people who need it in, even when it's difficult and leads to some heartache.

Full review at EFC.

Beomjoidosi (The Outlaws)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

The Outlaws is a basic as heck cop movie, the sort that starts with its cops and hoods on casual terms with each other and doesn't really start getting intense until the very end, even though the outsider invading the territory is constantly bringing the violence. The filmmakers know how these things are shaped, and are willing to give the fans what they like without a whole lot of new ingredients.

That's fine enough; a lot of people are just at a genre film to enjoy the familiar and maybe laugh at something aiming for a happy first, and this supplies it. There are dry-witted cops, frustrated gangsters, fights where getting slashed with a knife seems like it's mostly irritating, and the big one where the big guys let loose, making a mess of everything around them. It's fair D2V material.

And it does have a likable enough lead in Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee), the big guy from Train to Busan; he knows how to deliver a wisecrack and make his size work for him so that he's both kind of a big teddy bear and an imposing figure. I suspect he's best deployed as a supporting player, but he's at last got the raw charisma to make this valuable but unambitious but of cops & robbers work for about a couple hours.

Full review at EFC.

Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival: Action!, DCP)

Chuck Steel does the thing where it spoofs dumb, tacky movies by being dumb and tacky in the same way only much louder, trying to legitimize a guilty pleasure by slathering a lawyer off irony on it so someone can say they like how it mocks those attitudes. It's not really fooling anyone, if it's trying; if you're inclined to react to the real thing with "not cool", you'll likely have the same reaction here.

If it's the sort of thing that will work for you, though, this movie at least has the benefit of tossing its jokes out in rapid-fire fashion, and it does have a few genuinely good jokes scattered through, when it takes a moment or two to pause for air in its setups and responses. That's not really this movie's personality, though, especially given its voice cast (like a lot of animated movies where the filmmakers do the voices, they're not as practiced as pros).

The animation turns out to be pretty darn slick, though - it may have been excruciatingly slow and manual, but it's smooth, busy, and the caricatured figures are fairly expressive. Those looking for some gross monsters and quality for won't be disappointed either.

Full review at EFC.

Knuckleball

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

Knuckleball is a solid little thriller that gets an occasional raised eyebrow for how ruthlessly capable its young main character can be; it makes some thematic sense at the end and has been hinted at, but, still, hmmm. That goes a bit for the plot in general, which has an awful lot of stuff that probably comes as a package more often than you'd like in real life, but seems a bit excessive for a movie.

When it does click, though, it's a good sensation; there's a special tingle to watching people be observant and then act on what you've all seen. It's got a nice main set of performances that reflect each other fairly well and others that add nice detail, along with good use of a house with history in the middle of a chilly plain.

Full review at EFC.

Amiko

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival: Fantasia Underground, DCP)

Amiko is, as you might expect and hope, as raw and sometimes offbeat as you can get; its 19-year-old director is close to the material and hasn't had much formal training, and as a result the movie sometimes gets shakier as it gets more daring. But that's maybe the only way for a movie to truly get into the head of a teenager; you can't expect those stories to be polished.

Its title character (Aira Sunohara) has had a crush on Aomi (Hiroto Oshita), one of the school's star soccer players, for about a year as things start off, ever since he ducked into the classroom where the girl was biding her time while most of the other kids participated in club activities to change. They walked home, having a long conversation that clearly meant a lot to Amiko, but didn't speak again, and after fourteen months, Amiko is shocked by the revelation that he has not only started dating Mizuki (Ayu Hasegawa), a popular girl who graduated a year earlier, but dropped out of school and moved to Tokyo with her. With some help from her best friend Kanako (Maiko Mineo), Amiko is going to find some answers.

Pointing out how close director Yoko Yamanaka is to her main character is kind of a crutch in terms of analyzing this movie, but it probably shouldn't be minimized, either: There are maybe two people over the age of twenty-one in the movie, and they're not truly characters the way Amiko and her classmates are. More importantly, though, is that there's never the distancing effect of looking at these kids from the outside or from the remove of excess maturity. Amiko and Kanako talk about social media and the way they see boys in a way that may seem opaque to, say, older male film critics, but Yamanaka doesn't show any impulse to explain it, justify it, or apologize for it. There's a feeling of rage that emanates from Amiko when a pimply girl gossips about Aomi and Mizuki, for example, and it's not something that Yamanaka treats as some teenage girl thing, but something totally natural.

Full review at EFC.

Rokuroku (RokuRoku: The Promise of the Witch)

* * (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)

Seeing Yudai Yamaguchi's name on a movie reminds me just how long I've been coming to Fantasia, since he was a guy whose movies were staples of the event but who have been fairly absent in recent years. You can sort of put together why, looking at Rokuroku and the movies around it - this is weird but kind of amateurish at times, with the CGI a little unpolished and the acting kind of secondary in casting and/or direction, while there's been a flood of slicker manga adaptations coming out of Japan lately; it's hard for the weird stuff of what I like to call the "Sushi Typhoon" era to get some of the same traction, especially since its patron saint Takashi Miike has spent a lot of time in the mainstream lately. Maybe Yamaghuchi has honed his skills in the past decade but has had that countered by lower budgets for stuff that's now further in a niche.

As to this one, it's kind of a mess, featuring some nifty monster design but a plot that seems really scattered at first and then kind of grinding later. Part of that is just me zonking out for a few minutes at a time after midnight, but part seems to be that Yamaguchi has often been a guy who has a strong visual sense but counts on the story as just a means to get from weird image to weird image, and that's the case here - there's some genuinely remarkable things to look at here, but just the thinnest, most general threads connecting them. It can feel like a long hour and a half despite the frequent moments of impressive invention.

Fantasia 2018.09: People's Republic of Desire, Cam, Kasane, and The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot

Nifty scheduling: People's Republic of Desire and Cam back-to-back The first actually serves as a sort of primer for how rank- and gift-based the live-stream economy is, and they wind up touching on some overlapping information while still having very different themes it is a good, interesting double feature.

Less-nifty scheduling: Kasane and Lifechanger at the same time. As a person who likes that this kind of "taking over someone's life story", it was frustrating to have to choose - and ultimately choose Kasane more out of wanting to get to the line for the next movie more easily rather than a clear preference. Fortunately, I really liked it a lot, making for a day that was just solid from start to end.



Going back to (nearly) the start, a fair number of folks from Cam showed up: Director Daniel Goldhaber, screenwriter Isa Mazzei, co-writer Isabelle Link-Levy, post-production supervisor Adam Clark, and co-producer Daniel Garber. Credit was generously shared both within the film, where the opening "a film by" credit included both Goldhaber and Mazzei, and on-stage, they made sure to point out that not only did Link-Levy and Garber design a lot of the computer-oriented parts of the film, but Goldhaber they basically left large parts of the finale in their hands right up until the edit. Crazy exacting work, really - a lot of people treat anything involving computers, especially digital effects, as basically hitting a "do it" button, so it was pretty gratifying to see them talk about matching angles exactly and figuring lag for an "infinite mirror" sequence that looks cool but also so well-done that it doesn't look like a lot of freaking work.

Aside from that, they talked about wanting to subvert the usual messaging of these movie by being really positive about sex- and cam-work rather than just making this a cautionary tale. Mazzei is a veteran of it, and wanted it played as a job that Alice/Lola is good at rather than just some desperate thing to tide her over until her real life starts up.

There was time to kill after that, enough that I was one of the first in line for Kasane, and I felt terrible about cutting out just as the credits started, but the line for The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot was going to be nuts, and true enough, I was one of the last ten allowed in, meaning I had to hunt for the last empty seat, which gave me this view:



Hey, in is in.

Of course, it means that because I don't have a real camera but just a phone, this is the best record I've got of the post-film Q&A:



So, way down there, that's Mitch Davis, director Robert D. Krzyskowski, and Sam Elliott. They made much of their movie in Massachusetts, so I'm hoping it shows up in the Boston area for more than just a night or two at some lesser festival. It's sweet, gorgeous, and kind of delightful. The gorgeous part comes in part from one of the people they hooked up with because they produced in the Commonwealth, as the state film board got them in touch with Douglas Trumbull, who not only did some work with his company in the Berkshires but pointed them to great people. There is some fantastic matte painting and miniature work here, though it's fairly invisible in many cases, along with the expected CGI and creature work.

Best line of the night came from Elliott, who, when asked if he did a lot to prepare for the role said "No, I felt old enough, beat-up enough." Kind of an encapsulation of his recent career, but at 74, he's phenomenally healthy-looking, talking about how some of the action stuff they had him doing wasn't has hard as it looked, especially since it was mostly walking, and he doesn't run much any more after getting some cadaver in his knee to replace his ACL.

One question was about casting Aidan Turner as the younger version of Elliott's character. Krzyskowski said he was looking for a sort of unpretentious cool in both cases, and Turner gave off the sort of basic goodness he wanted to see reflected in the character, who had to be super-capable but not hard, which is a tough thing to manage, but a big part of what makes the film work. There's also a bit of a resemblance, despite him not doing the voice, especially, the filmmaker said, once you get a mustache on Turner.

Elliott laughed hearing that. Seems like a really good dude, and though he doesn't really have the genre credentials of some of the other big stars who have drawn this sort of crowd, but everyone genuinely liked having him there, with a lot of us hanging around the lobby after the film hoping to see him, but no dice.

Anyway, today is potentially the only super-long day of the festival for me, with The Traveling Cat Chronicles, The Outlaws, Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, Knuckleball, Amiko, and the late show of RokuRoku: Promise of the Witch, if I'm not zonked by then.

People's Republic of Desire

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 20 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival: Documentaries from the Edge, DCP)

Us olds should probably be paying much more attention to the cultures represented in this documentary, both online and Chinese, than we do; it's huge, misunderstood, and dismissed, and though I'm not sure I truly understand it now, I've got a better handle on what I don't know.

Aside from just what's to be learned watching it, this is a surprisingly well-constructed documentary. The standard pieces, the interview and fly-on-the-wall footage, are nicely shot and edited, often to specifically contrast the stars' conspicuous consumption with how their fans just scrape by, but it embraces being online better than most. It's a documentary that must visualize as much as depict, and it does so very well, creating lively, energetic graphics that are clear, explanatory, and just game-y enough.

I like that it doesn't fall behind - it seems like it started out examining YY and the live-streaming phenomenon but found the platform maturing and monetizing beyond its roots, and was able to pivot to talk about that as well. Internet culture moves fast, and it's impressive that this sometimes slow-moving medium was able to keep up.

Full review at EFC.

Cam

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 20 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

The thing I like most about Cam may be one of the smallest and dumbest things, but I can absolutely believe a certain thing tripping things up because some developer didn't take a thing that a user might do into account. We aren't lazy, but we've often got no idea what's a likely situation worth prioritizing.

That aside, it's a simple thriller that does a lot of things well, from how it kind of takes its plot's inevitability for granted to how all the little details of life as a camgirl play out with likely authenticity and minimum explanation; it all seems to fit together in tidy, unforced fashion.

There's also a genuinely impressive performance by Madeline Brewer in the lead, often doing two or three things at once, starting from her first scene where she's trying to ingratiate herself with both us and her other audience and managing it quite well. There are a lot of times when she could have been directed to exaggerate more, or nor been able to make a certain point without relative restraint, but Lola/Alice is genuine even as her life gets strange, and the film wouldn't work otherwise.

Full review at EFC.

Kasane

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 20 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

This movie is not exactly subtle with the archetypes it plays with, announcing them in big, bold capital letters as the title character progresses from one stage to another. But a fantasy that takes place in and around the theater can work with melodrama, and this one certainly does.

It has to, since it's got not one but two crazy, huge-stretch plot devices. But it's also got a pair of impressive actresses each giving a pair of highly enjoyable performances, and Tadanobu Asano for extra fun. Hell, you might say the actress are each giving three five performances once the finale is playing itself out.

It even handles a lot of the storytelling problems that often come with annoying manga with elan, seeming pretty ruthless in how it handles having more characters than it needs at any given point and compressing other scenes until they're just what's needed. It's big, trashy soap at heart, but enthusiastic and capable. Some will call it a guilty pleasure, but it's too good for guilt.

Full review at EFC.

The Man Who Killed HItler and then The Bigfoot

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 20 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

The latter part of Sam Elliott's career has been a lot of movies like The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot - not so much the high-concept premise of the title, but the look at a man slowly winding down, because though Elliott has a craggy face and a reassuring voice, he's vital enough to have been getting old for some time. That the film is about the aging as much as the adventure, if not more so, is what makes it such a delight. Well, that and watching Elliott inhabit this absurd but utterly believable role.

He plays Calvin Barr, a man who, circa 1990 or so, lives in the same small town where he grew up, and is finding himself more and more likely to slip back to those times when given a moment inside his own head. Sometimes that's bittersweet, as he remembers wooing Maxine (Caitlin FitzGerald), a pretty schoolteacher and the love of his life; other times it's darker as he remembers the secret missions his younger self (Aidan Turner) was sent on during the war. They're still classified today, but someone remembers them, as a representative of the American government (Ron Livingston) and one from Canada (Rizwan Manij) visit him with one last mission: Bigfoot is the carrier of a doomsday virus, and Barr is one of only three people known to be immune. The creature must be put down before he reaches a populated area.

The scene at Barr's kitchen table where this is spelled out is genuine deadpan perfection, played completely straight even as it gives the audience plenty of moments to laugh at the utter absurdity of the job. Writer/director Robert D. Krzyskoski and company pull an outstanding bit of gear-shifting here, allowing this scene to move from something genuinely emotional as Barr makes it clear that his previous exploits aren't something he's proud of to one character humorously reacting to what he's hearing to being all business. Both this scene and the bits of action as Barr follows his orders through are a sort of self-aware pulp we don't often see, fun for the audience but trying for those involved. There's whimsy to them, but they clearly carry genuine weight to those involved.

Full review at EFC.

Fantasia 2018.08: Hurt, Under the Silver Lake, Laplace's Witch

Did a press screening today, and it was weird - about ten people in the Hall theater for a horror movie, which tend to work much better with a big audience. It would have been even stranger if we were all clustered in the same area because we all think the sweet spot is in the same place, but it didn't happen.

After that, I kind of killed time in the afternoon because Blue My Mind would have made things too tight with Under the Silver Lake, and even getting in line the recommended 45 minutes early barely got me in, and going straight from that to the line for Laplace's Witch was the same. I wonder, a bit, if it being an adaptation of a Keigo Higashino novel gave it a boost on top of it being the only Takashi Miike film at the festival this year.

Anyway, this arriving 45 minutes early for the line-up thing is nuts. If you have a pass and can do that, you're not seeing enough movies, and should give up your pass to someone who will use it properly.

Speaking of trying to use a pass properly, I'll be at People's Republic of Desire and Cam, then getting some supper before Kasane and then The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot. Mildly annoyed that trying to see the last one basically means punting Lifechanger, which looks neat.

Hurt

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

Hurt plays fair enough as it warns the audience that it's not necessarily telling the story they think, and that it's going to be inward-looking, but is that really enough to make up for switching so much out late, or how, no matter what, it's going to be something of a horror movie about how horror movies are problematic? Would Blumhouse even release it if it were an effective anti-horror statement?

Probably not, but it nevertheless finds an interesting angle in today's self-aware horror world by starting with (well, eventually getting to) a woman who became a fan because of the man who would become her husband, getting really into it, and then showing him returning home after time in the military and clearly not yet ready to see sudden noises and mutilated bodies as something fun again. The middle section of the movie is a smart play on this that becomes a dead-serious thriller which manages genuine horror. It also uses its strong and cast well, swimming to have a clear-eyed look at rural America and handling just how young and unprepared some a lot of people around the military are for serious adult things.

That's what makes the finale something of a disappointment; it seems to leave an empty space, and every twist in a movie threatens to make its themes less potent the first time through. That happens here, even though the filmmakers employ enough artistic flourishes to make sure the audience sees that they're going for more than just "gotcha!".

Full review at EFC.

Under the Silver Lake

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival: Camera Lucida, DCP)

What an absolutely bizarre tall tale of a movie, filled to overflowing with impossible connections, revelations that don't actually mean anything but create a feeling of resolution, and utter pop-culture absurdity. I suspect people will be digging through it for months when they can do so at home, connecting references and finding themes.

It's a good shaggy-dog story, at least, anchored nicely by Andrew Garfield, who makes his stumbling, uncommitted character amiable enough to seldom rub the audience too far the wrong way even if he is too swept up in trivialities and delusions to handle the basics of his life. He's a lazy young person, but one with a decent heart, even if his stories about dogs are worrisome in how they contradict each other.

The studio seems worried about this (I'm mildly surprised it wasn't pulled from the festival when the release was delayed, especially when it was rumored a re-edit was being considered), and I'm not surprised. The word parts are very weird indeed, it's male-gaze-y as heck (it's not quite explicit enough in its comments on how Hollywood works to get away with that), and a lot of people seemed to feel the length more than I did.

This doesn't capture an audience the way It Follows did; it's too specific to tap into something universal until the end. But it's interesting and original, and I bet I'll be able to pull a lot more out of it when I really get to think about it.

Full review at EFC.

Rapurasu no majo (Laplace's Witch)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

There doesn't seem to be an English translation available for Keigo Higashino's novel Laplace's Witch yet, but I'm curious to what extent things maybe weren't changed but were emphasized and diminished between Higashino's book and this movie directed by Takashi Miike. It's easy for genre film fans to explain all its odd turns as coming from that eccentric filmmaker, but it does feel a bit like something shifted in the adaptation.

That there was any sort of murder isn't initially apparent at all; though film producer Yoshihiro Mizuki was found dead of hydrogen sulfide poisoning in a hot spring, and detective Yuji Nakaoka (Hiroshi Tamaki) is keen on his Mikuki's younger wife Chisato (Eriko Sato) as a suspect, geologist Shusuke Aoe (Sho Sakurai) has just been called in as a matter of public safety; H2S is not a good murder weapon, dissipating too quickly in even the slightest wind. But when another man, an unsuccessful actor, is found dead of the same cause at a different resort, Nakaoka discovers a connection: Both worked with filmmaker Saisei Amakasu (Etsushi Toyokawa), who lost his wife and daughter when the latter used the chemical to commit suicide, and nearly son Kento (Sota Fukushi) as well. Meanwhile, teenage runaway Madoka Uhara (Suzu Hirose) keeps running into Aoe, looking for his help. She says she's a witch, and that like Laplace's demon, she can predict the outcome of chaotic systems - like, say, when an abnormally potent cloud of hydrogen sulfide might pass through a spot - and she's not the only one.

Though murder mysteries and amateur sleuths are by and large good things, and in this case a great hook to pull the audience into the movie, they can also be a thing that the film quickly outgrows. Take Aoe, for example - though Sho Sakurai is first-billed in the cast and he's initially the guy at the center of investigating this bizarre phenomenon, he actually doesn't seem very useful for much of the movie, to the point where it seems that Madoka all but says the geologist is around because she needs someone to drive. It's a bit of a shame; Sakurai turns in a boyishly charismatic performance and makes an enjoyable foil for both Suzu Hirose's Madoka and Hiroshi Tamaki's Detective Nakaoka, but he always feels like he could be left behind. The same is true for Nakaoka; Tamaki gives a fine performance as the pushy but witty detective, but the story eventually moves beyond him.

Full review at EFC.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 20 July 2018 - 26 July 2018

Yeah, I'm in Montreal, but it's still good to keep an eye on what's opening back home, even if it's to try and estimate whether something will still be around by the time I get home or if I should try and hit the Forum or something.

• Fortunately, the brace of sequels this week doesn't make me feel any sort of obligation. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again reunites the original cast as well as some new faces and gives them more Abba to sing, which I guess makes for a catchy-enough romance. It's at The Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), West Newton, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax), Revere, and the SuperLux.
  
  Denzel Washington does his first second movie with The Equalizer 2, which once again looks more like a straight-up revenge flick than what the old TV series did, but I guess that fits a movie series better. It's at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common (including Imax), Fenway (including RPX), the Seaport (including Icon-X), South Bay (including Imax), Assembly Row, Revere (including XPlus), and the SuperLux. In the "sequel-in-name only department, you've got Unfriended: Dark Web, which has a completely new sort of online horror at Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere. Supposedly that one has two different endings, shown randomly.
  
  Expansions continue for some of the platform roll-outs, with Sorry to Bother You adding the Somerville, Fresh Pond, and the Seaport to Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, and Revere.
  
  If you want to catch something I wasn't able to make work at Fantasia, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms plays Fenway on Saturday and Tuesday and the Kendall on Wednesday. The July Ghibli anime is Princess Mononoke playing Fenway and Revere Sunday (dubbed), Monday (subtitled), and Wednesday (dubbed). There are also 25th anniversary screenings of The Sandlot at Boston Common and Fenway on Sunday & Tuesday (when it also plays Revere). Forgetting Sarah Marshall plays Revere on Sunday, and the Monday night networking show at the Seaport is The Departed. The Capitol has Trading Places on Thursday.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre is one of several places with IFFBoston's opening night film, Eighth Grade, a pretty darn good look at adolescence for those who can handle cringe-inducing awkwardness better than me; it's also at the Kendall and Boston Common. Those three places also open Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, the new one from Gus van Sant starring Joaquin Phoenix as a man who becomes a cartoonist after losing the use of his legs.
  
  The Coolidge's real-killer midnights this weekend are blockbusters loosely based on the crimes of Ed Gein, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho playing Friday night on 35mm and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre playing Saturday night. The Monday Big Screen Classic is Do the Right Thing on 35mm, with seminar tickets available, while Thursday's Cinema Jukebox show is Yellow Submarine (also still kicking around at the Somerville for one show a day).
• On top of Eighth Grade, Don't Worry, and Maquia, Kendall Square also opens Love, Cecil, a documentary about a beloved theater and film designer. They also have a special screening of IFFBoston alum Maineland with director Miao Wang, Tuesday night only.
• The Brattle Theatre not only has the new Guy Maddin collaboration, The Green Fog, from Friday to Sunday, but they're playing it as a double feature with the film which inspired in, Vertigo, with Hitchcock's film on 35mm.
  
  After the weekend, they continue their two vertical series: Rita Hayworth is featured in a 3mm double feature of Who Killed Gail Preston? & Meet Nero Wolfe on Monday, and then a single (DCP) presentation of Only Angels Have Wings on Tuesday. Heroic!: Women Who Inspire has single features of Hidden Figures and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains on Wednesday and a twin bill of Amelie & Run Lola Run, the latter on 35mm, on Thursday.
• Yellow Submarine wasn't enough "Beatles without the Beatles", The Somerville Theatre has Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on 35mm at midnight on Friday, with Tommy (digital) as Saturday's late-night rock opera. The Play It Cool II double feature on Wednesday is The Legend of Billie Jean followed by Gator, both on 35mm.
• Sanju is still at Apple Fresh Pond though it's done at Fenway, but both places will be opening Dhadak, a Hindi-language romance that also involves class differences and honor killings in Rajasthan. Tamil comedy Thamizh Padam 2 sticks around in Cambridge, and they also have Telugu romance Lover, although their website seems to have the information for a different film entirely.
• The Museum of Fine Arts continues their Boston French Film Festival, including A Paris Education (Friday), See You Up There (Friday/Sunday), Godard Mon Amour (Friday/Saturday), Ava (Saturday), Les Carabiners (Saturday/Sunday), Custody (Saturday), The Royal Exchange (Sunday), Happy End (Thursday), Mr. And Mrs. Adelman (Thursday), and BPM (Thursday).
  
  Mr. And Mrs. Adelman is also part of The Boston Jewish Film Festival's Summer Cinematheque, which also includes a Wednesday evening screening of Spiral at The West Newton Cinema
• The Museum of Science has movies in the planetarium on the fourth Thursday of the month all summer, and this week that means The Fifth Element
• Joe's Free Films has plenty of outdoor movies this week, and while I get the multiple places showing Coco, it seems like the wrong time of year for Elf..

Me? All Fantasia, all the time, and not hugely worried about what I'm missing.

Fantasia 2018.07: Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana, I Have a Date with Spring, The Vanished, and BuyBust

Huh, I could have sworn that folks from Boiled Angels were here as guests, but I guess that's just for the first show. I'd take the excuse to stay in Montreal for four days and maybe use my cast & crew pass to see a bunch of free movies, but what do I know?



I Have a Date with Spring director Baek Seung-bin stuck around for a second screening on Wednesday after his movie played Monday, though. Sure, getting on a plane to go back to South Korea immediately probably isn't what you'd want to do after a day talking about your fim, but we appreciated him hanging around, even if a fair amount of the "questions" he got were people explaining his own movie to him. I wonder how much of the questions he got at the first screening were about his own mental health, because he mentioned he was a very happy person now several times.

He also mentioned being an English literature major, which explains why there was a fair amount of John Donne in this Korean movie.



Also in town from South Korea: Vanished director Lee Chang-hee (left), as well as his cinematographer (silly me, not writing it down because I assumed it would be on one of the usual sites). They made a nifty little movie, but, wow, I just looked up my review of the Spanish original from five years ago and I apparently had exactly the same first impression from both versions. I guess that makes it a good remake in some ways, or at least a faithful one. I do rather like both, but I'm curious to revisit the original, since I believe it was mentioned that they changed the ending during the Q&A, and I can't see how it could go another way.

After that, it was time for BuyBust, which Well Go will be releasing in theaters in a few weeks (though they had no logo on this DCP). It meant there were giveaways of one of their latest Asian action releases, Paradox, and Eric Boisvert seemed genuinely surprised to hear that Paradox was actually SPL 3 when King-wei Chu told him (to be fair, that's what you call a very loose series). This led to the contest briefly being "who wants to fight King-wei for the movie?", but things were resolved without violence.

Which you can't say for BuyBust itself, which is more or less all about the violence. It might actually be too much, but I won't lie and say that some of the action choreography didn't impress the heck out of me.

Saw some of Thursday's films earlier in the festival and one late last year, so it could be a short day if I either miss the press screening of Hurt or if Blue My Mind runs late enough to make getting into Under the Silver Lake impossible. Either way, the day's ending with Laplace's Witch. The Scythian is recommended, The Fortress isn't bad, and I wouldn't tell anyone who wanted to see Hanagatami to skip it.

Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival: Documentaries from the Edge, DCP)

Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana is the sort of documentary that, in its home stretch, casually reveals how it could have been a much more interesting movie had it changed its focus a bit rather than mostly serving as an overview of a broader issue. Yes, the history of underground comics and censorship is important, but most of this film's audience will know that; it's the details beyond Mike Diana being the only artist to be convicted of obscenity in America that make this a good story and would make it into an interesting movie.

For those not familiar with the case, Diana was in his early twenties when police arrested him for producing and distributing issues #7 and #8 of his "Boiled Angels" zine, publications with print runs of maybe 300 copies packed full of grotesque material, often involving sexual violence against children (though, it should be noted, in stories shown in the film as displaying his rage against the perpetrators rather than implying any sort of personal desire for such gratification). He got on the radar of the Pinellas County, Florida police and prosecutors during their investigation of a 1990 serial killer, and though found to have no connection, his work was considered so objectionable that they felt they had to do something.

There is, I suspect, a great docudrama to be made out of this material, and maybe even a good documentary, but Frank Henenlotter is probably not the right guy to do it; his own gross-out tendencies are close enough to Diana's that he may not be able to examine them closely, he lost a lot of credibility as a voice of the artist by making the tremendously ill-advised Chasing Banksy, and he's just not a very good storyteller in general. Take what comes across as a shocking climax, when the judge interrupts the defense's closing arguments for a recess - highly unusual and prejudicial, but until that very moment, you wouldn't know the judge was any sort of factor in the story at all. Henenlotter spends a huge amount of time on the history of the medium and the sorts of freedoms at stake, which is a vital part of the story, but as a film about the trial itself, and even what came before and after, it's undramatic and inert, an intriguing story merely hinted at.

Full review at EFC.

Na-wa-bom-nal-eui-yak-sok (I Have a Date with Spring)

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

Despite I Have a Date with Spring being a jumble of dark wishes from depressed people as the world is about to end, or at least stories of such things, it's interesting that the connecting thread is just people being left alone: The rest of the world being evacuated or raptured away is a common thread so basic it doesn't seem to merit comment.

The individual stories work as variations on a theme, and mostly still do so even as it slowly becomes clear that there's not really a mystery to be revealed here, that the characters are mostly just grasping in the dark. It makes the stories a little stretched at times, without a single clearest point of convergence, but focuses well on their individual introspection.

I'm not sure that's quite enough, as the end comes; it's a movie that uses grand, fantastic ideas to intimate ends, but maybe doesn't quite make its scales meet.

Full review at EFC.

Sarajin Bam (The Vanished)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 17 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

The Vanished almost seems too simple, with all the conclusions to be drawn from the available evidence made quickly, and most of the time used to hopefully shake some new information loose. The trick is seeing how long the filmmakers can tease that out, since it would seem everything will fall together as soon as the last puzzle piece shows up.

It works, partly because there's a fun cast, especially the messy but brilliant detective - as soon as he starts noticing details, the audience smiles, because this is going to be fun. There's lots of pure fun slime on the villains, a delightfully straightforward way to play off the expectations of caginess.

It leads up top a great list act that takes just enough time to sink in. The film may be a little flashback-heavy, but that's better than not having things connect well enough.

Full review at EFC.

"Urchin"

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival: Action!, digital)

I'm not going to lie - a large part of my reaction to this short is just straight "nope, do not need or want this", the moment I realized it was gritty dystopian Peter Pan. You've got to be careful allowing ideas like that out into the wild; someone might see this and throw money at a feature version, and is it really necessary to push that whole idea farther than Hook? At some point, you're just slapping familiar names on generic kids-rebel material.

As bad an idea as I tend to think this is, director Anna Mastro and her crew put it together well enough. The choreography makes it look like a small kid is doing some of the fighting, and the Tinkerbell effect is kind of neat. It looks and sounds like a bigger production than it likely is, doing a solid build-up.

But let's just leave it at that, okay?

BuyBust

* * * (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival: Action!, DCP)

Erik Matti's war-on-drugs action piece fits squarely in the category of Films That Do Not Mess Around, marrying the non-stop combat of Dante Lam's Operation Mekong series with a harsh cynicism about the use of force on display. It makes for the sort of orgy of violence that challenges the viewer to be horrified by what's going on even if decades of watching action movies has conditioned us to primarily be impressed at just how well Matti and his crew stage the second half.

First, though, it's time to introduce the players: First, Rudy Dela Cruz, an officer in the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, and his superior have captured and turned Teban, who will lead them to drug lord Biggie Chen. Then there's the new squad of grunts who will be providing backup: Lacson has just been promoted to team leader, and he's already worried about Nani Manigan (Anne Curtis), who was the only one to survive her last team being betrayed and massacred, and who, during training, points out that sometimes following orders can get a cop killed. She's part of a tight unit with Rico Yatco (Brandon Vera), a confident mountain of a man, and Elia, the most hesitant. When Biggie and his lieutenants move the deal that the PDEA intends to bust to the poor neighborhood of Gracia ni Maria at the last minute, Manigan worries it's a trap, and she's not wrong: Biggie's lieutenant Chungki has the whole area sealed off, executes an old man to set the population to riot, and declares open season on the cops.

And, oh, yeah, it's a downpopur, which means the isolated neighborhood is going to flood, adding yet another layer of hellishness to the whole thing. Though Matti primarily has the film take the perspective of law enforcement, its three acts in many ways are an escalating demonstration of how using the police as a blunt, militaristic tool becomes more disastrous at every step: It seems easy enough during training, and they initially seem like a well-oiled machine while executing the initial plan in what seems like a fairly middle-class quarter. This middle section is almost boring, with a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, although it starts to hint at what will soon be the film's greatest source of tension, with heavily-armed cops placed in the middle of unsuspecting crowds, certainly inviting one to imagine what could go wrong.

Full review at EFC.

Fantasia 2018.06: Mega Time Squad, Room Laundering, and The Blonde Fury

Monday could have made Tuesday really short, but I actually kind of like that I had the big gap between Mega Time Squad from 1pm to 3pm and Room Laundering at 7:25pm - it's entirely possible I would have sat at the computer straight through the afternoon rather than heading down to Pointe-a-Callaire, having some ice cream, and just relaxing like I'm on vacation.



That's Mega Time Squad director Tim van Dammen, star Anton Tennet, and co-star Eru Wilton, who came here all the way from New Zealand for their world premiere, which is a pretty incredible hike. A friend who met them the day before had them pretty nervous before their first show, as who wouldn't be, but they seemed a lot more relaxed here, although van Dammen was still maybe-shaken enough to follow the regular bit about us being the first to see it with "I'd only had a cursory glance at it… Uh, on the big screen… Really irresponsible!"

Afterward, he mentioned that he actually lived in Thames, NZ, and that they shot this film very quickly when a window opened up, and the fact that there was just no time meant that they couldn't get fancy with the VFX at all, so every effects shot had to be done with a static camera, which meant everything else did too, or else you'd notice the change in feel. They also mentioned that the main house they shot belonged t the late father of a friend, and he turned out to be sort of a hoarder, which worked out really well for them; it meant there was a lot of junk in there and it felt like a lot of things that had been stolen but never unloaded.

After an afternoon off, it was back in DeSève for Room Laundering, which I think was a bit busier than expected, but which had the benefit of meaning I could sort of camp out for The Blonde Fury.



Cynthia Rothrock is a bloody delight, folks, whether she's meeting someone actually named China O'Brien or talking about how a lot of pain came back to her while watching the montage of her work put together as an introduction, or mentioning how, in this movie, she had to come back for reshoots with a different director and you could see that they did not give one single damn about continuity based on how she'd be blonde with a ponytail in one scene and have shorter/darker hair in the next. Going to Hong Kong to make movies was really being thrown into the deep end, and sometimes it was really crazy - she often only knew what she was shooting between fights in the most general sense, as the director would say to smile or scowl, and she wasn't even learning lines phonetically - it was just "this line has twelve syllables", and then someone would dub her line in Cantonese later, and when she finally saw the film, sometimes she would wonder why they didn't tell her that that was what was going on, so she could at least try to get the right attitude.

She said she loved fighting with Yuen Biao because they had the same sort of timing, and would really love to work with Corey Yuen again. Someone asked about working with Michelle Yeoh, and she said Yes Madam was a blast, they were great buddies on the set, and then never spoke again after that, probably in part because she didn't sign a contract with Yeoh's then-husband's production company. Which sucks. Someone should get that whole group together for a Yes Madam sequel, maybe bringing in Jiang Luxia as the young hotshot they have to mentor. Who doesn't watch that?

The only hitch: Somehow two reels got reversed when assembling the print, meaning it jumped from the middle of one fight scene into another, and then back, and things were quickly resolved when they looped back around. Never seen that actually happen at a screening before. Good thing that the movie is basically nonsense stitching fights together!

Today's plans are Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana (although I'm tempted to skip it), I Have a Date with Spring, an early dinner break, The Vanished, and BuyBust. Neomanila is recommended.

Mega Time Squad

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 17 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)

If "The Man Who Folded Himself" had been about a small-time crook who wasn't particularly bright, it might have wound up something like this freewheeling, half-nonsensical comedy that wastes practically no time jumping into some ridiculous time-travel shenanigans and then shows the good sense to stay in its lane, piling dumb-crook silliness up as far as it can go and then getting out before things collapse.

The crook involved is John (Anton Tennet), who's got vague ambitions of having his own gang someday but who does collections for Shelton (Jonny Brugh), what passes for a crime kingpin in Thames, New Zealand. A Chinese gang is moving in, making drops at Wah Lee's antique store, and while Shelton plans to make a move, John and his stoner buddy Gaz (Arlo Gibson) plan to make their own, robbing the place. Stealing from the triads and double-crossing Shelton probably isn't the smartest move, but John's lucky: Shelton's newly-arrived sister Kelly (Hetty Gaskell-Hahn) seems to fancy him, and the trinket he swiped from Wah Lee's on impulse is actually a magic bracelet that allows the person wearing it to travel back in time (though there is the little matter of a demon associated with it).

In many movies, you might see the first instance of time travel catch someone flat-footed, or instantly making some sort of pop-culture reference to explain it (a genuine worry, since John has already been seen pumping himself up in the mirror with a Taxi Driver poster in the background), but writer/director Tim van Dammen doesn't really have time for that. He wastes no time making a triple knot out of its timeline and then, fun predestination paradox out of the way, treating causality with far less respect if there's a laugh to be had. Even then, you have to admire the casual, entertaining balance van Dammen strikes between being meticulous and chaotic, with anything going but playing out in reasonably fair fashion should one pay attention.

Full review at EFC.

Room Laundering (Rûmu rondaringu)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 17 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

The light-and-dark tone of Room Laundering is established early as cute childlike narration quickly gives way to murder, and then we're just as quickly talking about the practice of the title as a con game. It seems weirdly schizophrenic, but that's appropriate and oddly respectful for a movie that builds itself out of how ghosts are a downright odd phenomenon.

"Room laundering" in this film is a way real-estate brokers try to get around the pesky Japanese law that requires they tell prospective renters or purchasers that someone died in an apartment - the law is vague on just how many subsequent tenants need to know this, so if you move someone in for a month, you have technically complied. That's a big part of Goro Ikazuzi's sketchy real-estate business, and as a bonus, it has given his niece Miko Yakumo (Elaiza Ikeda) a spot to lay her head and novelty duck lamp for a month or two at a time since the grandmother who raised her after father died and mother disappeared has herself passed on. A shy, timid girl who likes to draw but can't afford art school, she's not supposed to interact with the neighbors, but her recently-developed ability to see ghosts means she has unwanted roommates: Punk-rocker suicide Kimihiko Kasuga (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) is the first we meet, before Goro (Joe Odagiri) moves her to where Yuuki Chikamoto (Kaoru Mitsumune) was murdered - and where Miko catches the eye of Akito Nijikawa (Kentaro Ito) next door.

The basic premises that come together for this movie - ghosts hanging around until some unfinished business being accomplished allows them to move on, the girl with no friends among the living because she's surrounded by the dead, the need to exorcise tainted domiciles - are well-worn enough to often feel taken for granted, and co-writer/director Kenji Katagiri is expectedly casual in introducing them, starting from a point where Miko has grown used to the lamp her mother gave her glowing in the presence of spirits and being kind of annoyed when Kimihiko shows up. It works, too; the film finds an unusual tone that's funny but not flip, sad but not maudlin. On top of that, it allows Katagiri and co-writer Tatsuya Umemoto to lay some misdirection out in plain sight and not worry too much about rules and stakes as the audience watches Miko start to make connections and engage with both the living and the dead.

Full review at EFC.

Shi jie da shai (The Blonde Fury aka Female Reporter)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 17 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival: Action!, 35mm)

Wow, I apparently last saw this fourteen years ago to the day, and though my writing from then is not exactly great and I hadn't really watched enough Hong Kong stuff to really appreciate what those movies do well yet, it's funny that I apparently connected Cynthia Rothrock's style with that of Yuen Biao, since she said that was one of the people she matched up well with.

It's still an incredibly ridiculous movie, with even less care given to the story than snotty thirty-year-old-me thought, but the roughhouse abandon of it is still kind of a delight. We could use more of this sort of insanity.

Fantasia 2018.05: Relaxer, Being Natural, Neomanila, and Profile

Can't say I really liked the first movie I saw today, but an entertaining Q&A helps it go down better.



That is Camera Lucida programmer Ariel Esteban Coyer flanked by Relaxer director Joel Potrykus and co-star David Dastmalchian, who both talked about how growing up in the midwest had them both very familiar with this culture of challenges and constantly needing to prove themselves, with California seeming like the promised land. Dastmalchian especially was hilarious in how he answered questions, pointing out that he was only on set for a couple of days, but that the final scenes were actually shot first. This surprised me a bit, but it makes sense Hair only grows so fast, and even if bits of the set would have to be destroyed, repaired, and re-destroyed, the crew can do that quicker than the star can grow a beard.

Of to either side, there were people drinking milk as part of a challenge, but the 1-liter containers were much smaller than the gallon jugs usually associated with that particular bit of foolishness. They ran out of milk at roughly 2L apiece, at which point one of the contestants was clearly suffering.

It came out while I was waiting in line for Being Natural, but even if Oscilloscope Pictures hadn't supplied barf bags (I arrived too late to add that to my collection of festival swag), the crack festival staff was on it, with a whole trash can in place when it happened.

After that, I decided to see Neomanila right away at 5:30pm rather than seeing Tornado Girl at 7pm, in large part because I wasn't hungry yet. Indecisiveness after that movie got me at the back of the line for Mega Time Squad, but it was soon clear that there weren't going to be enough folding chairs for al the pass-holders in line. Ah, well, I can see it today. Gave me time to do a little shopping so that there's food in the apartment in the mornings and tissues in my pocket, and get myself a burger. Apparently you can get a burger medium-rare in Canada now (used to be they wouldn't even ask), and it's funny - there are lots of burgers I like here, but I'm used to having them at least medium because that's what the local regs insisted on, and now they're good, but kind of odd compared to what I was expecting.

After that, back to Hall for Profile with Timur Bekmambetov.



We almost didn't need an audience Q&A, since Timur (right) was there to talk and Mitch is good at facilitating these things. Bekmambetov seems genuinely excited about making what he calls "Screen Life" films, with the idea really clicking in his mind ever since his producing partner did a screen share and then forgot to stop it until a few minutes after he'd seen what he was supposed to see, and he said it was a fascinating first-person view, seeing how she hesitated, deleted half-formed thoughts in the chat window, fiddled with stuff while waiting for him to respond, etc. "It was like being inside her" is how he put it.

His company wound up developing what he calls "Screen Reality" ("SR") software to capture these movies, since most existing screen-recording software (like the ones actually used in the film) effectively functions as a camera pointed at the screen, while they need to be able to manipulate what is happening in the edit. It's apparently also going to allow the home release to be more interactive, something Bekmambetov says both excites him about the medium but makes him feel defensive as a director.

Lots of interesting information about the making of it, too - unlike Unfriended, where they wound up shooting everything in the same room and compositing the screens together, the Skype conversations between the characters in London and Syria were actually shot live, with Cyrpus standing in for Syria, because this was the best way to have authenticity in how the lag, pixelation, and reaction times worked. It actually got him a warning from the Directors' Guild of America, as you're supposed to actually be on the set in order to be credited as director, but Bekmambetov was apparently able to successfully argue that his set was 3,000 miles across. They also created an unusual sound mix, with the main character's dialogue not coming from the front-center channel but the surrounds, so that it would be in the center of the audience, while everything from a screen was from the front. The soundtrack was actually from the Spotify playlist of the original journalist whose life this was based upon, with the actress playing and "mixing" live on set.

Leaving this particular movie aside, Bekmambetov mentioned that he was thinking of making Dusk Watch as a Screen Life movie, and I must admit, I admire his commitment to the idea that he will actually complete the Night Watch trilogy at some point. It was going to be split between Moscow and New York when it looked like he was going to cross over into Hollywood in a big way, it was going to be 3D at another point… Hey, it could still happen, even if it has been 12 years and counting since Day Watch.

So that finished that day off. Today's plans are circling back around to Mega Time Squad, taking the rest of the afternoon off, and then probably choosing Room Laundering over The Nightshifter before the 35mm show of The Blonde Fury (which, if evidence on this blog is to be believed, I liked okay when it was part of the Coolidge's long-missed Midnight Ass-Kickings series exactly fourteen years ago. Tremble All You Want is recommended, for those who missed it opening night.

Relaxer

* * (out of four)
Seen 16 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

There is, I suppose, a good movie to be made about someone so dedicated to not being labeled a quitter that he just doesn't get off the couch until he has completed some sort of challenge, no matter how isolated it ultimately makes him, but this isn't it. It's just nasty and gross, never finding enough of Abbie's ingenuity or enough pathos to make watching him interesting.

Instead, it feels pointlessly mean, and seldom with interesting enough execution to make it worthwhile. The opening bit, cruel as it tends to be, at least feels like an impressive single take, but nothing after that ever feels close to that inspired.

Full review at EFC.

Being Natural

* * * (out of four)
Seen 16 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival: Camera Lucida, digital)

Before it takes a turn for the weird, Being Natural is kind of a low-key charmer, playing as a group of guys in late middle age growing closer, even though those bonds are not exactly of the strongest material. It's pastoral but not over-romanticized, as these things can sometimes be.

That doesn't mean I want the back half gone or the other thread minimized, though. In fact, I think I'd like it a bit more if the "invading" family looking to get back to "how life should be" was played broader and given more time, perhaps with the daughter (clearly not as enthused as her parents) fighting more. It would make the more conventional parts work better and the bonkers finale perhaps an even better twist.

Full review at EFC.

Neomanila

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 16 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

I wonder just how this crime flick plays in its native country, where the sort of vigilante killing at the center is a Thing That Happens rather than something as far outside the norm as it seems in North America. Is it just piercing rather than shocking?

Regardless, it's sharp as can be, setting up its loose-seeming but tight in actuality plot, filling it with memorable side characters, and playing its violence completely straight rather than making it fun.

Full review at EFC.

Profile

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 16 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)

Though producer credits can often go unnoticed by filmmakers who also do other things, Timur Bekmambetov has become fascinated by the idea of stories which play out entirely through a character's online interactions in recent years, having produced Unfriended and then a number of other similar movies reaching the screen this year. Profile is his first one where he actually directed the film, and though it's a story well-matched to the technique, there are sometimes still a few kinks to work out in the telling.

Based upon a true story but relocated to London, it picks up with freelance reporter Amy Whittaker (Valene Kane) logging onto her computer on 13 October 2014, starting on a story about European women who, in a shockingly quick turnaround from their first online contacts, wind up in Syria as part of ISIS/Daesh. It is, in some ways, shockingly easy - she creates a new profile, searches for ISIS-affiliated pages, and after sharing some of what she finds, she's contacted by Abu Bilel Al-Britani (Shazad Latif), who though currently fighting in Syria was actually born not far from her in London. It causes her some momentary panic, but she presses on, trying to get Bilel to tell her alter ego of recent convert "Mellody" how she can reach him even as money and relationship issues make her real life more stressful.

One of the most interesting things about telling this story through Amy's on-line activity is how it puts exposition on blast, using Amy's offhand need to research to rapidly throw information at the audience without pretense of doing anything else, and through that establish some emotional stakes: While articles about jihadists and converts and the like jump on-screen, YouTube videos of the girl whose case put Amy on this trail also show up, and they're quietly heartbreaking, featuring the trembling voice of someone lost and generally limited to a quarter of the screen, making her feel more diminished and isolated.

Full review at EFC.

Fantasia 2018.04: Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura, Aragne: Sign of Vermillion, Cold Skin, L'Inferno (1911), and The Scythian.

Never underestimate the manga/anime crowd at Fantasia. You may think that something is just big in Japan because you haven't seen it in the local comic shop, and it doesn't really seem to fit with the festival from the description, and then you show up at Hall and it's packed to the gills forDestiny: The Tale of Kamakura, and then again for Aragne: Sign of Vermillion.



Axis programmer Rupert Bottenberg on the left, Aragne director Saku Sakamoto and producer Osamu Fukutani in the middle, translator on the right (can't find a name in the program). We were given autographed prints as we entered, too, which was pretty cool.

Most of the Q&A was in French, so I couldn't pick much up. I did rather sympathize with one of the English-speaking people who asked a question, basically saying she got kind of lost by the end, and what was going on? The response was basically "I don't want to invalidate anybody's interpretation", but I think this is more a case of viewers being frustrated because the telling was unclear, not something being left open-ended. Storytelling is communication, and if your pretty imagery doesn't get something across, I kind of wonder what it was going for.

It was kind of interesting to actually hear them admit that the story started as one thing but wound up having other pieces added to it as it went on; it may explain why the movie seemed somewhat disjointed and lacking direction.

Stuck around Hall for Cold Skin after that, which meant there was very little time to get across the street and into L'Inferno. I don't think it quite got to the point of needing to find some folding chairs to seat all the passholders, but I don't think there were any seats left once I got it.



Mitch Davis, as always, was effusive in introducing Maurizio Guarini of Goblin, who accompanied the film. It was an interesting score - I admit, I sometimes have trouble wrapping my head around something so obviously synth-based for a silent film - that mostly distracted from the guy next to me who occasionally seemed to be boasting to the lady next to him about how he could spot some of the more obviously fake bits. Congratulations, you saw through the special effects of a 107-year-old movie!

Ah, maybe I was just crabby because I was hungry. There was enough time before the last film of the day to get a proper burger, some poutine, and a milkshake to help with the sore throat. I suspect I would have found The Scythian a ton of violent fun anyway, but a full stomach helped.

Today's plans include Relaxer, Being Natural, Neomanila, Mega Time Squad, and Profile.

Destiny: Kamakura Monogatari (Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 15 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, digital)

Destiny is a cute fantasy romance that does a pretty nice job of building a magical world around its laid-back setting, but which is maybe too slight for its finale. The filmmakers never quite build up the connection between its husband and wife enough to convince us that the big, epic confrontation at the end and story of a love that spans multiple lifetimes is justified.

As a collection of smaller stories, though, it works quite well, with fanciful and good-natured episodes that make this a place I could see visiting regularly. The effects work is also top-notch, especially toward the end, where Japanese fantasies often start breaking down because they can't quite afford that step up to something even bigger. Not a problem here, as the film does a nice job of building up rather than going too big too fast.

Full review at EFC.

"Walking Meat"

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 15 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival:AXIS, digital)

Zombie stories have arguably reached a dangerous level of oversaturation, where they are so common that you take some of the horrors involved for granted. Shinya Sugai does a nice job of pushing past that with "Walking Meat", positing a take where people also consume zombies and having fun with "older guy not understanding millennials" bits.

Which sounds groan-worthy at times, but works better than you might think; it gives him a set of broad, funny characters to throw into the usual mayhem, and he's not above making the frustrated mentor character look ridiculous as well. The director's background in visual effects sometimes has him a little too enamored of the first-person shot, but the action is mostly on point otherwise, and the way that the film actually focuses on the characters rather than how much mayhem can be done to the zombies is kind of refreshing.

I suspect some of the millennial jokes are kind of Japan-specific, right down to the punchline of having plans after work (compared to more traditional drinking with colleagues, I guess). Mostly, though, it's fun, comedic zombie mayhem.

Aragne: Sign of Vermillion

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 15 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival: AXIS, DCP)

Aragne: Sign of Vermillion is the sort of anime that would has always excited audiences looking for something they couldn't find in American cinema a generation ago, a combination of science fiction, horror, and mystery that plays has a whiff of the exotic and has plenty of room for fan theories and speculation. Those movies are not always as rich as they seem, unfortunately, and this one suffers badly for not having a more defined story, even though horror can often get further on atmosphere than other genres.

After opening with a nightmarish vision by a mental patient - or did that actually happen? - focus shifts to Rin Shida (voice of Kana Hanazawa), a timid university student living in an apartment that does not live up to its billing as "eco-friendly living atop a reclaimed toxic site". She's catching glimpses of strange, insect-related horrors, but are they real or in her head, her imagination working overtime to connect a series of mysterious deaths and rumored cult activity?

Well, maybe that's not really what's going on, but it might as well be. Writer/director Saku Sakamoto keeps throwing new revelations and explanations at the audience, but as good as he is at creating striking imagery, he's not that great at building a story, almost seeming indecisive at times. Here, he'll talk about some sort of rare insect-borne disease from decades ago being the explanation for a series of deaths, but then it's some sort of weapons development from decades before that. Characters are introduced in such perfunctory manner that they don't even feel mysterious because you need to know something to figure that the rest doesn't fit. It winds up feeling like Sakamoto had an idea but couldn't get a feature-length story out of it, and wound up tacking other bits on until the movie was feature-length but the original central story had been buried.

It makes for a disjointed film that is not done many favors by its tendency to make the audience distrust what they are watching. Sakamoto repeats fading to black and then having Rin wake up disconnected from the previous action - repeat it one more time and the audience probably starts laughing at it rather than holding that in - and for all that this sort of feeling of moving from one nightmare to another helps create atmosphere, it doesn't give the audience much to hang on to. Later on in the movie, there are what appear to be strange revelations about Rin, but given that the audience hasn't really gotten to know her that well, there's not a lot of impact to "everything you know is wrong".

That sort of plot-oriented storytelling doesn't really seem to be Sakamoto's forte - he has come up through effects animation - but there's no denying that he is good at the visual half of the storytelling. He draws Rin as both ethereal and down-to-earth, gets a great visual gag out of the difference between how the apartment building was advertised and the reality, and does a really spectacular job of going for the gross-out throughout the movie. From moth wings to brain beetles, he gets the most out of the "spirit bugs" he introduces early. He does have a bit of a weakness for filters at times, but does a fair job of integrating obviously first-person material into a movie that is otherwise trying to use the aesthetic of traditional animation.

To be fair to Sakamoto, this is an independent production in a way that is often only possible with animation - he wrote, directed, composed the music, and handled the visual effects, mostly crowdfunding the work. If this has some success, he'll probably have more assistance to smooth over his weaknesses and help him learn later on. For right now, he's still got a lot of storytelling to learn, because this movie doesn't hold together at all.

Full review at EFC.

Cold Skin

* * * (out of four)
Seen 15 July 2018 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

Cold Skin is maybe not quite as clever as it could be, but it's a nicely chilly/claustrophobic piece that holds up with two or three characters at a time (although its horror does involve a horde or ten). It doesn't exactly keep the conflict between the main pair at a background simmer, but letting the audience concentrate more on the vicious-seeming humanoids allows what those two represent to occupy a little bit less of the conscious mind, letting it sink in.

In some ways, the film comes up with some of its most interesting bits too late to really expand on them - the Prometheus symbolism toward the end seems like the start of another film rather than the end of this one - probably weighting it more toward pulp than the cerebral horror of its best ambitions. It's good pulp, though, and certainly smart enough to be worth a little though

Full review at EFC.

L'Inferno (1911)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 15 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival Ciné-Concert, DCP)

The sort of silent film where one has to be committed to meeting it on its own ground, because this thing's from 1911, has a somewhat relaxed pace, and probably assumes a certain level of familiarity with the source material.

Meet it on those terms, though, and it's fascinating, a film that leaves no doubts about the horrors of Hell even when the capabilities to visualize them are primitive. The score that accompanied this screening sometimes worked against that, occasionally emphasizing camp, but the effects work is sometimes eye-catching, especially in context.

Skif (The Scythian, aka The Last Warrior)

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 15 July 2018 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)

It's always a tricky business to mix ancient or medieval settings with modern sensibilities, even when one knows it is necessary (the elegant prose that survives from those ages almost certainly doesn't match how people actually spoke, but making things too simple and modern also often sounds wrong). The Scythian seems to handle that better than most, but not necessarily because it seems particularly realistic. Some mix of its roots in Russian legend and straight-ahead action plotting makes it click, even when it mixes modern glibness with brutal period action.

It takes place roughly a thousand years ago, when Christian Russia was expanding into pagan lands. Lutobor (Aleksey Faddeev), a skilled warrior and trusted lieutenant to Lord Oleg (Yuriy Tsurillo), the prince of Tmutarakan, has just been informed that his lovely wife Tatiana (Izmaylova Vasilisa) has just been given birth to their first child, but the celebration not only brings Oleg and his son Vselav (Aleksandr Patsevich) - Lutobor's closest friend - but a group of mercenaries known as the Wolves of Perun, who kidnap Tatiana and leave a note commanding that he assassinate Oleg. After the plot is discovered, Lutobor escapes with Marten (Aleksandr Kuznetsov), the pagan assassin captured during the kidnapping, hoping to stay just far enough ahead of their hunters so that Marten lead Lutobor to his family and the means to clear his name.

Strip the trappings away and The Scythian is basically a buddy-cop movie set in medieval Russia, with Lutobor the falsely-accused straightlaced cop and Marten the wily criminal he's stuck working with (the character is actually named "Kunitsa" but subtitled as "Marten", apparently expecting more people to recognize that a marten is a type of weasel). And while both are far too cognizant of how the other is a not-to-be-trusted enemy to ever truly feel like a team, the interplay between them is entertaining, and they are both enjoyable examples of their types: Aleksey Faddeev is kind of sardonic and cool as Lutobor, but he brings a sense of honor to it that's not overbearing, while Aleksandr Kuznetsov is good at giving the impression of always looking for an opportunity without actually having his eyes darting about - it's a slick, energetic performance.

And that energy will often be necessary, because director/co-writer Rustam Mosafir puts the pair through a lot of mayhem, and if you like this sort of big, muscular action, it's good stuff: Heavy swords that make crunching impact against armor and spark when they hit stone, kicks where you feel the power even if they don't people flying like wire-fu when they connect, fist-fights where it sometimes seems sparing an opponent will be more difficult than killing them. Mosafir and his crew shoot this all in fine fashion, and when they kick it up a notch to fantastical proportions in the middle - when Lutobor powers up to the level where he can literally rip opponents apart with his bare hands - it is larger-than-life, but not out of bounds, even as it gets gloriously bloody.

The moment when things really go over the top is when they pass through the land of the Forest People, and it's just delightfully weird to look at. The whole thing feels grimy and primitive, but with an eerie, imaginative set of looks. There's an earnest consciousness of the gold being applied to Oleg at the start and a sense of wear to the costumes of the people being squeezed out, a sense of being ancient but weathered. It's a good balance between being imaginatively ornate while still feeling grounded.

It's pretty good-looking for this sort of brutish action, a notch or two better than most other films in the genre which can't quite strike the right balance between celebrating the grim violence and making it palatable. The Scythian is ridiculous in its own way, but it still works.