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Fantastic Fest

Our Movies editor, Jordan Hoffman, is down in Austin, Texas this week, reporting live from Fantastic Fest!

UGO Team By UGO Team September 23, 2010
  

Fantastic Fest 2010: Red, White and Blue Review

What I take away from Simon Rumley's indie horror film Red, White and Blue is this:  don't socialize.  Don't have friends.  Don't go out.  The most tenuous connections to other people can leave you destroyed in the most violent, horrific ways you could possibly imagine.

Red, White and Blue is a film I would call "mostly good."  It starts out really well, as a standard character-based drama.  It proves that smart editing and good performances can trump a minimal budget.

We meet a kinda-hot/kinda-not girl who seems to be on a mission to have as much unprotected sex as possible.  At a rooming house is a creepy dude who may or may not have done some strange stuff over in Iraq.  Lastly, there's a goofy kid in a rock band taking care of his cancer-ridden mother.  The paths of the three characters, and others in their spheres, collide in unexpected, violent ways.

I give Red, White and Blue some serious props for being thoughtful and slickly produced, but I broke with the film when it devolved into its intense violence.  Maybe it is my distaste for brutality, but I kinda felt that it didn't "earn" the really gruesome stuff that happened in the last act (even if a lot of it was off camera.)  I give this movie a B.

[Note:  Red, White and Blue is available ON DEMAND through most major cable providers through the end of October.]

Fantastic Fest 2010: Bibliotheque Pascale Review

Sometimes you hear about films that sound so nuts you just must see them for yourself. Bibliotheque Pascal is not one of those films.  Oh, it sounds nuts, but it is also not very good.

We open, in Hungary, with a woman of Romanian descent before a social worker, arguing to keep her kid.  She begins to tell her story, which involves an impregnating rogue, dream projection, traveling puppet shows, selling oneself into sexual slavery and, eventually, a "literary brothel," where patrons get to live out scenes of classic literature.  (That last bit sounds high-minded and nice, but it actually means rape and murder, so it is not so nice.)

I could never put my finger on the tone of this movie.  There are parts that were legit kitchen sink drama, then gypsy music pipes in to make things "quirky."

The production values are quite good (just how much Hungarian tax dollars went to his flick) but it is ultimately a disheveled mess.  There are cool ideas in there, but it never gels as an engaging story.  I give this movie a C.

Here's my InstaReview, taken inside the Alamo Drafthouse itself, as another film was just about to start!

A House That's Made For Drama

The Housemaid is out in select cities this weekend.  Here is my review from Fantastic Fest in September, 2010.

Both Fantastic Fest and the new cinema of Korea are known for its extremest, oftentimes violent edge.  The Housemaid does not fall into this category.  Although there is some violence, this is a good, juicy drama that takes a typical "Upstairs/Downstairs" tale and gives it a solid spin.

I have no doubt that The Housemaid, a re-imagining of a 1960 Korean film I have not seen, will be an arthouse success upon its selected cities release.  Don't let this one fall into that ghetto, though.  It is a well-played and gorgeously shot chamber piece that had me engaged the whole time.

I give this movie an A-.  Below are my thoughts right after the film.  (The name of the Carol Reed film I couldn't remember is The Fallen Idol.)

 

Fantastic Fest 2010: Buried Review

Ninety minutes in a box?  I don't care how dreamy Ryan Reynolds is, I was skeptical going in.  The much-discussed movie Buried, however, really works.  

The script stays smart by breaking it down into a series of frustrating, individual tasks.  You wake up dazed and buried in a coffin.  What do you do?  

Find a light, find the phone, make contact with someone, get a number, receive a call, yell, scream, break down, deal with your anger management issues, suffer the humility of the common man in global politics.  Next thing you know the ninety minutes are up and you in the audience have chewed your fingernails raw.

The filmmaking is sharp, making great use of differing light sources, close-up and playing with focus.  Reynolds is solid as the everyman.

There are twists, too, and moments of intense suspense.  I give this movie a solid B+.

Below, my most ridiculous InstaReview yet.

Fantastic Fest 2010: Richard Garriott - Man on a Mission

I love anything to do with outer space.  And I usually love documentary peeks into eccentric screwballs.  The problem is that Man on a Mission, Richard Garriott's home movies from his $30 million space tourism adventure, is too much of a sales pitch.  Supposedly, the pitch is for investment in the space industry, but it mostly feels like a reel to show off how cool Garriott is.  And I'm not sure he's that cool.

The son of an Astronaut, Garriott longed nothing more than to follow his father's footsteps.  He wasn't good enough for NASA, so after he made a bazillion dollars in the video game industry (yeah, that's right, we're talking about Lord British of Ultima fame) he bought his way in with the Russians.

The training footage and inside look into the Soyuz program is interesting, but nothing you can't see on the Travel Channel.  

I give this movie a C.  Below are my thoughts right after the screening.

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