July 2006 – Page 4 – Population: One

Fantasia 2006: Day 0

July 16, 2006

No clever titles this trip. It’s gonna be a long one.

The drive up was nice, excepting the insane Big Dig traffic in Boston. Taking 89 up through Vermont is a win from an aesthetic standpoint; it was a bit late for much of a view of the islands, but on the way back S. and I expect to be able to bask in natural beauty. Customs happened. This year, our maps were accurate and we found our Montreal domicile without trouble.

Said domicile — well, 210 square feet is 210 square feet. Clearly, the owner took an apartment that covered the entire first floor and chopped it into three apartments for short term rental. The flaw is a lack of apparent air conditioning and no windows; it’s substantially hotter in the apartment than it is outside. Also, I have not yet figured out their wireless. So it goes. [Update: wireless!]

We’re three subway stops away from Guy-Concordia and the venues. Tim Horton’s makes good coffee. Right now — 11:20 AM — I’m waiting for the box office to open up so I can horrify the nice young lady by asking her to print out 64 tickets. Eventually they’re going to figure out a better system for this.

Weekend One

July 11, 2006

Leave a Comment

Really, the festival is pretty much what I’m thinking about right now. The links here go to IMDB, rather than the Fantasia site (like the ones in the last post).

Saturday

Three Mighty Men: bad Turkish 70s flicks are really hot on the festival circuit right now, and I kinda wish I was kidding, but I kinda don’t because if I was kidding I wouldn’t have the chance to see this one. This is also the only movie I’ll see at this year’s festival with a masked wrestler, unless someone else holds a surprise for me.

All-Out Nine: Field of Nightmares (no IMDB page): come to think of it, I’m probably stoked about this because I liked Cutie Honey so much; I’m hoping we get another mega-enthused translation of manga to film. And, OK, as a sports fan I can’t but be intrigued by the subject it parodies. Japanese Bad News Bears, right?

Hell: I’m really curious to see if Thai film’s changed much in two years. As devoted readers will recall, Saving Private Tootsie and The Bodyguard did not me overwhelm in 2004. Also, grand guignol is fun.

Shinobi: big gloss. Action. The trailer is pretty awesome. Tak Sakaguchi, who rocked my world in Versus and who did action direction in Death Trance which I really gotta see, is in it. So yes.

Arthouse Ultraman (no IMDB): Double Miike! Doing television! Ultraman! Sure!

Sunday

Vampire Cop Ricky (no IMDB): I’m pretty much all about the Korean SFX action slash sex farce horror flicks, sure.

Samurai Commando 1549: more widescreen Japanese action! I’m either gonna be really burnt out on the stuff or very happy by the end of the weekend. This doesn’t have a pedigree that turns me on, but I like the premise, so why not?

Train Man: OK, this just seems really sweet and cool and touching. And maybe a true story! So it’ll be a good breather from the action and the horror and so on.

Junk: Fantasia’s doing a lot of Russian films this year — it’s a focus — and that seems like a good thing to take advantage of. The story is not wacky or weird or anything, which makes this a good chance to see how a different culture works with the basic tropes of suspense.