Tag: fantasia

Still not the singer or Disney movie. Man, has it really been nine years since I went to the best genre film festival in North America? Too long! Thus I am going this year, for sure, because Susan and I have plane tickets and a hotel. Directly thereafter we’re going to Gencon. If we seem delirious at the latter, you’ll know why.

Fantasia just announced the initial wave of films. I want to see all of these, of course, but some of them look particularly interesting. In no particular order: Jeruzalem looks potentially insane and cool; Big Match could be the kind of high-gloss South Korean action film I dig; Deathgasm um we’ll see; The Demolisher seems like it has potential; I’m all over anything to do with Milgram, more for the myth of the experiment than the reality, so Experimenter yes (plus nice cast); The Golden Cane Warrior looks awesome; and They Look Like People has gotten very good reviews.

Booyah! Very excited. And as you know, Montreal is within driving range of Boston.

Sadly I’m not going again this year, for good reasons involving schedule and finances, but that’s OK. It will not stop me from considering the lineup at length.

The ticketing is wild this year. The festival starts this Thursday; tickets go on sale tomorrow. The schedule only came out like Friday. Make your decisions quick. I’m thinking next year I just choose a week and trust in fate for the movies. Or go for two weeks. Mmm, two weeks.

Here is the volume. Here is the pump. Here is the dance floor. Do what is right.

We’re sadly not going to Fantasia this year, but next year with any luck, and it’s not like it doesn’t just keep getting better. I need to remember to call someone about ordering the program this year.

Chris said something insane about a shortage of must-see movies this year. Naaaah.

Let’s go to the tape, Chumley. I amended two grades; in retrospect, Wilderness was a touch better than I gave it credit for, and Samurai Commando 1549, while excellent, was not quite “I’d want to own it on DVD.”

Which is the requirement for an A grade. B grades I’d recommend seeing. C grades, well. And D grades I’d recommend avoiding.

Grade A

The Great Yokai War (A+)
Isolation (A+)
Train Man (A+)
All Out High (A)
Evil Aliens (A)
Reincarnation (A)
Widerness (A, improved grade)
The Echo (A-)
Pusher 3 (A-)

Grade B

Five Deadly Venoms (B+)
Samurai Commando 1549 (B+, dropped a notch)
Shinobi (B+)
Three Mighty Men (B)
Ultraman Max (B)
Vampire Cop Ricky (B)
Aziris Nuna (B-)
The Descendant (B-)
The Order of One (B-)
Storm (B-)

Didn’t Make the Grade

Red Shoes (C+)
The Gravedancers (C-)
Subject Two (C-)

Junk (D)
Hell (incomplete/D)
Resonnances (D)

Miscellanea

DJ XL5’s Zappin’ Party Cavalcade

And finally…

The Great Yokai War. Just, whoa.

Miike isn’t one of my top five artists in the world (David Cronenberg, Richard Thompson, Wong Kar Wai, George R. R. Martin, probably Aimee Mann; list subject to change), but he’s the guy I’d like to play Being John Malkovich with. I want to see what he’s thinking while he works. I want to figure out what he’s trying to do, and I want to figure out how he keeps up his insane multi-movie-per-year pace while still churning out heart-stoppingly beautiful, perfect moments of film.

The Great Yokai War is almost painfully emotionally involving. Miike digs his hooks in early and holds you: he makes you care about what happens. There’s some sort of visceral reality in the way he shoots a movie that gets you; he has a way of immersing audiences which is just as effective here as it is in Audition. It’s just the specific emotional responses that are different.

Then I contemplate the climax of the movie, in which the world is saved by a freak coincidence and a legume. Plus pop music. Is Miike engaging in a cynical angry satire on children’s movies? I am honestly not sure. One Missed Call was in part a deeply barbed stab at Japanese cultural media, so maybe this was the same. There’s a scene where Tadashi Ino, the kid protagonist, dresses up for the big fight with a deeply snarky line pointed directly at Dragonball Z and its ilk, so there are hints of satire. But man, Miike clearly adores the Japanese cultural goblin tales he’s working with…

I got no idea. Hard to figure out. Either way it was a superbly beautiful, scary, thrilling, involving movie about saving the world. I’m a little sad about missing the rest of the movies Saturday night and Sunday, but exhaustion had set in, and this was about as good a capper as I could have asked for.

Grade: A+.

Saturday was our children’s movie day. Aziris Nuna was the first of the pair, and it was pretty much a generic children’s movie. It’s somewhat looser than you’d expect from a US flick of the same style, and a little more leering, but all in all it didn’t go anywhere weird or wild.

The opening shots were incredible: pyramids rising behind Moscow, and a ship of some sort kinda drifting over the city. This had me considerably excited, since the Fantasia blurb said “Aziris Nuna is set in an alternate reality that sees the architecture of Moscow blended with Egyptian temples and pyramids.” Alas, this was not the case — it’s set in our reality, with a bunch of time travel, and the opening shots are just cool effects.

The look of the film held up. It’s sort of Fifth Element, sort of Zathura. The effects and set design were pretty amazing, considering the whole thing cost less than four million to make. (This according to one of the producers, hanging out at the back of the theater as we filed out.) The acting was as good as you’d expect, and the thing was competently made. But, eh, it’s still just a children’s movie and it didn’t hold my interest.

Grade: B-.

The first time I saw Five Deadly Venoms, I was not as kind as I might have been. I enjoyed it a lot more this time — perhaps because I was in the mood, perhaps because it was on the big screen, or perhaps because I saw it in good company.

It’s still a sort of mystery with a lot of varied kung fu style, but I was ready for the pacing. I dug the range of fights quite a bit on second viewing; there’s great distinction between the five venoms. I was also forewarned that Lizard was played by Philip Kwok, who I have a fondness for from Hard-Boiled, so it was cool watching him mug around.

Grade: B+.