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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. ...

A combination of slight illness and scheduling mishaps is about to lead to a slightly early departure. Alas! The remainder of the reviews (everything up through The Great Yokai War) will come when we get back to Boston. It’s been an excellent week.

I have absolutely no idea what Resonnances (original) was doing on the program. I mean, there’ve been some movies I didn’t enjoy, but I get why they were there — interesting ideas, or love of the genre, or whatever. But this just bit. The program says that Philippe Robert, the director, worked on a number of French flicks. When I finally found him on IMDB, it turns out he was a camera operator (and Ressonances isn’t listed at all). I’m surprised that his first feature film was so damned muddy and impenetrable; it looks like it was filmed at night with very little lighting. You’d think a camera operator would know better. ...

So this is easy: it was a big collection of short films (original), everything from trailer remixes to Flash animation bits to traditional animation. It was fairly good. I guess you could reasonably stick your name on this kind of thing if your cutting and editing of shorts was really innovative, but in this case a bit of static between shorts doesn’t count. It was still fun to watch. I’d probably go for taking a break instead of watching one of these again next year, just cause it’s all viewable elsewhere fairly easily. ...

There’s a difference between horror and terror. Terror is being scared; it’s the long creepy shot of the end of the corridor in the split second when the monster appears. It’s the adrenaline rush. Fear. Terrified. Horror, on the other hand, is the knowledge that something incredibly awful is going on. It’s the grim certainty that a monster will appear: gut-churning time. Horrified. Reincarnation is interesting, cause you expect J-horror to be a lot of each. In good J-horror, there’s lots of built up tension plus the oft-gory rush to judgment. Reincarnation really isn’t very terrifying; it didn’t leave me looking over my shoulder on the way home. But man, the slow patient playing out of fate is amazingly horrifying. ...

From one low budget horror film with a message to another. The Descendant is very earnest, and better filmed than Subject Two — less polished, but better pacing, and better acting on the whole. The protagonist, Jamie, is somewhat stiff, but his grandparents and the reclusive denizens of Ste. Harmonie make up for him performance-wise. It’s hard to describe the movie without giving away too much. Jamie’s mother dies, and he goes to find out why she didn’t talk to her grandparents in twenty-odd years. The town they live in has a secret, and that’s the movie right there. ...

It’s a bad sign when the promotional material for a movie spends a lot of time talking about how it was shot under adverse conditions. Say, the whole movie was filmed in 8 days several miles from “civilization” in a cabin with no electricity in the middle of the winter. Me, I’m hard-pressed to say you’ve left civilization if you’re close enough to get back via snowmobile in less than an hour, but that’s me. Either way, the shoot shouldn’t be the most important thing about a movie. ...

It’s a bad sign when the promotional material for a movie spends a lot of time talking about how it was shot under adverse conditions. Say, the whole movie was filmed in 8 days several miles from “civilization” in a cabin with no electricity in the middle of the winter. Me, I’m hard-pressed to say you’ve left civilization if you’re close enough to get back via snowmobile in less than an hour, but that’s me. Either way, the shoot shouldn’t be the most important thing about a movie. ...

The program book makes all these wild claims about how The Echo (aka Sigaw) is the most gorgeous thing since sliced bread. If they’re to be believed, Yam Laranas, who wrote, directed, and shot the film, is a peer of Christopher Doyle in his cinematography. The praise is nigh on fulsome. And as you no doubt knew with an opening paragraph like that, it’s pretty much accurate. The Echo is a ghost story set in a ramshackle old condo complex. It’s minimalist in cast, without ever putting too many people on screen at once; it’s one of those movies where the haunted building is perhaps the most important cast member. The cinematography has a key role, thusly. It bears the burden well. Almost every shot uses natural light, and Laranas must have had perfect timing and an unerring sense for appropriate times in order to make the long decrepit hallways and looming doorways as perfect as he did. ...

(Yeah, it was Scandinavia night up at the old film festival.) So Pusher 3 is advertised as a crime drama, which I guess is accurate in that it’s not a comedy or a thriller and it’s set in a criminal milieu. On the other hand, before the movie Nicolas Winding Refn, the director, told us that he was inspired by reality TV. That’s a lot more of the feel right there. ...