Fantastic Fest: Nacho Vigalondo's CODE 7

One of the most anticipated events of Fantastic Fest 2008 by pretty much everyone was the return of 2007's golden boy, Nacho Vigalondo, whose film TIMECRIMES was picked up by Magnolia Pictures at the festival (it's finally due to be released in December) and is due for a big Hollywood remake by United Artist. While Nacho wasn't returning with a new film, it was decided that to justify bringing Nacho back (like you actually need a reason) that the festival would show a batch of Nacho's short films, one of which, 7:35 IN THE MORNING, was nominated for a 2004 Academy Award (no foolin'). The Nacho Shorts show turned out to be one of the festival's hottest tickets (both shows were packed) and Nacho proved that he had a mastery of the short film format, with many of the shorts providing (such as CHANGING THE WORLD, which I wrote about back in January) some of the biggest smiles of the entire festival.

But it was CODE 7, Nacho's very own science fiction trilogy (inspired by the works of Philip K. Dick) that stole the show and it might have been the single best thing I saw during the entire festival this year. Endearing himself to me by also claiming that he's no fan of Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy (just like me!), Nacho gave us a true science fiction epic in three 3-minute segments that are some of the most thought-provoking, spellbinding, and heart-rendering works I've ever seen in the genre. The Palmer Eldridch/Joe Chip story arc, especially in part 2, outdoes even the greatest of Shakespearean tragedies. This is, without question, a masterpiece, and it is my pleasure to present CODE 7 in its entirety to all of you know. You can thank me later.

CODE 7: EPISODE ONE


CODE 7: EPISODE TWO


CODE 7: EPISODE THREE

Fantastic Fest: Kim Ji-woon's THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD

There's no other way of saying this: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD is a big ball of fun.

Ever since STAR WARS, many have tried to make films that are simply nothing more than giant bunches of entertainment - the perfect blockbuster, if you will, that throw everything at you in an effort to bring a smile to your face - but so few have succeeded that it's almost become futile to even expect anyone to reach the glorious heights of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or THE ROAD WARRIOR. While not quite in that same classic league, THE, GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (which won the audience award for best film at Fantastic Fest) comes about as close as any movie I can remember in many years and I can't help but tip my hat to it. It's maybe not a perfect mixture of action and comedy, but it's a god damn great one while you're watching it, no question. People will ask me what I liked so much about it, and all I'll be able to say is, "Everything". And yet, that's the right answer.

I do wants to take a moment to focus on the "but..." part of this review, and get it all out of the way so that I can go back to the praise. THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (there's no "and" in there) is pretty much all about fun. It's not an allegory for anything. There's no hidden meaning, no subtext, no deep thought to engage in afterwords, it's just a good time, a real good time. Director Kim does try to sneak something in at the end of the movie, but when you go back and think about it afterwords, you realize that even though there's an attempt at a statement, it's actually kind of hollow because it isn't what the film is really about. Also, the film is a very obvious tribute to Sergio Leone and THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY specifically, but what separates Kim from Leone is that Leone always had a point, he always had something to say, and I don't think Kim does. Leone's films are certainly fun, but you think about them afterwords and say to yourself, "OK, I can see how it's a Vietnam allegory" and stuff like that, and you don't here. This doesn't exactly kill THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD as an entertainment, but I feel it's what stops it just short of being a true classic. It will become a classic, no doubt, but a lower-ranked one, I think. But that's pretty much it.

Having said all that, this is such a beautifully realized and executed film that it's going to take someone - anyone - years to catch up to it for sheer entertainment value. The action scenes here are like Spielberg and George Miller at their peak, just incredible stuff, and there's a 15 minute chase scene towards the film's end that is unbelievably outstanding in every way, and it got applause at the Fantastic Fest screening I attended. It looks beautiful, features superb use of the Manchurian desert locations and incredible sets (many of which become spectacularly destroyed) and it moves like an S.O.B., even though it runs over two hours (I gotta say that this one must be seen on the big screen). Kim is also helped immeasurably by the great Song Kang-ho (the "Weird" of the title), one of the great movie stars of our time (he also starred in THE HOST and Park Chan Wook's JOINT SECURITY AREA and SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE) and the glue who really holds it all together. There's a hell of a lot of action and eye candy, but you can't take your eyes off Song, and he's a big part of what makes it all fun. It's funny, I didn't care much for Kim's last two films (the dull A TALE OF TWO SISTERS and the vastly overrated A BITTERSWEET LIFE), but he's knocked it out of the park here. I don't know how that happened, but I'm glad it did.

Other than that, I don't really have much more to say, except that you gotta check it out. IFC Films has it, but they haven't announced a date, though more than likely it'll be early 2009. See it.

Fantastic Fest Fan Fiction: Rain Johnson's THE BROTHERS BLOOM and J.L. Vera's SOUTH OF HEAVEN

The ex-wife of a dear friend of mine had a thing for STAR TREK fan faction. As a Trekkie and would-be writer herself, she had this fascination with what fellow fans would dream up for the TREK characters, especially if they took things into wild directions, like the ones where Kirk and Spock are gay lovers. These kind of things are fascinating and depressing by equal measure, since so little of it is actually any good, but it's certainly of interest to see just what exactly people make of a favorite TV series or movie or comic when it's put into the hands of its fans, because that's when their fantasies really come out into the open. Whether it's finally giving Uhurah the chance to pilot the Enterprise or to find out just what would happen if the characters from The Lord of the Rings visited FANTASY ISLAND, one thinks that their imagination is truly going wild,when in fact their imagination is incredibly limited, since they really didn't create any of this stuff to begin with. If I put my French fries on top of my hamburger, it doesn't make me a great chef, it just means that I'm slapping two favorites together to spice up something I already love, nothing more.

I couldn't help but think of this equation while watching two of this year's Fantastic Fest features, Rain Johnson's THE BROTHERS BLOOM (which screened as one of the Ain't It Cool News Secret Screenings) and J.L Vera's SOUTH OF HEAVEN, which take a fan fiction approach to pulp materials and both come up short. It's very obvious that both writer/directors have a love of the works of writers like Mikey Spillaine, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, Donald Westlake and a host of others, and they both work at adding their own personal spins to it, though not quite hard enough. Vera's is more cartoonish, saturating his screen with bright digital colors and very over-the-top violence, while Johnson wants a comical con men fairy tale mixed with a love story. Both are operating on the director's love of this kind of material, along with fantasies of what their ideal pulp fiction-type story would be and neither of them work, though one works much better than the other. I could give them points for wanting to mine material that isn't some comic book or Spielbergian early 80s fantasy flick, but the fact is that neither film is successful in their attempts, so I can't. It's OK to make something in the style of a favorite subgenre, but you can't wallow in its excesses and think you're going to come up with something unique because you're just going to end up looking like a geeky fanboy, albeit one who happens to read.

SOUTH OF HEAVEN is the worst offender of the two, a movie that reels solely of the director's fantasies of what his ideal movie would be, other than the idea of (god forbid) actually entertaining an audience. I would lump it in with all of the Tarantino wannabes of the mid-90s, but the cartoonish spin that Vera puts on it (a very obvious Warner Brothers influence here) separates it from the rest of those, if only slightly. This doesn't excuse Vera for the talkative hit men, serial killers and thieves, though, and I'll tell you all right now that I actually walked out of this one about halfway through. After a certain point I'd figured I'd had enough, though at what point exactly I can't remember, but at about the thirteen monologue in (no joke, though I'm probably not right on the number), I knew I wasn't going to subject myself to this anymore. This thing was not going to improve and I was not going to see the light, so it was best that we part. So while SOUTH OF HEAVEN does not represent the typical kind of fanboy cinema of this days and age, it nonetheless is a movie made only because someone has seen too many movies but doesn't really know how to make a film that is really their own as opposed to making a smorgasbord of their favorite kind of movies. And that's the kind of movie I no longer have any patience for, so include me out.

Much better by comparison (which is still damning with faint praise), Johnson's THE BROTHERS BLOOM is a dangerous balancing act of a movie, an attempt to make a whimsical crime movie, and when was the last time we saw one of those work? Again, Johnson is playing favorites here - a desire to replicate a dream movie in his mind - but unlike his previous film, BRICK, which was a picture that took a subgenre and successfully turned it on its ear, BLOOM just doesn't come together. Johnson is packing in too much here - it's a family story, a comedy, an action movie, a heist movie, a love story, a travelogue, a con story - and there's no real focus, at least none to my point of view. I was with it for a bit, but eventually I was lost in one double cross too many and I started to not care a little after halfway through. The plot isn't really what Johnson cares for, anyway; it's really more about the characters, which is as it should be, but everything is pretty damn predictable, so once you've figured out where that's going to go well before the film actually gets there, you don't really care. The performers are all pretty good - not that there are any bad ones in the bunch - with Rinko Kikuchi offering the real spark of life that the film needs. Even though she only has a few lines, she lifts the film up through sheer presence and I think I stuck with the film mainly because I wanted to see what she was going to do next. She's sensational, and I'd love to see her get an Oscar nomination because she does this all so well that she makes the film a little better than it really is. It's one of those situations where you ask yourself why they couldn't have made the film about her instead of the Brothers Bloom, because she's so much more interesting. Nevertheless, you're glad she's there, and at least as far as she's concerned Johnson's fantasies and my own happen to coincide, so I have no complaints there. As for the rest of THE BROTHERS BLOOM, thanks for giving us this peek at your bookshelf, Rain, but can you go and make a real movie next time, OK?

Fantastic Fest: Kevin Smith's ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO

Kevin Smith has gained a lot of weight. A lot of weight.

I'm not saying this for the sake of gossip, as Smith himself was the first to acknowledge all this when we got on stage after an admittedly stellar introduction (complete with the THUNDER COPS trailer on the big screen at Austin's huge Paramount Theater) at this year's opening night of Fantastic Fest. Having not seen Smith enter the building, I really was more than a little stunned to see just how much he's put on - he's got to be tipping the scales at close to, or over, 300 pounds. Smith quickly addressed the matter by explaining that he's started to smoke pot again on a regular basis, and with that has come the munchies and the weight gain that goes with that. The opening night crowd laughed all this off, but as I sat there watching ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO, I couldn't help but equate Smith's current physical state with what ended up on screen. Bigger than it needs to be (it's 102 minutes but feels longer) and overly talky (not much of a surprise where Smith is concerned), ZACK & MIRI, while certainly amusing at many points and filled with some good laughs, is also yet another trip down the same unambitious road that Smith has been coasting on all decade long. The fans will be pleased, but those of us who saw him as the voice of the SLACKER generation will have to resign themselves to the fact that he has become nothing more than a creative slacker as the years have gone by.

In a sense, the Kevin Smith who made CLERKS is still on display throughout ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO; CLERKS took a "write what you know" approach, giving audiences an idea of the working-class world that Smith came from (0ne not too removed from my own - he's from Red Bank, NJ, about an hour south of where I'm from) and ZACK & MIRI seeks to revisit that a little bit, moving the action to that most working-class of American cities, Pittsburgh (a few Romero jokes and a Romero regular cameo are nice touches). Its leads are two late-twenties longtime friends who find themselves struggling to make ends meet; after attending their 10 year high school reunion, they also realize that they have made nothing with their lives, and once the power and water are turned off, desperation leads to inspiration as the saying goes, and so henceforth the title. With this, the film goes into several predictable places - their porno starts as a STAR WARS spoof and then becomes a workplace porn; Zack and Miri confront their feelings for each other after their sex scene; Zack finds himself motivated to accomplish something for the first time in his adult life, ect. So basically, it's Smith telling the story of CLERKS but with tits, and once again it feels like he's refusing to challenge himself. He mined the unrequited love element much better in CHASING AMY and CLERKS remains one of the great workplace comedies, while this is not, and all of the dick and sex jokes (with some scatological humor being an unwelcome addition) are pretty much what you would expect. When Smith made CHASING AMY, and especially DOGMA, which is still his best work, you felt that he was growing artistically and starting to talk about what he thought about rather than what he was feeling. But ever since then he hasn't tried to do anything other than what would make audiences laugh. As the old PIECES tag line goes, ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PRONO is exactly what you think it is, and that's very disappointing.

With all of that out of the way, I do want to say that ZACK & MIRI isn't a complete washout, because it's probably Smith most polished film, technically, and there are certainly some good laughs. The performers are all fine, and Smith very nicely allows everyone in the cast an opportunity to prove themselves. It's nice to see Smith regular Jason Mewes clean, sober and not doing his old "Jay" act; Craig Robinson makes an excellent second-banana to Seth Rogen and gets some of the film's best lines, while Traci Lords is solid as a dominatrix and current porn star (and all-around sweetie) Katie Morgan proves that, yeah, she actually has some talent and could make it in the world of straight movies if she gets a shot. Rogen is good (likewise does not seem to be stretching himself too far), while Banks proves herself once again as an excellent comedienne who deserves more opportunities like this. It's in part because of the cast that you wish the film was better than it is because you know Smith has it in him to do superior work, but he's not applying himself, he's just sitting there getting stoned. Sure, ZACK & MIRI will probably go on to be Smith's biggest hit to date (he seems to top out at around the $30 million mark) and audiences probably won't be too disappointed, but for me, seeing Smith become so big, followed by seeing ZACK & MIRI, I could help but feel this was a Twinkie of a movie: Kinda tasty, but filled with nothing bu empty calories that are only going to fatten you up, not enrich you.

A Cult Classic in the Mistaking.

I was quoted in an ad for the first paid writing gig I ever did. It was a Fangoria Magazine review of Mario Bava's RABID DOGS, which had been released in a limited edition DVD (at a time when DVDs themselves were limited) back in early '98, and no more than a month after the quote arrived than the ad arrived in the next issue of Tim Lucas' Video Watchdog magazine. My Fangoria editor took issue with the quote, only because I got quoted for the first thing I'd ever written for the magazine, and while I've had quotes hit here and there, I've never seen my name on the back of a DVD box. Until now.

Last summer, I saw Chris Stapp and Matt Heath's hilarious THE DEVIL DARED ME TO at the Fantasia Film Festival and loved the hell out of it. I wrote a very positive review here at HQ 10 that I know was seen by the film's producer, Anthony Timpson, who also happens to be a damn good friend of yours truly. So while I knew that THE DEVIL DARED ME TO had been sold to Vivendi Visual Entertainment (distributed by Universal), and retitled DICK: THE DEVIL DARED ME TO (apparently due to the film's lead villain, the brilliantly named Dick Johansonson, and because the word "dick" also means "penis"), I had no idea that not only had it already come out, it's been on the shelves since early August. Thanks for the head's up, Ant! So with this in mind, I planned on doing a little write-up to let everyone know that the film is finally available here (avilable at most best Buy locations) and well worth seeing. What I didn't know until I was pulling artwork for the title for this very piece is that the back of the box features a quote that comes from this very website ("A cult classic in the making") that is attributed to another source, that being Fangoria Magazine.

Now, I've written for Fangoria for many years (though in a much more on-and-off basis these days) and that's what many people associate me with, but the source is simply incorrect. More so than that, Fango's Michael Gingold positively reviewed the film from the same Fantasia screening on the Fango website back in July '07, so if you want to credit that then you should go ahead. I can understand that more people know Fangoria than they do HQ 10, but then again I'd never heard of eatmybrains.com and yet, they're quoted, too. I have the feeling that this came about when someone associated me as a Fangoria writer without checking to see if Fangoria was the source, but I don't want there to be any confusion. I'm sure that the packaging is probably never going to be recalled, so I'd just like people to know that Fangoria called THE DEVIL DARED ME TO "A crowdpleasing riot", which is just as good a quote (if not better) than "A cult classic in the making". I'm more than happy to have my name on the back of the box, but I don't want to step on the good toes of the Fango folks while doing so.

Regardless of all this, DICK - THE DEVIL DARED ME TO is out now and well worth seeing. You can quote me on that.

27 Days Til Halloween/Halloween/Halloween...

While everyone and their uncle will be dressing as Heath Ledger's Joker this Halloween, I've already got my costume all selected: Mike Meyer's Guru Pitka from THE LOVE GURU. And thank goodness that I don't have to go searching for materials, because - lucky me! - it's already available in costume stores everywhere.

Like most of you, I didn't bother to see THE LOVE GURU, but I know exactly just how this whole costume thing came about. While the film was in production, the marketing folks at Paramount held a meeting to determine what would be the best way to merchandise THE LOVE GURU; since Meyer's AUSTIN POWERS character was a success (though do you know anyone who still proudly displays their old McFarlane action figures?) and an extremely popular Halloween costume for several years, the LOVE GURU outfit certainly was a no-brainer. The fact that everyone hated THE LOVE GURU (and it was a box office disappointment), obviously put a damper on the whole LOVE GURU costume scheme, but I have to guess that materials were already assembled and produced by the time the film's brief theatrical engagement came and went, so they damn well couldn't stop it. No doubt the orders were low and stock is readily available. In fact, I dare you to buy one and wear it for Halloween. Gotta wonder what kind of looks you're going to get.

Jeez, that poor model looks embarrassed. That's all I have to say about that.

Fantastic Fest 2008: Closing Night

Yes, this actually happened:



I met him briefly, shook his hand and expressed my thanks. His appearance helps put Fantastic Fest on the map more so than ever before and I look forward to exploiting it for sponsorship opportunities for the next year. :) But seriously, he was a prince of a man and I can't begin to describe how grateful we are that he showed. And a big thank you to the Fox Walden team for working with us on this.

I know I've been silent during the fest, but now that my duties are finished I'll have some updates. Stay tuned.

Fantastic Fest: Five Films You Shouldn't Miss

Like a kid who can't wait for Christmas, I'm all giddy these days at the thought of Fantastic Fest coming to town and sliding down the Alamo's chimney with its big bag of movies for all the good little boys and girls. Even though I work behind the scenes at the big show, I'm just as excited as everyone else is, if not more so, since I've seen some of this year's batch and I know how good the selection is. With this in mind, here are some of my suggestions of five films you must see at Fantastic Fest 2008:

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN - Saturday, Sept. 20, at 6:30pm and Wednesday, Sept. 24, at 1:15pm.
I'm sick to death of stupid vampire movies, but this is something completely different altogether, a remarkably moving look at childhood, loneliness and friendship, in addition to being an excellent horror film. Every so often someone comes along to re-invent the genre, and there's no question that Tomas Alfredson has done that here. This isn't just the best film of Fantastic Fest, it's the best film of the year.

LA CREME - Sunday, Sept. 21, at 4pm and Monday, Sept. 22, at 4:15pm
A big surprise for me when I saw it at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal this year, Reynald Bertrand's comedy has a great premise and a superb execution, in addition to a shitload of laughs. It may only dabble in fantasy, but LA CREME deserves a spot at Fantastic Fest for being a fantastic movie.

TREEVENGE (running as part of SHORT FUSE) - Thursday, Sept. 18, at 4pm; Sunday, Sept. 21 at 9pm and Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 1:50pm.
Proof positive that HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN was no fluke, TREEVENGE may only be 17 minutes long, but they may also be the most entertaining 17 minutes you will spend during all of Fantastic Fest - and that's saying something. It almost singlehandedly marks the return of the great gore comedy after too long an absence.

THE MAN FROM HONG KONG - Monday, Sept. 22, at 1:45pm and Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 11:59pm.
The centerpiece of our NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD Ozploitation retrospective this year, I've written about this one before, but suffice to say I think the film is a bit of a discovery, if only for it's incredible action scenes and perfect use of Jigsaw's #1 hit, "Sky High". Trust me when I tell you that Aussie action does not get more batshit insane than this.

I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW - Saturday, Sept. 20, at 1:50pm and Monday, Sept. 22, at 4:40pm.
This is unquestionably the creepiest, scariest film playing at Fantastic Fest, but by no means should that keep you away from it, because it stays with you for a very long time. You may think you're not anything like the two people featured in the film, but at some point you're going to see yourself in them and it's going to freak you the fuck out. Disturbing, but also pretty much unmissible.

See you at Fantastic Fest!