Entries Tagged 'Movies' ↓

Recognizably from the screenwriter of American Beauty, Alan Ball, Towelhead was a fantastic film for me to end my SIFF experience with.

Towelhead manages to tackle the difficult issues of racism, sexualization of teens, and molestation in a non-judgmental way. As charming as Aaron Eckhart is, I don’t want to sympathize with his 13-year-old-molesting character. He knew what he was doing, and did it not once but twice. He wholly deserves what is coming to him and while the film doesn’t reinforce that, thankfully it doesn’t actively attempt to paint him as a victim.

The casting, overall, was fantastic. The actress who played Jasira was great and the whole film rests on her shoulders. The actor that played the role of Jasira’s father, however, seemed a bit out of place. He provided a lot of comedic value, but in more of an uncomfortable and unintentional way. The character itself was someone I wouldn’t trust, even at the end of the film — he was two-faced to the core. Even so, my primary complaint is that even after having forty minutes cut from it, it felt like it ran a bit long. For a drama that is supposed to keep you hooked, that’s not a good thing.

A drama in a similar vein of American Beauty, you will definitely see this on DVD in the states and should pick it up or catch it on Netflix.

I rate Towelhead 4 out of 5 golden space needles. Happy end-of-SIFF.

Visioneers is a bit of a 1984ish black comedy which takes place in some unspecified bleak future. It was alright, but as David pointed out, tries a little too hard to be funny. The pacing was a bit slow and before long the impact of the initial film-wide jokes wore off.

I rate Visioneers 3 out of 5 minutes of productivity before the weekend.

I wish I could forget this huge waste of time. The first fifteen minutes is of this old guy walking around his apartment in the nude pouring and drinking coffee. The rest is various scenes of him doing ridiculous shit like talking to a gigolo who was someone else’s gigolo who was also a gigolo for another gigolo, etc. What a steaming pile of pretentious shit. The only siff film so far that we have walked out of.

Fucking awful.

So, tonight eight of us saw Island of Lost Souls, a movie that speaks heavily of wizards and necromancers in the summary. It is actually about a lot of little wisps from Warcraft III that fly around possessing people. Oh, and there’s a necromancer who summons more wisps and has a single scarecrow minion. Not really the hordes of undead overtaking the town as I expected, and the magical battles are fairly limited to one at the beginning and one at the end. The rest of the film involves a lot of nonsense like finding secret black-magic infoz from books published by HarperCollins.

The film is clearly geared towards the PG-13 crowd — teens whose parents perhaps played D&D at one point, or who liked the Harry Potter books but couldn’t stand the incredible special effects of the movies. There are several good humorous points — some subtle, some not-so-much — and as far as adolescent fantasy movies go, this was up there. Unfortunately, I am in my mid-to-late 20s.

I rate Island of Lost Souls 3 out of 5 Nimbus 2000s.

I have a new favorite film of SIFF.

XXY is a film about a fifteen year-old “girl” named Alex who is a hermaphrodite. Brought up by her family as a girl, she stops taking her testosterone inhibitors around the same time that her mother invites the family of a cosmetic surgeon to visit for several days. The mother, having always wanted multiple daughters, is blatantly (yet quietly) pushing for a snip-job. The father isn’t so sure, and knows only that he loves his child unconditionally.

I hope you aren’t expecting a paragraph about the film’s flaws, because they escaped me. The characters are complex and most display some form of emotional evolution — even minor characters like Alex’s best friend Vando learn from the events over the course of the film.

While “controversial” Hollywood garbage like Transamerica claim to ask the question “What is gender?” It fails miserably by examining only whether or not the gender-attribute of a person can be switched, not whether or not the gender-attribute is important at all. XXY asks these questions — not just “What is gender?” but “Why is gender?” Why is it so important? Alex is smart enough to answer this question, and even some which remain unasked.

I rate XXY 5 out of 5 shades of grey.

Sometimes a film springs up which tries too hard to become a cult hit. Otto is one of those. Perhaps it is simply the director Bruce LeBruce’s style, but simply mixing some hardcore gay porn with a zombie chewing on roadkill and making fun of a pretentious indie film maker doesn’t mean that you, yourself, are not a pretentious indie film maker.

Otto was certainly interesting, though the ideal audience is really an incredibly narrow demographic. Count yourself out if you aren’t a fan of all of the following: gore, penises, lame dramatic moments, penises in the mouths/asses/chest-wounds of other men, poultry butchering, overdone-yet-still-half-baked ironic jokes, poor cinematography and audio work.

Luckily for me, I still like a few of those things.

I rate Otto; or, Up With Dead People 3 out of 5 homosexual zombie orgies.

The first movie of this weekend was Saturn in Opposition, an Italian issue-film disguised as a sappy bisexual soap-opera. The characters, even the ones you’re supposed to dislike, are likable enough and pretty well acted. The main event — the young protagonist in a coma — is straight out of the soaps, as are the endless supply of pretty people.

Rating withheld because the theatre was evacuated 5-10 mins before the end, likely because of some retard pulling the fire alarm. Honestly though, I probably would have given it something in the mid-range. I’m not going to buy it on DVD or pay another $8 to see the end.

I cheated. I read The Stranger’s review before I saw this film and went into it with low expectations. Thankfully, Annie Wagner apparently doesn’t know her ass from her elbow. In the review she openly displays her ignorance of practically everything the movie is about, and clearly invested no effort in understanding it.

Ben X is a Belgian film about an autistic boy who is tormented by a majority of the below-average students he is forced into sharing a school with, and works through problems with the help of a MMORPG. Throughout the film there are cuts to and blending of that RPG world with the real-life world which are very helpful in portraying what Ben is thinking and how he is attempting to come to terms with what is occurring.

One thing that is easy [for me] to take away from the film is that public schools are ill equipped to deal with (and I’d argue simply incapable of dealing with) anything but the lowest common denominator. The instructors are powerless, the administration inept, and most of the students ruthless in their sadistic desire to destroy anyone different than they.

While I wouldn’t say I “enjoyed” Ben X, it was definitely worth the price of admission and I’d recommend it to anyone else who is subtitle-tolerant, would appreciate the MMORPG references, and is patient enough to watch yet another film about someone with a handicap.

I rate Ben X 4 out of 5 rare items.

This morning I saw Nocturna, which was alright. It’s a fairly typical euro-kiddy animated movie, with a little freaky City-of-Lost-Children stuff thrown in. I’m not sure how a child would react to it, but the unfortunate lack of androids and jet-powered robot-mech-suits was a little disappointing to me.

I rate Nocturna 3 out of 5 sleepy kitties.

Tonight I also saw Vexille which was great. It is a Japanese(?) anime sci-fi film which manages to incorporate some major aspects of The Matrix, Dune, and Bladerunner into a fresh new film-thingie. The animation looks pretty, too.

I have only one complaint in general, which is that there are a couple of snicker-inducing moments which kind of break the mood. An unfortunate side-effect of less-than-superb editing I suppose (along with some subpar translation with the subtitles which can be excused.) All in all, it’s great and definitely worth a watch. I even bought the DVD for my dad when I got home from seeing it.

I really don’t want to ruin anything by divulging details other than suggesting that if you like androids, jet-powered robotic suits, and anime-hair, you should definitely check it out. It’s not a stinker like Advent Children, I promise. Cross my heart.

I rate Vexille 4 out of 5 SWORDs.