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Montréal 2024
Walking through a downtown department store my first day, I overheard a fellow say to his wife, “They have some more over here, eh?”, referring to a rack of fanny packs.
It will only get less Canadian from here.
7/18: 4PM
I recently stumbled across an unexpected “horror-of-manners“. I also was not expecting a “tragedy-of-manners” (one which slips into “thriller-of-manners” on occasion) which unfolds with the breezy charm of a Dupieux picture—and here I mean, a Buñuel picture.
4PM is the most boring festival title this year, and appropriately it focuses on a boring man: a cardiologist by trade, who takes to visiting his new neighbors (a professor on sabbatical, and his wife) every day at… 4 o’clock. Sitting, sitting, sitting, and saying virtually nothing. Promptly at 6, he rises, gathers his coat, and wordlessly leaves the premises. The professor and wife alternately marvel, cringe, fear, and laugh at the phenomenon; and then details regarding their unlikely guest begin to emerge. Jay Song’s film delights and saddens, ending with a crushing act of vengeance.
7/19: The A-Frame
Calvin Reeder has assembled an interesting “hard” science-fiction film with some poignancy, featuring a just-annoyed-enough protagonist with bone cancer, a just-tough-but-caring-enough support character surviving cancer, and a just-sketchy-enough quantum physicist who has discovered, quite by accident, a cure for cancer. (Oh, and lest I forget Rishi, there’s also a just-sad-sack-enough comedian with cancer, facing his travails with an admirable flippancy and an endless line of bad-but-good jokes.) The A-Frame is a solidly B-movie experience, with neat-o machinery, touching moments, and commendable practical effects.
Vulcanizadora
The latest from Joel Potrykus begins as a buddy comedy: a buddy comedy with opera and metal. Two guys walk resolutely down a country road along the woodland edge, and with a sudden drop of the hardcore film score, Derek (Joel Potrykus) remembers, “Oh, I left my keys on the bus.” Marty—the inimitable Joshua Burge—is annoyed and confused (two emotions he’ll be oscillating between throughout Vulcanizadora). The film becomes bleaker as little details are dropped. It doesn’t matter that Derek forgot his keys; it doesn’t matter that Marty owes him almost a thousand bucks; it doesn’t matter that Derek’s beloved “Jägergrail” is blown up by a hand-crafted incendiary. What does matter is that there are two of those incendiaries remaining, and they are designed for a specific, troubling purpose.
Potrykus’ love for this pair is obvious. Vulcanizadora revisits the two leads from his ten-year-old film, Buzzard, and while Marty and Derek are both much worse off, they are not yet defeated. The silly atmosphere dissipates in explosive dramatic style, and after the first relaxed hour, Potrykus delves deeply into his themes of bad luck, bad decisions, and a grandiose societal system that just Does Not Care. Although the fun times stop, it is rewarding to follow Marty’s path toward the finale. Vulcanizadora lands us a second time on the beach alongside our anti-hero, shovel in hand.
7/20: Anime no Bento (Anthology)
“The First Line” – dir. by Tina
scared animator / embrace your lively style! / music too maudlin
“Maidens of the Ripples” – dir. by Soma Michiko
two school girls bonding / melodramatic measures / screw being normal
“The Shape of a Daisy” – dir. by Naoki Arata
iridescent screen / deep night and searing daylight / bright future ahead
“Kamigoroshi: Prologue” – dir. by Tomoyuki Niho
oh-ho-ho, wolf god / crazy lines and slips and hues / more to come? thank you!
“Okuninushi and Sukunabikona” – dir. by Akitoshi Yokoyama
two gods, one challenge / squiggly strain as each persists / two minutes, and cute
“String Dance from the film TAISU”
– dir. by Shuhei Morita
uncertain what’s up / high beauty, high fantasy / flower thing was neat
“Mecha-Ude, Episode 1”
– dir. by Okamoto
friendly sentience / mecha-arm, reluctant teen / bad-ass chick, await
7/21: Mantra Warrior: The Legend of the Eight Moons
Dear Santa Claus,
For Christmas this year all I want is a three-headed, mecha-elephant battle-spaceship.
Sincerely, Giles
Veerapatra Jinanavin, thank you kindly for re-imagining your ancient religious epic as a bitch-a$$ awesome Mecha-Suit, space action cartoon. Dazzling lights, sweeping score, lots of punches, and more villainous laughter than you can shake a Mantra Super Weapon at. The Blood Spirit, too, is… adorable. Just adorable.
Mash Ville
I try to be as upbeat as honestly possible with films, almost always finding an unalloyed good side. The best I can muster for Hwang Wook’s latest film is… it… erm, has a great premise. But what should be a tightly-wound little violence caper—with its intersecting paths of a bootlegger hunting for a deadly, brand-damaging batch; an ever giggling police officer; an effete liquor-consortium rep; a local film team on the hook for a dead-body prop; a farmer bent on revenge; and a pair of murderous cultists—misfires often, sags heavily, and feels too eager to please. Somewhere in Mash Ville‘s two hours is a delightful 80-minute bit of capering. Ruthless editing would still leave flaws, but those would be outweighed by the potential manic energy. Leaving a Ritchie-style film in a crock pot when it’s supposed to be flash fried can leave a bad taste in the mouth; put Mash Ville through the distiller once again, please.
7/22: The Paragon
If I were lazy, I could copy and paste my omnibus review for Extra Ordinary, but then I’d have to dig up the post, click through things and—well, it’s easier just to type out my praises for this cute, differently paranormal New Zealand comedy from Michael Duignan. Tennis champ(-ish) “Dutch” dies for six minutes after a hit and run. He seeks revenge, and no doubt distraction from the crumminess his life became even before the accident. Enter, dramatically, Lyra the Master Psychic. Next thing you know, the pair are on the hunt for “The Paragon,” a metaphysical device of unfathomable power. Dutch and Lyra have great buddy chemistry, and I was pleased to see nothing romantic spoil the fun. Duignan knows how to make and maneuver a good loser character, and Dutch ticks all the right boxes to be somewhat pitiable, but overall not too bad a bloke. Speed, too, is key in a quirky comedy, and it was wonderful to find Dutch pushing for a “no faffing about” clip of training montage. I have nothing bad to say about this film, really, and its whimsy and heart rest comfortably with its sarcasm.
Oh yes, and I love Lyra’s car.
Tatsumi
No glamor, no glory, and only the faintest flickers of solace. Hiroshi Soji’s slow-burn yakuza film eschews the traditional knife-’em-up, punch-’em-up violence found in most pictures from the genre and focuses on the lowest of low-level functionaries in the world of organized crime. The titular character is broadly respected, with the cold indifference required to process victims in a manner rendering them both unrecognizable by authorities (there are hints at dental work with pliers) while still recognizable as having been professionally dispatched (ear in a bag). His life is given a jab to the throat when the precocious younger sister of his ex-girlfriend steals meth from one of the sub-bosses, setting of a chain of retribution, dark deals, and violence. Despite the film’s cold veneer (matched by Tatsumi’s own calm focus), it keeps things interesting up through its oh-so-mildly upbeat climax.
Meanwhile, On Earth (Pendant ce temps sur Terre)
Jérémy Clapin is a Frenchman, and something of an eccentric story-teller. With Meanwhile, On Earth he makes an eccentric French film. There are extra-terrestrial beings, whom we never see, but do hear—through the cosmic seedling which embeds itself in the protagonist’s ear. You see, some years ago Elsa lost her brother Franck to a failed space mission, but she hears his voice from a nearby antenna station. She has lost her drive in life, minding dementia patients at a facility her mother helps to manage. Her family has never quite recovered, and they mutedly move through life’s motions. Through the seedling, an entity promises to return her brother to this world, but only if she provides vessels for it, and its four kin-companions. Dark ennui is interrupted by tenderness, particularly during the family scenes (perhaps the film’s most commendable trait is how naturally Elsa and her relations co-exist). There is cosmic mysticism, and an ambiguous ending. All told, 366 might do well to re-visit this one.
7/23: Not Friends
Chatting after the screening, a buddy and I baked up a cake metaphor for Atta Hemwadee’s almost-too-sweet melodrama. Solid cake-y base in the form of its amusing premise: Pae, a slacker high school student, hopes to swan his way into university not by taking any placement test, but by making a short film: the tear-jerkier the better. He hijacks the recent passing of a classmate to these ends, The opening sequence is a strong grab, cheery and dark, as we witness Joe the Doomed Student smiling far too much for a boy on a school field trip to a science museum, merrily jaunting to an impactful encounter with an unobserved car.
So, Pae has a project, it has complications, things get emotional: and we have a thick, wobbly layer of icing, threatening to bring down the edifice (with plenty of opportunities so to do during a 2+ hour run time). But!, somehow Not Friends dodges this, narrowly avoiding a number of “Oh my Gawwwdd…” melodramatic spikes. I enjoyed it, for the most part, as the cast of characters all have an easy charm; and its narrative and editing deftly integrate the decreasingly mysterious Joe. Anyone out there who looking for a coming-of-age drama heartily infused with goofy good cheer would do well to check this out.
Swimming in a Sand Pool
Four high school girls, one sandy swimming pool, and very little else. Still, Nobuhiro Yamashita’s chamber drama (“piscina drama”?) delves into four lives at its own quiet pace, making for a somewhat more subdued, but no less bildungsroman-ily profound experience along the lines of The Breakfast Club, as we learn: why the top swimmer insists on practicing in the empty facility; what the allure of the “men’s dance” for the water festival holds; who should explore the art of make-up; and when the former swim-team captain is going to show up. These young women, rising in turn both awkwardly and gracefully toward adulthood, have much to say, from the petty to the pertinent. Gender conformity, social codes, and authoritarian arbitrariness all get a jab, with just enough humor to leaven the dreary task of sweeping sand from a swimming pool.
7/24: Kryptic
Sliding in with a reverse Aguirre, sprinklings of Don’t Look Now, and landing, so to speak, on a Meshes of the Afternoon. Simple, right?
Right. Kourtney Roy has here a puzzler for the viewer, with two-to-three iterations of the same female protagonist, a toxic-male duality in the form of two differently crummy guys, and a character in the opening scene who, but for the grace of God, might have been me, in another life. (A moustachioed, non-threatening, and far too cheerful wilderness guide.) Looming in the subconscious, or more likely between planes, is a gooey, mole-faced monster dubbed “the Sooka,” a cryptid of note in this imaginary British Columbia, which provides Roy and her team the chance to explore some ideas. Influenced by all the right movies (though my own theories may be reading things too deeply), this quest-line plotted supernatural tale veers into body horror, female relationships, plenty of booze and mysticism, and features one of the cringiest husbands I’ve seen on screen. Another film that would do well to have a different set of 366 eyes give it a look.
7/25: Frankie Freako
Are you boring and want to do something about it? Call the Frankie Freako Hotline: only $1.99 for the first minute, 99¢ each additional minute. Of course it’s a scam: a scam to zap three pint-sized pranksters into Conor’s pad while his wife is out of town. Steve Kostanski’s latest serving of nonsense cranks the energy and dead-pan to ten, and hearkens back to a time of loud color and bright sounds of mayhem, not to mention very satisfying practical effects throughout. Children of the ’80s and early ’90s—who are of a certain level of maturity—will find much to enjoy in this zany love letter (a term I do not use lightly) to another time. So kick back, pop open a soda, and Prepare To Get Freako.