So I was coming home from work yesterday, when I noticed a rather twitchy, ropy-looking man in his 40s board the train and sit next to a girl in school uniform. They were in the row of seats directly across the aisle from me. She was a fairly typical, with confusing hair and hepatitis-coloured fake tan and a phone in her hand, but as soon as the man sat down she stiffened, crept closer to the window and became absorbed in her texting. I heard the man start to talk to her, and thought for a while they might have known each other, until he asked how old she was.
It’s coming to the film festival. I plan on seeing it a third time. If you can forgive the cliche, if you’re only going to see one film at MIFF it should be ‘Martyrs.’
And if you do plan on seeing it, promise me you won’t read past the cut. Don’t read any reviews, maintain radio silence, keep a pure mind. Only know that it is a very difficult film to sit through, that it is, despite the hype, not sadistic, that it is about torture, but it is not torture porn. This film will mess you up for days; you’ll think about it for longer. It is brilliant and harrowing and you absolutely need to see it.
For the last couple of years the film festival caught me by surprise, and it seemed like all my friends disappeared for two weeks to Watch Movies. This year it hasn’t caught me by surprise, and I bought a pass and have begun making my list, and I plan on disappearing for a while. Here is a list of films I plan on seeing. Consider it provisional and open to change.
The Burrowers
Cowboys and casual racism and monsters and holes in the ground. It looks awesome. A reviewer from Twitchfilm describes it as one of the most cinematic films they’d seen in a while, and the trailer looks beautiful and eerie. I’m hoping for Deadwood with gore and monsters.
The Hurt Locker
It’s disappointing that many reviews of ‘The Hurt Locker’ can’t shut up about Kathryn Bigelow being, OMG, a LADEE making an ACTION MOVIE with EXPLOSIONS as opposed to a lady-movie about women who can’t understand why men don’t like them. Regardless, by all accounts this is a spectacular action movie, and a relevant one.
Food Inc
… sigh. Truth be told I’m a sucker for critiques of Green Revolution agriculture, and I always enjoy a polemical documentary, but the section full of rosy-cheeked organic farmers already makes me a little nauseous. I know Julie Guthman has produced a solid critique of organic farming and alternate food movements in Agrarian Dreams, and I plan on reading that when I write up this film for teh food blog, but, see? Already this feels like homework.
Eden Log
This film is apparently about a ragtag bunch of escapees from the underground Bacardi commercial city part of The Matrix running around a sewer speaking French and rolling around in mud. It will either be entertaining and fun or no fun at all. I am taking a punt.
Kimjongilia
I really enjoyed Guy DeLisle’s graphic novel Pyongyang, about his time working at an animation studio in North Korea, and fascinated by the almost incomprehensibly bizarre regime as it was depicted in that book. This doco looks both heartbreaking and necessary.
Alphaville
… shut up. At least it’s about, like, a computer that controls a city and shit. That’s cool, right?
Guest of Cindy Sherman
‘My girlfriend was WAY FAMOUS and that SUCKED for ME so now I’m making a movie about it, and that’s TOTALLY NOT A DICK MOVE AT ALL. Enjoy my bitterness movie, festivalgoers!’
The Girlfriend Experience
True confession: I was totally gay for that really dirty TV show where Billie Piper played a prostitute. Sasha Grey is an actual sex worker, so this has got to be even better, right?
Chocolate
Martial arts films really aren’t my thing. Extended fight scenes bore me, and I usually end up tuning out. But the point of a film festival is to see films you wouldn’t ordinarily, and this film seems to be about an autistic girl who likes M&Ms and can kick people in the face really efficiently, so I’ll give it a shot.
Thirst
Vampire films are definitely my thing.
Moon
I listened to an interview with the director on Fresh Air a while ago, and Terri Gross totally spoiled the movie. Totally! She didn’t even say ’spoiler alert’ or anything! So there’s a twist, and I know what the twist is, and it may or may not make the film less enjoyable. Still. ‘Moon’ is almost sold out already, so it looks like the thing to go to.
What am I missing? What should I be paying attention to? What have you seen and know to suck? Help me use my Minipass, hive mind.
I’ve been crazy excited about Grace since I first read about it on io9 many months ago, so excited that I’d managed to convince myself that there was no way it wouldn’t be on the MIFF program. And it wasn’t. Now that I think about it there are shades of to the film, what with the monstrous pregnancy and the car crash and all. I’d love a chance to see it to see if I’m right.
2. The Sleep Dealer
So they’re they’re showing the (potentially) drowsy, feeling-filled Moon, but they’re not showing a film about Mexican robot workers and sexy, meditating, glowy lady-bloggers? Pish. The trailer does look a touch trashy, but this has the potential to be really interesting.
3. Cat in the Brain.
Grindhouse has remastered Lucio Fulci’s confusing, Kaufman-with-boobs-and-blood-esque masterpiece and I totally can’t wait. If Inglourious Basterds is premiering at the festival, why can’t they show some of the good, honest giallo Quentin Tarantino continually recycles?
4. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
DATE MOVIE, YOU GUYS! Reviewers are way into this pretty, hazy homage to ’80s teen slashers. It feels like it’s been far too long since I watched sexy teens meet an untimely end. Long live the final girl!
All I know about this film is that it’s showing at London’s Frightfest this year, meaning that someone believed enough in this project to write a script, find funding, cast actors, get a makeup artist in to paint on the stitches and blood, edit and release this incredible film without letting anyone stop them. It’s my Death Bed 2: The Bed that Eats People. If someone can convince three actors to crawl around on all fours with their heads up each others’ butts, then I can make this stupid thesis happen. This is a film about a mad surgeon who takes three people, removes their kneecaps so they’re forced to crawl on all fours, then sews them together ass-to-mouth. Don’t believe me? Check out the production stills.
As an aside, this comment by io9 commenter CrashedPC is pretty much the greatest thing ever:
“Person 2 has died of dysentery.”
“You carried 200 pounds of Person 1 dook back to the wagon.”
“Person 3 has died of dysentery.”
“Congratulations Centipede Buttman! You have reached Oregon!”
I don’t care for video art – at least I think I don’t care for video art – but I am gay in the pants for Marco Brambilla’s video mural for the elevators of The Standard Hotel. You really, really must watch the high res version for full impact. Make sure those speakers turned to 11.
I feel like I’m chewing cotton wool writing this section, so I’m just going to stare at this wombat, then at the jaguarundi, until I feel stable again. Via Neatorama.
I know I’ve been carrying on about the genre films lately, but I couldn’t resist posting this teaser from new indie psycho-horror ‘The Uninvited.‘ I love it when films go for straight-up Civilization and its Discontents-style psychodrama, so I think I’ll also be into ‘The Uninvited’ if this clip of an old crone eating a baby in a closet is anything to go by. I also expect to see a white rat, a horse’s penis, and lots and lots of things that could be anuses but aren’t.
I feel like I’m chewing cotton wool writing this section, so I’m just going to stare at this wombat, then at the