One of the most enjoyable theatrical experiences I've had this year was seeing Obayashi's Hausu (House) at Fantastic Fest this year. It's unbridled surrealist insanity. Zack Carlson introduced the film as a transformative experience so powerful that it will literally change your gender before you leave the theater. The movie is brilliantly whacked out and hilarious throughout. The english-subtitled trailer is below. Janus Films is screening it limited in advance of an assumed Criterion DVD/Blu-ray release that I consider a must-own (once it materializes). Upon screening the release version, the movie was such an embarrassment to Toho that they buried the release and it's been virtually un-viewable for three decades. A schoolgirl is upset that her father is remarrying, so she plans a trip to her reclusive old auntie's house in the country with six of her friends. The protagonists are all named like Japanese My Little Ponies. I'm not kidding. The main two are Gorgeous and Fantasy, with friends Prof (bookish), Mac (as in "Big Mac"...she likes to eat), Kung-Fu (athletic and the defender of the group), Sweet (scared of everything, cries all the time), and Melody (the musical prodigy). They set this up for you to expect people will start disappearing. The best supporting performance, for me, was from the definitive evil cat in cinema history. The cat helps Grandma (Minamada Yoko) capture and devour the girls one by one to restore her youth. Minamada's performance (and that of the cat) is inspired and just perfect for the material. Based on her IMDb profile, she had a long career in the Japanese film industry. Unfortunately, Minamada passed away just a few weeks ago on the 21st of October. It'd be nice to see something about her career on the inevitable DVD. The optical effects are a riot, and the blood and "gore" are so cartoonish and cheap that they won't force away the squeamish. Seattle, Rochester, and Denver, you've been warned. Get thee to a theater. The poster below features my beloved evil cat, and is also available from Criterion as a t-shirt.

I met South Korean writer/director Park Dae-min the second day of Fantastic Fest, and to be completely honest, I had a feeling of foreboding that I wouldn't like his movie when we shook hands the first time. I had heard very good things in advance, but a friend was going to be his primary interpreter for the duration of the festival. I knew I'd be getting to know him somewhat in the days leading up to the screening, and that can be a dicey proposition. As a result, I avoided much in-depth talk with him before I saw Private Eye. I reviewed the film shortly after the festival ended, and have been working and re-working a piece about Dae-min himself ever since. Dae-min is a very laid-back, thoughtful, extremely intelligent guy. He doesn't smoke, nor does he drink much (if at all). As is the nature of many filmmakers, his eyes are cameras, constantly taking in everything around him. Whether he was actively participating in one of the various parties or not, he was at many of them for a while, just taking everything in. His capacity for focus is truly impressive. I think he picked up on the fact that I didn't want to get too chummy before I'd seen PE, and he was cool with that. Not to say this is universal about American directors or Americans in general, but 'Mericanos seem all too eager to become the best of pals to ingratiate press to whatever they're selling, be it a movie, themselves, or something else. For Dae-min, I suppose it's easy to be laid back when he knows he's got excellent work to show. That isn't to say that he's an overconfident, smug jerk (far from it). Talking to him or interacting with him, you'd never guess that this humble, soft-spoken guy was a top-grade screenwriter and filmmaker. He has a particular talent for delivering mainstream-friendly content without pandering to or taking advantage of the audience, based on his first feature. Once I had seen the movie, I told him a couple of times that I was interested in doing an interview, but our mutual piles of commitments made that next to impossible. Instead, we just tried to get to know each other a bit, mostly without the help of an interpreter (his English is better than he thinks it is). At the first screening Q&A, he was asked about influences on his script, and he said that Sherlock Holmes stories and movies fundamentally influenced Private Eye, as did L.A. Confidential and Chinatown. One of the earliest conversations we had was later that same evening, about directors we like. Off the top of his head he came up with Bong Joon-ho, Kitano Takeshi (Beat Takeshi), and Park Chan-wook. I asked him a bit more about movies and filmmakers, and he mentioned True Romance and his love of Japanese cinema. We jumped to discussing a few directors and how we generally preferred their early films and came around to Miike Takashi. He added that his favorite installment in Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy is Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Dae-min yet later told me during the closing night party that he grew up watching everything from Jackie Chan movies to the Indiana Jones series and other American blockbusters that, in his words "everyone went to see together" and had a sense of adventure. He added that in his childhood, he wanted to make those kinds of movies that were widely accessible. I asked, "what did you think of the fourth Indiana Jones movie?" His facial response was as if to say "what is that horrible smell?" That response is exactly what sets him apart from the multitude of young directors making movies in any country these days.

This youth adventure film from New Zealand is an adaptation of a 27-year-old NZ TV series, which is in turn based on a book. The redheads you see above play twins named Rachel and Theo (Sophie McBride and Tom Cameron) who have special powers. Sam Neill plays a mysterious old man called Mr. Jones who helps them learn how to use those powers. They then fight off aliens underneath the inactive volcanoes of Auckland. Getting too much more in-depth than that would be a waste of time. The story is simple and straightforward, and is thankfully less focused on how they can sell toys tied in with the movie than American films of the same general stripe. Some sexual situations may not make the US edit should it get picked up, but they're far from crucial to the story. Director Jonathan King directed the hilarious and fresh Black Sheep a few years ago, and his chops still rate. All concerned do a better job than things like the remake of The Race to Witch Mountain did for even its most ardent fans.

Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) has a traveling show that wanders around London in a big horse-drawn trailer that looks like it came from centuries before. The doctor is joined by his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), her eager-to-deflower-her boyfriend Anton (Andrew Garfield), and the very much put-upon Percy (Verne Troyer). The show is very theatrical and requires audience participation. The goal at minimum is to get someone to go through the mirror in the middle of the set, which appears to be no more than mirrored paper. The movie The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is also more intricate than it may seem at first, but that may not be a good thing. Terry Gilliam's latest is bound to confound and frustrate those looking for a cohesive, traditional narrative. It does go from point A to point B, but the plot is less important to the movie than the twists in the metaphysical quantum reality on the other side of Dr. Parnassus' mirror. The rules never stay the same once you're on the other side, and things like up/down, right/wrong, and logical progression are all out the window. Parnassus got so abstract that I don't remember a lot of the end of the movie due to my mind wandering. I want to see it again though, which I can't say is the case for others who were at the screening I caught. The movie does not lack cohesion or entertainment value due to the loss of Heath Ledger during filming. The problem that persisted for me was not thinking "what would this be like if he hadn't died?" from the point Tony (Ledger) is found by Parnassus and company hanging by the neck off a bridge. "How did they handle...you know, the Ledger thing" is the first thing people discuss after bringing up the movie in casual conversation when one person or another hasn't seen it. After a screening, a group likewise starts talking about whether the loss of Ledger did or didn't affect what they thought of the movie. Of course it did, or those conversations wouldn't be happening after every show. Tony takes three separate trips through the mirror later in the film where the perspective of his companion shapes what he looks like, which I bought and works perfectly fine, especially thanks to the progression of actors used. It takes a few glances to pick up on the fact you're looking at Johnny Depp and not Heath. When done up as Tony, Depp looks and sounds eerily like Ledger. Jude Law looks and moves noticeably different, and Colin Farrell is yet more distinguishable and has the meatiest stuff to work with overall. Ledger's absence will distract everyone to some extent, at least on first viewing, but the diversion fades. The production design and art direction are exactly as one would expect of Gilliam's trademark. The world of the Imaginarium is so richly-textured that one would swear it sprang forth, fully formed, directly from the mind of Terry Gilliam. If you can't dig surrealist weirdness, this one's not for you by any stretch. Parnassus is a richly-layered experience, but the death of Ledger makes it difficult to soak it all in on the first go. Even if I hadn't been mostly hooked by the whole work, the visuals would have me onboard for a second go-around.

The pooh-poohing about the Coen Bros.' latest is all hot air. I really don't think A Serious Man would or could win Best Picture, but it will be nominated. The subject matter is not garden variety Oscar bait, but it stands as one of the top prestige pedigree movies that will be in the running for awards. ASM is rather unique amongst its peers in the race as well, which raises its chances in the year when variety is the spice of Oscar...but enough Oscar talk eating its own tail. A Serious Man opens with an invented Jewish fable, which I gather is intended to feature the ancestors of the family at the movie's center. Michael Stuhlbarg is the fresh new face of the movie, and he has the most delicate, nuanced job in playing Larry Gopnick, a mathematics professor and father whose life and family are crumbling around him. His kids Sarah and Danny (Jessica McManus and Aaron Wolff) are shooting off in their own directions as kids do in their tween and teen years. They only acknowledge their dad's existence when they need him to do things for them. His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) is leaving him for someone he has trouble believing she's going with. Larry's brother Arthur (Richard Kind) has various issues that prevent him from functioning in the world without Larry protecting him. On top of that, Prof. Gopnick on the tenure track and he's awaiting the final decision of the committee that holds his fate in their hands. The thing is, the movie really isn't about any of the crap going on in Larry's life. A Serious Man is more an indictment on traditionalist thinking and customs, which only make the misery of life more insufferable. Just when you think a nice Bar Mitzvah or chat with a rabbi is going to add some normalcy to things and make everything a little better for a short while, you're dead wrong. Life is a never-ending series of compounding complications that suffocate you faster each time you break free. Hiding for shelter behind these customs only puts more stuff in between you and the weight that's trying to crush you. Jesus H. Christ of Nazareth, that's pretty bleak. People said No Country for Old Men was bleak, but this hits people where it hurts the most: right in the suburbs. I should mention while I'm thinking of it that A Serious Man is not "too Jewy". I know comparatively as little about Judaism as I do Catholicism or Islam or Methodism. If you've got a deep-seated aversion to Jews or Judaism, you've got other problems and won't like many things in addition to this movie. Every actor on screen is on the same wavelength of not-quite-reality as one another, true to the Coens' form. Fyvush Finkel is a welcome presence at the beginning, and various others keep things going throughout, including Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman, Simon Helberg as a young rabbi, Adam Arkin as Larry's lawyer, and David Kang as perturbed student Clive Park. If I go on, I'll list the whole cast as having been amazing. There's not a single weak link. A great deal of credit should go to the Coens in casting all these lovely people playing unlikable creatures. Joel and Ethan have flawlessly created yet another self-contained parallel universe. I hope everyone has a chance to see this before it disappears to make way for holiday fare.

Contrary to a lot of the opinions I overheard at Fantastic Fest and that I've read since then, I don't think the action was too fast or too dark. I do think the movie could have been an amazing 20-minute short, however. The feature film that V for Vendetta director James McTeigue ended up with is one part bloody, violent fever dream and one part nostalgia for adults who grew up on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action films of the 90's. Korean pop star-turned actor Rain (I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK) plays Raizo, a ninja assassin who goes rogue from his clan after they commit an unforgivable act of violence. Secret clans of ninja have apparently been killing people for centuries (accepting payment in gold), and Interpol is only now on their trail. The presence of various top grade actors like Randall Duk Kim, Rick Yune, and Ben Miles (best-known for Coupling, but he's done better) can't lift this one beyond being merely a great idea for a TV show from 1993. The action is ultra-bloody and rather intricate, but the story just isn't terribly engaging. I saw much better martial arts movies with admittedly thin plots at Fantastic Fest this year. They had a tiny fraction of the budget this one had, but delivered ten times the entertainment. Assassin will appeal to anyone looking for an adrenalized action alternative to holiday/Oscar season movies when it opens in November, but it's not destined to be terribly memorable to anyone.

The screening of the new Miike Takashi film was something of a now-legendary happening at Fantastic Fest. I'll get into exactly why in a bit. Yatterman is based on a 30-some-odd year old anime series about a guy, his girlfriend, and a giant robot dog fighting a team of three bad guys who keep coming up with hare-brained schemes. It's much-beloved in Japan, though the show itself was really vapid and repetitive and saw giant robots knocking each other to bits only to be repaired in time for the next episode. There's plenty of naughty humor on display that US parents would find just as objectionable as they do the idea that Astro Boy opens with the protagonist, a young boy, dying in an industrial accident. The clips I've found of the original Yatterman show on YouTube and various streaming sites confirms that Miike did as faithful an adaptation as possible, even including songs sung in the show at random intervals. For the first time in many massively failed attempts like Dragonball, I feel confident in saying someone has nailed a live-action anime. The actors and directors knew they were signing on for a big-budget, effects-laden farce and they sold it. The amount of nostalgic love for this series is similarly matched on this side of the ocean by fans of Transformers who have eagerly anticipated both live-action installments of that...thing. I grew up on The Transformers and even in my youth felt like it was just a half-hour toy commercial. The TF movies take the source material very seriously, and whereas I admire the writers for trying to make it as plausible and relatable as possible, I rather wish they had taken the tack Miike's Yatterman did and lampoon the life out of it, with nary a sequel in sight. Really, the ending sold the movie for me more than anything, and I don't consider the following reasoning of why I liked it to be spoiler material. One of the more obtuse subtitle translations was the very phrase I'm talking about here, which is along the lines of, "put your toys away and grow up." The infantilization of young adults over the last however many years has just stunned me, and I'm part of the generation most visibly exemplifying this. It's as if in fear of growing older, people retreat to the things they clutched on to in the good old days, when there was just good or evil, none of this grey in-between garbage. Transformers, G.I Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, My Little Pony (why the hell not?), and various other 80's and 90's cartoons that re-ran ad nauseum were the backbone of Reagan-era American ideology-building for my generation. We got closer and closer to the real world, and we much preferred our cartoon fantasy worlds to the one we were facing. What I'm getting at is that unlike the American revivals of franchises like this one, Yatterman is saying "okay, the reverie is over, go make something of yourself." That's a great deal deeper than I expected this thing to go. There are anime series that could make for brilliant, thoughtful live-action narratives, but I smell things like Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion being screwed up from a mile away. The studios that have the bankrolls to make movies out of them aren't going to be willing to go to the places those stories go. They'll take Bebop and try to stretch it out to Matrix 4 through 10 and Evangelion will become some kind of franchise launching mess that'll get lost in development hell. I've been a fan of a number of these series over the years, and I feel that at this point, Yatterman is the best we'll see until studios are ready to gamble with their money and slates a bit. I'd be shocked if a US home video distributor didn't pick this up due to the rabid anime fanbase market combined with Miike completists. So, about that once-in-a-lifetime happening... The screening seated late and started late. That happens at festivals all the time. It turns out the Japanese studio sent over an HDCAM master tape that looked gorgeous, but lacked subtitles. After a lengthy wait while, according to one theater manager, "our guys in the booth are trying to work some magic," we were let in. Alamo Drafthouse & Fantastic Fest programmer Zack Carlson introduced the film by apologizing for the wait and explaining what they were going to try. He explained that the solution they'd worked out was to zoom the HDCAM to the top 80% or so of the screen. On the remaining bottom piece of the screen, they would project something using a second projector: the subtitle portion of the picture from the DVD screener they had on-hand. They masked the second projector just right and were pretty sure they had them synced up perfectly. The only thing that could go wrong would be if the two copies of the film were different cuts. Suffice to say they were the same cut and they showed perfectly in sync to a very impressed audience. Zack's last-minute ingenuity in cases like this easily assures him a retirement as an on-call film festival problem solver. He'll be worth his high price tag just like Winston "The Wolf" Wolfe in Pulp Fiction.

Shion Sono, the director of import cult classic Suicide Club and recent genre hit Exte: Hair Extensions delivered a four hour, coming-of-age novella that surprised and delighted me in equal measure. Love Exposure deals in thematic shifts rather than simple plot twists, starting with an emo coming of age drama focusing on protagonist Yu. His mother dies when he's very young, and then his father joins the priesthood. Even as we go from situational comedy to broad farce to meet-cute love story (and back and forth), the story jumps narrators to Yoko (the girl he becomes infatuated with), and then later to another girl (who becomes infatuated with him...and Yoko). The stage is set and the pieces are explained about an hour in, when the title card finally drops. The storytelling touches on finding oneself both as a teenager and an adult, religious fanaticism and cults, hentai (perversion) culture and sexual curiosity, as well as the zen art of upskirt photography and life of an unintentional cross-dresser. Suffice to say that short of retelling the events of the film step by step, it's a tough nut to crack. The simplest reduction I could come up with is that it's about the complications of human intimacy from varying perspectives. I should mention here that the one moment of striking, graphic mutilation in the film threatened to send me on a one-way trip to the lobby. To my great surprise, I was engrossed in the film only moments later. I must mention here that Love Exposure delivers some of the most comprehensive, even-handed social criticism of religion in modern society that I've seen on the screen of late. The well-intentioned practitioners of true faith don't have the resources or popularity to keep up with false prophets with bigger bankrolls and more sinister plans. The film is really captivating in a way that feels more like you're watching a four-hour television miniseries all in one sitting. It is extremely weird, but no more so than real life is in one's teen years. The description "really weird four hour Japanese movie that is all over the place" probably doesn't look irresistible to US distributors (even just home video), but I've yet to run into someone who said they hated or even simply disliked the movie. When it really comes down to it, the story of Yuda falling in love with and pursuing Yoko is more interesting than the best parts of the various meet-cute rom-coms of the last decade. Here's hoping it's available for consumption in the US at some point.

One of the strangest one-day-to-the-next experiences I had at Fantastic Fest was seeing around four hours of Toy Story one afternoon and then four hours of Love Exposure the next day in the same time slot. I'll get into Love Exposure soon enough, but the recent news that the Toy Story 3-D Double Feature is remaining in theaters for a bit longer finally kicked me into gear completing my Fantastic Fest coverage. If you've missed the double feature 3-D version so far, make sure to catch it before it disappears. This recommendation goes double if you paid to take kids to Monsters Vs Aliens. There's got to be some justice in box office receipts favoring quality. Dimensionality is what set Pixar apart from the pack when Toy Story changed the animation landscape in 1995. That's precisely why I don't feel this is some cheap gimmick and see it as a finer-tuned, enhanced version of two movies I already love. The 3-D application here for me is as wholesome as using brighter projection bulbs than existed when a film existed. We're talking about fine-detail depth, not goofy stuff shooting out at you. Just as with UP, I'm fine seeing these movies "flat" rather than "deep", but there's something truly majestic about the 3-D presentation. The application isn't full of things flying at you, but rather, it adds a moving diorama feel to the proceedings that indeed more comprehensively immerses you in the action. I like the right applications of pop-up-in-your-face, but not when or if that is added to a movie that didn't have it to begin with. If anything, movies like these that are depth-of-field rendered are returning to their source files more than anything, and a case could be made that this is a more accurate and pure presentation of what the original animators sculpted with digital scalpels. The youngest of kids in the audience had trouble maintaining focus through the second feature, but they all behaved in general. The young guy next to me with his dad couldn't have been much more than 5 or 6, and had a Nintendo DS in his hands prior to the feature with some LEGO videos on it that he thought were the funniest thing in the world. I saw the first Toy Story when I was 12, when I'd moved on from toys and was into girls. This kid was already over physical toys and into digital gadgets before he'd gotten multiplication down pat! The digital information divide has made some of the most recent generations like different species to me. I'm still trying to wrap the fact that high schoolers and middle schoolers are using smartphone computers that fit in their pockets at ages when laptop computers were new and remarkable gadgets to me. I'm very curious to see how parents, adults, and kids of various ages take to the new movie next summer, especially relative to how Pixar has evolved and matured so beautifully throughout their first couple decades. Speaking of Toy Story 3, the trailer looks wonderful on the big screen in 3-D. Seeing it and thinking about the themes it teases while watching the first two movies makes for a really rich new experience.

Sweet Karma - Canada - Directed by Andrew Thomas Hunt Synopsis: A mute goes on a quest for vengeance when her sister ends up missing as a prostitute for the Russian mob. I've seen movies at Fantastic Fest that I've disliked much more than Sweet Karma, but I've never seen one I thought felt more out-of-place at the festival than this one. I must've be spoiled by the over-the-top exploitation vibe of the fest, because I kept waiting for Karma, the title character, to go really nuts, delivering a huge, splattery mess of revenge that never happens. Sweet Karma is a grimy, modest film with just enough strippers, nudity, prostitution, rape, and mobsters to make it marginally more gritty than something you'd catch in the 1990's on pay cable in the middle of the night. The sleazy sexuality outweighs the violence, which is a problem if you're trying to make a revenge movie. Hunt's more confident when he's shooting something titillating, and it keeps Sweet Karma more than a little unsatisfying. Private Eye - South Korea - Directed by Park Dae-Min Synopsis: A private investigator and a young medical student end up in over their heads as they uncover a series of murders. Boyish director Park Dae-Min seemed really happy with the Fantastic Fest audience reaction to his first feature. He has every right to smile--Private Eye is a solid piece of who-done-it storytelling. It's a continuation of South Korean filmmaking trends, where our friends from the East are making Western-style films that deliver the goods. It's pure, old-fashioned movie-making, unfettered from the needs of the American corporate studio system to cross-promote and co-brand. The lead actors, Jeon-Min Hwang and Dal-Su Oh, are fantastic. They've created a crime-fighting duo that bears the influence of Holmes and Watson, while remaining refreshing. I want more of these two. Park Dae-Min didn't rule out the idea of a sequel. I told him I wanted more than that--Private Eye III and IV, please. Keep 'em coming. If the sequels are as good as this debut, we'll have a couple of new iconic film detectives on our hand. If this sounds interesting to you at all, please check out Moises' review as well. I'm having a hard time here articulating what makes Private Eye work so well, other than to say that it's an exceptionally well-made movie. Merantau - Indonesia - Directed by Gareth Evans Synopsis: A spiritual quest, called merantau, leads a young man trained in Silat into opposition with a human trafficking ring. I usually avoid the martial arts films at Fantastic Fest, for no real reason than I find they're all of a certain quality. At a festival, I go for the bigger gambles--I'd rather take a chance on something that isn't as predictably entertaining as most martial arts films. After Merantau got a lot of buzz after its first screening, I decided to go ahead and take in a showing and see what all the fuss was about. Mainly, that fuss is about Iko Uwais, and how much of an incredible bad-ass he is. Merantau's story--goody-goody country boy helps a stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold and her orphan brother--is remarkably pedestrian, but, ohmygod, Iko Uwais is amazing. He's deceptively boring as an actor, adequate but not exciting. Once he starts fighting, however, you can not take your eyes off the man. He's fluid and brutal, and the fights are choreographed into long, unrelenting sequences where he takes on opponent after opponent without stopping for one breath. I think there's a better movie than Merantau awaiting Uwais in his future, but for fans of martial arts, Merantua may very well become a minor classic because it introduces such a major new talent. The Revenant - USA - Directed by D. Kerry Prior Synopsis: A dead soldier returns to life as a zombie, but he'll need his best friend to help him stay undead, by furnishing him with plenty of fresh human blood. I sort of, almost, really like The Revenant. It's a worthy zombie comedy, with an unusual take on the typical alpha male buddy movie. The undead vet, Bart (David Anders), decides to choose his victims with the mis-placed authority of a street vigilante, but his friend Joey's (Chris Wylde) reasons for helping Bart may have less to do with Bart, and more to do with Joey being a chronic thrill-seeker. The Revenant has a lot going for it. It's funny and gross, it's well-shot and well-acted for a low-budget indie, and it's legitimately weird. The downside is that The Revenant features too much of a good thing--it's a shaggy movie, that often shambles like a zombie through too many repetitive scenes of Bart's street justice and constant feeding. At the fest, Prior confessed that the film had yet to find distribution. That's a shame, because he's made a slickly professional film that horror fans are really going to dig. I'm hoping he can tighten it up (please, please, please lose the nonsensical, poorly green-screened subway shootout), and get The Revenant into fighting shape so that it can garner distribution. Festival reaction to the film has been strong, and I have no doubt that The Revenant will find a home soon. Daybreakers - Australia - Directed by The Spierig Brothers Synopsis: In a society controlled by vampires, a hematologist bucks the authority of the corporation he works for to help a small group of humans develop a cure of vampirism. I can say this about the Spierig Brothers--they know how to make a fantastic B-movie. Daybreakers is a no-frills excursion into a fascinating, horrific vision of the future, filled with interesting concepts and lean action, and, man, this thing is lean. Daybreakers sets up its world and the conflict in the blink of an eye, then wham-bam-thank-you-Sam (Neill, that is, playing the villain) and it's all over. Breathlessly paced, it's easily the most satisfying vampire film of its kind since Blade, zooming along so quickly that you barely have time to consider any plot holes caused by the movie's undercooked psuedo-science or timeline. That's the trick with B-movies, distract the audience with just enough cleverness to keep them from noticing that almost all of the thrills are visceral in nature. I can't complain much about a movie this efficient--a near perfect peanut butter-in-my-chocolate junk food blend of action and horror.

The best film I saw at Fantastic Fest this year was Park Dae-min's Private Eye, a brilliant and impressive first feature from a screenwriter-turned-director. It's the second highest-grossing movie in South Korea so far this year, and it's better mainstream entertainment than the US has produced in the last nine months. After both Fantastic Fest screenings, various people remarked that this Korean period crime movie was all the Sherlock Holmes they were looking for, and that they didn't know how Guy Ritchie's Holmes could hope to be this good. Private Eye takes place in early 1900's Japanese-occupied Korea. All the details are perfect, from costumes to locations to the nuances of the script. The story follows a private eye named Hong Jin-ho (Hwang Jeong-min) who gets tangled up in a murder investigation when a medical student (Ryu Deok-Hwan) finds the body of a government minister's son and comes to Hong for help. The reason the med student (who is never named, but referred to as "Doc" by Hong) needs help is that prior to finding out who the body was, he started dissecting it for study. Without spoiling any of the twists and turns, by the end of the movie Hong and "Doc" have a very Holmes & Watson thing going. I'm not alone in wanting to see a followup, based on the responses of very enthusiastic audiences at both shows last week. Hwang is one of the most famous actors in Korea these days, and director Park mentioned at one point that his participation is the main reason the movie was made with the budget it needed. His portrayal of Hong is at once disciplined like Holmes, but also somewhat obsessive and revenge-driven like Batman/Bruce Wayne. Unlike both characters, Hong's background (which is revealed later in the film) makes him right at home delivering brisk, decisive judgment in a Korea that isn't run by the laws on the books. It is Hwang's talent for subtle, naturalistic comedy that really sells the part. Otherwise, the hard-boiled detective would feel too much like a carbon copy of Holmes or Batman without the costume. Hwang and Ryu make for a great team, and all the supporting cast members are solid no matter how few lines they may have. Uhm Ji-won has comparatively little to do as a Lady Inventor (whose name escapes me), but she's crucial to the plot and could figure much more prominently in a sequel. Director Park mentioned in the first screening's Q&A that she was loosely modeled on Q from the James Bond series. We're never directly told where "Mrs. Q"'s husband is, whether dead or what, but he's certainly absent. One of my favorite throwaways in the movie is seeing she's made various devices for Hong that are never seen again after they're demonstrated. Deductive reasoning wins out over gadgets and toys in the world of Private Eye. More than anything, Private Eye succeeds in the details of its character development. One bit that figures prominently in the growth of "Doc" is a point where he makes his views on unequal medical treatment for the poor extremely clear. He's studying under a very profit-driven, old school Japanese doctor whose heart isn't into the rewarding nature of the work, but the financial incentive instead. In one of a few places where Park resists the urge to show us every last detail, but gives us enough evidence to assume the result, "Doc" stands up to the man he starts out revering, and it makes you want to buy the kid a beer. The whodunnit style of crime story isn't reinvented here (I don't think that's possible), but it's perfectly shown tribute by a smart, funny script. Private Eye screened late in the festival, after most of the buyers and industry people had already left. The movie is one of the best I've seen in any language this year, with characters, music, and (most importantly) a story that deliver on every level. I'm hoping that post-festival buzz will carry it to a US distribution deal. If anyone knows where/how I can import the score, I'll pay whatever it costs.

Salvage - UK- Directed by Lawrence Gough Synopsis: A mother estranged from her daughter tries to make things right amidst a sudden and deadly military takeover of their neighborhood. About twenty minutes into Salvage, I turned to my friend sitting next to me and whispered, "If this is a monster movie, it has some of the best characterization I've ever seen." Salvage is definitely a monster movie (not a spoiler), and it does have great acting and sharply written characters. Unfortunately, that's about all it has. When the movie ramps up the action, all logic seems to fly out the window. It's a real shame too, because Neve McIntosh is outstanding as Beth, the mother, and I can say without a doubt that it's one of the most three-dimensional roles a woman has ever had in a horror film, indy or otherwise. She feels real--the character is introduced in a scene in which a very adult mistake on Beth's part causes unnecessary heartbreak with her teen daughter, Jodie. She struggles with that indiscretion, as well as more damaging, timeworn mistakes and the effect they've had on her relationship with Jodie. By the time Beth becomes a fiercely protective animal at the end of the film, it feels completely earned. But...this is a monster movie we're talking about--one in which the military behave as trigger-happy idiots, doing whatever actions the screenwriters need them to do at that given moment to ramp up the thrills, reality be damned. I'd give that a pass, maybe, if the monster was cool, but he looks like a rejected make-up idea from a DTV Wrong Turn sequel. He's a lumpy-headed mutant that roars like Godzilla, murders people like a rabid gorilla, but always takes the time to use proper bathroom ettiquette when he has to go. Yes, between kills, the monster pees in the potty. Good boy. The bathroom scene encapsulates everything that's right and wrong with Salvage. Beth hears someone relieving themselves through a closed bathroom door, thinks it's Jodie, and goes to open the door, only to see Jodie standing across the room from her. Jodie gives a barely perceptible headshake to let her know that her mother should definitely not open that door. The monster is in there, pissing. It's a solid moment of acting between the mother and the daughter, ruined by a ridiculous, unbelievable situation. Salvage is the very definition of a mixed bag. Rampage - Canada/Germany - Directed by Uwe Boll Synopsis: An unremarkable teenager goes on an unprovoked killing spree. Don't let anyone tell you that Uwe Boll has finally made a good film. He's made one that isn't laughable, but Rampage is not good--not by any stretch of the imagination. Boll still has too much love for slow-motion violence, bad camera work, and lousy soundtrack choices, and an incredible tolerance for terrible performances. Rampage may feel competent, but barely. Not content to let the story play out at its own pace, or perhaps not confident in his own abilities to create a slow-burn sense of dread, Boll dishes out violent flash-forwards during the actors' inane improvised conversations at the beginning of the film. These never feel like foreshadowing (they aren't artful enough for that), but promises to the audience that, trust me, these characters will shut up soon, and we can get down to the killin'. Rampage is an ugly, irresponsible film--a repellant, sociopathic male power fantasy that assumes we've all wanted to be the guy that could get away with killing all those jerks out there on the street. Thing is, I'm not a sociopath, so, no, I don't want to kill everyone I see. Uwe Boll is a person who once responsed to negative reviews of his video game movies by offering to fly critics to his location so that he, an amateur boxer, could knock them out in a boxing ring. It's a violent response to a trivial issue. Rampage is that response times one thousand, simmering with misplaced anger and hatred towards the middle class. It seems destined to become the new favorite film of disaffected, violent white trash fifteen-year olds across America. I don't believe cinematic violence causes real world violence, and, personally, I happen to like a lot of violent films. My issue here is that Boll has created a film without subtext or satire, immoral and lacking remorse, offering not one iota of intellectual or philosophical insight. A character study about the worst cold-blooded killer in history can at least offer us some moments where we reflect on the unusual psychology on display. Rampage just isn't about that. It's about the thrill of putting a bullet in the head of the guy that got your coffee order wrong. It's a thrill that I can't force myself to relate to. A Serious Man - USA - Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen Synopsis: Larry Gopnik experiences a troubling cycle of small victories followed by huge personal tragedies. I'm a Gentile, and I loved A Serious Man. I comprehend the "what can ya do?" attitude of the film, but not in the way that it might resonate with Jews (in much the same way that "Catholic guilt" doesn't resonate with me, but I can understand it). As far as character studies go, they don't get more well-crafted than A Serious Man. Michael Stuhlbarg carries the film with what is sure to be the break-out performance of 2009. His Larry Gopnik is desperate and patient, often at the exact same time, and it makes for an interesting combination of character traits as the Coens (playing G-d) continue to pile heartache upon heartache on poor Larry. Watching Gopnik's personal drama unfold is painful, but the Coens get us from scene to scene easily with plenty of strange characters and well-timed comedy. Tonally, A Serious Man reminded me a lot of 2001's The Man Who Wasn't There, but Billy Bob Thornton's character in that film, Ed Crane, is a simpleton. Gopnik is smart, but he's no more effectual than Crane at controlling his own life. There are forces at work bigger than Gopnik, and they were there before he was born (illustrated by the Coens' odd prologue, set centuries beforehand), and will continue to go on after he is dead (illustrated in a powerful way by the Coens' not-exactly-an-ending ending). In many ways, A Serious Man feels like the most personal work yet from Joel and Ethan Coen, and I look forward to seeing it again so that I can give it some further thought.

[REC] 2 - Spain - Directed by Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza Synopsis: A Vatican priest accompanies a SWAT unit to investigate the aftermath of a viral outbreak that may not be quite what it seems. [REC] 2 is a fantastic sequel, expanding from the first film in surprising and exciting ways. Not content to be just a great zombie film, [REC] 2 takes a first-person walk into the spiritual side of horror with its tale of a church experiment gone horribly wrong. If there's any significant knock against the film, it's that [REC] 2's scares bear too much influence from survival horror video games, complete with white-skinned ghouls that crawl across ceilings and a sewer "level". For some, these bits might work just fine, but for me they were akin to watching someone play a scary video game, which is a much different experience than playing one yourself. The characters are all thinly drawn and serve the story only to die, more-or-less, and it impairs the tension that Balaguero is trying to create. Regardless of whether or not I was personally terrified, I never expected [REC] 2 to be so interesting. The greatest movie sequels deliver the most well-regarded elements from the original while expanding situations in an unexpected way. Horror sequels are notoriously lousy at this, always trying to one-up the original in the least creative ways possible. [REC] 2 avoids sequel-itis by replicating what works from the original [REC] and only attempting to out-do its predecessor's story, not the scares. Nice work, guys. Cropsey - USA - Directed by Barbara Brancaccio & Joshua Zeman Synopsis: This documentary examines how truth can spin into urban legend as it presents the case of Andre Rand, a Staten Island drifter accused of murderering mentally handicapped children. It's almost too easy to draw comparisons between this film and Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Both films explore how a community reacts to a potential monster, especially if that monster is just enough of an outsider for people to draw their own conclusions about the details of the monster's crime. Brancaccio and Zeman are not interested in presenting a detailed case in support of Rand (unlike the support that the West Memphis Three found in Paradise Lost), despite the appearance to the contrary, as they dismiss many assumptions about Rand and his crime with this film. For a while it looks as if they're painting Rand as a martyr who got punished for being the wrong guy at the wrong time, but as the story unfolds and the tales from the police and Staten Island residents continue to get increasingly bizarre, Rand's guilt becomes almost irrelevant. The question then becomes "why do we need to create monsters?" If Rand is guilty of kidnapping and murdering children, that's horrible enough on its own. Why do many of the people involved with the case want to reimagine Rand as the retarded, necrophiliac lackey of a Satanic cult? Since when do you need to be substantially more than a child killer to be considered evil? Unfortunately, it's not a question Brancaccio and Zeman are capable of answering in Cropsey, and if the documentary falters at all, it's because of the lack of something definitive. To placate our own desire for closure, we go the only conclusion that the filmmakers weakly offer, which is that Rand is most likely guilty. Cropsey is unforgettable--more unsettling than any run-of-the-mill horror movie, and I commend Brancaccio and Zeman for exploring the dark questions in Cropsey, even if they don't provide any answers. It's obvious the heartbreaking subject matter got the filmmakers thinking, and it got me thinking too. I also don't have any answers. Bronson - UK - Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn Synopsis: Michael Peterson adopts the identity of Charles Bronson and goes on to become Britain's most notorious serial prisoner. I'd dismissed Tom Hardy because I didn't like him in Star Trek: Nemesis. I feel idiotic even admitting that right now, because Hardy is downright relevatory in Bronson. It's an Oscar-calibre performance that provides the centerpiece for a series of darkly humorous vignettes about the life of a completely psychotic thug. I'm not really sure what the point of Bronson is (A celebration of thuggery and violence? How much animal is in a man?), or if there even is a point, but who cares? Hardy as Bronson is incredible. It's a fearless portrayal of unhinged violence, tempered by absurd humor and humming with dangerous immorality. I'm nothing like Bronson. I don't ever want to meet anyone like Bronson. There's hardly a violent bone in my body, but, man, I sure did like watching this character, up there on the movie screen, unable to throttle me from the safety of my theatre seat, no matter how alive Tom Hardy made him seem. Bronson is a hilariously rude, astoundingly brutal must-see. House of the Devil - USA - Directed by Ti West Synopsis: A teenage babysitter takes on an unusual job that turns into a Satanic nightmare. Going into the festival, House of the Devil was one of the few films already on my radar. I'd heard that director Ti West was working to create a perfect replica of a 1980's horror film, and I was expecting the excess cheese of something like Night of the Demons. I expected squealing nude teenagers being gruesomely stabbed to death while Bullet Boys played in the background. I was very wrong. Make no mistake, House of the Devil does feel like a forgotten gem from the 1980's, but it's a resolutely low-key affair. It has that slow, creeping kind of terror (and the use of the zoom lens) that earmarked many European horror films from the early 80's, except House of the Devil takes an American approach to its narrative (which is a nice way of saying it doesn't completely throw logic out the window). It's a solid "trapped babysitter" film, and I imagine my reaction to it would be the same if it had been created in 1983 instead of 2009--It's pretty darn good. I like parts of House of the Devil more than the whole, and I wish West had gone just a little bit darker, a little bit nastier with it. There's a lot of repetitive build-up for such an abrupt pay-off, but the length of the pay-off maybe wouldn't have mattered if it were just a touch more horrific. I even think some of that could've been remedied stylistically, as the film's finale is shot with modern hand-held camera techniques. That's not the way horror films were being shot back then, and it's the only one awkward misstep in this otherwise excellent homage.

Kenny Begins - Sweden - Directed by Carl Astrand & Mats Lindberg Synopsis: Kenny Starfighter, Galaxy Hero in-training, accidentally ends up on Earth, just in time to stop evil Dr. Oversmart from gaining superpowers from a crystal hidden on our planet. A little research reveals that Kenny Begins is the film version of a popular kids' TV show in Sweden, called Kenny Starfighter. I feel a little better knowing that this was originally intended for children, because it's almost excruciatingly stupid. If this were an American production, it'd star some minor SNL veteran like Horatio Sanz, and it almost certainly wouldn't be playing at an international film festival. I guess seeing even the dumbest comedy in a foreign language can make you feel like you're getting a dose of culture, but, really, this is a movie where one of the biggest jokes is that people on Kenny's home planet of Mylta greet each other with "woolly boolly" instead of "hello". That's barely passable as comedy, no matter what language it's in. There's a sci-fi adventure story at the heart of Kenny Begins that at least keeps things from getting too boring while all the jokes hang silently in the air. Krabat - Germany - Directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner Synopsis: An orphaned boy falls in with a group of black magick practicioners at a remote, mysterious mill. It's easy to describe Krabat as a more occult version of Harry Potter, replacing J.K. Rowling's "abracadbra" style of magic with chalkline pentagrams and ancient Germanic rituals. While the characters certainly share some similarities, I was pleased to find out that Krabat is based on a 1971 novel, one that's already been adapted to film once before, and I shouldn't lump it in with post-Potter cash grabs like The Seeker or Eragon. The Reader's David Kross plays the title character, a powerful magic user who finds himself torn between the young woman he loves and his loyalties to his sinister mentor and the rough-and-tumble group of boys that operate the mill. For the first hour or so, I was entranced by the movie, fascinated by its realistic portrayal of magic, its unique setting, and the dynamics of the relationships between the young men (all fatherless), and their master. Ultimately, Krabat wants to be a fairy tale, which means it eschews real-world logic for "true love conquers all" fluff. Sadly, that's not the movie I wanted to see, but it's the movie Kreuzpaintner made. To criticize it for not being the movie I wanted it to be is pointless--Krabat works excellently as a dark fable, regardless, and comes highly recommended to fantasy fans. Burantino, Son of Pinocchio - Estonia - Directed by Rasmus Merivoo Synopsis: A wealthy businessman wants to use the seeds of Pinocchio's wooden son, Buratino, to rule the world. Buratino opens with a bang--a bizarro musical number in which a woman longing for a child of her own is impregnated by an enchanted splinter of wood--but the movie never gets any better; it never delivers on the gonzo promise of its first ten minutes. I suspect that Buratino was created for the tween set. It's got a half-baked Romeo and Juliet love story going on, and there are a smattering of upbeat (but pointless) songs sprinkled throughout the film. Personally, I think Buratino's going to have a hard time finding an audience (which is not to say that it's bad, exactly). It's too weird and cheap-looking for the junior high set, and too safe and witless to form an adult cult audience. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - UK/France/Canada - Directed by Terry Gilliam Synopsis: Dr. Parnassus uses his Imaginarium, a magic mirror that can conjure a world from pure imagination, to win a contest for human souls in a wager with his rival, Mr. Nick Too often the term "poorly paced" is used by film critics as a synonym for the word "boring". Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is never, ever boring, but it is poorly paced. It's the same stop-start rhythm that has plagued too many of director Terry Gilliam's works. I can recognize that Imaginarium feels like Gilliam's most personal film, I can acknowledge that it's a beautiful artistic achievement, but it's also very much a Gilliam film in other, less positive aspects too. It doesn't really have any characters I can relate to. The narrative meanders and stumbles, instead of striding along with total confidence. It's got enough midgets, Dutch angles, and Python-esque bits of humor to almost qualify it as self-parody. The Gilliam film it reminded me of the most was The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Munchausen is gorgeous, but it's a hard film to re-visit, because everything is always turned up to eleven, and it, too, has pacing problems. Gilliam clearly wants to say something important about religion in Imaginarium, but he takes too complicated a route to find a simple truth, and he seems to confuse and confound even himself by the film's conclusion. It's more than a little frustrating, but still worth watching, mainly due to its awesome production design and enthusiastic acting by the entire cast.

The loss of my mobile computer (functionally, that is) on the first day of this year's Fantastic Fest has crippled my ability to get things posted in a timely manner. For that, I offer my apologies. I'm also tremendously behind on Disc reviews, but I should be all caught up by the weekend. I'm dashing this together so as to have something out there in the closing days of the festival. The two movies I've seen that have most stuck with me are Merantau, which I saw the first day and is playing again tomorrow afternoon, and Private Eye, which plays once more this evening at 6:30pm. I highly recommend that anyone attending the festival make plans to see either or both, as their certainty of pick-up is not a lock. Quick thoughts on various things I've seen (with more detail to come): Toy Story 1 & 2 Double Feature This will lose some kids like the 8-year-old sitting next to me who had the youthful audacity to say "daddy, this is BOring" during "Jessie's Song" (the kid was not mine). The added depth is wonderful, particularly in the elevator shaft and Woody's Roundup-related sequences in Toy Story 2. The trailer for Toy Story 3 preceding the main attraction trained me to think of and look for hooks throughout the original two movies. I also noticed that bear briefly spotted in UP shows up in both Toy Story movies... Zombieland This movie is going to go over huge with the general public, and yes, The Cameo is pretty good stuff. Lines like "God bless rednecks" and "He's on the ceiling!" had me rolling, as did the opening lines making fun of Garland, Texas (my hometown) as looking "like a wasteland...but that's just Garland". The movie is gorier and bloodier than I'd been let on to believe. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus I was right there with the movie until the third act, when it seemed to contradict some of the Imaginarium "rules" that had been set up. Then again, there were circumstances that threw thing out of whack. I'm still rolling over this one in my head, but I walked out feeling like it was really uneven. Under the Mountain This is better than almost every children's movie I've seen in the last few years. Adults would likely be bored by it, but it's a perfect pre-tweener thing. I hope some American distributor picks it up. Yatterman Anyone who has ever been a fan of Anime series will get the very intentional in-jokes included in Takashi Miike's Yatterman, based on a couple decades-old Japanese series of the same name. In the film adaptation, they basically condense an entire "show" worth of stories into one two-hour narrative, including criticism of the reptitive nature of the medium and a gentle jab at the end to fanboys who refuse to out their toys away and grow up. I hope Miike's name will get this one picked up for some sort of Stateside video release at minimum. Love Exposure From the director of Suicide Club, this one is outright bugfuck insane in places, and shifts tonally more times than I could count. I need more than a few lines to get into this, but suffice to say that it earns its runtime by continually giving you a new reason to keep watching. The Men Who Stare At Goats From what I understand, we saw an unfinished version of this film. The Jedi lines being said to Ewan McGregor are almost impossible to not laugh at. I'd buy or rent the DVD just to watch the Gag Reel of hours of mucked up lines where he and Clooney couldn't keep straight faces. Ninja Assassin I was asked by WB publicity to not write about this until opening day, which I think is hilarious on its face for a movie that's screening to the public at a festival. Once I see embargo broken all over the place, I'll add my thoughts to the throng. From what I gather, I'm neither as positive or negative on it as the majority of reviewers, who seem to have been hot or cold. I've seen a great deal more than this, but this is the limit of what I have time to post on at present. I'm seeing Private Eye a second time tonight and an Avatar preview.

Hard Revenge, Milly/Hard Revenge, Milly: Bloody Battle - Japan - Directed by Takamori Tsujimoto Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic future, weaponized cyborg Milly seeks out those who killed her baby and left her for dead. Milly is a wacko little piece of Japanese action splatstick, full of ridiculous weapons and showers of aterial spray. Of the two forty-five minute films, the first one is the best one. It flies by so fast that you barely have time to register how silly it is before it's over and done. Bloody Battle doesn't match the original's efficiency, but the last fifteen minutes are a gore-soaked fight scene that fans of this kind of thing (Machine Girl, Tokyo Gore Police) are going to love. Neither film are particularly artful, but both provide a cheap, high-energy, oftentimes inventive, serving of ultra-violent junk food cinema. RoboGeisha - Japan - Directed by Noboru Iguchi Synopsis: Two quarrelsome sisters are trained as cybernetic assassin geishas by an unscrupulous steel company. Iguchi, director of Machine Girl, reins in his trademark gore for this oddball superhero origin film. I'd recommend avoiding the hilariously bizarre trailer for this movie, as most of its biggest gags are revealed there. Having seen that trailer, I was a little surprised at how conventional much of RoboGeisha actually is. It's weird, but never too weird--almost on the fence about whether or not it wants to be a kids' flick. The plot is dopey, the visual effects are intentionally terrible, and much of the violent humor falls flat, and yet...there's still something endearing about RoboGeisha. It's made with enthusiasm, and sometimes that's enough to turn dumb into dumb fun. Trick 'r Treat - USA - Directed by Michael Dougherty Synopsis: All manner of monsters haunt the residents of a typical American town one Halloween night in a series of interwoven stories. You know those "haunted house" audio CD's that go on sale every October, full of wolf howls and ghostly moans? This is the cinematic equivalent of those Halloween front porch standbys. That being said, I don't think Trick 'r Treat really works as a movie. The fractured narrative is ambitious, but the continual jumping between timelines and characters quickly turned me into a passive viewer. For better or worse, it's not interested in anything other than being a constant celebration of Halloween in all its sticky candy corn glory. The decision to maintain the same level of spookiness throughout robs the film of any suspense. If any scene is threatened by not being Halloween-y enough, Dougherty jumps to whatever characters are doing something nasty, regardless of whether or not it makes any narrative sense. Trick 'r Treat is a one-note drone of costume aisle horrors, that may not always work as a film, but it'll make for one heck of a great background movie for constant play during your next Halloween bash. Doghouse - UK - Directed by Jake West Synopsis: A group of guys out for a weekend away from their women end up in a zombie nightmare, where only women are infected. I don't think Jake West and writer Dan Schaffer set out to make a misogynistic film--I think they just wanted to make a zombie movie with an alpha male sense of humor. Regardless, Doghouse has a questionable subtext through all of its comedy. The men escape the shrill women in their lives, only to try and escape another, deadlier group of women, while leveling all sorts of violence against them, all in the name of surviving to enjoy a little bit of "bloke" time. I honestly don't know if I was comfortable with the ideas simmering right under the surface of the film. It's a good thing then that Doghouse is really funny. It makes it easier to ignore my feelings of politically correct male guilt, because Doghouse entertained me. The filmmakers strip the film of any feminine perspective, placing the "bro's before ho's" philosophy right at the heart of the film, then wrapping that in sharp dialogue, funny bits of grue, and fast-paced action. Zombie fans should definitely seek it out, then decide for themselves if West and Schaffer have only accidentally opened a can of worms, or if the filmmakers meant to fly in the face of feminism.

Of the films I've seen at Fantastic Fest this year, none has surprised me more than Merantau, the first martial arts film to come out of Indonesia in some 15 years. I took my own advice and skipped Opening Night film Gentlemen Broncos and saw this instead. Based on immediate reactions after Broncos let out and people were shuttled over to The Highball from the Paramount Theater downtown, I didn't miss much. Merantau is a rural Indonesian rite of passage wherein youths from areas like Sumatra go into the big city (Jakarta) and must survive unaided by their family. Yuda lives a simple, quiet agrarian life in the country picking produce. He practices the Indonesian martial art discipline of Silat, which to my eye is predominantly comprised of a dance of elbows, grapples, and kicks. Yuda arrives in Jakarta and finds trouble almost immediately. His problems multiply exponentially when he meets a disadvantaged girl and her little brother, but he remains pure of heart and purpose. He eventually runs into a couple of guys who speak thickly-accented english who traffic in women. Going much further gets into plot telegraphing. Early in the film, I realized something I hadn't really given much thought to going in: Indonesia has a predominantly Muslim population. As a result, Merantau presents one of the more genuine and positive portrayals of Islam that I've seen...since I last saw a film made by a Muslim. I find that American friends and acquaintances who are only acquainted with Christianity and tiny bit of Judaism don't realize just how similar in fundamental precepts Islam is to what they know. I've heard a number of Christian friends, moderate to hard-core evangelical, compare heroes in martial arts films to Christ to the point that they interpret the narrative as What Would Jesus Punch If He Had To? The cultural debate that could erupt from this movie would be fascinating. Merantau apparently went through a needed shave-down from its original Indonesian cut. As Twitchfilm's Todd Brown put it in his intro last Thursday night, it lost "about 27 minutes of Indonesian family drama to get to the kicking and punching more quickly." It appears to be much better for it. I was moved to slap something together quickly the evening I saw it, but I thought better of that, wanting to stew over it a bit since it was the first film of many I'd see this week. Not only has it maintained its place as one of my favorites of the festival, but it's one of the more compelling and powerful martial arts films I've seen. The oft-used comparison of martial arts is to dance, but here the choreography is so precise that it never loses you nor does it feel phony or "on wires". Quite to the contrary, it looks as if lots of stunt fighters got really, really hurt "taking a bump" for authenticity. I watch lots of martial arts films, and this is the rare one that even non-enthusiasts will get something out of, rest assured. Even I did not expect the movie to go where it eventually did until the final half hour or so, but even then, I didn't think I'd find myself experiencing an emotional catharsis in its closing minutes. Merantau approaches patiently for much of its runtime, appearing to be a run-of-the-mill fighter-on-a-quest movie, but it then sneaks up, grabs, and throws you before you realize what's happened. It would truly be a shame if a specialty distributor doesn't pick this one up. Those still at Fantastic Fest have one more chance to see it closing Thursday at 1:45pm. It's up against Hausu (vintage Japanese insanity) and Kaifeck Murder. No offense to either of those movies, see this one instead.

As I mentioned in a prior post, fellow Austinite John Gholson is contributing to Arthouse Cowboy during this year's Fantastic Fest. He's helping cover the gigantic amount of content that no one correspondent can cover on their own. Without further ado, here's John in the first of his sum-ups of his day at this year's Fantastic Fest: First Squad - Russia/Japan - Directed by Yoshiharu Ashino Synopsis: Russian scientists use a team of teen psychics to journey into the netherworld to stop the Nazis from resurrecting a German warlord. While an animated film about young psychics fighting Germanic ghost warriors (raised from the dead by Nazi occultists) sounds like a must-see, it ends up being fairly typical dramatic anime. "Talky" is not a word I want to use when describing an animated film, but First Squad offers heavy doses of exposition, not only from the characters in the animated segments, but also from live-action "talking head" experts on the historical fiction featured within. First Squad does little to transcend itself into being an actual good movie, but anime die-hards will probably be more forgiving of its slow pace and underdeveloped characters. Like many recent anime projects, it ends just as things get heated up (to set up the inevitable sequel), and the animation is suprisingly static (a cost-cutting measure, I'm sure). Gentlemen Broncos - USA - Directed by Jared Hess Synopsis: A young, unpublished writer has his novel, The Yeast Lords, stolen by an established science-fiction author. If art exists to satisfy the needs of the artist to create, then Gentlemen Broncos is certainly a work of art. It's also a terrible movie. I get the feeling that Jared Hess and co-writer (and spouse), Jerusha Hess, were endlessly amused by the mugging, unpleasant grotesqueries that populate Gentlemen Broncos--a mean-spirited comedy that feels like a Farrelly Brothers adaptation of a Daniel Clowes comic book. As an audience member, I felt like I was being asked to join in the mocking of those that the Hess's look down upon as the dregs of society, which, in the Gentlemen Broncos universe, is everybody. Unlike other cinematic enthusiasts of white trash (John Waters, The Farrelly's), the Hess's show open disdain toward their characters. The plot hinges on the writing talent of Benjamin (Michael Angarano), and the filmmakers bring Benjamin's work to life through fantasy asides starring Sam Rockwell as Benjamin's protagonist, Bronco. These asides are so ridiculous (most, if not all of them revolve around Bronco trying to retrieve his stolen gonad), that you can't buy into anyone thinking that this kid is talented, much less that a best-selling science fiction writer (Jermaine Clement as Dr. Ronald Chevalier) would want to plagurize such utter nonsense. The cut-aways to Chevalier's version of Benjamin's story are even more inexplicable, featuring Rockwell as a prancing, lisping transgender albino named Brutus who rides a missle-launching reindeer. Remember, this is supposed to be the hero of a well-regarded science fiction novel. The bizarre treatment of the fictional writing in the film is hugely detrimental to the characters and the central conflict. It's also insulting to the audience to ask us to buy into a story that the Hess's don't really stand behind in the first place. It's all one big gross, stupid joke. Gentlemen Broncos features an hour and a half of slack-jawed, talentless idiots talking about gonads, when they aren't puking or doing something that involves feces in some way. It's vile, and unfunny on an almost profound level. Jared and Jerusha Hess have created quite a movie for themselves. Solomon Kane - UK - Directed by Michael J. Bassett Synopsis: A Puritan with a penchant for violence seeks spiritual salvation as he hunts down the forces of darkness. I'm curious to know how they plan on marketing Solomon Kane. They've got a star (James Purefoy) who's a dead ringer for Hugh Jackman, and they've dressed him almost exactly like 2003's Van Helsing. Not only that, but most of Solomon Kane's "money shots" feature him in slow-motion battle with demons and monsters. I fear that mass audiences will dismiss it as a wannabe Van Helsing, and deprive themselves from an exciting (albeit unambitious) action swashbuckler. Kane gets the job done in the ass-kickery department, delivering the simple, predictable pleasures you'd expect from a property based on a pulp hero (created by Conan's Robert E. Howard). Kane's religious journey makes him slightly more interesting than the average sword-slinger. He's damned to Hell by a situation beyond his control, and is searching for answers from a God who isn't providing any. Honestly, the spirituality is just window dressing on what's essentially a story about a one-man army facing down an army of monsters, but the effort to make Solomon Kane even a little bit different is appreciated. I don't even think of myself as a "sword and sorcery" guy, and I had fun with this one. Paranormal Activity - USA - Directed by Oren Peli Synopsis: A couple, plagued by demonic forces, decide to document their haunting via video camera. It's easy to call Paranormal Activity the best film of its type since 1999's The Blair Witch Project, but, more than that, Activity is the best haunted house movie in years. Katie Featherston and Micha Sloat make for a realistic on-screen couple, and they don't behave too actor-ly, a simple thing that's ruined many a pseudo-doc before it. If you like being freaked out, Paranormal Activity is a must-see, but the nature of the scares (nail-biting anticipation, where often the only pay-off for your fear is a bump in the night) mean that the film's impact is immediately diminished on repeat viewings. If you have a wild imagination, watch out--Paranormal Activity is going to give you a coronary. The film forces you to become an active viewer, involving your senses in a way that I don't think I've ever seen a film do before. I watched every corner of the screen, listening for even the slightest unusual sound. Often, captured video is used to create an immediacy, but, in Paranormal Activity, it also creates intimacy, and that intimacy pays off in unforgettably hair-rasing ways.

Every year, there are high-profile studio pictures and Secret Screenings at Fantastic Fest. This year, I'm proposing some alternative choices for those who are uninterested in one or more of these (or are unable to secure themselves a ticket). It's extremely difficult for many to choose between a major studio movie with real live talent due to appear and some Korean flick they've never heard of before, but my aim is to help ease that choice and hopefully wreak some last-minute havoc on the carefully-chosen schedules many have already agonized over. Instead of...Gentlemen Broncos (Paramount Theater) Merantau (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) A coming-of-age martial arts movie that significant in that it's the first one from Indonesia in 15 years. "Merantau" is the rite of passage in which youths go and survive in the big city with no help from their family. Instead of...Zombieland (Paramount Theater) Antichrist (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) People know what this movie is roughly more so than those who went in sight-unseen at Cannes. A limited IFC release in NY/LA means out-of-towners and even Austinites may not have the opportunity to see it otherwise. Instead of...Secret Screening 1 (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) Sweet Karma (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) This starts in the same timeslot as Zombieland/Antichrist, and could be the best of them all. A mute woman's sister is kidnapped, and the perpetrators are likely a Russian prostitution and human trafficking ring. She goes on a bloody quest for revenge. Genre action combined with very real issues piques my interest. Instead of...Secret Screening 2 (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) Trick R Treat (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) Whatever the second mystery show is, it will likely have some sort of actual theatrical release unlike Mike Dougherty's excellent, virtually direct-to-video horror anthology film. I'm reasonably certain this is one of the only chances to see this with an audience, and it plays really well. I wish WB had the balls to put it up against Saw. Instead of...Secret Screening 3 (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) Rampage (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) I've never watched a movie made by "Dr." Uwe Boll. This one is about a man who gets fed up with his dead-end life, builds an armored suit, and goes around murdering his home town. This is a "I can't believe I saw something like that in a theater" experience. Instead of...Secret Screening 4 (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) In another case of "if it gets picked up, who knows if it'll play in a theater near you," VG vs. FG is like so many love triangle girly animes, but full of blood and violence. Its first screening is up against the one and only show of Trick R Treat, so see it here. Instead of...Secret Screening 5 Fireball I'm sure whatever the recently-added SS5 is, it'll likely be possible to see it otherwise. Fireball is a Thai martial arts revenge movie about an underground, ultra-violent basketball league that puts a guy's brother in a coma. I always hope that distributors pick up movies like this one, but Magnet can't buy everything, and Thai films are otherwise tough to come by. Instead of...Daybreakers (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) Salvage (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) I know Daybreakers doesn't come out until January, but even then it'll be on thousands of screens. A SWAT team invades suburban Liverpool and guns down a family, setting off a night full of "are they here to protect us or kill us" paranoia. Just the subject of this one creeps me out in light of as-we-speak debate over USA PATRIOT Act powers of search, seizure, and imprisonment. So why go to this show of Salvage and not the first? There's a daisy-chain effect at play. The first screening of this one is up against screening one of Dae-min Park's Private Eye, which I'm really looking forward to. The second show of Private Eye is up against Fish Story (hyped already as one of the best of the fest) and the retrospective screening of Jess Franco's Bare-Breasted Countess (link NSFW), also considered a hot ticket since Franco will be in attendance. These recommendations come from what programmers and pals have successfully hyped me on as well as synopses or filmmakers I'm interested in. Yet others are titles I worry may join titles I enjoyed last year like The Good, The Bad, The Weird, La Creme, and Muay Thai Chaiya, all of which have not as yet secured US distribution (and they may not). The festival buzz on these "unknown quantities" can make the difference between a pickup and not, so go see them and blow up twitter with positive reactions.