Dead Man’s Carnival: A Conversation with Pinkerton Xyloma (Documentary Short)

The traveling Dead Man’s Carnival is a kind of modern vaudeville event featuring music, dance and gymnastics, burlesque, comedy and other kinds of acts. Pinkerton Xyloma is the face of the carnival, emceeing the shows and often participating in them in various capacities. I wouldn’t call it bad, but it is sometimes marginally unpleasant, and sometimes awkward visuals or an uneven sound mix. I’d probably not like the carnival, but the film is okay.

A Father’s Dream (Documentary Short)

David Finck makes violins. His father had dreamed of becoming a violin maker but never followed through. So when his daughters Ledah and Willa both took the instrument up when they were young, David decided to investigate what it would take to make one from scratch, and it actually turned out really good. It’s a good story, told well and without any extraneous content.

Ten Meter Tower (Documentary Short)

A ten-meter high dive (about 33 feet) is rigged with microphones, and a camera is trained on the platform and kept rolling while regular people realize just how high it is. There’s a lot of hesitation, people psyching themselves up, some jumping, some falling, and some chickening out. It’s simple, funny, and relatable, but one jump in particular goes on too long and makes it lose some of its charm.

Write to Kill (Documentary Short)

Shortly after the school shootings in Columbine, Colorado, Gina Tron caused a similar scare in Barre, Vermont. She was tired of getting bullied, so she wrote a threatening note, which was taken much more seriously than she intended, to the point that they even had armed guards at their prom. It’s a combination of archival footage and interviews, but some of that footage may have been captured a while ago since it certainly doesn’t seem like the interviews feature a woman in her mid-to-late thirties. Unfortunately, the documentary is so low key that it fails to capture the excitement that certainly would have accompanied the actual event.

The Dundee Project (Documentary Short)

A small town in Wisconsin hosts a “UFO Daze” festival, where all the local kooks get together to talk about the UFOs that they’ve all encountered (or hope to encounter). Not surprisingly, many of these people have strong opinions on other matters, like chemtrails as evidence of government weather modification experiments. The video quality is pretty crappy, which does get in the way a bit when we’re looking at the night sky, but that’s nothing compared with the corny, overly-dramatic, thickly accented narration that accompanies the footage.

Troll: A Southern Tale (Documentary Short)

A Mississippi hipster artist (who I’m sure would take offense at being called a hipster) takes pleasure in goading people and making them uncomfortable. And that extends to the audience of this documentary since we’re subjected to multiple selections of his musical compositions and meaningless droning.

This Is Yates (Documentary Short)

I honestly have no idea what this one is about. It seems to be a collection of disparate home movie footage, perhaps all gathered around the area of Fayetteville, North Carolina. There’s a lot of white trash, stupid people doing stupid things, and some just completely incomprehensible (like what may be watering a tree in a cemetery, but I really can’t be sure because of the terrible image quality).

Project X (Documentary Short)

Rami Malek and Michelle Williams read from leaked NSA documents, like a handbook for undercover international travel and a report on domestic surveillance. Directors Laura Poitras (best known for Citizenfour) and Henrik Moltke have what should be an interesting and important documentary, but unfortunately, the visuals are a little dull (mostly footage of cityscapes and driving around), and the background music is so loud that it occasionally almost drowns out the narration.

Ape Sodom (Narrative Short)

A douchey Danny McBride-type guy (who’s totally certain that he’s the greatest person who has ever lived, but is very much not that) hires a homeless man to be his slave. It’s dull at times, but that’s preferable to the unpleasantness that accompanies other scenes (and especially one involving a somewhat exotic sexual act).

Conquistadorks (Narrative Short)

An animated story that imagines the voyage that Hernán Cortés took to the New World and his encounter with the Aztecs upon his arrival. I’m willing to bet that there are plenty of historical inaccuracies, but it’s very funny and tightly paced.

Doll Power (Narrative Short)

Tessa is given a genie doll by Barbara Eden. But even more interesting than the doll’s provenance is its magical abilities. It gives Tessa the power to blink in the style of a certain television genie and make things happen simply by wishing for them. It’s a fun, sweet film that’s clearly a family effort and is a joy to watch.

Here Lies Joe (Narrative Short)

Joe is a new attendee at the local Suicide Anonymous meeting, where he meets other people with suicidal tendencies, like the woman who tried to overdose on multivitamins. And like Z, who’s definitely going to kill herself, just as soon as she’s able to make the perfect suicide note. Soon, Joe and Z are hanging out together and sharing their neuroses with each other. It’s a very well done film, but it does go in the expected direction, and it feels like it could be a bit shorter.

Killed in Action (Narrative Short)

Rick and Don served together in World War II. Rick came back but Don didn’t, and now Rick feels that it’s his duty to visit Don’s widow Alice to tell her what happened. It’s a solid film that doesn’t go where you’d expect, which is refreshing.

Sure-Fire (Narrative Short)

Benny Boon is a con man with a lot of schemes in play, but they’re just not paying off. He owes a lot of money to a guy who really wants that debt paid, so Benny hatches a new plan. He sees that former actress Kitty Kinkaid is looking to make a comeback, and he’s sure that he can sell her a script that would be perfect for that. But he can’t write, so he places an ad for a screenwriter and gets a lot of interesting applicants. It’s a surprisingly fun film, although the premise (and especially how Benny will be able to profit from it) isn’t fully revealed until the end.

The Man from Death (Narrative Short)

Stryder has a magical list that can tell the future. He and his companion Sergio keep getting themselves into trouble in the old west, but the list always seems to get them out of it. It’s a reasonably fun movie, but it’s too stylized in a way that that quickly starts to get annoying.

The Lure

Silver and Golden are sisters. They’re also mermaids. A nightclub owner finds them and wants to put them in a show where they sing and strip. And that’s just fine with them since they’re very good singers and have no problems with nudity. They also seem happy enough making the transformation between human and mermaid in public. But Silver has decided that she wants to become human, and that may put both of them in jeopardy.

This is definitely the best Polish mermaid musical that I’ve seen, although it seems to reinvent itself a couple of times over its relatively short runtime, which leads to it feeling somewhat uneven. It starts off very lighthearted and highly musical, but over time becomes much more serious and much less straightforward.

Dayveon

Dayveon is a thirteen-year-old boy who recently lost his brother to gang violence. And now he finds himself being initiated into that same gang. At first, it’s just companionship, but it soon progresses into him participating in the gang’s activities, much to the chagrin of his sister’s boyfriend who is trying to serve as Dayveon’s adult male role model.

It’s hard to believe that this movie is only 75 minutes since it feels much longer than that. Some of that may be because it’s often very hard to understand the dialogue, full of slang and mumbling. But it also feels like there are entire scenes with no purpose whatsoever. There are definitely moments in which it’s very effective, but there are too many that aren’t for my taste.

Mayhem

Derek Cho is a lawyer who’s doing a very good job at moving up the ladder at his firm, especially after his instrumental work in helping a big client beat a murder rap. But office politics are very serious business, and the people at the top don’t have any qualms about stepping on the people beneath them. When one of his superiors screws up, Derek finds himself the scapegoat, and he’s fired without much hesitation. But before he can be kicked out, the building is quarantined as a result of a viral infection that puts emotional reactions on overdrive. The building is overrun with fighting and violence, and, in the midst of that, Derek is determined to make his way to the top floor so he can help the executives see the error of their ways. Along the way, he’s accompanied by an angry woman who also feels that she’s been mistreated by the firm, but since he’s been her main point of contact with the company, her ire is directed as strongly at him as it is for anything else.

This is what The Belko Experiment should have been. Mayhem is a highly violent film in an office building, but it’s not as predictable or as stupid as Belko. It’s very funny, full of action, and loaded with gore, but not so stupid that it becomes hard to swallow. This is one I look forward to revisiting, and I hope I get the chance to do so in the near future.

The Big Day on Planet M.E.A.T. (Short)

It’s the Mustache people versus the Chin army. The Mustaches are holding some of the Chins hostage, and the Chins have a power source that the Mustaches need. There’s a battle, a double-cross, and a dinosaur.

It’s a movie by kids produced from a script written by a ten-year-old. And it feels like it. I’m sure it’s quite the accomplishment given the ages of the people involved, and maybe I might have enjoyed/tolerated it more if I’d known any of the people involved, but it’s just not that good a movie to show to unsuspecting festival attendees.

My Life as a Zucchini

Zucchini’s dad is a womanizer who’s not around anymore. His mom is a drunk who dies in an accident. So he’s hauled off to live in a group home with several other kids who haven’t had the best luck in their lives so far, either. There’s some bullying at first, but soon they become great friends who stick up for each other. Then Camille shows up, and it’s love at first sight for Zucchini.

This one surprised me. The claymation is done very well, and the story is surprisingly deep. It gets very dark at times, especially when dealing with some of the things the kids have been through, but then it can turn on a dime to become sweet and uplifting. It works on just about every level, its pacing is tight, and it might just leave you with some emotions.

Buster’s Mal Heart

Jonah (Rami Malek) worked as the nighttime concierge at a hotel, which was just about the only job he could get. He really wanted to be able to provide for his wife (Kate Lyn Sheil) and his daughter, with the hope of someday buying a house on their own property, but he just couldn’t get ahead in his dead-end job, and his body couldn’t adjust to the hours, so he wasn’t much more than a sleep-deprived zombie most of the time. Then some things happened, and he started living alone in the woods, living off the land when it was warm enough, and breaking into unoccupied vacation homes when it got too cold. And when he started calling into radio shows with his crackpot ideas about a wormhole, he picked up the nickname Buster.

I’d heard good things about this one from last year’s Fantastic Fest, and it mostly lived up to the hype. Its nonlinear structure can be a bit confusing at times, while at the same time making it much too easy to guess at least one of the film’s twists, but it’s still entertaining even when you’ve got a pretty good idea about what’s coming. Also featuring DJ Qualls and Lin Shaye.

Score: A Film Music Documentary

The title pretty much says it all. This is a documentary about film scores and some of the most prominent people who make them, including the likes of Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Quincy Jones, Randy Newman, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross, plus a lot of talk about the all-time greats like John Williams and Bernard Herrmann.

The documentary is interesting and informative, but it’s also too long and too repetitive. While it does feature interviews with some of the greats, the majority of them are with composers attached to much less impressive films, like those featuring tiny blue creatures who live in the forest or a sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea (and those composers often seem the douchiest and most self-important of them). It’s also loaded with clips from movies and actors that I can’t stand, so I found myself looking away from the screen for a substantial portion of it.

Another Evil

Dan (Steve Zissis) is a renowned artist with a remote vacation home, where he occasionally stays with his wife (Jennifer Irwin) and son (Dax Flame). But it turns out that the cabin is haunted, so they hire Osgood (Mark Proksch), aka Os, to try to rid them of their unwanted guests. After a while, Os becomes just as unwanted as the ghosts.

It’s a mildly funny movie, leaning more toward the amusing than the hilarious, and often venturing into uncomfortable awkwardness. The scarier aspects of it actually work pretty well, although it works more in suspense than gore or effects, so it’s the kind of film that’s more effective because of what your mind turns it into than what’s actually shown on screen.

The Transfiguration

Milo lives with his older brother Lewis in a poor New York neighborhood. Their parents are dead (their father through sickness and their mother by suicide), so they’re left to fend for themselves, which leads to Milo often being bullied. Milo is obsessed with vampire movies and lore, and he really wants to become a vampire himself, but his attempts thus far haven’t been all that successful. Then he meets Sophie, a new girl who’s moved into his building to live with her abusive grandfather.

This film reminds me a lot of Park Chan-wook’s Thirst in that it’s primarily a drama, and although vampirism is a key part of the film, it’s actually pretty incidental to the plot most of the time. The way that Milo is treated by others, and his relationship with Sophie, have almost nothing to do with vampires and would have been just as at home in a film that didn’t use the V word at all. But the way that it does incorporate that subject into its plot works really well and makes it all the more meaningful when it is necessary.

Feeding Time (Short)

New parents Dale and Vicki want to go out for the night, so they hire a sitter, Sasha, who comes highly recommended. She’s a typical high school kid, concerned with her boyfriend and the upcoming homecoming dance, but that’s not going to get in the way of her duties. So when she hears a noise upstairs, she goes to investigate and gets more than she bargains for.

It’s a very simple film with some rather crappy effects, but I like it a lot, and there are a couple of good reveals toward the end that gave it an extra bump just when you thought it was over. And it works well when paired with the feature film Sequence Break because Graham Skipper, who wrote and directed the feature, plays dad Dale in the short.

Sequence Break

Osgood (aka Oz, played by Chase Williamson) is a whiz at restoring and fixing old arcade games. Not only does it provide him with a job that he loves, but it also introduced him to his nerdy, game-loving girlfriend, Tess (Fabianne Therese). Then one day Oz finds a mysterious circuit board for a game that becomes a life-changing experience.

This movie is very much The Bishop of Battle (a segment in the Nightmares horror anthology) crossed with eXistenZ. I like both of those things a lot, and that probably has something to do with why I liked Sequence Break so much. It doesn’t seem like it knows how to end, so it does go a bit too far into the Cronenbergy end of the spectrum before copping out with a kind of “mega-happy ending” a la Wayne’s World, but by that point I’d already been won over by everything prior that the end didn’t diminish my enjoyment all that much.

The Night Watchmen

A couple of blundering delivery men accidentally drop a coffin off at a Baltimore newspaper office instead of the next-door medical laboratory. Inside that coffin was a clown, who had recently died on a trip to Romania. But the clown isn’t dead because Romania is where vampires come from, and this vampire clown also seems to have contracted a severe case of zombie. Now the office is under attack, and four night watchmen, along with a hot girl who works for the newspaper, have to try to survive the night.

Boy is this movie awful. It seems like it’s trying so hard to be funny, but it soon becomes obvious just how lazy those attempts are because the “comedy” consists only of the most obvious, lowbrow, and effortless things. Things like the zombie vampire clowns farting whenever they get killed or giving each of the watchmen some quirk (like the black guy who can’t quite seem to say “black things” without screwing them up). The comedy is almost as bad as the horrible fake teeth everyone is using, and maybe even worse when it’s coming from James Remar, who really should have known better. It’s like one of those awful spoof movies, but I really don’t think that’s what it was trying to be. At any rate, there’s no reason to see it, and it offers no redeeming value of any kind.

 

Hello/Goodbye (Short)

A man cares for his ailing grandmother by taking her on walks, by sitting with her in the park, and by going with her to get tea. A woman cares for her ailing grandmother by taking her on walks, by sitting with her in the park, and by going with her to get tea. Their paths cross, and they exchange glances, but they’re always too busy with their respective grandmothers to do any more than that. It’s a simple, bittersweet short film that works well and makes a good pairing with the attached feature, Lost in Paris.

Lost in Paris

Fiona is a Canadian woman who receives a letter from her elderly aunt Martha, who lives in Paris. She’s not doing so well, and they want to put her in a home. Fiona heads off to Paris to try to meet her, only to get no response when she rings at her apartment. An unfortunate encounter with the Seine river leaves her with only the wet clothes on her back—no money, no passport, and no luggage.

It’s a surprisingly light and whimsical film given its somewhat dark subject matter. It feels like it’s going for a Wes Anderson sort of vibe, but fortunately it fails at that because it’s not the worst thing ever made. Not all of the comedy works as well as I’d like, and the “Fiona and Martha are constantly missing each other” gags do get a bit tiresome, but it’s still an enjoyable film that’s worth checking out.

Menashe

Menashe (pronounced “men-osh-uh”) is a devout Hasidic Jew, who lives in a Hasidic community in New York City. His wife, Leah, died a year ago, leaving him alone to care for their son. Unfortunately, rabbinical law states that a boy should be raised by two parents, so Menashe is forced to let him live with Leah’s brother’s family. Menashe is lonely, has a crappy job, and doesn’t get any respect from just about anyone.

The film provides an interesting look at Hasidic culture and practices that are probably not familiar to most audiences. It’s often entertaining, but it’s also dark and depressing and feels like it’s really piling it on at times. It’s also a little obvious at times, and if you ask yourself in each scene, “how could this go wrong?”, you’ll probably end up being not too far off.

Lake Bodom

In 1960, four teens were killed while camping on the shore of Finland’s Lake Bodom. The murders were never solved, but they did raise a lot of speculation and folk tales about what might have happened. Atte is particularly interested in the story, and he gets the bright idea to take his own camping trip out there to see what happens. So he convinces his friend Elias, and together they trick Ida and Nora into coming along. And then things start happening.

It’s a fairly standard horror movie that has decent enough production values and isn’t always as predictable as you might expect. Unfortunately, though, that unpredictability doesn’t last. It pursues storylines farther than it should, killing the suspense and weakening the film in the process. It’s adequate but could have been a lot better.

Kedi

Istanbul, Turkey is full of stray cats. You might even call it an infestation, except the idiots who live there encourage it by feeding, petting, and otherwise encouraging them to make themselves a public menace. This documentary is full of interviews with several of those people, and lots of footage of cats doing cat things.

This is a film without any substance at all. It’s an eighty-minute film with only about five minutes of unique content. And unfortunately, all the remaining fluff seems expertly crafted to make encourage asshole audience members (and there were many of them) to spend the whole time talking, fawning, and making utter nuisances of themselves. If you’re into cute cat videos, you might find it enjoyable. Otherwise, it’ll probably only fuel your dislike of humans.

Bitch

Jason Ritter plays a husband and father of four who spends all of his time at the office and none of it with his family. His wife (Marianna Palka) has been begging for a break, but he always puts his job first. Then it all becomes too much for her, and she snaps. She thinks she’s a dog, leaving her husband no choice but to take on some of the family responsibilities while trying to save face and his job. Also featuring Martin Starr as Ritter’s coworker and Jaime King as his sister-in-law.

This entire film feels like someone misheard the title to the Swedish film My Life as a Dog as “My Wife Is a Dog” and they just decided to make that. It’s got one or two laughs, but otherwise, it’s highly predictable and not all that great. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the film is the work of the hair, makeup, wardrobe, and lighting departments for finding so many ways to conceal nudity on the naked woman turned dog.

Small Crimes

Joe (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is a former cop who found himself in debt to the wrong people, which led to him doing things he shouldn’t have done. He’s just gotten out of prison and is living at home with his parents (Robert Forster and Jacki Weaver). He thinks he’s done with that life, but others feel differently. Also featuring Gary Cole, Molly Parker, Macon Blair, and Pat Healy.

It’s hard to describe the film in much more detail without giving too much away, and it’s really a joy to discover the film as it unfolds. It mostly works, although there are a couple of times when it relies a little too heavily on coincidence. It’s worth seeing in a theater if you get the chance, and I’m glad that I did because after its festival run, it’s likely to only be available on Netflix, and you shouldn’t give them your money because they give it to Adam Sandler so that he can keep making movies.

Death Metal (Short)

Kirk Johnson plays a man who’s given a special Satanic guitar and a set of rules that he must follow. HIs careless playing quickly turns deadly. It’s a very fun short film from director Chris McInroy (Bad Guy #2), and it’s the only reason I sat through Slayer: Repentless Trilogy.

Slayer: Repentless Trilogy

This is simply the music videos for three Slayer songs: Repentless, You Against You, and Pride in Prejudice. I went in with zero interest in or knowledge of Slayer and went out seriously regretting my decision to sit through it. The videos are openly racist, full of Nazi imagery, slurs against Jews, and, as the title of the third video proclaims, pride in their hatred. It’s shocking and disappointing that the festival would include something this completely vile and without any shred of merit or redeeming value.

 

Whose Streets?

This documentary provides a look at the civil unrest that happened in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 after white police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man. The film features footage captured by people on the ground during the events, and I was hoping for something like a Citizenfour, in which we were able to watch history unfold (although this would obviously have a much different feel based on the subject matter). Unfortunately, what we got is overly long and poorly laid out. It uses a mostly verite style, with no commentary from the filmmakers, so we’re mainly following a number of activists, and sometimes for activities that have nothing to do with the film’s subject.

It’s easy to understand why people were upset by the shooting, by the overwhelming and largely unjustified police response to the protests, and by the decision that it wasn’t even worth holding a trial to see if Wilson was guilty of any wrongdoing. It’s easy to understand that the resulting fear and outrage may have caused people to act in irrational ways. But the film, lacking in any kind of commentary except the events that it chooses to present to us, focuses too much on people who acted in ways that were completely unproductive and nonsensical (like a group of people stopping traffic on major roadways). Its subjects often provide information that seems suspicious without any kind of fact checking. Perhaps a more experienced group of filmmakers might have been able to craft the content into a more effective and sensible report and call to action.

Burden

Chris Burden made a name for himself as a performance artist in the 1970s through some rather extreme works. He’s perhaps best known for having someone shoot him in the arm, which didn’t go exactly as planned. For a postgraduate thesis, he spent five days living in a tiny locker. And, of course, there’s the time that he had himself nailed to the back of a Volkswagen.

This documentary focuses on the life of the recently deceased artist. It explains how he went on to make other performance art pieces that were even more pretentious, made less sense to the intended audience, and often frustrated everyone except for (or even including) himself. It also details some of his later work, after he’d largely given up performance art and creating things that could be perhaps more easily enjoyed by ordinary people. Through interviews and archival footage, it tries (and not always successfully) to describe his mindset and motivation and what those around him saw in his work. The video quality isn’t always great, but the content certainly isn’t boring, even if you’re one of those people who doesn’t always “get” his type of art.

Antiporno

In the latest film by Sion Sono (Exte: Hair Extensions, Love Exposure, Cold Fish, Tokyo Tribe, Why Don’t You Play in Hell?, Love and Peace), we meet Kyôko, who seems to be some kind of famous artist. She’s got a busy day planned, with interviews and photo shoots, and she’s high on getting to abuse her assistant, who’s willing to do seemingly anything to please her.

But then, what seems like a minimal narrative becomes something completely different. It would be spoilerish to try to explain any more, and I’m not entirely sure that I fully understand everything that happens in it, but it’s short, funny, and surprisingly entertaining for a movie that so often teeters on the edge of boredom. There are things about the movie that don’t work, and the ever-evolving nature of the film makes it hard to nail down, but it’s worth checking out, especially if you’ve liked any of Sono’s previous films.

 

Hell’s Half Acre (1954; first-time watch) — Donna Williams (played by Evelyn Keyes) lost her husband Richard when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. But she never really accepted it, and nearly a dozen years later, she has reason to believe that he’s still alive, living in Hawaii under the name Chet Chester (Wendell Corey), and that he’s been arrested for murder. She goes to see him and finds herself caught in the middle between cops, criminals, and the man who might be her husband. Aside from some old-fashioned racism masquerading as comedy, it’s a terrific, tightly-paced Hawaiian noir film with a lot of surprises.

Blue Steel (1990; rewatch) — On her first day out of the police academy, Megan Turner (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) finds herself up against a grocery store robber with a big gun. When he turns the gun on her, she empties her revolver into him. As he’s flying through the plate-glass window, he drops his gun right in front of Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver), who stealthily picks it up, makes his escape, and decides to go on his own killing spree and severely screw with Megan. Although it’s got some good moments up front, it loses all of its good will with a story that depends on stupidity, coincidence, implausibility, impossibility, and bad writing.

Frailty (2001; rewatch) — Screened in memory of his recent passing, Bill Paxton plays a single father who tells his sons that God has given him a mission to kill demons masquerading as humans. The younger son, Adam (Jeremy Sumpter), is on board with this right from the start, but the elder, Fenton (Matt O’Leary), tries to stop him. All of this is wrapped in a story in which a grown Fenton (Matthew McConaughey) is trying to convince FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) that his brother is a notorious serial killer. It’s a terrific, suspenseful film that shows Paxton’s directorial talent as well as his acting versatility.

Near Dark (1987; rewatch) — Screened in memory of his recent passing, Bill Paxton plays one of a group of vampires (also including characters played by Lance Henriksen, Jenny Wright, Jenette Goldstein, and Joshua Miller). Wright’s character, Mae, seduces Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) with the intention of feeding, but as sunrise looms, she bites him but doesn’t bleed him and thus turns him into a vampire. Caleb is forced to confront his new circumstance and the prospect of killing for food while his father (Tim Thomerson) and little sister (Marcie Leeds) go looking for him. An early and strong directorial effort from Kathryn Bigelow, it’s a very fun movie that’s more romantic action-comedy than horror, and Paxton’s performance is a highlight.

Logan (2017; first-time watch) — Hugh Jackman reprises his Wolverine character again, this time to chauffeur a little mutant girl to North Dakota, accompanied by a quickly-growing-senile Professor X (Patrick Stewart). There are people who want to stop them. It’s a movie with a lot of problems, that didn’t interest me in the slightest, and that I didn’t really even want to see in the first place. I only went because I was given tickets to see the movie on the opening night of a new Alamo Drafthouse theater.

A United Kingdom (2016; first-time watch) — David Oyelowo plays Seretse Khama, a black man who is heir to the throne of Botswana. Rosamund Pike plays Ruth Williams, the white British woman he meets, marries, and wants to take back to Botswana as his queen. This sparks an international incident that leaves Khama exiled and Botswana in danger of being swallowed up by another nation. Based on a true story, it’s a good movie that doesn’t always go where you expect, and Oyelowo and Pike give strong performances. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/04/a-united-kingdom/.

Table 19 (2017; first-time watch) — A bunch of unwanted wedding guests (including Anna Kendrick, Lisa Kudrow, and Craig Robinson) commiserate with each other at an undesirable table. It’s a lackluster dramatic comedy with only one adequate joke, and even that gets thoroughly run into the ground. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/04/table-19/.

Terms of Endearment (1983; rewatch) — An overprotective mother (Shirley MacLaine) loses a daughter (Debra Winger) as she moves off with her husband (Jeff Daniels), but gains a former astronaut and current playboy (Jack Nicholson) as a new neighbor. While Winger and Daniels struggle with raising a family and remaining faithful, MacLaine and Nicholson form a hate-love relationship. It’s a truly wonderful, touching film with terrific writing, acting, and directing.

Chocolate (2008; rewatch) — When Yakuza boss Masashi is kicked out of Thailand, he leaves his pregnant girlfriend Zin behind. Their daughter, Zen, is autistic, but she’s got incredible reflexes and a real talent for fighting. This comes in really handy when Zin gets sick and they need to collect on debts to help pay for treatment. The only problem is that the people who owe those debts aren’t all that keen on paying, but fortunately Zen can be pretty convincing. From the director of Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior and The Protector, it’s a must-watch film if for no other reason than the insane stunts and tremendous fight scenes.

A Tale of Two Sisters (2003; rewatch) — A pair of sisters, Soo-mi and Soo-yeon, arrive home after some time away. It’s already hard enough adjusting to their father’s new wife, but it also seems like the house might be haunted. Written and directed by Kim Jee-woon, it’s not as brutal as I Saw the Devil or as funny as The Good, the Bad, the Weird, but it’s still a great film with a lot of tension.

Anatahan (1953; first-time watch) — A bunch of Japanese fishermen are stranded on a Pacific island during World War II. The island was already inhabited by a man and a woman, and the temptation of the lone woman plus the discovery of a way to make wine from coconuts makes for a lot of unrest. Despite being one of the last films directed by Josef von Sternberg, the English-language narration feels very out of place, and its pacing is horrendous.

Scream for Help (1984; rewatch) — Christina Ruth Cromwell (who has a real affinity for talking about people using their full names) thinks that her stepfather is trying to kill her mother. But nobody believes her, even when the accidents begin to pile up. But this movie doesn’t stick to the “is he or isn’t he” plot that you might expect. It takes so many unexpected turns, and it’s not what anyone would consider a classically good film, but it’s just so darn fun to watch that it defies the traditional good-or-bad classification. It’s like director Michael Winner (Death Wish, The Sentinel), writer Tom Holland (Fright Night, Child’s Play), composer John Paul Jones (of Led Zeppelin), and casting director Lynn Kressel (Bad Boys, Spider-Man) were trying their best to make a soap opera.

Beat the Devil (1953; rewatch) — A bunch of people (Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Edward Underdown, and Ivor Barnard) are en route to Africa. There’s hope of acquiring some Uranium-rich land so they can make a fortune, but they’re not all on board with this scheme. It’s a funny enough movie with a fair amount of snappy dialogue, but it’s not quite as amazing as you’d hope given the cast, director John Huston, and co-writer Truman Capote.

Kong: Skull Island (2017; first-time watch) — Bill Randa (played by John Goodman) believes that a newly-discovered island contains some legendary creatures, and he uses fear of losing out to Russia in order to convince a senator (Richard Jenkins) to get him a military escort from soldiers on their way home from Vietnam (led by Samuel L. Jackson). Randa also hires a tracker (Tom Hiddleston), and an anti-war photographer (Brie Larson) tags along. When they arrive, their helicopters are attacked by a giant ape. Fortunately, they come across a soldier (John C. Reilly) who’s been stranded there since World War II to help them on their one chance to get off the island. The movie feels like it was written for Godzilla rather than King Kong, but it’s adequate nonetheless. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/11/kong-skull-island/.

Beauty and the Beast (2017; first-time watch) — When a prince (played by Dan Stevens) scorns a witch, she casts a spell that turns him into a beast and some of his attendants into furniture and other assorted housewares. The spell will only be broken if he can get someone to fall in love with him before a rose loses all its petals. And then he meets Belle (Emma Watson) when her father (Kevin Kline) wanders onto the beast’s property and becomes his prisoner. It’s got promise, but the cinematography, CGI, auto-tune, and everything about Gaston (Luke Evans) make it nearly unbearable. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/17/beauty-and-the-beast-2017/.

The Belko Experiment (2016; first-time watch) — People working in Belko’s office in Bogotá, Colombia find themselves locked inside the building and at the whim of unknown overseers. A lot of them are going to die, but which ones and how many of them depend on whether they follow instructions and kill each other, or they ignore them and face death as punishment. It could’ve been fun, but instead it’s just plain awful. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/18/the-belko-experiment/.

Raw (2016; first-time watch) — When a strict vegetarian goes to veterinary school, she is immediately subjected to intense hazing, along with the rest of the new students. During that hazing, she’s forced to eat raw rabbit kidneys, and it’s as repulsive as she expected. But then she breaks out in a rash, and she starts getting weird cravings. It’s not so much a horror movie as it is a disgusting drama, but it’s about as much fun as a movie this gross can be. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/19/raw/.

They Call Me Jeeg Robot (2015; rewatch) — A low-level criminal finds himself with super strength after coming into contact with toxic waste. Although he initially uses it for personal gain, when he finds himself taking care of an acquaintance’s mentally-deficient, anime-robot-obsessed daughter, he starts thinking of others. It could lose about 20 minutes (especially a scene in which the hero commits a highly uncomfortable and pretty unforgivable act, and the clumsy Hollywood ripoff final scene), but it’s a reasonably entertaining film.

Run Lola Run (1998; rewatch) — Manni is in trouble. He lost 100,000 Deutschmarks obtained from less-than-legal activity, and he’s meeting the people who expect that money in 20 minutes. His girlfriend, Lola (played by Franka Potente), is determined to get the money, get to him, and save his life. It’s tight, intense, funny, and innovative. Always a joy to watch.

The Fly (1986; rewatch) — Seth Brundle (played by Jeff Goldblum) is a scientist who has invented teleportation and managed to keep it a secret, up until the time he told a reporter (Geena Davis). But when he was testing his ability to teleport himself, a fly got into the chamber with him, and the teleporter became a gene splicer. It’s as fantastic as it is disgusting, and it works on many different levels. Cronenberg and Goldblum are both in top form.

Reservoir Dogs (1992; rewatch) — Joe Cabot (played by Lawrence Tierney) and his son “Nice Guy” Eddie (Chris Penn) plan a jewel store heist with a number of top criminals (including Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Quentin Tarantino, and Edward Bunker). But it went bad, not all of them made it out alive, and now they suspect that one of them is an undercover cop. It’s Tarantino’s first feature film, and it’s definitely rough around the edges, but it’s well written and very bloody.

Friday Foster (1975; rewatch) — Pam Grier plays the eponymous photographer who captures an attack on a wealthy, elusive black man. As a result, she finds herself trying to stay alive while she and her boss (played by Yaphet Kotto) try to make sense of everything that’s going on. It’s a gritty blaxploitation film with plenty of action and a star-studded cast that includes Carl Weathers, Eartha Kitt, Scatman Crothers, Ted Lange, Godfrey Cambridge, and Jim Backus.

The African Queen (1951; rewatch) — Rose Sayer (played by Katharine Hepburn) is serving with her missionary brother Samuel (Robert Morley) to bring Christianity to African heathens. Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) works for a mining company and spends a lot of his time going up and down the river on his steam-powered vessel, the African Queen. Then World War I breaks out, the Germans start taking over Africa, and Samuel dies. Charlie takes Rose aboard his boat in the hopes of hiding out until the war ends, but she convinces him to turn it into an attack on a German stronghold. A legendary pair of actors turn a good story into a great film.

Life (2017; first-time watch) — An unmanned spacecraft returning from Mars is retrieved by the scientists on board the International Space Station (including characters played by Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, and Olga Dihovichnaya). It has soil samples that a rover identified as having potential signs of past life, and upon taking a closer look, they discover not only signs of past life, but of current life in a dormant state. What starts out as a single-celled creature starts growing very quickly. It’s curious, resilient, and dangerous. And then it gets loose. It’s got a little too much in common with Alien, and I really wish it had taken a different direction toward the end, but it’s still a pretty engaging sci-fi horror. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/24/life/.

Stargate (1994; first-time watch) — Dr. Jackson (played by James Spader) has been studying Egyptian history and language. He’s brought in on a secret discovery to help the government decipher a large ring. It turns out that the ring is a kind of teleportation device, and Dr. Jackson joins a group of military explorers led by Colonel O’Neil (Kurt Russell). They’re transported to what seems to be ancient Egypt but with seemingly no way to get back and constant threat from Ra, the sun god. It’s a dull movie on its own, but fortunately, Master Pancake was on hand, along with Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu (“The Mads” from Mystery Science Theater 3000), to mock the film.

Outlaws (1986; first-time watch) — In the 1880s, four outlaws (played by Richard Roundtree, Charles Napier, William Lucking, and Patrick Houser) have just stolen a bunch of gold coins. They’ve been cornered by the sheriff (Rod Taylor), but it’s a dark and stormy night, and a lightning strike teleports them into the 1980s. It’s actually the pilot episode for a TV series that lasted half a season, but the agonizing pacing and the repetitive nature makes it hard to fathom watching any of the other eleven episodes. But Master Pancake, Frank Conniff, and Trace Beaulieu made it an entertaining experience.

Wilson (2017; first-time watch) — Wilson (Woody Harrelson) is the kind of annoying asshole who hates people who want to be left alone. As a result, people hate him, and he’s alone most of the time. He decides to track down his ex-wife Pippi (Laura Dern), who left him when she was pregnant. He learns that she didn’t have an abortion after all, but had the baby and gave it up for adoption. So he decides to track his daughter down and try to form a relationship with her. It tries to be funny and sincere, but it spends so much of its time being aggressively unpleasant that it’s hard to connect with the film. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/25/wilson/.

Song to Song (2017; first-time watch) — A rich douchebag music producer (Michael Fassbender) is obsessed with showing off, having women, being miserable, and making others miserable. Those others include characters played by Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara, who fall in and out of love with each other, and Natalie Portman, who marries him for money so her mom isn’t homeless. There’s virtually no plot, no dialogue over a whisper, no energy, only the most clichéd settings in Austin, and extreme abuse of fisheye lenses. There’s nothing worth seeing here. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/26/song-to-song/.

Sudden Death (1995; rewatch) — It’s Die Hard in a hockey rink. Terrorists (led by Powers Boothe) storm a hockey game, rigging the arena to explode, replacing the personnel with their own assassins, and holding a number of hostages, including the Vice President (Raymond J. Barry). Jean-Claude Van Damme is a fire marshall at the arena and is the only one there who’s discovered the plot and is the only one that can save the day. It’s got some insane action, particularly a long fight in a gourmet kitchen with a terrorist dressed up as the home team’s mascot. It’s a very fun watch on its own, but seeing it given the Master Pancake treatment (aided by Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu) takes it to a whole new level.

T2: Trainspotting (2017; first-time watch) — It’s twenty years after the first film, and Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) has returned to Edinburgh to try to make things right after he stole money from his friends. He doesn’t get the kind of welcome he’d hoped for, but Spud, Sick Boy, and Begbie (Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, and Robert Carlyle, respectively) have been living their lives and are caught up in their own dramas. I went into this one with low expectations but found it surprisingly okay. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/26/t2-trainspotting/.

Lady Battle Cop (1990; first-time watch) — Japan’s second-best female tennis player is caught up in a laboratory explosion and presumed dead. An American cartel is to blame, and they’re trying to take over all of Japan, with the help of a muscular, oiled-up psychic who’s capable of picking up and crushing things with his mind. It looks like nothing can stop the cartel until, but then tennis player re-emerges, this time wearing a robotic suit. It’s obviously a RoboCop ripoff, but with a female robot (complete with earring and high heels), and with a couple of pretty enjoyable songs (perhaps more as a result of bad translation than on their own merits).

Actor Martinez (2017; first-time watch) — Arthur Martinez is a computer technician by day and actor by night. He’s hired a pair of filmmakers to make a movie with him as the lead, and they’re having trouble casting his female costar. It’s purportedly real, and I think that it probably is, at least for the most part, but it’s just bad enough to be some kind of performance art piece or maybe a practical joke on the audience. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/27/actor-martinez/.

La belle et la bête (aka Beauty and the Beast; 1946; rewatch) — When Belle’s father’s ships were lost at sea, her family lost their fortune. While on a trip to see what he can do about it, her father comes across a remote castle. He plucks a rose for Belle, and the castle’s inhabitant, a beast, takes him hostage. He agrees to release him so he can say goodbye to his family, but Belle decides to take his place. She’ll live with the beast as his prisoner while he tries to win her heart. Jean Cocteau manages to pull off the fantastical elements of the story with practical effects and 1940s technology, and the film’s focus on tragedy and longing makes for a more powerful story than more modern attempts.

The Legend of Billie Jean (1985; rewatch) — Billie Jean Davy (Helen Slater) and her brother Binx (Christian Slater; no relation to Helen) are close. Their family is definitely not rich, but when their father died, they were able to use some of the insurance money to get a nice motor scooter for Binx. When some rich bully kids steal and trash the scooter, they go to the police, but Officer Ringwald (Peter Coyote) doesn’t take them seriously, so they go looking for restitution on their own. The situation escalates quickly, and soon Billie Jean and Binx, along with their friends Putter and Ophelia (Yeardley Smith and Martha Gehman), are fugitives from the law, and living legends to the local youth. It’s very heavy-handed with all of its Joan of Arc references, but that’s easy to forgive with its energetic soundtrack and big dumb fun story.

Empire of the Sun (1987; first-time watch) — When the Japanese stormed Shanghai during World War II, a British family was caught up in it, and a young boy (Christian Bale) was separated from his parents. Although he was initially able to get by on his own, he eventually ended up in a prison camp, befriended by characters played by John Malkovich and Joe Pantoliano, although only to the extent that he was able to help them. It’s a good movie, and Bale’s performance is certainly a highlight, but it’s not so great that it justifies its 153-minute runtime.

Castle of Blood (1964; first-time watch) — While visiting London, Edgar Allan Poe (played by Silvano Tranquilli) is tracked down by a reporter, George (played by Alan Foster), looking for an interview. Poe is listening to a story about a haunted castle, and its owner, Lord Blackwood (Raul H. Newman), bets the reporter that he can’t survive a night there because no one ever has. George takes the bet and soon learns that the dead have come back to life. Also starring Barbara Steele as one of the spirits inhabiting the castle, it’s an entertaining film that moves slowly but deliberately.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965; rewatch) — Three women (Varla, Rosie, and Billie, played by Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams) are racing cars in the desert when Tommy and Linda (Ray Barlow and Sue Bernard) come upon them. Things get out of hand, and Tommy ends up dead and Linda a hostage. While the girls are trying to figure out what to do, they come upon a remote house in the desert owned by a demented, pervy man in a wheelchair (Stuart Lancaster) who supposedly has a big stash of money hidden somewhere on his property. He lives with his two sons, one of whom is a hulking simpleton (Dennis Busch), and the other (Paul Trinka) a seemingly normal guy. Tensions run high as the girls try to figure out how to get out of their predicament. The women are tough, the old man is evil, and the movie is very fun and surprisingly tame for the amount of uproar it caused when it was released.

Ghost in the Shell (2017; first-time watch) — In a near future where it’s commonplace for people to receive cybernetic upgrades, Major Mara Killian (Scarlett Johansson) becomes the first person to have her brain implanted in an entirely robotic body. Now she’s a super soldier trying to solve a crime in which a murderous hacker seems to be targeting people from the robotics company that made her. It’s a terrible remake of the innovative 1995 anime film that looks awful (like some kind of ADHD Blade Runner ripoff), a really dumb idea of what the future will be, and a big helping of racial insensitivity. Full review at https://nawilson.com/2017/03/31/ghost-in-the-shell-2017/.

Hollywood is in the business of destroying good things, and the new Ghost in the Shell movie achieves that with flying colors. It’s a disservice to the original animated film from the mid-1990s, to Asians, and to the world in general.

In the not-too-distant future, it’ll be commonplace for people to have themselves cybernetically enhanced to compensate for weakness or disability, to give themselves superhuman abilities, or just for the heck of it. Mara Killian (played by Scarlett Johansson) represents a breakthrough because she hasn’t been just upgraded; she’s been virtually replaced. She drowned, and the only part of her they were able to salvage was her brain (her memories, thoughts, personality, and soul—her “ghost”), which they implanted in an entirely robotic body (the “shell”).

Now, Mara goes by the name Major, and she’s part of a group of super soldiers. They’re investigating an assassination and what appears to be a plot against the robotics company that made her. A hacker is taking over robotic assistance and cybernetic enhancements, and during a mind meld with one of the robots that had gone bad, she may have herself gotten infected with some kind of virus.

There are so many things that this film had to draw from, and perhaps part of its failure is trying to take too much from everything else. Of course, there’s the original version of the film, and the plot has more than a little in common with RoboCop. Visually, the movie looks like the ADHD-riddled crack baby of Blade Runner and the year 2015 scenes from Back to the Future Part II. It’s simultaneously futuristic and post-apocalyptic, with everyone in need of a shower, and the city comprised entirely of damp, run-down slums illuminated by the garish cityscape full of holograms and display screens. And don’t get me started on just how awful the Max Headroom glitches are, but fortunately, they’re mostly contained to a fairly short, but extremely painful scene.

Then there’s the film’s racial insensitivity. This is particularly shocking, both because of how egregious it is, and because of how much outcry there was when they announced that the very non-Asian Johansson was cast in the role that was expected to be an Asian character, (and that seemed to come not too far after the uproar over Emma Stone playing a Chinese-Hawaiian woman in Aloha). They didn’t bother keeping their mouths shut on the subject of race and hoping that everyone would ignore it. Instead, they doubled down on the matter and revealed that Mara was formerly an Asian woman before they put her in a white body. And on top of all of that, when we meet her Asian mother, we’re subjected to some of the most painful and pointless exposition in recent memory.

Some of these faults might have been easier to overlook (or at least downplay) if there had been anything at all worthwhile in the film. Its vision of the future is idiotic, and in many ways is even less advanced than our actual present. The whole movie is short on action, but the ending is especially anticlimactic before giving us a parting shot that is that inane crouch on a rooftop overlooking the city that is apparently required to be in every superhero movie (not that there’s anything super or heroic about this one).

Ghost in the Shell is just terrible. If you want to see a far better movie about a human brain transplanted into a robotic body, do yourself a favor and track down a VHS copy of the Paul Walker/Denise Richards/Terry Kiser crapsterpiece that is Tammy and the T-Rex.

Having been on the sets of a few films, I really enjoy the behind-the-scenes aspects of the filmmaking process. For the same reason, I often enjoy commentaries, “making of” featurettes, and other kinds of DVD special features. I was intrigued by the IMDb description of Actor Martinez and hoped it would be like that.

Instead, I honestly don’t know what it is. If IMDb is to be believed, Arthur Martinez is a Denver actor who hired a couple of filmmakers (Mike Ott and Nathan Silver) to write and direct a movie with Arthur in the lead role. We occasionally see Arthur in his day job as a self-employed computer repairman and tech support guy. And then on nights and weekends, we see him doing movie-related stuff. Some of the time, especially at first, it’s just him by himself. He claims to be a promoter of local films and attends a meetup for local people who are or want to be in the film industry (perhaps one that Arthur organized?). He occasionally helps out with emergency services crews portraying a victim or finding others to play victims, for training exercises. But those are more diversions from the film starring Arthur.

And then they decide that he needs a girlfriend, so they have a casting session. There are a few applicants, some of which seem promising. They cast one, and then try to make Arthur uncomfortable with her so that he’ll want to get rid of her. Then, they say that they can get Lindsay Burdge (perhaps best known as the star of Hannah Fidell’s A Teacher) to play the part, and she agrees to come on board, with no idea what she’s getting herself into.

It’s hard to tell whether any of this movie is real or if it’s all staged. It could be some kind of performance art. Sometimes it feels like Ott and Silver might be playing a practical joke on Arthur, and a lot of the time, it feels like the joke might be on the audience. I assume that at least some of it is real because, while I do think that Burdge has the talent to act as convincingly as she appears, I just can’t buy that Arthur could fake the amount of clumsiness, cluelessness, and drivel we get from him.

But honestly, I don’t think that it matters whether it’s real or not, and what the balance might be between the two. If it’s all real, then it seems like they’re kind of making fun of Arthur’s lack of talent, and it’s awkward to watch. But if it’s staged, then they’re making it intentionally bad, which rarely works, and certainly doesn’t in this case. At any rate, it doesn’t have what I was looking for from the movie, and I didn’t really care for what it does provide.

Twenty years ago, Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewen Bremner), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) were the best of friends and the worst of heroin addicts. They managed to get their hands on a rather large stash, which they sold for £16,000, which Renton stole.

Fast forward to the present day. Spud is still a heroin addict. Sick Boy (now Simon) runs a pub with a side business of blackmailing recording and blackmailing men cheating on their wives with his accomplice/girlfriend Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova). Begbie (now Frank) has just broken out of prison. And now Mark has returned from hiding out in Amsterdam, and he wants to make good on the money that he stole. Not surprisingly, Simon and Frank harbor quite a bit of animosity toward him. Frank wants revenge, and Simon wants to use him for financial gain. Spud isn’t interested in the money since he’d just blow it on more heroin, but he’s mad at Mark for interrupting his suicide attempt. So Mark isn’t the most popular guy.

This movie has been out for a couple of months in Europe. It’s been out in limited release in America for a week, and it played last weekend in Austin as a not-so-secret screening at SxSW. And yet I’d not heard a thing about it, so I didn’t have high hopes. But it’s surprisingly okay. I wasn’t blown away by it, but it surpassed my admittedly low expectations.

I really like that they didn’t go the “more of the same” route with the film. The characters are fully developed, both consistent with what we know of them from the first film, and gaining new levels of depth from the experiences they’ve had over the last couple of decades. Their emotions and relationships are continually in flux, but in a way that seems very realistic and genuine. There is no “forgive and forget” but at least there may be some hope of “acknowledge, be made, and find a way to move past it” (at least for some of them).

If you hate the first movie, then maybe you’ll want to skip the sequel. And if you loved the first film, then maybe you’ll be a bit let down by the sequel if it’s not what you were expecting. But if you liked (or were indifferent to) the original, go in with the understanding that the sequel is a very different film, and have an open mind, then you might enjoy it.