This is a paranoid little film that reveals how you are being recorded everywhere you go. If you think that this isn’t the case consider that the police now will piece together what happened during a crime by getting the recordings from various closed circuit, security and doorbell cameras. Almost ever place you go is now now being recorded.
It’s a disturbing gut punch of a film
Recommended.
This is a cold and some what distant film, much like the character it its center. It is mannered and calculated and it kept me at arms distance. I could never warm to either of the main characters because their largely unchanging expressions made them seem less than human.
I never cared.
I'm not sure if this films work. A good romantic drama is made convoluted by the addition of the elements of a mystery. Why the mystery is there is kind of a head scratcher to me since any themes related to that, such as we can never know anyone, kind of is obvious and doesn't need this sort of telling. I was with the film until almost the end when I suddenly realized no matter how it ended I wasn't going to be happy.
I think it's a miss.
In the case of GETTING IT BACK the film is just World Premiering so there has been no chance to spread the word becase of embargoes and such. That said as soon as I finished watching the film in the SXSW press library I started emailing friends and aquaintances to have them put it on their radar. I then spent four hours talking about it to my family members and the odd store clerk. I know we are supposed to be under embargo with our reactions but to hell with that some films are just too good not to say a word.
There is a good chance you probably don't know the band Cymande.I had no idea who they were going in. They were funk band formed in England in the 1970s that stayed together for a few years before breaking apart and coming back together. While the band drifted apart, their music astayed around as the beats and riffs were sampled by ther artists and DJs who knew what was good continued to play their songs.
GETTING IT BACK is nominally the story of the band. In reality it is the story of the last five decades of music since the film smartly focuses on how the band influenced everything that came after them. The result is a film that is always alive, and strangely never nostalgic. The bend toward nostalgia is something that curses many music documentaries since they become a greatest hits package and not the tale os a still living and breathing group.
I have no words for this film beyond "WOW" and this is going to be on my best of the year list. This film came out of nowhere and just floored me. I had no plans to watch the film but somhow it fell in my lap. Honest to god I had zero intention of watching the film, I just pulled it out of the SXSW press library simply to watch while I had breakfast. I quickly fell in love with the film to the point where I stopped eating and just stared at the screen, mving my bdy to the music as it drifted out of the speakers. (I am sooo jealous of everyone seeing this on a big screen with a great sound system)
While this review may not be the best there is, I assure you that GETTING IT BACK: THE STORY OF CYMANDE is on of 2022's. It is a magnificent film that will haunt you and have going on line to get the music played in the film, and everything else Cymande recorded.
See this film
I’m going to be honest and say this probably shouldn’t be playing at Fantasia. I say this not because the film is bad, oh lord, it’s not, rather because aside from the other worldly setting this is a film that is very much about the here and now. It is a film which is doing what all the best genre films do which is filter todays world through the prism that makes the topics discussing. While the genre setting, in theory, make this perfect for Fantasia the fact that this is really more a mediation on immigration, fear of the other and the dark things we do and have to live with make this film something else entirely.
Watching the film I was kind of lost in that I was expecting something more action packed. What I got was essentially a chamber drama involving two people taking (There is more to it than that). It was a film much more heady than I expected. It was a film that felt like it really belonged at some of the big prestigious festivals like Toronto, Venice or New York. I was thrown and it wasn’t until the morning after I saw the film that I was ready to accept the film for what it was instead of being annoyed for what I thought it should be.
THE SILENT PLANET is a kick ass film. It is a film that anyone, especially those who “don’t like science fiction” need to see because it isn’t that. It is a deeply moving film that reflects todays world and acts as an examination of our shared humanity.
Highly recommended.
Police procedural mixes with supernatural tale in an off beat thriller that works best if you just go with it. I say that because even though the film largely plays it straight, the overlap with the boogey man elements isn't always as neat as they should be. There's a little too much reality here.
On the other hand once I stopped over thinking things and went with it I had a blast. Say what you will this is a creepy thriller, set in a town where you believe the Soul Eater or some monster lurks. It's a place that seems to be lost from the world.
I had a grand time going to a place where things really do go bump in the night.
Recommended.
Fairy Tale like horror film is a beautifully composed film, full of great images and performances and probably enough story for half it's running time.
As good as the ingredients are, the recipe for this film needs some tweaking. There are several problems with the script. The first is that the promotional material kind of lets it out of the bag about what is going on. I knew what the deal was going in, having only seen the trailer and the poster. It might have worked if this was a story that was expansive, but it is largely confined to the family so there isn't much they can do. There are lots of silences and meaningful looks.
I'm guessing part of the problem is that this tale of a young girl on the cusp of adulthood is supposed to be a meaningful examination of growing up, but it should have given us a bit more meat to chew on. The lack of meat means that you could have trimmed this down and made a great long short.
I like this but there is so much good here that I wish it were better...that said if you like your horror meditative you'll probably like it too.
This time out Seok-do and his team end up chasing after the mad man behind a gambling syndicate. An expert with a knife he cuts up anyone who stands in the way of his making a buck. While the deep dive into the world of computers is not Seok-do's strong point, he manages to assemble a team to break heads and get him close to his target.
This film is an absolute blast. It's a film that has some of the best action sequences in the series. The final fight had me wincing. Full of the expected witty lines and great characters the film just delights us from start to finish. What raises it up from ROUND UP: NO WAY OUT is that there is a weight to the proceedings. Seok-do's promise to a mother to avenge the death of her son gives the film a weight the last film doesn't have. Additionally the bad guy here is so brutal in his attacks that he over comes the cartoony final boss video game nature of his creation.
I know I could say more, but the truth is this film does what it is suppose so well that it doesn't need me to say anything other than "Go See This."
METAMORPHOSIS concerns a man who runs in to trouble with the mob. He stumbles into a bar with a knife in his back and that’s where things get interesting. It’s a fantastic film that sets the bar impossibly high. It’s so good and the set up makes me want to see a feature sequel- particularly with the bartender.
CONTRACTORS is the story of a woman who pays for a hit and how the contract gets farmed out and the payment to the actual killer ends up getting less and less, It’s a wicked tale with a great deal of social commentary going on. It suffers following the previous story, but is still good.
EVERYONE IS WAITING FOR THE MAN is the second stunner. It maybe better than the first story. It’s the story of a bunch of hit men looking for a psycho killer and what happens when they run into a restaurant. It’s an ever twisting perfectly written tale that will make you lean in and anxious to see where it goes. It’s magnificent
THE KILLERS is the weakest of the bunch. Coming after two classics and a good story the film ends up seeming like a form over content exercise. While it isn’t bad, it really either should have started the film or been released as a stand alone.
Reservations aside, I still love this film with the great parts making it worth the price of admission
Off kilter story never really worked for me. I shouldn't be asking questions from the opening minutes when the yakuza essentially kidnaps the kid and takes him to sing karaoke. The kid was with a school group and no one says boo? I was wondering why no one noticed the differences between the real world and the manga source.
It didn't help that the kid was rather uninteresting to be around and seems to mostly just be the excuse that we are seeing things happen.
I was disappointed
The film is the story of a young girl whose grandfather was a special effects wizard. After he passes she wants nothing really to do with him or his work. However a mysterious person appears and tells her and a friend that she must complete the quest and save the world from disappearing. The girl and her friend are then transported into the world of her grandfather’s passion project “Brush of the God”. While there they make friends with a rabbit like creature that uses it’s ears to fly and can make what we desire real, weird insects, a couple of outlaws and some giant monsters.
My brother Joe and I went to the NYAFF screening just to see the film on a big screen and we, along with the rest of the crowd, had a wonderful time.
With BRUSH OF THE GOD done at NYAFF you should look to try to get to Fantasia to see it where it plays soon, it’s a lot of fun.
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Stephen King based short feature (it's 45 minutes long and technically a feature film) is the last of the dollar baby films where king would allow filmmakers to use his short stories for only a dollar.
The plot of the film has a young woman meeting a man who gives her everything she wants, before she knows she wants or needs it. Of course they fall in love...and since this is a Stephen King tale you know this isn't happy.
Put together as if it was an after school special from the 1970's the film is a nifty little tale of love gone wrong. It's a film that perfectly matches the 1970's time frame when it was written. It feels of the time.
The problem with the film is that at 45 minutes the film feel a bit padded. While the run time would match an episode of an old anthology series, as a film unto itself it feel a tad long. Several scenes feel as if they could have been trimmed. It's not fatal, however it diminishes the suspense because it gives us too much time to think about what we are seeing.
I like the film a great deal, I don't love it.
The basic plot has a samurai turned engraver getting into trouble again when some gold goes missing. He had been framed and sent off years earlier for theft and now everyone thinks he did it again.
This is a mannered tale focused on the characters and not an action film. I'm sure if you've seen films like AFTER THE RAIN, SWORD OF DESPERATION (2011), LAST RONIN, TATAR SAMURAI and others, you'll know what you are getting into.
I liked this film a great deal. I think I would have liked it away from the festival mix, where I could see the film on it's own terms and not as part of an endless line of films.
It's a solid film that is worth a look.
I’m not going to lie, while I can admire CREATURA and I could tell you how good the parts of the film are I always felt like an outsider. I’m not sure if its because a number of things are left unsaid, the filmmakers not spelling certain things out specifically, or because the film is very much rooted in the female experience. I say this because through much of the film I kept feeling that had I been a woman it would have made more sense to me.
Very well done, but I think this is going to play better for women than men.
The film is set up in an alternate time line where one of the province of the country has broken off and won its independence. It now wants to set up a beach resort.
Wildly crazy and off kilter the film requires you click in with its sense of humor and reality.
This time out we are going back to Seimei‘s days in the academy. He is learning to perform the rituals needed, as well as the psychological tricks that help him be the great wizard like master. He is of course much more advanced (even more than his teachers), the craft running in his family. Hooking up with a fellow student with whom he forms a Holmes and Watson like partnership, he gets involved with a princess in trouble and a series of murders taking out teachers in his school.
The film is a weird mix of magic and mystery, this feels like the set up for a period detective series. More focused on the characters then magical set pieces the film makes us care about what happens and worry about what is going to happen next. While there are some cool “magical” sequences they aren’t the film exists. There aren’t huge set pieces like in Hollywood film but something else, which actual makes the magic more magical. One I realized that I fell under the spell of the film and enjoyed myself that I am hoping for a series.
Recommended
This is a one of a kind film you must see. It's a look at growing up and life that goes into some really unexpected places. I'm serious about that, the denouncement was completely from out of left field. It works, I have no idea why, but it does.
I suspect that there are going to be a number of people who are going to wonder what is going on. I am intentionally not being specific about what happens because I haven't been able to make some of this sound less crazy. I don't want to put you off the film, because this is something truly special. Its a film that has a story to tell and it does so wonderfully.
Trust me, this is a film that is just wonderfully it's own thing.
Highly recommended.
I'm not going to review REVERSI. It's not that it's a bad film, rather it isn't my type of film. The film is basically a thriller remake or riff of the 2013 film ABOUT TIME which was made as a kind of romantic film from Richard Curtis, except that each time our hero jumps he shortens his life.
My issue with the basic story is that the constant jumping back in time raises all sorts of questions that distract me. Additionally it results in a narrative that cheats it's audience by making it so it can undo what has been done. Sometimes it works like in TIME CRIMES or the films of Junta Yamaguchi, but mostly the trope collapses at a certain point because it becomes a story in search of an ending. I had issues.
On the other hand, some people are not as picky as me so it you like constant time travel films give it a shot.
Set during the wars that unified China, this manga based film is the story of a young man named Shin who is working to be the greatest general ever. As this film begins Shin and his men are waiting to battle the enemy. One of the enemy generals, known as the God of War, appears and decimates the band. Shin is wounded and is carried off by his friends. They are fleeing into the night because Shin lead is small force to victory and the enemy fear them. Re joining the main force the Shin and his men end up in a huge battle.
Trust me it's infinitely better than it sounds. This is a film of grand spectacle and perfect performances. For all the war this is a film about the characters. Seriously this is a film where we fall into the characters and are brought to tears by their trials. Unlike Hollywood and the Marvel films no one gets lost and everyone shines.
This is a staggering achievement. It's a film that moves our hearts. Details are filled in in such away that give new details to those who know what went before and enough detail that new comers like me can follow along.
No film series with a continuing story ever has had a fourth film this readily accessible- nor has a fourth film been this good.
I need to go back and watch the earlier films.
This film is one of the best of 2024.
Highly recommended
This exploration of school violence in Korea is a compelling thriller with doses of humor. The fights are brutal and bone crushing with the outcome of it all very likely to make you cheer.
What is troubling about the film is that the film seems to be a brutal take down of the violence that, at least according to Korean cinema, is rampant in the country. The school where this all goes down is the leading one in the nation for anti-bullying. At the start of the film we are told how great it is, something we then instantly learn is a lie as we see how rampant the violence is. It's a deeply troubling film in its way because it very clearly shows that under the shiny veneer there is extreme ugliness. Considering what we see in other Korean action films it makes you wonder why anyone would want to go there.
...I'm probably over reading things...
Taken on it's own terms and as a stand alone action film BRAVE CITIZEN is a solid little thriller. The bad guys are bad. The good guys aren't perfect but the sort of people we want to root for. The film has danger in that all of the violence leaves marks and bruises so you don't know what is going to happen to anyone. It's a solid film where you'll want to curl up with a bowl of popcorn and see how it comes out.
Recommended.
