Festivals upon Festivals all week long

I hope you all have been enjoying the coverage of The Winter Film Awards International Film Festival that has exploded this weekend. I want to let you know that the plan is to continue to bring you coverage through the end of the festival next weekend. So if you're enjoying it be happy more is coming.

If you haven't been  enjoying it I just wanted to let you know that we'll be having a lot of other coverage of three other festivals this week as well...

The Museum of Modern Art's Documentary Fortnight starts Friday and we'll have a little coverage. While I would like to do  more life, and a schedule that din't thrill me has gotten in the way. Forgive me for saying I'm trying to rekindle my love of doing Unseen by seeing films I want to see and MOMA's slate, while having some great films (which I saw already) didn't have a ton of new stuff I needed to see. Watch for coverage to drop closer to time.

Lincoln Center's Neighboring Scenes runs next weekend it has some great,and some greatly disturbing films. We are going to have coverage of half dozen or more titles and there are some winners there. I highly recommend, with the warning they are dark and disturbing, THE WOLF HOUSE and MURDER ME, MONSTER both of which ill mess with your head something fierce.

One of the great festivals of every year The New York International Children's Film Festival hits Friday and we will be wading in. Look for as much coverage as I can muster over the next four weekends. Again life is interfering and while I will miss the opening night for probably the first time in a decade I am attending several full days of screenings. I have only seen one film so far, PENGUIN HIGHWAY, which I saw last year at Fantasia so look for a repost later in the week. Reviews of everything else will come as I see the films....and we may end up with reports from my niece who is psyched up for her first day at the festival.

Last I want to let you all know that the awesome Queens World International Film Festival which runs March 21 to 31 has announced it killer slate (go here) and it has tickets on sale. I haven't had a chance to really look at the slate yet (working on this weeks four festivals has kicked me to the curb) but I know it's all good, it always is. If you want to get tickets for something great then buy a ticket for PALACE which I've seen and will be reviewing shortly. For more information on the rest and all the insanity connected to the fest go here.

A menu of bad zombie movies for Thanksgiving

Zombie Hunter with Danny Trejo
It does have it all
Over acting, bad acting, bad special effects, non-sequitir, stereo typical characters (The guy who thinks he is tough, the tough guy who puts him in his place. The girl trying to pull off tough and fails. Bad special effects. Stupid news people.
It's either a bad movie or an attempt to make a bad movie that is just bad.

Zombie Diaries 2
Five years after the first film showed us video diaries charting the start of a zombie outbreak this film follows a bunch of survivors as they make their way across England. Enough with the found footage, the film is completely wrecked by the constant camera motion and the camera not showing us anything.

Nightmare City
Atomic zombies run about killing people and drinking their blood. And I do mean run about so the idea that the 28 Days films created running zombies is hogwash. This Umberto Lenzi monstrosity has things set in motion when a military plane lands at a civilian airport and disgorges its contents of irradiated zombies. Making no sense whats so ever the film grows tedious rather quickly as beautiful shots (the running lawn mower crossing the lawn) mix with horrible makeup (some people appear to have fright masks) and special effects (that's not blood that's paint). There is no real plot just a series of loosely connected incidents. Watching the film recently I realized that over the previous 35 years I'd never seen the film all the way to the end, turning it off somewhere along the way. Put this on my all time worst list.

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR's Adèle Exarchopoulos Q&A at IFC Center

I finally caught a screening of the much-talked-about French film, BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR at IFC Center in NYC. If you're late to the party, the movie is about a beautiful romance between two young French women, Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) a highschool student who seems to be looking for love in all the wrong places and Emma (Léa Seydoux), a blue-haired artist who rocks Adèle's world. Director Abdellatif Kechiche took his time telling his love and heartache story based on a graphic novel, the movie clocks in at an epic three hours including some lengthy, explicit lesbian love scenes.

 I was in the audience at IFC Center for one of the sold out post screening Q&A's with the film's star, Adèle Exarchopoulos. Check out the video below for some interesting insight to the making of BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR.  If you live in or around NYC, stop by the IFC Center where the film is playing and also where they have a nice deal for any Idahoans out there: "since BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR was banned in Idaho, we’re offering a free ticket to any Idahoan who has traveled to New York to see the film. Please present your plane, bus, or train ticket at the box office to claim your pass."