Listen Carefully (2024) Fantaspoa 2024

 

A man discover his new born is missing and the people who took her tell him, over his baby monitor, that the only way to get her back is to follow what they say. He is then sent on a wild chase across the city.

This is the second film at Fantaspoa  where the main character has to follow directions being given them by an unknown source. Like that other film this one suffers from the fact that we've been here before. This isn't to say that the film i bad, more that it isn't anything special.

Give the film points for having a good cast and being well made, but it's not quite flashy enough to remain memorable.

Worth a look on a slow night but nothing to chase after.

Disinvited (2024) Fantaspoa 2024

Carl, an annoying man decides to crash an event in the desert where he wasn't invited. When he realizes that the people at the event are in danger he has to decide whether to save himself of the people who don't like him.

Uneasy mix of comedy and thriller never really finds its footing. What exactly is this? I'm not sure and I'm not sure it knows either. Complicating matters is the fact that most of the people are not really likable. It's hard to feel suspense when you really don't care about the people on screen.

At the same time the sequences the filmmakers have created work well on their own. I just wish the film could have sewn them onto a narrative thread that didn't feel like it it was grinding gears.

BA (2024) Fantaspoa 2024

This is a bittersweet supernatural fantasy has a father becoming the personification of death to remain with his daughter, however since he is death he can't let her know.

I went into this Fantaspoa film thinking it was going to be a straight on horror film, and instead it became a horror film of a different sort, one about the loss of the ones we love and the shortness of our time on earth. The result is a film that is greater than the scary poster implies.

This is the best sort of film, one about the people on the screen. The film works works because this is not so much a film about monsters, but about a father and daughter who love each other. Its a film about family and what we do to keep it together. Sure there are supernatural bits, but ultimately this is a well plotted family drama.

Writer director Benjamin Wong needs to be applauded for giving us something more than a scary movie. I was moved by BA. I wasn't expecting to be forced to think and consider weightier issues other than who lives and who dies. Instead I was forced to ponder life in a way that I wasn't used to doing. Wong beautifully takes the framework of a horror film and uses it the way the best films of the genre do and that is to shine a light on life in new and unexpected ways. Recently I was belittled on line because I said horror films should be more than just a series of jump scares and I was asked what horror films should be if not things that make us jump via a sudden loud noise. My answer was to mention films similar to BA where the dread is rooted in real fear  and not based on some one leaping out to say "boo". 

While I suspect anyone who wants jump scares every five minutes will be disappointed in BA, those looking for a truly creepy film that is more than a rollercoaster  are going to fall in love with it and the wonderful father daughter relationship at it's center.

Highly recommended

MARISA & GOMOSO (2023) Fantaspoa 2024

A young woman who used to be on a children's show meets up with her former co-star who now drives an Uber. They then begin an affair.

This foul mouthed comedy has moments and some laughs. Mining similar ground as Peter Jackson's MEET THE FEEBLES the film is an exploration of what if the character we loved as kids were real people. 

The problem here is that the film covers similar ground as FEEBLES and count less sketch show comedy bits. While the "new" material, a lot of it the racy, is good, the problem is that we've seen variations of this before. There is enough material here for a great long short. However as a feature it's more miss than hit.

You'll forgive me if I sound disappointed, but I am. There is enough great here I really want it all like that.

Dark My Light (2024) Fantaspoa 2024

A police officer with a crumbling marriage has to deal with serial killer that has been stalking his beach side community.

This is a deliberately shot and deliberately paced film that doesn't really work. The glacial pace and the odd presentation make it hard to get into (and I won't talk about the WTF genre shifts). The pacing allows our minds to wander and the presentation makes it hard to connect to.  While eventually learn the reason for why it seems off, but by the time it happens we really don't care. 

It also doesn't help that this really isn't a serial killer film but the tale of a man trying to make his relationship work. There is no real suspense. There is another genre operating here which I won't go in to because it's inclusion  just confuses everything and reminds you of other, better, films.

I was disappointed. 

A miss.

SELF DRIVER (2024) Fantaspoa 2024

Desperate to make money a cab driver signs up to be part of a fleet of drivers using a new app. The trick is that in order to make money you must follow its directions and do so within its time frame.

This is an okay drama/thriller/dark comedy that suffers from the limitations imposed it via the low budget and that almost the entire film is inside the car. I don't blame actor Nathanael Chadwick who is in pretty much every shot of the film. Yes, the film is his story, but at the same time writer director Michael Pierro never makes us feel as though there is any connection to the world at large or anything beyond the same repeated angles. The repeated angles is understandable but the sense of the cab operating in any sort of world is never really established. It might have worked if the app didn't seem to be more deus ex machina where it should have been something closer to real. I never felt this was anything other than a movie.

And please forgive me for complaining about the lack of the cab being connected to the world but there have been a number of recent films set almost entirely in cabs or cars over the last few years and they largely played better because there were attempts to put the cab into a real world. 

To be honest I would be curious what Pierro will do when he doesn't tie himself to a single location.

As this stands, SELF DRIVER is a missed connection.

MASTERGAME (2023) Fantaspoa 2024

Loosely based on Stefan Zweig’s The Royal Game, MASTERGAME is a two pronged tale built around games of chess. One concerns a pair of refugees fleeing Soviet tanks in Hungary in 1956 and the other concerns a priest being tortured to disclose a valuable treasure. I shan't say more because there are some twists and turns would be to spoil the fun.

Moving as an almost breathless pace MASTERGAME grabs our attention from the start and just goes. We don't have time to consider where it's going because we are moving at a pace that doesn't allow out minds to wander. I was hooked early and carried along.

The flm is great looking and beautifully acted. Every one on every side of this film is fully invested in it and so when the denouncement comes and we see what is going on we take it in stride. 

This is a gem of a film and I can't wait to see it again now that I know what its all about,

Recommended.

ENCOUNTERS (2023) Fantaspoa 2024

Feeling like a film by Andre Tarkovsky or Piotr Szulkin, Dmitry Moiseev's ENCOUNTERS feels like a film only a decaying society could produce. That it comes from Russia, a land currently seeming to crawl back into the "glory days" of the Soviet Union explains a great deal. 

In a world where aliens have landed, a nurse takes a job ministering to a sick alien. The handlers want then kept alive because they are extracting something from them.

The world is broken. Nothing is clean. Garbage is everywhere. When our heroine has to go into a room filled with water she doesn't put on boots but wraps herself in plastic wrap. Calling it Dystopian isel being kind.

On some level this is a funny. There is something absurd about it all. On other levels this isn't funny with the exploitation of the aliens and the people caring for them clearly laid out. This isn't satire but straight on political commentary of the sort you can only get in science fiction or other fantastical genres. AT times watching the film I was kind of shocked that Russian officials allowed this film to be made since it seems to be saying pointed things about the Putin Regime.

To be honest this film rocked my world. I have been so starved of meaty science fiction of late that I thought that people forgot how to make films like this. I love films like this that blow your mind on the first time through to the point that you're not sure how to discuss it, but know you'll have a better chance after the next couple of times through.

Honestly I need a few more times through this film before I can discuss it- until the make an effort to see  it.

Godbless Fantaspoa for screening it and putting it on my radar.

One of my favorite films of 2024

The Tenants (2023) Fantaspoa 2024

 

In order to get more money to pay his rent a man rents out his bathroom to a strange couple.

This is a weird ass comedy of the sort that you only get from Korea. Sure, other countries make strange and off kilter films, but the ones coming from South Korea have their own brand of strange. It's as if they want to make you feel as uncomfortable as possible, while at the same time being so absurd that you want to laugh, except that things are so bent you don't know if the joke is funny any more.

To be honest while I intellectually like the weirdness of THE TENANTS I'm not sure I like it. For me it's the wrong sort of weird. It plays so off for me that I'm not sure why I'm being asked to see it. I suspect it has something to do with the weird things we do, but at the same time maybe not

Don't let my not clicking with the weird here stop you. If you like really weird films give THE TENANTS a try

Harakiri Squad (2024) Fantaspoa 2024

This film is a musical samurai comedy riff on the DC comics Suicide Squad about a group of thieves who are kept in a poisoned state by a the government in order to get them to do jobs for them. As long as they do the jobs they get the antidote to the poison. They end up hooking up with a young man who is looking to rescue his sister from a cult. The cult is headed by a demon and it is the target of the Harakiri Squad.

This film is a blast. Back in the Subway Cinema days of the New York Asian Film Festival this would have been one of the big films of the festival because it's wild and crazy and has a glorious sense of fun. This is a film that is going to riff on the Suicide Squad (one character's name is Suicide Squid), musicals, samurai films, possession films and a few other things, and do it with a big smile on it's face.

It's also going to give us some really good action sequences. Sure the film is a bit low budget, but it really doesn't matter since the fillmmakers use that to their advantage and have things take unexpected turns.

The handful of musical numbers aren't bad. While some seem just dropped in out of left field, most have a place in the story (kind of). They are also not bad as musical songs go, and while probably not destined to live on outside the film, they still are catchy enough not to annoy.

While the last third or so of the film gets a bit lost as things swing around for the final battle, the film still remains compelling, largely because we truly like the characters and care about them. I for one would love to see a sequel or two down the road.

Highly recommended for anyone who loves a good time HARAKIRI SQUAD just premiered at Fanaspoa

Brief thoughts on CAT CALL (2023) Fantaspoa 2024

Fani can't fall in love. Imagining the death of every man she meets she won't get involved with anyone. However, when she meets her new neighbor, she begins a relationship with his cat since she can hear him talk.

This is an amusing little romcom. Echoing the off kiltered flights of fantasy in things like AMELIE or WONDERFALLS this is a film that walks its own path. Additionally, like those works this is a film that is not going to click with everyone. That's perfectly fine since those who connect with the film are going to find a new favorite film. 

I had a good time.

Definitely worth a look for anyone who likes their romcoms quirky.

Blind Cop2 (2023) Fantaspoa 2024

Send up of 1980's macho action films, this is a film that hots every expected note and a few you you never considered in the story of a blind cop named Blind Cop, who hunts down the leaders of the crimnal organization in his city. Teaming up with green young officer he unleashes mayhem everywhere he goes,

How you react to this film will be determined by where you see it. If you see it in a theater full of people you are going to have a better time than if you see this home alone. That's not a knock, but more a statement that that the over the top nature of the film will click better when you have an audience talking to the screen and each other. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie,  it just one that play better the more people can goof along with it.

The film is funnier is you know what it's riffing. If you grew up or spent all your adult life watching the endless low budget action films from Cannon, New World, Dimension or where ever then you are going to get even more out of the film because there is a good chance you many be able to name the movies that are being spoofed.

I had a grand time watching this film, laughing at each ridiculous turn... that wasn't so ridiculous because a few years back a similar sequence was played largely straight when Bronson, Eastwood or Segal did it straight. (Actually this would have been a good film if it had been played straight)

BLIND COP 2 is a blast and highly recommended when it plays at Fantaspoa. (And no, there is no BLIND COP)

Fantaspoa Starts This Week

The awesome Fantaspoa starts this week and we are blessed. 

One of the great festivals anywhere in the world it is a festival where you know that no matter what they are screening it's worth your time. The problem is that they program so many films you simply can't see them all....at least within the time of the festival without cloning yourself several times over.

I love this festival with all my heart. Everyone asks me why don't you travel to go to festivals like Toronto or Berlin or Cannes- and my answer is I can't go to those festivals until I go to Fantaspoa.  I have to go to this festival first because I know that when I get there I will be glad I saw every film I see. No film festival should be that good...but it is.

Trust me.

As this posts I am getting ready to wade into the films. I am not going to Porto Alegre, I couldn't get off from the day job, however I have been granted access to a bunch of the films so reviews  will be coming when the embargoes lift. So keep an eye on Unseen Films.

However because in addition to World Premiering tons of great films, they also run the best films from other festivals, as such  I can provide you with a head start on some of the great films playing. Here are links to reviews of 14 films I've previously reviewed. 

BABY ASSASSINS 2
COMPLEX FORMS
VISITORS COMPLETE EDITION
ISLAND BETWEEN THE TIDES 
TWO MINUTES BEYOND INFINITY
WICKER MAN
KIM'S VIDEO
ENTER THE CLONES OF BRUCE
OUR FATHER THE DEVIL
RIVER
DEMIGOD THE BEGINNING OF THE LEGEND
MUSHROOMS
WEIRD KIDZ
FANTASTIC GOLEM AFFAIRS

And now it's time for me to start watching.

For tickets and more information go here.