Cut Shoot Kill (2017)

Cut Shoot Kill poses a problem for me. One of the best acted and technically accomplished low budget films I’ve run across in a couple of years But the film has a script which is not up to everything else in the film. While far from bad the film’s plotting doesn’t do anything special. Even the fact the it strives to be something in its approach it isn’t as special as it should be.

The plot of the film has an up and coming actress named Serena Brooks trying to get her career jumpstarted. Trading representation she still finds her choices seemingly limited. Offered a role in a low budget horror movie she balks, she isn’t sure if it will be good for her or not. Finally deciding to take the film she is whisked off to the backwoods town where shooting is to take place. However not long after she arrives things begin to go wrong and people begin to disappear. Could there be a mad man among them or is the director paying mind games or is something sinister afoot.

As I said the cast is great and the film sparkles on a technical level…but there really isn’t anything in the script that we haven’t seen before. If you are a long time horror fan, as I am, you’ll eat up that this really well done, but you’re going to bemoan the lack of new twists. I’ve been here before so many times that I don’t dare talk about the plot in any more detail because for the five of you who haven’t seen similar films because I’ll give away one or two twists that I suspected were coming and did.

As much as I like the film I hate that there wasn’t any real suspense since I spent a lot of time comparing the film to other films.

The film hits VOD today from Freestyle Digital Media.

Machines opens Wednesday August 9 at New York's Film Forum

Observational documentaries can either be wonderfully immersive experiences or down right snooze fests. Frequently directors don't know how long to hold their shots or over estimate the interest of their audience and stretch things out past the point of breaking. There is a fine line to be walked and it's the rare director who finds and exploits the sweet spot. Thankfully director Rahul Jain knows where that spot is and his MACHINES is a truly hypnotic experiences.

Beginning with moving camera on the prowl through the various rooms of a textile factory in India MACHINES brings us into the heart of a plant where men and machines and men who become machines work long 12 hour shifts, in all kinds of conditions, in order to turn out beautiful colorful cloth. We watch as dyes are mixed, cloth is created and the men make sure it all runs smoothly. The sounds are that of the machines constantly running and clanking along in a steady rhythm.

I fell into this film and stayed with it to the end. Usually I find the spell breaks somewhere along the way, but this film's brief 1 minute run time is the perfect length. Nothing goes on longer than it should. It also helps that Jain keeps things mtheoving. More often than not the camera seems to be on the prowl moving, shifting, observing, trying to get a better vantage point. Even when the shot is more or less static there is motion as if we were in the room and were shifting out weight from one foot to another.

This is one of the best observational docs that I've run across recently. This is a film that really puts you in the mill with the men Thanks to perfect framing by cinematographer Rodrigo Trejo Villanueva who rightly won an award at the recently ended Sundance Film Festival. Trust me on this his camera work makes this film a must see when the film opens August 9th at Film Forum before it's national roll out. Between Villanueva's camera work and Jain's picking of subjects this is a team that is going to do great things. Trust me there is a sympatico between them that is magical. They truly put you in the factory if they pumped in smells during the screening you'd swear you were in India.

This film is a must see on the big screen. Its highly recommended.

Nightcap 8/6/17 Festival wrap ups, DARK TOWER and some Random Thoughts

The July crush of festivals is done and as we swing toward fall it’s time to take stock of how the fests fared this year.

The New York Asian Film Festival was good but a bit disappointing. While I will forever remember it as the year I met Eric Tsang I found that most of the films were eminently forgettable. The drift away from genre films toward more dramas resulted in some good films but nothing I really can really remember two weeks after the festival ended. The films I remembered are more the genre films with Fabricated City, Truth Beneath and Saving Sally being my take aways. While I will more than likely tell you “yea that was good” if you run a title ran past me, very few stuck.

However before the NYAFF people disinvite me next year I know what it takes to program the fest since over the years the various programmers have told me stories. I know this was the best of what was offered. Also remember that over the previous 15 years the level of film choices was so impossibly high, topping themselves year after year which was not a sustainable way to go. This merely good year for NYAFF  which would be anyone else’s great year.

Hopefully it will be over the moon next year. As it is it was still one of the best fests of the year, it just wasn’t the best of their run.

Japan Cuts delighted. Yes my high point was on opening night with my talk with Yoshihiro and Yumi Nakamura, but the films they screened were largely wonderful confections. I liked pretty much everything and look forward to picking a number up for my collection. While the selections were as eclectic as always, none of them seemed out of place. This year the fest seemed to get it’s mojo back after a couple of years wandering around without direction. This fest has me jonesing for next year.

Someday I will get to Fantasia and really make a run at seeing everything- but for now I will simply say that there are too many wonderful films from all over the world and it’s impossible to see them all- even with seeing something like 50 films before the festival even started. 50 films , a whole festival unto itself before and they still ran enough films to fill two more. It was another great year with some real winners. I probably would have been through the roof with the fest had I discovered more films at the fest, but the 50 or so films that were behind me limited what I could see.

As always one of th best cinematic events of the year and delight. I can’t wait until next year.
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The quote in the to picture with two people is mine.It's on the Bluray of THE REDEEMER

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And now some random thoughts that were supposed be the starts of essay but haven't gone anywhere
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It makes me weary seeing so many films that you will either never see or won't see for a year or more. So often it is hard to get back the enthusiasm for a film when it finally hits the local theater or VOD platform and I have to then try and re-promote the film after months or years
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It amuses me that many people gravitate toward festival curtain raisers or best of the fest lists going into the fest unaware that more times than not the all of the films chosen are pretty much the only ones the reviewer has seen. (This is especially true if they do no further festival coverage)
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The great films I’ve seen like the great books I’ve read are not the ones that instantly spring to mind or ones I talk about for hours on end. Rather they are the tales that live inside me and inhabit my every waking moment. Yes, SEVEN SAMURAI is a great film but I can’t really discuss it because when I think of the title the film opens up in my heart and I am there with with the ronin in the rain. With Bondarchuck’s WAR AND PEACE I find I am in a grand ball somewhere. With Tarkovsky’s SOLARIS I am looking out over the planet. And so it goes with every film I love…each story on and on. No discussion is needed because I feel the films. Why are these films great? I don’t know but I know they are part of me like my arms or lungs…
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I saw THE DARK TOWER yesterday. It was much better than many of the reviews make it out to be.

Not a version of the books (it would be a years long miniseries) it is a kind of sequel to the books.

More a comic book continuation or pulp novel side story of a sort the film is simply a fantastic action film set across worlds. You don't need to know the mythology of the novels, but it adds shading. Tons of references are in the film if you know where to look. And there is tons of references to Stephen Kings books and films as well, many of of which figure into the Dark Tower saga.

It is not the best film of the year. It moves almost too fast, is clunky is some places but it is really entertaining. Its a perfect rainy day film to curl up with with some popcorn on a couch or in a theater

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)

Dav Pilkey’s controversial superhero has finally hit the big screen in a film that is one of the funniest and unique animated films to come from a major American movie studio in years.

An amalgam of a couple of Pilkey’s novels the film tells the story of George andHArold two grade school kids who love to create comic books. They are expert practical jokers and have earned the hatred of the their Principle Krupp. WhenKrupp threatens to separate them forever, they somehow manage to hypnotize him into thinking he is their creation Captain Underpants. Almost instantly realizing it’s a bad idea they try to keep him safe. Things take a turn for the worse when the new science teacher turns out to be a super villain and Captain Underpants has to be pressed into action.

Beautifully capturing the visuals of the novel the feature film is pure joy. Full of jokes that are right on the wave length of kids of all ages the jokes are clever enough to keep the adults laughing along. I laughed so much I was hurting and crying. There have been very few films that have made laugh this hard. (I actually think the adults in the audience were laughing harder than the kids.)

I loved this film a great deal Its an absolute joy on every level. A must see for everyone- even if you don’t like animated films.

Dark Meridian (2017) Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema

Dark Meridian is one of the very best films at the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema and it’s one of the best crime films of 2017

Soleno is a cop on the take. He’s told by his boss to keep an eye on a warehouse. When he sees the son of his boss come out he goes to talk to him. When shots are fired inside Soleno heads inside to find numerous dead bodies and the killer fleeing. Giving chase the cop and the son try to track the killer across New Orleans and make sense of what happened.

A gripping film the story begins near the end and then flashes through time. It’s a gambit that mostly works as it allows us to always have a bit more information that leads us to a dark place and keeps us riveted to our seats. It has been a long time since a film grabbed me this tightly from the get go. I happily stared at the screen going along with every twist and turn- munching popcorn as I went. What I absolutely loved was that even as I began to unravel what was going on ahead of Soleno I found I didn’t care, I was having way too much fun.

While emotionally satisfying on pretty much level the film has one small flaw that prevents me from calling this one of the great films (no qualifier) of the year and that it circles back to the warehouse before the shooting one time too many. It’s stretches those minutes a bit too much. It’s a small flaw and far from fatal being more annoying than anything.

Regardless minor reservation aside this film rocks. It’s a beautifully made criminal thrill ride perfect for a night out with popcorn and beverage of choice.

Highly recommended when the film plays this Wednesday at the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema. For tickets and more information go here.

Karate Kill (2017)

Kurando Mitsutake's KARATE KILL is a must see for any lover of over the top martial arts films or for anyone who needs an injection of WTF action into their lives. It is one of the most out there films I've seen in a long time.

The plot has Kenji leaving Japan to rescue his sister. Arriving in America she finds that she has gotten in with some bad people. Eventually he end up battling the cult of Captain Messiah in the middle of Texas and killing pretty much everyone.

For get the plot and just go with the escalating waves of violence as the entire state of Texas goes after Kenji and dies horribly. This is just awesome over the top confrontation after confrontation. Time after time I thought this could't get wilder but it does. Ears are ripped off, fists are punched through throats and blood flows as Kenji fights to rescue his sister.

I have no words other than if you like action and don't mind it just being out there, you must see this.

Its out on DVD Bluray and VOD and worth whatever you pay to see it.

Future Imperfect: Death Ray on Coral Island

For years, one of the most famous Chinese science fiction stories was written by a prominent archaeologist. Tong Enzheng’s story features some nakedly propagandistic dialogue awkwardly shoe-horned into its forty-some pages, but the author suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution and eventually went into semi-self-imposed exile after the Tiananmen Square crack-down. The film adaptation produced during the early Deng years is considered the very first Chinese science fiction film (numero uno), but it won’t do much to burnish Tong’s literary reputation with contemporary viewers. Still, you can’t deny the spectacle of Hongmei Zhang’s Death Ray on Coral Island when it screens during MoMA’s ongoing film series, Future Imperfect: The Uncanny in Science Fiction.

Working on an unspecified Pacific Rim location off the Mainland, Prof. Zhao’s Chinese research team makes a breakthrough in the development of their atomic battery. Just as they start to celebrate with an evening of foxtrot ballroom dancing, the respected chairman of the supposedly humanitarian Venus research foundation starts sniffing around. Despite his reputation, he is actually the front man for a foreign power. Since Coral Island was produced in 1980, his shadowy patron has a conspicuously Russian name.

Unbeknownst to the now-murdered Zhao, the Venus Foundation first arranged for his mentor Hu Mingli to be committed to a mental asylum and then fooled him into believing they were his benefactors when they facilitated his release. Under the assumed name of Dr. Matthews, he has been working on a powerful laser weapon in their secret lab. Guess where its located. Somehow, Prof. Zhao’s foreign-born, ethnic Chinese assistant stumbles across Coral Island in his efforts to bring the murderers to justice. However, it will be Hu who saves Chen by zapping a hungry shark with a laser in what might be the single nuttiest scene ever realized with absolutely no ironic winking.

If Coral Island’s narrative sounds haphazard and unwieldly, it’s because it is. There is no question this is the kind of movie you want to go into with a few wingmen, like Crow and Tom Servo. Yet, the seemingly random plot points pale in comparison to the “white-face” actors playing the Venus bad guys in whitening makeup, prosthetic noses, and impossibly red wigs. What would the Social Justice Warriors say? Regardless of racial politics, it is an indescribably bizarre sight to take in.

Yet, we have to give Zhang Hongmei credit for framing some striking images—particularly the exteriors of the prison-like asylum (talk about projection, the old sanitarium functioning as a dungeon for political prisoners was a mainstay of both Soviet and Maoist Communism). His color palate is also surprisingly bright and groovy. Frankly, this film could pass for a product of 1969 or 1972, well before its 1980 release. Yet, it is the weird little details, like the ballroom dancing and the period trappings that inspire such nostalgia, such as the enormous floppy disks that really make Coral Island so much fun. In fact, the film is far less didactic than the story is reported to be.

MoMA is not sure, but this could be the film’s American premiere. You need to see it to believe it and even then, you will hardly believe your eyes. However, expectations must be kept low with respects to all the things we usually expect from movies. Recommended for its historical significance and unintentional camp factor, Death Ray on Coral Island screens again this Monday afternoon (8/7) as part of Future Imperfect at MoMA.

Brillo Box airs on HBO August 7

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I saw BRILLO BOX  last year at the New York Film Festival.  With it airing on HBO Tuesday here is a repost of my review

Director Lisanne Skyler recounts the story of the Andy Warhol yellow Brillo Box sculpture that her parents bought 40 years ago for $1000 and which recently resold for over $3 million. In the process we get a sense of the course of the art world over the last 50 years.

Light and breezy film is an enjoyable romp. It’s a film that puts a smile on your face as we can't help but chuckle at how things went down, beginning with the launching point of how Skyler's father, who used art as not only decoration but investment, decided to trade up and did a deal for a painting of an artist named Peter Young (who?).

As much as I like the film, and I like it a great deal, I can't help but think that this could have been something more. There is some sort of larger story here about art and the world. Yes the film covers some of it, But there are threads that seem to be hanging, notions of how art fits into the world and how collectors drive the market or shape tastes. I suspect that the film’s 40 minute run time which puts it awkwardly between a feature and a short is responsible for that. Frequently I wanted to know more, about her parents collecting, of Warhol from their view, and just more of what some of the experts were talking about.

And please don't read that as my disliking the film, rather see it as my liking the film so much that I want to see more. I would have liked a more complete meal instead of this nibble that left me still hungry.

Ultimately though recommended at NYFF and when it eventually plays on HBO

The Transfiguration (2016)

Coming to home video on August 8 from Strand Releasing is TRANSFIGURATION, a vampire film that has split critics into love and hate factions.

African American teen Milo effectively lives alone. Left in the care of his older brother Milo wanders the streets and deals with the life he is forced to lead. Fascinated by vampire lore Milo wants to become one himself so every  now and again he wanders into Manhattan to feed in the hope of triggering a transformation. Things become complicated when Milo meets Sophie a white girl who moves into his building.

Incredibly melancholy and ultimately down right sad, THE TRANSFIGURATION is less horror film than coming of age tale. As with the best horror films there is all sorts allegorical notions running through the film not the lest of which are notions of what it means to grow up and thoughts on what it means to connect with humanity. I was moved.

A beautiful marriage of sound and image this is a film where everything works together to make s really feel what Milo is experiencing. Sounds, music and camera movement set the tone to an amazing degree. After I had gone through the film the first time I went back and watched it a second just to see how several sequences were put together. Michael O'Shea has done a masterful job and I was shocked to find out it was his first feature.

As good as the film is, the film is a little too the wrong sort of echoey of past films, particularly LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. Perhaps if Chloe Levine had looked a bit less like Lina Leandersson I would have let it slide.

As it stands this is a very good, atypical horror film that's worth a look when it hits VOD on Tuesday

Fernando Trueba x 4 August 16 & 17 at the Quad

On the occasion of the QUad Cinemas exclusive run of Academy Award-winning Spanish director Fernando Trueba’s The Queen of Spain, we present four additional films, including a spectacular 4K restoration of Calle 54, his milestone documentary about Latin jazz, and the new film’s 1998 prequel The Girl of Your Dreams.

The Artist and the Model
Fernando Trueba, 2012, Spain, 104m, DCP
With rich black-and-white photography, Trueba’s ode to artistic inspiration—featuring an appearance by Claudia Cardinale—takes place in 1943 in occupied France, where elderly sculptor Jean Rochefort, fatigued by the landscape of war, is inspired to work on his final masterpiece after a beautiful young Spanish refugee (Aida Folch) arrives at his doorstep.

Calle 54
Fernando Trueba, 2000, Spain/France, 105m, DCP
Ten years before Chico & Rita, Trueba made this milestone documentary tribute to Cuban jazz. Warm-hearted, lively, and gracefully lensed, it features a slew of performances from musical giants including Bebo Valdes (and son Chucho), Tito Puento, and Gato Barbieri, providing glimpses into history both personal and political, mournful and joyous. “So infectious it should leave you elated” (The New York Times).

Chico & Rita
Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal & Tono Errando,2010, Spain/UK,94m, 35mm
Unfolding primarily between Havana and New York in the late 40s and early 50s, this sweetly melancholic animated love letter to Cuba and its music follows the operatic relationship between fictional lovers Chico, an ambitious piano player, and Rita, a gifted singer—though their story is punctuated by encounters with real-life greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, and Charlie Parker. Nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Animated Feature category.

The Girl of Your Dreams
Fernando Trueba, 1998, Spain, 121m, 35mm
Penelope Cruz puts on her best Andalucian accent for her Goya Award-winning performance in Trueba’s luxurious tale of Spanish expatriates in WWII. A band of filmmakers are forced by the Civil War to move to Germany to shoot a co-production, but get caught up in the hectic climate of looking conflict, not least when the beautiful lead (Cruz) attracts the attention of certified madman Joseph Goebbels. With Hanna Schygulla as Goebbels’ wife.

Ragnarok (2017)

One of the most impressive animated shorts of 2017 and even longer concerns an eagle flying into a storm and trying to find a safe haven.

Full on allegory hits one in the gut. While the end isn't intellectually perfect it is emotionally and it hits you like a ton of bricks.

A mix of stop motion and computer animation this thing is simply arresting. It almost literally took my breath away as the sound and image created such incredible emotion....

....and that sound design - holy moley- I have not heard anything quite like it in any film in a very long time- it deserves every award you can give sound people.

Ragnarok is highly recommended and easily one of the best films of 2017 at any length.

CHRONICALLY METROPOLITAN (2016)

Years after writing a story about his ex-girlfriends family that forced him into exile, Fenton (Shiloh Fernandez- looking and acting like Johnny Depp in SECRET WINDOW) heads home to nominally to deal with the fall out of his father's (Chris Noth playing way older than his is) car accident involving sex and drugs and co-eds. As his family deals with things Fenton makes a B-Line toward his ex who is all set to marry someone new. Lots of cringing results.

A great cast is completely lost in a film that just doesn't work. Part of it is the casting which just seems wrong all the way around and part of it is a script which just gives us a bunch of rich intellectual jerks who aren't worth the 80 minutes of time we spend with them.

The real problem is Fenton who is this odd duck who is more annoying than charming. I never liked him and based on the reaction he gets when he returns to the familial nest and his girl friend it's clear that the family isn't thrilled either. I suppose that its supposed to be a prodigal son returning but he's still a jerk. It doesn't help that Shiloh  Fernandez plays him  as an annoying Johnny Depp by having a similar hair style and mumbled delivery.

I really didn't like this film  and ten minutes in I was checking the run time and trying to distract myself by doodling in my notebook.

Actually I hate this film and if you see it to you will too.(or if not hate you will regret the time lost that could have been used getting your feet scraped)

The Battleship Island: War Crimes at the UNESCO Heritage Site

Hashima Island off Nagasaki was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, despite the fact slave labor was used and abused there. Of course, that totally fits with how the UN does business. It was a grim place for workers, but even worse for the enslaved comfort women. The war is nearly over, but the atrocities will get even worse in Ryoo Seung-wan’s The Battleship Island, which opens this Friday in New York.

Although small in total land surface, Hashima was an imposing concrete rock jutting out of the Pacific, featuring a punishing coal mine that bored deep into the Earth. Nobody would volunteer to “work” there, but plenty of Koreans, as well as some Chinese and Southeast Asian prisoners were either remanded there or press-ganged off the docks of Nagasaki. That is what happens to swing band-leader Lee Kang-ok, his musicians, and his young daughter So-hee. Fortunately, he largely manages to avoid the mines by performing for the Japanese. He also secures house-cleaning work for So-hee rather than comfort woman duties, but the way perverted senior Japanese officials look at her represents a constant danger.

The good news is the war is going badly for Japan and is likely to end soon. The bad news is the military and mining company officials will want to eliminate all evidence of war crimes, most definitely including the victims. Park Moo-young might be able to help. The OSS-trained Korean independence fighter originally infiltrated the island intending to rescue Yoon Hak-cheol, a well-respected resistance leader, but that mission was complicated by unforeseen developments.

At one hundred-thirty-two minutes, Battleship does not scrimp on suffering and misery. It makes it painfully clear what slave labor entailed during the militarist Showa era. It is not pretty. However, Ryoo also stages a spectacular, island-shaking, massive-in-scale escape-revolt that stands up to any of the celebrated scenes in Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart, or Heaven help us, Titanic. Still, it takes too long to get to there and the constant presence of So-hee is a buzz-kill. Don’t misunderstand, Kim Soo-ahn is very good in the part—perhaps too good. She is just so young and innocent-looking, it is exhausting in a not-so-fun kind of way to be constantly worrying about her.

Oddly, Hwang Jung-min, who ordinarily swaggers he way through films, is uncharacteristically whiny and churlish as Lee, the swinging scrounger. Instead, it is So Ji-sub who delivers the hardnosed in-your-face attitude as Choi Chil-sung, a gangster who turns rebel after getting shanghaied to Hashima. Plus, the ever-reliable Lee Kyoung-young do his thing as the crafty Yoon, as usual.

This is a huge period production built around oppressively imposing concrete and steel sets and locations. It is easy to understand how Hashima beat down prisoners/laborers as soon as the set foot on the island. Still, it would not have killed anyone, if Ryoo had scored a few less points against the Japanese by tightening up the first and second acts. Nevertheless, anyone in the mood to follow-up Dunkirk with another high-body-count war epic should find Ryoo’s latest fits the bill (but Operation Chromite and My Way are even better). Recommended for fans of Korean historical tragedies, Battleship Island opens this Friday (8/4) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Tiger Girl (2017) Fantasia 2017

After flunking out of the police academy Margarete studies to be a security guard. When she's in a bar one night one of the police cadets strong arms her into going home with him.  However she is rescued by Tiger, a "take no shit" kind of girl who Margarete had encountered before. Forming a friendship the pair head out to break heads and give pay back in the world.

Genre bending feminist action buddy film TIGER GIRL has much that will delight audiences, chief among them are the two lead characters who put a heavy spin on what we normally think of in buddy films. There is no deep dark reasons for their turn to violence simply a reaction to the world as it is. They are just two intriguing people who occasionally kick people's asses.

Well made and well told there wonderfully no lessons here, just the girls doing what they do...

...which can be a problem as the film comes to a close and the light weightness of some of the turns make this not as satisfying as it should be. Its not that there is anything wrong with what happens, rather it's as weightless as the rest.

I really liked TIGER GIRL a great deal but I wanted to love it even more.

A LIFE IN WAVES on VOD nationwide August 4th

Portrait of composer, musician and electronic music pioneer Suzanne Cianni who is best known for creating the electronic music used in various TV commercials.

An almost too loving portrait of a woman who went here own way, A LIFE IN WAVES is full of all of Cianni's friends and family gushing about her and her achievements to the point that the film drifts in and out of the story of Cianni's life. By about a third of the way in I tuned out and stopped listening to everything that was being said in the film and simply listened to the music being played.

An okay film I wish this was a tad more focused

Erotic City: a survey of sex on screen in the Big Apple from Radley Metzger to Doris Wishman. August 25-31

Erotic City

August 25-31
The Quad surveys sex on screen in the Big Apple ranging from the erotic to the obscene, the exploitative to the experimental

Featured directors include Joe Sarno, Roberta Findlay, Gerard Damiano, Andy Milligan, Radley Metzger, and Doris Wishman, plus theatrical premieres of half a dozen restorations

In the early 1960s New York City became the national hub for independent filmmaking of all types. With the gradual relaxing of local and national censorship and obscenity laws, many directors turned their lenses towards the growing demand for sexuality themed films. For the next 20-some years, a diverse group of filmmakers seized the opportunity to explore taboo subjects, and collectively produced thousands of shorts and features in a wide range of styles—from commercially-minded exploitation fare to deeply personal experimental, underground, and avant-garde cinema. Organized in collaboration with Joe Rubin.

Aroused
Anton Holden, 1965, U.S., 78m, 35mm
A misogynistic killer is stalking and slaughtering streetwalkers while being relentlessly pursued by a hard-boiled detective. This unassumingly simple “roughie” is elevated by its adept use of noir influenced cinematography, sharp writing, and above-average performances. Among the earliest “proto-slashers,” Aroused helped set a cinematic template for serial killer thrillers that endures to this day.

Bacchanale
John & Lem Amero, 1970, U.S., 77m, 35mm
Taking equal inspiration from Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon and the camp-laden works of Jack Smith, this dreamy voyage into absurdism centers on a young woman who leaves her body as she sleeps, embarking on an increasingly strange journey to find her brother, a possibly dead soldier in Vietnam. A rare example of surrealist filmmaking in sexploitation and a unique and unjustly forgotten piece of American underground cinema.

Bijou
Wakefield Poole, 1972, U.S., 75m, DCP
Wakefield Poole's second feature is an avant-garde examination of fantasy and desire. After witnessing a car accident and stealing the victim's purse, a construction worker discovers a ticket to Bijou, a strange club where nameless men fulfill each visitor's sexual fantasy. Relying heavily on experimental filmmaking techniques, Bijou is among the most significant and acclaimed all-male films of the 1970s.

Blue Summer & The Appointment
Chuck Vincent, 1973/1971 U.S., 80m/21m DCP
About to head off to different universities, best friends Gene and Tracy embark on a road trip, aiming to pick up as many women as possible. But as the days unfold, the reality of their impending separation and deeper emotional bond begins to set in. Chuck Vincent's coming of age/road movie subverts a simple premise with its powerful subtext on adolescent sexuality and the value of friendship. Preceded by Vincent's 1971 short, The Appointment

Both Ways
Jerry Douglas, 1975, U.S., 84m, DCP
Donald Wyman lives the idyllic suburban dream with a loving wife and young son. But when a chance affair with a male college student begins to threaten his home life, Donald goes to drastic measures to maintain his secret. This tightly scripted and well-acted drama, written and directed by playwright Jerry Douglas (Score), is a stirring examination of male bisexuality.

With director Jerry Douglas in person Sun August 27

Changes
Gerard Damiano, 1970, U.S., 80m, DCP
Before becoming a household name thanks to his notorious 1972 Deep Throat, Gerard Damiano made this intimate and personal documentary examination of the sexual revolution as seen through the then-burgeoning NYC porn scene. Interviewing everyone from live sex-show performers to gay liberation activists, Changes is a powerful and one-of-a-kind portrait of the city during one of its most significant moments in the 20th century.

World Premiere of 2K restoration

Double Agent 73
Doris Wishman, 1974, U.S., 80m, 35mm
With a camera implanted in her breast, Jane is assigned to eliminate drug-king Toplar and photograph everyone she kills along the way, so that The Agency can verify his termination. Legendary nudie director Doris Wishman had already brought Chesty Morgan (burlesque dancer Liliana Wilczkowska) and her 73-inch bust to the screen in Deadly Weapons, but ups the ante here as Chesty snaps, chokes, and strangles every goon in sight!

With Doris Wishman biographer Michael Bowen in person Sun August 27

Naked Came the Stranger
Henry Paris (Radley Metzger), 1975, 86m, DCP
In this film based on the infamous joke novel written pseudonymously by the staff of Newsday, perfect couple radio talk-show hosts Gilly and Billy each indulge in a series of increasingly outlandish extra-marital affairs. A bitingly funny commentary on New York socialites, Metzger's elegant and sophisticated comedy is as much a love letter to the city as it is an ode to the perseverance of romance.

Not A Love Story
Bonnie Sherr Klein, 1981 U.S., 68m, 35mm
Made at the height of the anti-porn feminist movement, Canadian filmmaker Klein's documentary exploration of the darker side of the American (though particularly New York) sex trade and porn film industry, remains one of the most controversial films produced on the subject. Ostensibly following the journey of a young burlesque dancer as she explores increasingly violent forms of sex for profit, Klein presents a bleak and disturbing alternative to the glamorous world of mainstream Porno Chic.

Not Just Another Woman
Toby Ross, 1973, U.S., 78m, DCP
This major lost work of the Porno Chic period chronicles the obsessive and ultimately disastrous relationship between a young kung fu instructor and his visiting sister-in-law, who happens to be a nun. Ross was one of the few African Americans directing genre films at the time and his sole feature film is a lavishly mounted character drama, primed with adept commentary on the destructive nature of male desire.

World Premiere of 2K restoration

The Opening of Misty Beethoven
Henry Paris (Radley Metzger), 1976, 86m, 35mm
The most iconic film from Metzger's Henry Paris period puts an erotic twist on Pygmalion. Dr. Seymour Love has a chance run-in with a crass Parisian prostitute and decides to bet that he can turn her into a sophisticated lover. Filmed on location in New York, Paris, and Rome, Misty Beethoven has been hailed as among the finest erotic films ever produced.
The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann

Henry Paris (Radley Metzger), 1974, 86m, 35mm
Radley Metzger's first production under the name Henry Paris, and one of the most successful sex films of 1974, The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann is a broad comedy following the secret amorous rendezvous of wealthy housewife, Pamela Mann, who, unbeknownst to her, is being tailed and documented by a private detective hired by her jealous husband.

Red Roses of Passion
Joe Sarno, 1966, U.S., 85m, DCP
Joe Sarno was nicknamed The Bergman of 42nd St. for his often haunting character dramas. Here he explores vaguely supernatural mysticism in a story of a young woman's initiation into a strange cult that uses roses as an aphrodisiac but whose real purpose is much more sinister. Filled with stark, high contrast black and white photography, Roses is one of Sarno's best films.

World premiere of 2K restoration courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome

Introduction by Joe Sarno biographer Michael Bowen Fri August 25

Scoundrels
Cecil Howard, 1982, U.S., 86m, DCP
Graphic designer turned filmmaker, Cecil Howard, was one of the key auteurs at the tail end of theatrical hardcore features. Scoundrels follows Simon, a wealthy psychiatrist whose life begins to crumble when he discovers his wife's ongoing affair and daughter's promiscuity. Inventively structured to allow all three principals to serve as an intermittent Greek chorus, Scoundrels ranks as one of the last major Big Apple sex films.

World Premiere of 2K restoration

Seeds & Vapors
Andy Milligan, 1963/1968 U.S., 81m/32m
Notorious “gutter auteur” Andy Milligan’s Seeds follows a sexually depraved family reunited for Christmas, where long simmering tensions rise, while a mystery killer murders them one by one. Preceded by Milligan's directorial debut,Vapors, and a sordid “filmed play” set over the course of a night in the St. Marks Baths.

World Premiere of 2K restoration created with film elements from the private collection of Nicolas Winding Refn

A Woman's Torment
Roberta Findlay, 1977, U.S., 85m, DCP
Dr. Otis Vorel and his wife Estelle having been caring for Estelle's mentally ill sister, Karen. But as tensions rise over the prospect of committing her to an asylum, Karen runs away, taking refuge in an abandoned home on Fire Island. But as her inner demons take hold and her sense of reality breaks down, she begins murdering various passersby. Director/cinematographer Roberta Findlay's cult favorite mixes bloody killings and nihilistic sex, punctuated by a moody score from Walter Sear.

World Premiere of 2K restoration

With director Roberta Findlay in person Wed August 30

Experimental Film Program
Christmas on Earth, Barbara Rubin, 1963, U.S., 30m, 16mm
Fuses, Carolee Schneemann, 1968, U.S., 23m, 16m
Whoregasm, Nick Zedd, 1988, U.S., 20m, 16mm

In Rubin’s multi-projector film, superimposed images work to create a dream-like ambience of mystical sexuality; in Schneemann's Fuses, light and vibrant colors compliment depictions of lovemaking, as seen through the gaze of a housecat; and in Zedd's film, intentionally grotesque images of sex are juxtaposed with street scenes and “ugly cops.”

The Night Watchmen (2017) Fantasia 2017

Blimpo the Clown and his fellow circus performers are all killed while on tour in Romania. Back in the States the body is sent to a newspaper building for the night before heading off to the funeral home. As the security crew breaks in a new guy, Blimpo rises from the dead and begins a bloody zombie rampage.

Blood and gore mix with off the wall humor to make a very funny and surprisingly tense horror comedy. Knowing all the rules for a film like this, THE NIGHT WATCHMEN quickly sets about breaking them with wild abandon. Rules are meant to be broken as are funny bones which get cracked by the very knowing humor.

With great practical effects adding a realness to it all the film manages to actually keep you on the edge of your seat laughing as you ponder exactly who is going to live and who is going to die (horribly).

I enjoyed the hell out of this film to the extent I sent out emails to all my horror friends telling them to keep an eye out for this wonderful little gem.

Highly recommended to gore hounds when it plays tonight at Fantasia-assuming you can score tickets.

The Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival (aGLIFF) announces selections for 30th Anniversary edition of the film festival (September 7-10)

Frances Lee’s GOD’S OWN COUNTRY is Opening Night selection and
Daniel Powell & Elizabeth Rohrbaugh’s BECKS is
the Closing Night Selection

Special Anniversary retrospective screenings include James Ivory’s
MAURICE, Ellen Spiro’s GREETINGS FROM OUT HERE, Heiner
Carow’s COMING OUT, and Jeffrey Schwarz’s WRANGLER: ANATOMY OF AN ICON

 
  GOD’S OWN COUNTRY, BECKS

Austin, TX (August 1, 2017) – The Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival (aGLIFF) today announced the official selections for the celebrated LGBTQ film festival’s 30^th edition. Screening exclusively at Alamo Drafthouse Lamar (1120 S. Lamar Blvd.) on September 7-10, aGLIFF will bookend its impressive slate of films with two award-winners, with Frances Lee’s GOD’S OWN COUNTRY selected as the Opening Night presentation, and Daniel Powell and Elizabeth Rohrbaugh’s BECKS set for the Closing Night slot. This year’s edition of Austin’s longest running film festival will showcase 39 feature-length films (24 narrative, 15 documentary), and 54 short films (40 narrative, 7 documentary, and 7 animated).

Among a film festival jam-packed with highlights are special anniversary screenings, led by a 30^th Anniversary screening (following a 4K restoration) of James Ivory’s classic MAURICE, a special presentation of Clyde Peterson’s stop-motion animated feature, TORREY PINES, with a live musical accompaniment by Seattle-based band, Your Heart Breaks, Austin encore screenings, several award-winners from the festival circuit, and aGLIFF’s highly anticipated 4th annual secret screening, which this year will feature a first-time appearance by the film’s director.
 

 
  MAURICE, TORREY PINES

aGLIFF Program Director Jim Brunzell, said, “Working non-stop for the past eight months, attending various film festivals, doing endless research and watching countless films, celebrating this year’s aGLIFF’s anniversary, we’ve worked extremely hard in making sure we’re delivering something a little extra for our dedicated members, patrons, and film fans. This being our 30^th year, this has made us happily dig a little deeper to create some special moments for everyone – whether they have come to aGLIFF for years now, or they are just discovering us after all this time. Our gala selections certainly rise to that occasion, and our retrospective choices this year really demonstrate the timelessness and timeliness of this festival’s programming for three decades now to what we believe is one of the best slates of films in aGLIFF’s storied history."

Frances Lee’s stunning feature film debut, GOD’S OWN COUNTRY won the World Dramatic prize for Best Director at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, as well as the Audience Award at Frameline, The film follows a sheep farmer who copes with his isolated, lonely existence working on his family’s remote farm in Yorkshire by drinking and having casual sex, until his family hires a handsome Romanian migrant worker, Gheorghe, to help with the next lambing season. Gheorghe inspires Johnny to confront feelings of love and the idea of being loved for the first time in his life, which could change Johnny’s life forever. GOD’S OWN COUNTRY will screen on Thursday, September 7.

The Closing Night presentation, Daniel Powell and Elizabeth Rohrbaugh’s charming dramedy BECKS, recently won the Best US Fiction Award at the 2017 Los Angeles Film Festival. Inspired by the life of singer/songwriter Alyssa Robbins, the film centers on Becks (Lena Hall), a musician who leaves Brooklyn to move back to her hometown in St. Louis to live with her religious mother (Christine Lahti). As she navigates her hometown, playing for tip money in an old friend's bar, an unexpected relationship begins to take shape with a married woman (Mena Suvari). The film will be preceded by Marion Hill’s short film, BIRD OF PREY. Co-presented by the Austin Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (AGLCC), BECKS and BIRD OF PREY will screen on Sunday, September 10, with Powell & Rohrbaugh in attendance.
 

    

APRICOT GROVES, THE RING THING, SATURDAY CHURCH

Selections for aGLIFF’s Narrative Competition this year include; Pouria Heidary Oureh’s feature debut, APRICOT GROVES, the first LGBTQ film in Armenia’s history, which is a stunning portrayal on how many LGBTQ Armenians fear being socially outcast by their friends and families, causing them to keep their sexual orientation or gender identity private; Carla Cavina’s EXTRA TERRESTRES (Co-presented by the Cine Las Americas), about an astrophysicist trying to re-establish a relationship with her old-fashioned father, while informing him that she’s preparing to marry another woman; Christopher Schaap’s PROM KING, 2010 (Co-presented by the Austin Film Festival), about a young gay man, who yearns for an old Hollywood-style romance, while navigating a dating world that is everything but that; William Sullivan’s THE RING THING, which focuses on a lesbian couple and the unexpected pressures placed upon them and issues revealed now that the reality of their pending nuptials is looming; and Damon Cardasis’s SATURDAY CHURCH (Co-presented by the Q-Austin & TENT), a multiple award-winner (Best First Feature at Frameline and the Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film at Outfest), which is musical journey for a 14 year-old gay transvestite in the inner city, dealing with the death of his father, and the strict puritanical “rule” of his sister, while his mother works extra shifts to makes ends meet.
 

    

ANATOMY OF A BALLET DANCER, THE LAVENDER SCARE, SUSANNE BARTSCH: ON TOP

The Documentary Competition includes; Arshad Khan’s ABU about a gay émigré from Pakistan, who traces his journey from that country to Canada and his realization that he is gay via clips from Bollywood films, animation, and home movies; David Barba and James Pellerito’s ANATOMY OF A MALE BALLET DANCER, which profiles Marcelo Gomes, a dancer with American Ballet Theater in New York City for almost 20 years; Josh Howard’s THE LAVENDER SCARE, the first documentary film to tell the little-known story of the United States’ government’s campaign to identify and fire all employees suspected of being homosexual, which began in 1953 under President Eisenhower; Anthony Caronna and Alexander Smith’s SUSANNE BARTSCH: ON TOP, which traces the influence that cultural icon Susanne Bartsch had on youth, nightlife, and New York City; and Julie Sokolow’s WOMAN ON FIRE (Co-presented by the TENT), which paints a heroic portrait of courage under fire about Brooke Guinan, NYC’s first openly transgender firefighter.

In addition to the 30^th Anniversary screening of Ivory’s MAURICE,, aGLIFF will also screen special anniversary presentations of Heiner Carow’s COMING OUT (1989), the winner of the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear, is the first, and only, film about gay life ever produced in communist East Germany, and was a personal choice to screen this year from aGLIFF founder Scott Dingler to celebrate aGLIFF’s history. Other highlights from the retrospective selections are; Ellen Spiro’s documentary GREETINGS FROM OUT HERE (1993), where the filmmaker memorably visited landmarks, events and characters, including Mardi Gras, Gay Pride in Atlanta, the Gay rodeo, Dollywood, Miss Miller's Eternal Love and Care Pet Cemetery, and the Short Mountain Radical Faerie sanctuary, to address the impact of AIDS in the rural South, the politics of being gay in the South, and the relationship between the gay and civil rights movements; and Jeffrey Schwarz’s WRANGLER: ANATOMY OF AN ICON (2008), about the openly gay superstar who conquered the straight adult world and legitimate theater.

 
A VERY SORDID WEDDING, SIGNATURE MOVE

Other films being brought back for encore screenings in the city to celebrate the Austin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival’s anniversary are; Del Shores’s comedy A VERY SORDID WEDDING, where an anniversary memorial service  at the same bar where the Baptist Church is planning an "Anti-Equality Rally" to protest the advancement of same-sex marriage has put everyone on a collision course for shenanigans and fireworks in typical Shores fashion; Kathryn Fairfax Wright’s BEHIND THE CURTAIN: TODRICK HALL (Co-presented by The Q Austin), which takes a look at the popular entertainer known for his popular YouTube channel, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and Kinky Boots on Broadway; Jennifer Reeder’s entertaining and inspiring, SIGNATURE MOVE (Co-presented by the Austin Film Society), about an unlikely lesbian relationship between a Pakistani Muslim and a headstrong Mexican woman, which returns to Austin after selling out screenings at SXSW and nabbing the U.S. Grand Jury Prize at Outfest; and Jennifer M. Kroot’s THE UNTOLD TALES OF ARMISTEAD MAUPIN, which examines the life and work of one of the world's most beloved storytellers, following his evolution from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels have inspired millions to claim their own truth.
 

    

AFTER LOUIE, THE FEELS, TOM OF FINLAND

Additional narrative highlights include; Vincent Gagliostro’s AFTER LOUIE, starring Alan Cumming as a man exploring the contradictions of modern gay life; Travis Matthews’s Austin and Texas lensed psychological thriller DISCREET (Co-presented by the OUTsider Film Festival), about an an eccentric drifter, who returns home to discover that his childhood abuser is still alive. Jenée LaMarque’s THE FEELS, centered around a weekend getaway of a group of friends celebrating a lesbian couple’s impending marriage and Dome Karukoski’s TOM OF FINLAND (Co-presented by the Midtown Title), which dramatizes the life story of cult-artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, and the events that influenced his iconic homoerotic drawings.
 

   

CHAVELA, THE FABULOUS ALLAN CARR

Among the other documentary standouts are; Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi’s CHAVELA (Co-presented by the Cine Las Americas & Mercury Mambo), the Audience Award-winner for Best Documentary at Frameline, which takes viewers on an evocative, thought-provoking journey through the iconoclastic life of game-changing artist Chavela Vargas; Academy Award® nominated director David France’s THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON (Co-presented by the TENT), which centers on self-described “street queen” Marsha P. Johnson, who was a legendary fixture in New York City’s gay ghetto; and Jeffrey Schwarz’s THE FABULOUS ALLAN CARR (Co-presented by the Austin Film Society), about the infamous Hollywood producer, manager, and marketing genius.

Film festival passes and tickets are on-sale now. VIP Passes are $300, Film passes are $125, and Student passes are $50. Individual Tickets are $10. For more information aGLIFF, go to http://agliff.org. To purchase passes or tickets, go to: http://agliff.org/badgesandtickets/

 

The 2017 Austin Gay & Lesbian Film Festival official selections:

OPENING NIGHT SELECTION
GOD’S OWN COUNTRY
Director: Frances Lee
Country: UK, Running Time: 104min
Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor) works long hours in brutal isolation on his family’s remote farm in the north of England. He numbs the daily frustration of his lonely existence with nightly binge-drinking at the local pub and casual sex. When handsome Romanian migrant worker Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) arrives to take up temporary work on the family farm, Johnny suddenly finds himself having to deal with emotions he has never felt before. An intense relationship forms between the two which could change Johnny’s life forever.

CLOSING NIGHT SELECTION
BECKS                                                          Co-presented by Austin Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (AGLCC)
Directors: Daniel Powell, Elizabeth Rohrbaugh
Country: USA, Running Time: 91min
BECKS is a charming dramedy about moving on and growing up. After a crushing breakup with her girlfriend, Brooklyn musician Becks (played by Tony winner Lena Hall) moves back in with her Midwestern mother (Christine Lahti). As she navigates her hometown, playing for tip money in an old friend's bar, an unexpected relationship begins to take shape with a married woman (Mena Suvari).
Preceded by:
BIRD OF PREY
Director: Marion Hill
Country: USA, Running Time: 18min
A young girl makes herself indispensable to a woman trapped in a loveless marriage.


NARRATIVE FILM COMPETITION
 

Brave New Jersey (2016)

Brave New Jersey is a sweet little comedy.

Set in the fictional town of Lullaby, located not far from Grover’s Mills, the landing site of the Martians in Orson Welles War of the World’s broadcast. After a brief set up period where we get to know the characters, the film shifts gears and throws us into the panic some people had when they heard Welles broadcast of Martian destruction.

A low key gentle comedy full of laugh out loud moments Brave New Jersey is a sweet little film full of great characters dealing with a crazy situation.

And I don’t know what else to say. That isn’t a knock against the film, rather it is simply that the film is just so sweet I don’t want to spoil it for you. I could go on about the set pieces and witty exchanges but I really don’t want to take away the joy you’ll get from discovering them for yourself. This is one of those small gentle gems that plays best the less you know. The joy of the film is finding your way through the “invasion” and being completely unaware of where it as going. I know that when I was watching the film I was glad that I didn’t have any idea where it was going or who anyone was.

A sweet film. Recommended.

Assholes (2017) Fantasia 2017

Adah, Peter's sister is now sober and just wants to be loved. Hooking up with Peters best friend Mark the pair descend into a kind of twisted depravity that will leave you wondering what you've just walked into.

Button pushing genre bending comedy this film is intent on setting some sort of record as to how many people it can offend. With jokes of every sort, almost none of them in good taste ASSHOLES seeks drive people away from the screen as fast as possible. In some ways this film is a bunch of terrible people doing terrible things. You'll laugh at some of this but you'll wince more at the unpleasantness and stupidity of it all.

Worth a look for those who like uncomfortable and disgusting comedies. All others should leave the it well enough alone.