Hey folks, Harry here with the latest update from Sitges from those wacky Alamo survivors... Smitty and Susan Dickenson! This time the dynamic film going duo have wrestled in 4 damn good movies... One of which is just flat out brilliant! May, my review will be posted momentarily, is just as great a film as a low budget horror film can be. Doesn't feel its budget, completely realized. Wonderfully performed and so deliciously evil that its like the first time you discovered the massager function in the shower... Just perfect. Here ya go...
DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN
Susan Dickenson writes:
To adopt a Variety Magazine style of review: This movie is an upscale art-house pic, and should do very well, especially after it gets free publicity generated by religious groups objecting to the blasphemous content.
And this movie is blasphemous. Not like DOGMA, which was blasphemous in an affectionate and cheerfully irreverent way, nor is it like LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST which offended traditional values and theology, but which open minded religious folk had to admit didn't really blaspheme against actual scripture.
This movie is truly and deeply blasphemous in a way that can not be defended, except by the fact that this is an exceptionally fascinating story, crafted in a masterly fashion to be thrilling, heartbreaking and thoroughly entertaining. The story is that of the second coming, but this Messiah is born of fully human DNA unnaturally formed by two fathers and one mother in a triangle of fornication and betrayal specially engineered to specifications by a God who is fed up with humanity and is crafting a vessel to destroy it. This Messiah is manipulated towards the goal of the destruction of humankind by angels, who direct him like a puppet using truly unholy means to pull the strings. His childhood is filled with guilt ridden nightmares of his comatose mother, and any time it seems that his free will might lead him away from the plan, awful and strategic deaths of his friends and family put him back on the right track.
Imagine the lamb of God, tricked by the heavenly host to hand the keys of the kingdom over to Satan once and for all, in the ultimate innocent betrayal of all those he is trying to save.
This is fairly potent stuff, and an effective palm-sweating thriller to boot. Not being a a writer or a critic, I tried extra hard to take notes for this, my first review. I really enjoyed the movie, but it was not without flaws, though I probably could have allowed the total experience to wash over minor quibbles if I hadn't made a point of writing them down. There were some moments of epiphany that were definitely cheesy. These parts might bother some people more than others, and I'm pretty sure that they will be more offensive to me on a second viewing of the movie, but they didn't bother me much at all while I was watching and could easily have forgotten them.
On a side note, the director of the film gave an interesting speech
before the screening and pointed out that the script required that
they shoot on location at the Temple in Jerusalem. This is heavily
guarded, holiest of holy Palestinian turf. He said that they had to
pretend they were shooting a documentary in order to get
permission to bring cameras in, and that the actors had to
"accidentally" wander into the frame. After seeing the movie, I was
amazed by this, and can't imagine how they pulled it off.
MAY
Review by Susan Dickenson
This movie completely affirms my decision to come to Sitges. May was a fabulous movie, my favorite of the fest so far. The guidebook calls it a cross between Carrie and Frankenstein. I've heard others compare it to Amelie. The combination of the three films gives a really solid idea of the film without giving any spoiler info. A comparison to Amelie is fair, but to me MAY works even better. I enjoyed the hell out of Amelie, but, to me, the character of May rings so much truer than Amelie. May is Amelie gone horribly, horribly awry, which in a way,fits better with the quirky charm of the Amelie character. Amelie was a lovable, quirky outsider, but you just couldn't ever really accept that as the truth. She was a little too cute, a little too confident, a little too perfect to be a loner outsider. She felt more like a celebrity that you could imagine bedding Antonio Banderas rather than that which the script was supposed to make you believe. With May, you believe she is a loner oddball all the way. Don't get me wrong, she is totally charming and loveable at the beginning of the movie, but you still know deep down that she is off, she doesn't belong.
May is the first film by Lucky McKee, and has tiny hints here and
there of its low budget origins. But since the film is really firing on
all cylinders, these extremely minor quibbles are completely
overshadowed. Hell, May hits you with all of the components of a
classic film: a fantastic story, solid acting from a cast of unknowns,
dead pets in the freezer, cannibalism, sexual violence, gratuitous
mutilation of the blind, creepy dolls, eyeball extraction, severed pet
limbs and a bittersweet love story. Lions Gate has picked this up
for US distribution; let's hope it's packaged with gusto and makes
it into American Theaters in a big way. It certainly deserves it.
DARK WATER
Smitty Writes:
I really don't have too much to say about this film. The acting was solid and the set design and locations were great. Problem is, the story was just OK and the suspense, for me, was just about nil. The story follows a young mother, on her own with her kindergarten-aged daughter after a recent divorce. Tension from the custody battle and the search for a new job and apartment are trying her already fragile nerves. Factor in the supernatural appearances of a young girl who had disappeared 2 years earlier, and the mother's grasp on reality starts to slip. To me, the suspense was driven more by swells in emotional music than with story development, and by about the 15th time I saw the shadowy form of a young girl pop out of a corner, I was having to stifle yawns. Dark Water is a decent enough flick with no major problems, it just isn't terrific. Better than most Hollywood thrillers, but my expectations are higher for Asia. I doubt this will ever see American theaters.
Susan Dickenson writes:
It is generally recognized that I am the world's biggest pussy when
it comes to horror films. That being the case, it may mean nothing
when I say that I thought this movie was absolutely terrifying. I had
to watch the last half from the back of the theater where I could
peek out from behind the curtains. The atmosphere throughout
was insanely creepy, and the slow pacing created a sense of
anxiety that I could hardly bear. Even the fact that it was more or
less clear what was going to happen only served to heighten the
feeling of dread and irrevocable doom. The movie revolved a lot
around rain and water, and that night a huge storm broke in
Sitges. We had left our patio door open, letting lashings of wind
and water into the hotel room. I was paralyzed in my bed, not able
to sleep and too chicken to go to the window to close it. I now have
a fairly bad cold.
PUBLIC ENEMY
Smitty writes:
The more I see of Korean cinema, the more impressed I am. Public Enemy is no mind-blower, don't get me wrong, but it was a really entertaining film on several levels. Great acting, a decent action storyline, good fights, emotional development in regards to the protagonist, and some really funny offhand humor in and about the Korean police department.
Through coincidental circumstances involving a steaming pile of loose human feces, a rogue cop uncovers a brutal double homicide by an affluent, young stock broker. Despite a complete lack of police skills and analytical savvy, the formerly dirty cop tries to make his first real case against this well-connected killer. Taken on it's own, the story could easily be your cookie-cutter American cop potboiler drama. Through the development of histerical incidental characters and nuances, however, director Kang Woo Suk, transforms this plot into an original, truly entertaining film. Public Enemy kept me captivated after nearly two days of no sleep, City By The Sea would have sent me to slumberland in that state.
Susan Dickenson writes:
I agree. This was a fun, funny movie, with lashings of ultraviolence.
