Hey folks, Harry here... The shocking thing about the BNAT reports is the total and utter lack of reviews of the Gift Bags and Poster Tubes and Gifts that every single BNAT-er got loads of. Hmmmm, maybe I should start working to have those each year... Anyway, here's Abstruse with his take on the whole festival. I actually hold that within two years, Abs will become an Austinite. Here ya go...
The Abstruse One here just coming in from BNAT with very little sleep over the past weekend. This was my first time going to Butt-Numb-A-Thon, and as I’m learning right now, that’s NOT just a clever name! Not only was this my first BNAT, it was also my first time at the Alamo Drafthouse as well as my first time in Austin. I have totally fallen in love with all three. Well, except that the traffic lights in Austin never seem to change…but I’m digressing here and you certainly don’t care about my opinions on traffic light programming. Let’s get on with the review, and beware for there be spoilers here.
HAUNTED GOLD
HAUNTED GOLD – A 24 year old John Wayne doing a pseudo-horror film and getting in a sissy slapfight. This movie was great in that MST3K kinda way. And it’s strange how much John Wayne looked like Leonardo di Caprio when he was young. This film wasn’t bad, but it was funny when it didn’t mean to be. And this film is not for members of the ASPCA or NAACP.
I’ve never seen a movie get booed more than this one did. But this film was made in a different time and took place in an even more different time. This film is amazingly racist in parts, but it’s simultaneously not racist because it wasn’t at the time. That was how life was, both in the 1930s and in the old west. Was it right? No. But that was how things were, and they wouldn’t change for another 30 years. This film is a freeze frame of a moment in our history. We shouldn’t be proud of it, but I feel at this time in our history we should be able to look back and laugh at a line like “Ain’t no phantom with a watermelon accent!” Come on, admit it…it’s fucked up, it’s blatantly racist, and it’s so wrong it’s insane…but that’s funny!
Check this movie out if you’re bored one Sunday afternoon, but make sure to bring your sense of humor.
RETURN OF CAPTAIN MARVEL
RETURN OF CAPTAIN MARVEL – Damn you Harry, now I’ll probably NEVER know how this ends!!
RETURN OF THE KING
RETURN OF THE KING – I firmly believe that most of the people who are obsessing about finding RETURN OF THE KING reviews don’t actually care about a review of the film, they just want someone to say “Don’t worry, it’s just as good as the last two.”
Don’t worry, it’s just as good as the last two.
In the past decade, I’ve only teared-up at three films. The first was the anime classic GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES. The second was CASABLANCA. Last night, it was RETURN OF THE KING. The character scenes in this film are so emotional it’s amazing. Even Gimli, the character so many complain about being demoted to “comic relief”, got a great emotional moment in this film. Aragon came to life as the King, Merry and Pippin stepped fully out of the comic relief role they seemed to be stuck into during FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and became the heroes they were meant to be, Dethendor the Steward of Gondor was perfect in his depression and madness from the loss of his kingdom and his son, the look in Frodo’s eyes as he stands on the edge of the pit on Mount Doom is perfect, the Sword That Was Broken is reforged, and Gollum is the perfect slimy little Ring-corrected weasel.
However, the man who really steals this film is Samwise Gamgee. If Sean Astin doesn’t win Best Supporting Actor for 2003, it will cement once and for all that the Academy has lost all taste in film. Thinking back of the entire film, I cannot think of a single scene with Sam that was not incredibly emotional and moving. Astin has officially stolen every single scene he was in, and it’s so perfect it’s beyond description.
And the battles. My god, the effects are amazing. The sight of the armies lined up on the hill is incredible beyond belief. It is truly a jaw-dropping moment to see the army of Mordor spread across the entire plains as far as the eye can see.
Were there flaws? Of course. No film is perfect. However, the only flaw worth noting in this film isn’t much of one at all and I had the same problem with the first two films of the series. Jackson does a great job of bringing the chaos, confusion, and pure kenetic energy of a large fight to the screen. However, many times the cuts are so fast and the shaky-cam so close up that it becomes very easy to lose track of what’s happening on the screen. In this film, though, this only happens in the large battle scenes. As soon as we start to focus on one of the main characters again, it’s very easy to follow the action.
There are just so many amazing moments in this film. The Sword that was Broken being reforged, the spectacular battle, the scene between the Army of the Dead and Aragon, Shelob (Just as everyone has been saying, FUCK ARAGOG! There is only ONE giant spider in fantasy fiction and that is SHELOB!), anything with Sean Astin in it, the look in Frodo’s eyes as he turns to Sam on the edge of Mount Doom…
I haven’t seen MASTER & COMMANDER yet, but it would have to be some masterpiece to not convince me that RETURN OF THE KING is the best film of 2003. This film is beautiful, amazing, fantastic, emotional, action-packed. THIS is what cinema should be about. Decembers are going to suck now without a new Lord of the Rings film. But we all knew it had to end. And I can’t think of any better way to end this film than this.
THE GENERAL
THE GENERAL. This film was just so cool to see. I’ve only seen three silent films in my life, THE GENERAL, Mel Brooks’s SILENT FILM, and NOSFERATU. I’ve seen more a few shorts, but those are the only complete films I’ve seen. It’s a shame the hoops you have to go through these days to see these old films as it seems no one appreciates the classics anymore. In my backwater shit town, I have to work to find non-colorized and widescreen films. Silent films are out of the question unless I special order them. So it was such a treat to see this hilarious film with a live band no less.
Filmmakers and actors today could really take a lesson from these films. These old films are so cool. These films accomplish so much without CGI, blue screening, computers, complex lenses, and all this other bullshit. These are just smart writers and directors who know how to tell a story visually and actors who aren’t afraid to take risks to create a believable film worth seeing. These days an actor has to get a stunt double to walk down a set of stairs.
I don’t know if the band that played the score for this film will ever see this, but I just have to say that you guys were great. And you left your beer on my table Guy. :p
OLDBOY
OLD BOY. This was the “secret” film of BNAT, the one where we saw the only English subtitled print in existence before it was shipped to Harvey Weinstein. According to the studio, we weren’t allowed to talk about this film until December 8th. BNAT ended at noon on December 7th, which we’d stayed up at least 24 hours straight. So the first on our agenda was sleep. Therefore, I don’t see how anyone would be able to talk about this film until December 8th in the first place. Eh, I just don’t get studios I guess…
This film is just so cool. Normally, I can’t stand films where you have to wait for it to start making sense. Films where they just throw scenes out there on the screen and you don’t know who these people are or why they’re doing what they’re doing…This film, though, uses this tactic and does is magnificently. I want to talk about this film, but I also don’t want to spoil a single thing about it because of how it unfolds. Harry’s not kidding when he says this is a revenge film. But it’s also so much more than that.
The set-up is simple. A man is locked in a room for 15 years with no human interaction aside from a television. He doesn’t know who did it and he doesn’t know why. He wakes up on a rooftop and has to figure out who so he can get his revenge. The way everything unfolds after this is just amazing though. Slowly things come into focus, and the question isn’t who did it, but why they did it.
There are so many false leads and twists and turns it’s insane. No matter how good your screenplay sixth sense is, you’re not going to predict where this film is going until the second the reveal comes out. You won’t see it coming at all until it’s out there. It’s shocking and it’s so cool, I can’t even begin to describe it. Everything makes sense right at that moment. Sick, twisted sense, but still sense.
The pacing of this film is perfect. Everything unfolds perfectly as you start getting pieces of the puzzle. That’s exactly what it is too, a puzzle. Only the last piece is huge and takes up the most important part of the picture. The film looks beautiful too. It’s just so hard to talk about this film without spoiling any of the amazing moments, and I feel that spoiling any of them is a horrible thing because of how cool it is to see these moments unfold. I don’t know if this film will be released in the US, but if it is, this film has to be seen.
NID DE GUEPES
I can’t remember the name of this film. Wasp? Wasp’s Nest? Something totally unrelated to the actual film. Sorry Harry, but this was the downpoint of the party. This film made absolutely no sense to me. Some guys are going to steal some laptops and some other guys are transporting some Super-Criminal (whose only crime was multiple counts of rape, I want you to remember this as I talk about the film). These two end up in some warehouse together while the shock troops so good they make Navy SEALS look like cub scouts try to bust out this Super-Criminal. This Super-Criminal is masked and locked in a steel cage in an armored car and handcuffed, yet everyone’s still afraid of him. So the guys keep getting killed off one by one by the shock troops, and the Super-Criminal gets out and uses super martial arts (not kung fu, but like it) to kill all one of the guys by shoving his fingers in the guy’s neck. About this point I started dozing off, so I went outside, got a soda, smoked a cigarette, and basically chilled out because I was TOTALLY lost. Funny story, I’m standing outside the theater smoking a cigarette, and there’s this club next door to the Drafthouse called Cuba Libre. There’s this hot blonde plastic toothpick type girl working the door and some guy is hitting on her. Apparently he’s trying to make like he’s a film producer or something because he says “I just got back from Cannes last week.” I died laughing. I wish I had the guts to tell the guy that Peter Jackson had stepped on my foot less than two hours before, that in about 12 hours I would be watching Mel Gibson tell Eli Roth “Cabin Fever? What’s that?”, and that Cannes was in May. It was still pretty funny.
BLIND
“Blind”. A short film, if I recall correctly, the first from director Kraken, writer Quint, costar Neil, and Aaron Chandler starring. This is a really good short film, and if it’s playing at a festival near you, be sure to check it out. You know, since it hasn’t played a festival before. Because BNAT wasn’t a film festival…it was just a private party with films. This is a very solid short action/fantasy film about a couple that should NOT have been put together on a blind date. After a tense dinner with two couples in a restaurant, the couple that was set up decides to go home to “have a cup of coffee”. However, it turns out that she’s a vampire and he’s a vampire hunter. The fight scene isn’t amazing, but it’s solid and well-paced. Regardless of Kraken’s fears, this film played very well on the big screen I think. Aaron Chandler seemed to play the role a little stiffly, but considering what his role was it works better than it should. And remember when you’re on a double date with a friend, turn to him and say “You going to nestle papa bear in her little cave tonight?”
GINGER SNAPS 2
GINGER SNAPS 2. I’d go into detail about this film, but there’s nothing to be said really that hasn’t already been said. It’s decent, but it’s repetitive. But apparently every item in the universe makes a loud sonic boom when it makes contact with any other object…and there’s WAY too many “false scares”…you know, when the cat jumps out and mrowrs and everyone jumps even though it’s not the killer? These should be done in a 1:1 ratio, but in this film it was more like 150:1.
Rule #37 of Horror Films – The comic book reading little kid is the only one who REALLY knows what’s going on.
Also, why is it that no one finds it odd at all that a nine year old is driving? I will give the filmmakers props though for not using a CGI werewolf…
HAUTE TENSION
HAUTE TENSION aka SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE. This film is an example of how to do a horror film. There are a lot of flaws in this film, but at least they’re trying. That’s more than can be said about most of the American horror filmmakers. There are some good make-up effects in this film, and up until the end of the film this is a nice, creepy chase movie with a lot of good moments of tension. However, the twist ending ruins it because it makes no sense for a lot of things to have happened. I just wish that more horror protagonists would learn that SOUND TRAVELS. Horror film antagonists could learn from this lesson as well. The best thing about this film though is the second act. There’s hardly any dialogue and the film carries the film perfectly without having to say a word. This film starts a little slow, but when it picks up, it works for almost every second of film until the “reveal”. If it weren’t for that, this film would be an excellent little horror movie. With the ending, though, it’s just watchable.
TEENAGE MOTHER
TEENAGE MOTHER – Harry, you’re a bastard. I can’t believe you made us watch a childbirth complete with the cutting of the vaginal opening then served us breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs, sour cream, salsa, and cheese. Sorry man, but you do NOT serve strawberry cream cheese bagels after seeing a placenta!
This film introduces us to the dance craze that swept the 50s after the film’s release called the “Arrhythmic White-Boy Jerk”. It’s really easy to do. First, you listen to the beat of the music. You have to know what the beat is because you can never EVER move ON the beat. Then you vibrate slightly, shaking your head just a little bit. And, for no apparent reason and NEVER on the beat, you throw your hands down and bang your head. Hey, at least there weren’t any “watermelon accents”…
Things I learned from this movie. 1) Pot makes you a rapist. 2) Teenagers shouldn’t have sex at all. 3) If you are raped, never ever report the rape even if you know who did it. 4) It’s possible to be just a little pregnant.
UNDEAD
UNDEAD. This film would be perfect for TROMA with only a few problems. There was no nakedness (though there was a hot chick in bra and panties), there were no hermaphrodites, and the special effects were actually good. Zombies attack a small Australian town, and the local crazy guy goes Neo on them. This film is total fun. If you try for a moment to take it seriously, you’ll miss it. In fact, I don’t see how you could take it seriously at all. Best line: “When I was a kid, we respected our parents. We didn’t fuckin’ eat them!”
Thank you very much Harry for this party and allowing me to attend, as well as giving me the incredible seat that allowed me to say the sentence "I'd better move my coat so Mel Gibson doesn't trip over it." Thanks for an absolutely incredible weekend. Now when can I start campaigning to get in for next year?
Jason Byrons
