Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a couple of interesting reviews from Tribeca. Both of these movies are off the beaten path, but that's why we love film festivals, right? Speaking of off the beaten path, I've been told that a film playing Tribeca is a must see for any horror geek called SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER. I haven't seen it and can't vouche, but it's by the director of the '70s classics SQUIRM and BLUE SUNSHINE. Click on the title above for a link to a funky-weird trailer, which comes off as both cheesy and creepy at the same time. Anyway, on with a look at LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE and KAENA: THE PROPHECY!!!
Hi Harry,
I got a chance to catch two movies at the film festival this past week (after failed attempts at doors sales entry for The Green Hat and Love Collage, I'm glad I had purchased these other two movie tickets online).
Didn't see much submissions from others on the movies at this festival, so I thought I might share some of my experiences with people.
Last Life in the Universe
If you're a fan of Lost in Translation, In the Mood for Love, American Beauty, as well as Quentin Tarantino and Miike Takashi, this movie should catch your attention. It was introduced by the director, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, and the choreographer Chris Doyle, who both stayed afterwards to handle Q&A.
It was very cool of them to give up their reserved seats to sit on the floor somewhere so more people could watch this film, and they were both very interesting characters themselves. But about the movie... it's about a Japanese librarian with suicidal tendencies who meets a Thai waitress while he's staying in Bangkok.
School girl prostitutes and Yakuza are also involved.
Doyle and Ratanaruang are able to take a run-down country house and turn it into a cinematic playground. Some shots are so beautifully done that you cannot take your eyes off the screen. The characters play off each other as polar opposite who must learn to accept their lives and maybe even cherish them.
I usually don't like to re-watch a movie in a theater, but definitely wouldn't mind if I can bring more friends to see it when it releases in NYC in August. And I'm looking forward to their future collaborations.
Kaena: The Prophecy
The 2nd movie I watched was more of a disappointment. I should've thought it was a bad omen when the reserved seats were unreserved for the audience because the cast/staff couldn't make it. Maybe it was also because I saw it right after Last Life, and the contrast in dialogue and plot and subtlety really put this movie down for me.
The person who they found to introduce the movie described it as very imaginative. The movie is about a space ship in space malfunctioning somehow and crashing into a foreign planet with one alien survivor. Centuries pass; a tribe of human-like folk try to eke out an existence on this tree that grew out of the crash site, with one outcast-type protagonist female.
And it's all in CG. The plot sounds somewhat familiar? I was thinking Final Fantasy TSW, Titan AE, even games and anime like Xenogears. And there's countless others. Imaginative was not the word I would use for this movie.
I reserved this movie because I was hoping that it might be an imaginative CG work, but it felt more like a movie made for the technology. In that case, it doesn't even match FFTSW (and my opinion of that movie isn't that high either).
The characters are so dull and formulaic, and the lines they said were so cliche that it didn't matter if my girlfriend slept through most of it; she knew exactly how the movie would play through.
There was the stupid sidekick, the requisite love interest, the malevolent villain who manipulates things from his lair, the sage with the advanced knowledge, the loony, the minor villain who is being used by the greater villain... the list goes on. And technically speaking, it did not impress at all.
Again, FFTSW can beat this hands down, and it was done how many years ago? Truly a disappointment.
-Sephyr
