Hey folks, Harry here.... Finally we get a report (long overdue) from one of the coolest (if not the coolest) film festival in the world. I am, of course, referring to that beast from Anthony Timpson's mind.... and a demented glorious mind it is.... THE INCREDIBLE FILM FESTIVAL.... This isn't your typical torture through endless muckity muck films... This is cinema that boils the outer layer of your eyes. Don't believe me? Read and weep as I do.... For you and I, we didn't go. We are lame. We do not rule, but at least we can pretend as we read. Read on...
For eight years the beast known as "The Incredibly Strange Film Festival" has inflicted itself on the cinema going public of New Zealand presenting a soup of horror, schlock, art and infamy in in big screen form. This year it has produced a mutant offspring - known more simply as "The Incredible Film Festival" with the addition of animation, documentaries and edgy foreign selections to the regular exploitation, euro shock and the generally strange festival servings. Quality prints - forget it.
Bland audience tested dumbed down Hollywood poop - not here.
This festival has always been about one thing:
Entertainment, at all costs.
Entertainment at the risk of losing your sleep, eyesight or even your sanity. I have stepped up to the challenge. Not content to see 10, or 12 or even 15 titles as I have in previous festivals, this year I see ALL 26 selections. A cinematic mind warping endeavour of daredevil proportions. I risk mental burnout and (hopefully) return to tell the tale. Films will be covered in the order attended. Here are the first 9 screenings for your perusal.
In China They Eat Dogs 1999 Denmark
Opening night, and an excellent film to begin with. It has nothing to do with China or dogs, but instead follows the spiralling life of Arvid, a mild and meek mannered bank clerk that one day stops a robbery with a squash racquet. From there spring many unexpected developments. I can't and won't reveal more, a description of the plot would ruin the many many interesting twists the story throws out at the viewer. Suffice it to say, there are guns, girls, gangsters, bombs, brothers and wisecracking chiefs drawn in before the plot is all said and done. Every time I thought I could see where the story was going, it took a turn into the left field. Easy comparisons would be to "Reservoir Dogs" and "Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels", but this movie is its own beast, skipping around genres and conventions as Arvid's life heads in new and interesting directions. Entertaining and occasionally violent comedy action euro fest. (And make sure you stay and pay attention to the entire closing credits). Highly recommended. The festival had to cancel several screenings because the print had to be sent to Brazil immediately. Strange but true.
Cutthroats Nine 1972 Spain
Not an easy movie. Harsh, nihilistic and unforgiving exploitation piece from beginning to end. The print was somewhat faded and dirty, but that ultimately suited the dark tone of the story. A euro-western with no cowboys, if that makes sense. A posse of convicts are shackled together by the ankle and escorted cross-country by a guard that may be just as demented as they are. With blood thirsty criminals chained together and unforgiving landscapes you know bad things are going to happen. And they do, in close up and protracted detail. Gashings, throttlings, burnings and shootings. If you loathe Hollywood movie conventions of sympathetic characters and happy endings, this will be a refreshingly nasty movie for you. I found it hard going, but did appreciate the interesting story structure and the plot twists that pull the carpet out from under the viewers. Entertaining for the nihilists amongst us.
Butterfly And Sword 1993 Hong Kong
A Michelle Yeoh action fest. Wire-fu, wire-fu, and more wire-fu! We need people running across the forest canopy - wire them up! Exploding walls - wire it up! Manga-action where people dive literally through one another - wire them up! Bamboo forest sword melee - wire them all up! Wires, wires, everywhere. Its something I love about Asian-Fu cinema - the only pretence here is to entertain. Gravity, glossy effects and story logic are no obstacles to entertainment value. They make little to no effort to hide the wire rigging. If you don't enjoying the ride, you wouldn't enjoy it with all the effect shots polished, so why bother polishing? There's a plot involving various kung-fu clans fighting it out for political advantage, as well as suppressed, unrequited and unanswered love between the leads. The action is awesome, and left the Lord Of the Rings stunt crew in the audience with big smiles and many questions as to how some of the stuff was achieved. Entertaining in a no holds barred action way.
Anatomie 2000 Germany
Franke Potente(aka Lola of "Run Lola Run", a movie so great the Simpson's parodied it) stars as a bookish student, who seems to be the only one concerned with fellow students disappearing and the shady goings on at the advanced anatomy course they are all attending. Part thriller, part horror, and for good measure part "psycho chasing scantily clad women around a locked building". Heck, they even throw in a few red herrings, Nazi associations and secret societies for good measure. Franke makes a good go of the lead part, and the movie serves up genuine scares, shocks, thrills and spills. Good looking leads, logical story development, with some good gore and jumps mixed in. You can't ask too much more of modern horror thrillers, and certainly leagues ahead of crap like "Halloween h20". Entertaining in a conspiracy horror kind of way.
Divine Trash 1998 USA
John Waters, from banned movie auteur of such cinematic crimes as dog-shit eating cross dressers to guest staring as himself on "The Simpsons" - what an interesting life he has led. This documentary primarily concerns the early Waters, from childhood to his driven film mania, friendships and collaboration with very colourful characters, association with proto-drag-queen Divine and the creation of the infamous film "Pink Flamingos". Lots of behind the scenes footage from Pink Flamingos, as well as interviews with cohorts, fans and detractors, and a lot of insight into the evolution of the force of nature known as Divine. You don't have to enjoy his cinematic work to enjoy this look at his life and creativity. Entertaining in a mondo documentary way.
Starwoids 2001 USA
Documentary about the build up, frenzy and hysteria for the release of Star Wars Episode I. See church ministers quoting Yoda. Meet the people behind "Star Wars - the musical"! See the trials and tribulations inherent in queuing on the street 5 weeks early for your opening night tickets. This reminded me of the Universal doco "Trekkies", as it tended to laugh AT the extreme fanboy element, and not look so much at why they do the things they do. But still, it was a documentary that needed to be made. 20 years from now people are going to look back and go "you queued for 5 weeks to see THAT movie?!!?". The hysteria in the fanboys(and girls) is palpable, and lets face it, most of us lived it. Entertaining in a "do other people really see me like that?" kind of way.
The Girl Next Door 2000 USA
A show all, tell all look at the life of porn star Stacey Valentine. The raincoat brigade came out in force to see this documentary. Cinema patrons with greasy hair, thick glasses, baggy track pants, grimy white sneakers and floor length trench coats. Hmmm. What you actually get onscreen is the childhood and background of Stacey, her introduction into the world of porn, the highs and lows of filming, conventions, fans, trying to build a personal relationship in the industry and the relationship with her parents. Add to that some VERY graphic plastic surgery footage to show you how far someone will go to have "the look". You might not think of big fake boobs in the same way again. I liked the subversive nature of this doco. Draw people in with a sexy poster and instead give them a reasonably straight up documentary. The surgery footage gets a reaction from the audience, the creation of porn is shown to be utterly fake and mechanical in nature, and stuff like using the syrupy song "daddy's girl" over Stacy's childhood montage is a stark contrast to the theatre full of the raincoat crowd drawn by the lure of the word "porn". And if anyone asks, you went to see it for the insightful look at the emotional journey of the empowered modern American adult entertainer, and not because it was about people who fuck onscreen for a living.
Son of That's Exploitation (all years) (all places)
A personal favourite each year from the festival. 90 minutes. All trailers. All good. If you don't enjoy what you are currently seeing, 2 minutes latter there will be something different but equally twisted projected for you. In the first year of "That's Exploitation" I recognised about 1/3rd of the movies previewed. Classics like "Abominable Dr Phibes" and "The People That Time Forgot". Later years things got much more obscure, including one year presenting an all Asian edition, or the classic trailers like the awesome black/white shock art "Exorcist" (you have to see that one to believe it!) through to obscure Europe roughies and some bizarre circus/porn movie thing that I still cannot purge from my mind(midgets! Trapeze! Must drive image from my mind!?!?). Last years stroke of genius was to include the ORIGINAL "Gone In 60 Seconds" trailer when the Hollywood bastard son version was still in theatres. This year's mixed bag of trailers included a lot of black and white 50's Hollywood exploiters ("Lady in a Cage"), and a grab bag of European Mondo doco's, monster movies ("Giant Gila Monster", "Horror Of Spider Island"), shocking celeb movies (Roy Orbisan, with his guitar-gun in "The Fastest Guitar Alive", Linda Blair in the roller skating classic "Roller Boogie" and classic "Kingdom Of The Spiders" with William Shatner) and 80's crap like "Raw Courage"(best described as part "American Ninja", part "Dirty Dozen", part cheap zombie fest, and all crap). This year was capped off with the only trailer in existence for the NEVER WILL BE RELEASED 1994 Corman "The Fantastic Four". That was cheesier than a cheese lover's double dose supper stacker cheese crust pizza. It definitely ranked up there with the live action 80's versions of "Spiderman" and "Captain America". Hammy acting, bad CG and that theme music that was re-used in dozens of Cormans 80's movies. Little wonder Marvel squashed it. Highly recommended and an essential part of the festival.
Tex Avery Cartoons 1935-54 USA
A selection of 6 minute wonders from the master Tex Avery. His Warner Bros era is skipped entirely and we are treated to adventures of Screwy Squiral, Droopy, assorted birds, mice, cats and dogs, wolves, red riding hood and the racial very dated "Uncle Toms Cabana" (if this was a Disney short, they would have suppressed and destroyed it years ago). Its great to see cartoon shorts on the big screen again, although I have to complain about the projection. Originally these would have been in Academy scope - roughly TV aspect ratio of 1.35:1. The projectionist felt the need to crop the top and bottom from the image to present them in wide-screen on the big screen, and in the process cut off and ruined a number of the gags that were presented across the bottom of the image. It was certainly entertaining to see the blatant cartoon sexuality and howling wolf double take signatures of Avery. And seeing these shorts back to back means the audience sees certain visual gags reused and tweaked from one production to the next. Entertaining in a "this ain't Disney" kind of way.
9 down 17 to go. Join me next week for another dosage of cinema subversion - including titles such as "The Devil At Your Heals", "The Toy Box", "Legend of the Wolfwoman" and "Sex: the Annabel Chong Story". Cine-Freak signing off.
