Father Geek here with our second report from THE INCREDIBLE FILM FESTIVAL down in the land of Hobbits, goblins, trolls and Elves; New Zealand. Prepare yourselves for the reviews of 9 great little "cult" films in this the second of three reports from the festival all of us at Geek Headquarters hate that we're missing...
Greetings from New Zealand, the land of hobbits and warrior princesses (the kind with latent lesbian subtext, but I digress). Presented here, another tray of cinematic delights from the annual "Incredible Film Festival". Like a box of chocolates, these servings contain different exotic flavours and textures from around the world. But until you bite down you cannot be entirely sure if you will chewing a soft or crunchy.
Nine more snapshot movie reports from the most fun festival in the world.
The Devil At Your Heals 1981 Canada
A "Spinal Tap"ian tragedy documentary, as Canadian daredevil Ken Carter chases his dream of jumping a rocket car one mile from America to Canada over the St Lawrence Seaway. Rocket car. One mile. Fiction? A cinematic fraud? Or fact? The way the story plays out bears an eerie similarity to the background of Evil Knievel and the build to his attempt at jumping Snake Canyon in a "rocket cycle". No mater how bizarre Ken's story becomes, it is only slight shades of grey away from the facts of that precedent setting Canyon jump. Ken's backers even bring in Mr Knievel himself to provide insight from his own misadventure. He declares Ken and this car stunt "crazy". Watch the trails and tribulations of staging this feat: building a car capable of 270mph (AND has stability in flight), daredevil training, inept Hollywood backers, engineers, bad weather and the required 85ft launch ramp. The audience tension builds nicely as things twist and turn to the eventual conclusion. And yes - you do get to see the money shot before the closing credits. Ken is an inspiration to those who have dreamed the dream, and have not let their incompetence stop them from pursuing it at all costs.
Revelations: Paradise Lost 2
1999 USA
This is the sequel to HBO's documentary "PARADISE LOST: THE ROBIN HOOD HILLS MURDERS". The original concerned the trials and conviction of three outsider teenagers for the murder of three young children in rural Arkansas. This sequel is an unusual piece of cinema. It is a documentary ABOUT a documentary. The film crew is bared from covering the appeals process, as they are themselves central to the grounds of the appeal. Instead this covers how the original "Paradise Lost" changed the lives of the convicted, their families, the supporters drawn to the cause by the doco, and the man many thought was implicated as the true murder. A deep, powerful and haunting work, with snapshots of humanity from wide eyed simple-ness of Jessie to the raving indignation of Mark Byers. Revelations raises some pretty fundamental questions about justice. The need for it to be seen to be done, for those for and against the conviction of the "West Memphis Three".
The Toy Box
1971 USA
Everyone involved at every stage of this production must have been on drugs. Seriously whacked out of their gourds, coked to the eyeballs, talking to the walls. The film must have been processed in an emulsion of PCP's and Angel Dust, and when projected it must have given off a hallucinogenic vapour that permeated the theatre air-conditioning. There can be no other explanation for leaving the theatre in a haze of "WTF did I just see!?!?!". This soft-core porno was a mind trip of hyperbolic proportions. This belongs to the "get someone naked and overdub an inner monologue" school of smut. I suppose at least this technique is a way to get around acting issues of the genre (ie: get naked, we'll tell the story in voice over). The basic story? Young people gather one night at a mansion to perform sex plays for the viewing pleasure of "Uncle". All is not as it seems, as "Uncle" sits in his chair passively and doesn't seem to be breathing...... There is really nothing more to this story. Nothing more that makes sense. I saw it. I survived it. But I might not look at soft-porn the same way again. Cheap, weird and mind numbing.
Legend of the Wolfwoman
1976 Spain
This is the same movie (and same print) as seen at Butt-numb-athon. An interesting attempt to present lycanthropia as a mental condition. Daniela is haunted by visions of an ancestor burnt alive at the stake for being a werewolf, and it is not long before she is possessed, and proceeds on a bloody rampage. This is a grab bag exploitation movie that is hard not to love. It starts as a "person in a fur suit/historical" movie, then shifts gear to "exorcist/demon possession", turns into to an "unexpected love story" then kicks into "woman's revenge" for the finale. Add to that laugh out loud dubbing, the kind where the characters have to spout the most twist constructions of the English language to match what the Spanish speaking lips are saying on screen. Plus it has the exploitation standby of a faded and scratched print with lots of gratuitous nudity. The highlight for me was the most hilarious "couple falls in love" montage I've ever seen. Entertaining if you like your movies bad in a good way. Or good in a bad way. You get the idea.
Green Snake
1993 Hong Kong
Starring Maggie Cheung and directed by Tsui Hark. Two names fans of Asia cinema should be very familiar with. This is one of those historical fantasy mind warps that must make sense in their culture of origin, but are somewhat off the wall in a western context. Two snake sisters aspire to raise themselves to humanity, to exist, live and love in the world of man. With hundreds of years practice they can hold themselves in human form, most of the time. Of course there is the difficulty of maintaining the deception from mystical monks, a blind evil spirit chasing priest and of course their love interests. From a western framed point of view I would assume that the human monk would be the hero, and the snakes naturally the villains. It took me a while to warm my mind to it being the other way around. The visuals range from the cheap and bad to stunning and clever and still cheap. It doesn't take spending millions on CG to suggest someone is part snake and part human, when a few clever movements and camera angles can tempt that idea into the minds eye. I particularly enjoyed the wire-fu attacks of the blind priest and his two young assistants. You do not see kids this young on wire rigs bouncing and fighting from roof to roof in a western movie. Entertaining in a culture shock kind of way.
Nowhere To Hide
2000 Korea
Revelation of the festival. A visual treat, and a huge hit in its home country. Takes the "loner cop chases crafty criminal" genre and spins it with manga flourishes and touches of slapstick. A gangland murder at "41 steps" leads Detective Woo into an underworld chase. Working on instinct and luck he and his police cohorts make progress, but the master criminal always stays one step ahead. This movie starts dark, with a brutal fight and a rain soaked murder, but as it progresses it lightens the characters and feel with more comedic overtones. Running down a fleeing criminal, police brutality, botched car operations and an inner city chase that could have been lifted directly from a cartoon are all played for laughs. I enjoyed the story, I enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed the action, but it was the visuals that had my jaw on the ground. Lots of weathered sets, interesting lighting and cinematography with cool edits and camera tricks that came close to gimmicky but make work within context. Highly recommended if you can see it on the big screen in its original cut.
Sex: Annabel Chong Story
1999 USA
Another porn documentary, this one much darker and more disturbing than "The Girl Next Door" (reviewed last week). This covers the start of Annabels porn career (she claims she was bored with sleeping with everyone in her social circle), her attempt to fast track fame and notoriety by xxxxing 300 men in 10 hours for a video (see manages 251, for which she is never paid the promised money), the scorn of her peers and parents, and her out spoken beliefs on sexuality and porn. There is a lot of harsh material touched here: rape, depression, drug abuse and self-mutilation all appear at some point. We only glimpse into these dark areas of her story, as Annabel alternates between revealing the dark, and showing her strong personality and feisty attitudes towards sex and society. She happily discusses her sexuality on Jerry Springer, in black tie lectures or in front of her university classes (where she even wears the promotional tee-shirt for her gang bang). She talks of the choices she has made, and what she is aiming for with her actions. A documentary with a strong, complex and multifaceted character at its centre, that leaves much for the audience to discuss at its conclusion.
Tell Me Something
2000 Korea
This years hands down winner for "Best Cinematic Use Of Blood". The story: disgraced Korean Detective Cho is assigned to a tough case with the hope of redemption. Black plastic bags have started appearing around the city containing mismatched body parts from dissected victims. Police have little to go on until a woman is found that can link the victims together. The story here is average to competent. Not bad, but nothing outstandingly different. The joy here is in the telling, in the visuals, in the blood. The crowded elevator scene deserves a standing ovation for its brilliant execution (if you can forgive the pun). As a whole this movie has great control, lots of blood and some flesh is shown, but it suggests so much more to the minds eye.
The Loved One
1965 USA
"The motion picture with something to offend everyone!". A bold tagline, but probably true back in the day this black and white comedy was released. A love triangle set in the Whispering Glades funeral parlour. Aimee is torn between the passion of the poetic Dennis Barlow and the devotion of embalmer Mr Joyboy. A story of Hollywood, priests, crooks, Generals, coffins, rockets(!), pets, gluttony and guru's. This movie starts slow, but once it gets going it produces screwball twists and crazy characters to keep the comedy going. Unfortunately this print had a few jump cut/splices at inopportune times, but otherwise this was a completely unexpected delight. A fantastic cast, with numerous scene-stealing cameos from the likes of Roddy McDowell, Milton Berle and James Coburn. Liberace is hysterical with his underplayed sarcasm, and Rod Stieger is a million miles from "In the Heat of the Night" in his role as Mr Joyboy. A very entertaining movie from a time when they didn't need to resort to body function jokes to shock audiences.
My cinematic mind washing continues. I've survived 18 festival movies, but still have 8 to go...(cue cheap lightning effect)..and the ALL NIGHT MOVIE MARATHON! Bwahahaha!!
Join me next week for titles such as "The Curious Dr. Humpp", "Audition", "Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!" and "Peeping Tom".
Cine-Freak out.
