Fantastic Fest 06–Venus Drowning/Bug/Glamorous Life Of Sachiko Hanai

VENUS DROWNING

Another cheapie about a woman, Dawn (Jodie Jameson), who has just lost her unborn baby and her boyfriend within about a week of each other. She goes on vacation by the ocean to get a little time to heal, but she finds a new object of obsession on the beach: a weird creature that, at first, appears to be dead. But she nurses it back to health.

Then things start to get a little…strange. The creature starts secreting a jelly type substance that Dawn just can’t resist. It’s apparently liquid orgasm. She starts to lick the weird little creature.

In other Dawn news, she finds a new man. John (Burt Ruspoli) is a really nice guy who starts to fall in love with Dawn pretty quickly. But, when the creature gets a little jealous, things don’t go well.

For such a low budget, this movie had the grossest monster of the festival. It was a creepy, pink little thing that barely moved. It’s only function seemed to be to secrete this weird substance and take over Dawn’s life.

It’s a pretty good movie that, while a little bit predictable, kept my interest for the entire run of the film. I wanted to know just how far she would go to keep protecting her surrogate baby. And it showed that love is hard. Especially when a monster is involved.

BUG

And speaking of hard love, William Friedkin comes to the rescue of his own career and does his best film, possibly since the 70s. Definitely his best since Rules Of Engagement.

Agnes (Ashley Judd) is trying to make it in a small town when her asshole ex-husband (Harry Connick, Jr.) gets out of jail. Luckily, she meets Peter (Michael Shannon) just in time. Unluckily, Peter is completely insane. He believes that bugs are attacking him and that the government has manufactured those bugs.

That’s about all you need to know. It gets pretty crazy and Shannon and Judd put in some pretty amazing performances.

One thing that I was wondering about this one is where it’s coming from politically. If it had been written in the last six years it would have been seen as a Republican propaganda story saying that all conspiracy theorists are batshit crazy. But it’s based on a play that was written at least about 10 years ago. (Shannon is the only person who has played Peter, so he’s gotten plenty of practice. Something like 250 performances worth of practice.)

This is a great movie where the monster is inside your head. And the performances and direction suck you in so hard that you can’t get out until the very end. And even then you start wonder if you’re really out of it. Go see it.

THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI

Speaking of political statements, this has to be the only soft-core political comedy in existence. Of course, it’s Japanese.

Sachiko has been shot in the head. Before that she was a stupid hooker who could barely put two and two together to get three. But after the incident, she’s a woman who gets off on philosophy and carries a cloned of George W. Bush’s finger that is going to be used to launch the bombs.

Guess where the finger goes occasionally.

This is probably the funniest movie I saw at the festival. It starts off pretty weird and just gets weirder and weirder until it finally gets to be a nightmare in the head of growth on Noam Chomsky’s shoulder that looks like Susan Sontag. And it stars a hot Asian chick who takes her clothes off every 15 minutes. Nothing at all wrong with that.

I can’t see how this movie could get any better. Yeah, it’s a little bit slow in parts, but not enough to really make it seem longer than it should be.

The only way to describe this movie is that you have to see it to believe it. Nothing else will do it justice. So find it. See it. Love it.

SHORTS

GOD’S LITTLE GIRL (played with Venus Drowning)

A woman loses her year old baby and wonders how God could take such an innocent little being. Obviously, the old adage about only the good dying young is true. So she now has to find a way to be just a little bit bad.

Not a bad short, but maybe a bit too long. I actually don’t remember it too well, so that’s probably not such a great sign. I think I remember thinking that it was alright, though.

HEAD SHOT (played with Sachiko Hanai)

When an actor can’t even get a job on a snuff film, he has to figure that he just doesn’t have the talent to pull it off, right? Maybe not.

This is a pretty funny short that proves the theory that you have to be a pretty good actor to act so badly.