12 YEARS (2010)

Directed by: Daniel Nocke

A couple is breaking up at dinner. He’s moving on. She’s heartbroken because of 12 wasted years. And if you think 12 yeas is a long time for a human, imagine how long that is for a dog.

Pretty funny stuff and decent CGI animation. Nothing too groundbreaking, but the dogs look pretty realistic and the ending makes the whole thing.

THE ASTRONOMER’S SUN (2010)

Directed by: David Bunting

A sad short about an astronomer and his teddy bear. The astronomer is trying to replicate an experiment that turned his father into a comet. His teddy bear is just trying to help. The sense of fear and loss is great and the animation is very good. Definitely worth checking out.

ATOMIC HUBBUB (2009)

Directed by: Stephen Irwin

Atomic dread is hilarious! This one is very short and didn’t have a lot to do. Just some crazy drawings to some old atomic age warnings about nuclear bombs. Strangely, nudity abounds. Pretty funny.

CAGES (2009)

Directed by: Juan Jose Medina

Absolutely the creepiest short of the festival…and I haven’t even seen the live action shorts, but I’m pretty assured of my statement.

An old man carries his luggage on his back during a windstorm. The top box falls off the stack and out pops a child’s head with a spine and wings! ACK!!!

This was the most disturbing thing in the program and maybe the most disturbing thing of the festival so far. Very well made and pretty, but the creature was just crazy. See it.

FARD (2009)

Directed by: David Alapont/Luis Briceño

A man in a dystopian future gets a package with a flashlight. When he turns it on, it makes whatever its light shines on turn real. to the government, of course, that’s treason.

One of the best shorts in the program if only because of the concept of a flashlight showing the truth. Maybe it seems obvious, but it was well done.

GIANT (2010)

Directed by: Yann Benedi

A short one with no social agenda. Just a giant who catches balloons for a child. Then the kid’s parents get involved. Then the military. Then the military get uninvolved…very quickly and suddenly.

Funny and quick…just like I like ‘em.

PIXELS (2010)

Directed by: Patrick Jean

Atari is taking over! Pixels shoot out of a television and space invaders start shooting up New York, turning the whole city into a video game. (My favorite were the Tetris blocks falling on the building.) Pure awesomeness for a world that is slowly being re-taken over by old Atari games and 8-bit stuff like that.

RISE OF THE LIVING CORPSE (2010)

Directed by: Chris Walsh

The shortest short, apparently, in Fantastic Fest history. It was probably about 30 seconds long. It was a really cool looking zombie climbing out of his grave and his gravestone falling on him and killing him again. Not long enough to make much of an impression, but it looked really cool.

SEED (2009)

Directed by: Ben Richardson/Daniel Bird

This was another creepy one. A creepy bird head hatches with twigs growing out of its neck. On another mountain, a bird leg comes out of an apple looking very much the same as the head. They each build radio stations. Meanwhile, a sentient radio tries to pick up both stations at once, driving itself crazy.

It’s a very strange short, but I liked it. And the stop-motion was cool as hell. Not a clue what it was all about, but there it is.

TECLOPOLIS (2009)

Directed by: Javier Mrad

A beautiful beach is overtaken by a big city and technology. It’s all done with stop-motion and household objects. A strangely pretty film that kind of leaves a sad feeling with us as the buildings of computer keyboards go up and destroy the beach.

VOLTAGE (2008)

Directed by: Filippe Lyra/William Paiva

This was almost a Daft Punk video. A bunch of robots plug into an amp and each other making oonce-oonce-oonce music. Not bad, but I barely remember it. I remember it had some pretty good animation, though, and in the “thank you” section, they thanked Moog, Eno, Hancock and a bunch of other keyboard players. Cool

WISDOM TEETH (2010)

Directed by: Don Hertzfeldt

Don Hertzfedlt always excites me. This time he brought a short that was being made for a different, longer project that got scrapped. It involves a guy who just had his wisdom teeth taken out and his friend who wants to pull out his stitches. “Ok, but just one!” That stitch is the longest stitch ever.

Oh, yeah. The whole thing is in some kind of bastardization of German and Swedish.

Wisdom Teeth is going to be on Showtime on a compilation of shorts in the next month or two. See it with all haste.

YURI (2009)

Directed by: Cécile Brun/Katja Schiendorfer/Immanuel Wagner/Nils Hedinger

An astronaut is collecting specimens and he fills up his collection. Time to go home and see his kitty! But is home still there?

This one starts out with its simple claymation making it look light and happy and fun. It ends up being pretty desolate and a little depressing. I liked it.

X: THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES (1963)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Roger Corman
Written by: Robert Dillon/Ray Russell

Roger Corman is legend and, actually, one of the most important figures in film history. Sure, he didn’t invent any new processes or necessarily change the form. But he introduced a LOT of new talent to the field who are still major players today. He made films for virtually no money and made millions with them. And I believe that he is still the most successful independent producer of all time.

Fantastic Fest is finally doing a tribute to him and his films. The only one that I really had on my list was X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes. it’s one of the films that Corman is most proud of and one of his most enduring.

It stars Ray Milland (who was on the downtrend of his career in 1963) as a doctor who is trying to revolutionize eye sight. The way he figures it, we only see 10% of the spectrum. Why not all of it? He’s been developing a drug that will allow us to see more.

When he starts using it, he can suddenly see more…in fact, he can see more of women. But that’s about where the truly funny ends. As he sees more and more, he starts to realize that it’s a bit of a curse. He ends up at a traveling fair with Don Rickles as his barker. While he’s telling fortunes, Don is figuring out how to make money off of this guy’s gift.

Ray still wants to make money to fund his studies, but he’s being driven more and more mad by his sight.

It’s a very 60s movie with some pretty bad “special effects,” but that really doesn’t matter. Fortunately, Corman was able to get great actors and a great script to show us a little bit of human nature. That whole “with great power comes great responsibility” thing really shows up. Ray could use his powers for good, and he really does want to. But it seems that the only way he can do so is through using it for evil first.

Corman did a quick Q&A after the film and he’s still a pretty amazing guy. You wouldn’t think that he made all of these weird films 50 years ago. He’s like a grandpa now. Soft spoken, gracious and just over-whelmed that people are still interested in his films. I really need to see more of them. I could probably never see all of them because he directed so many in his days as a director (and produced even more), but I really do want to give it the ol’ college try.

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (2010)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Jorge Michel Grau
Written by: Jorge Michel Grau

In a country where the government and police are so corrupt that they will empty a gun into a dead body and steal from the houses of the people they are investigating, you would think that cannibalism would be the last thing they would be worried about.

Strangely, though, it seems to still be on their minds. Jorge Michel Grau went back to his old film school to make a film with the current students. (His school funds one film a year made by an alumnus as long as they use current students on the crew. They also let them do whatever they want in the film. Why can’t we do that here?)

When Dad dies, it’s sometimes hard to carry on they way you once did. But when the family is a bunch of cannibals, it’s REALLY hard. They now have to fend for themselves. The two brothers are always fighting over who should be in control, the sister isn’t allowed to do anything and the mom is totally unstable.

I liked this movie a lot more than I thought I would. It’s a pretty realistic vision of what it would be like for cannibals in today’s world. (Well, ok. Today’s Mexico, which is kind of like yesterday’s world.) They aren’t just cannibals. They’re part of some tribe or something where they have to follow a ritual every so often. The ritual is never explained. It’s a cannibalistic McGuffin and that’s absolutely fine. They don’t need to explain it. We don’t care.

What we do care about is the interplay between the family members. They are all individual characters who, while not exactly being protagonists, are certainly interesting and make us care one way or the other.

Being a Mexican film, this is a bit political. Not only do we see police stealing things among other illegal activities, but I get the feeling that cannibalism was being used as a metaphor for Mexico in general. Everyone is eating everyone else, no matter their status. The country is falling apart and no one is really there to stop it.

We Are What We Are is one of the better cannibal films I’ve seen in a while. Check it out if you get a chance.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (2010)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Steven R Monroe
Written by: Stuart Morse
Based on 1978 screenplay by: Meir Zarchi

I love exploitation films. I will watch them all day long. Whether it’s sexploitation, blaxploitation, rednecksploitation…if it has “sploitation” in it, I’ll watch it.

One genre that I’ve never really been into is rapesploitation. It’s not something that I enjoy watching. I’ll watch it because it’s genre and I feel like there are some titles that I need to see. Last House On The Left (as far as I know, the first real rapesploitation film) is the best, but the one that seems to stand above them all is 1978′s I Spit On Your Grave, aka Day Of The Woman. Personally, I don’t think it’s a very good film, but that’s apparently just me. Sure, it’s harsh and violent, but “hard to watch” isn’t something that makes a film good. There’s also a few little things I like to call “acting” and “writing.”

When I heard that they were remaking the film, I wondered first off, “What the fuck?! Why?!” Then I thought, “Well, it could be interesting. Let’s see how far a modern film will go with this premise. Probably not very far, but we’ll see.”

So, I saw.

Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler) is a writer just looking for a little peace and quiet. She goes to a secluded cabin in the bayous of Louisiana (?!) and figures on writing her next novel there. What she doesn’t figure on is getting raped by five men, including the sheriff. (Although, if you’re in Louisiana and a pretty, young woman with any kind of intellectual pursuits, you should be ready for at least a little harassment, unfortunately.)

The film is pretty faithful to a point…which is really fucking surprising. The rape scene is INCREDIBLY hard to watch. Think Irreversible, but with more blood. It goes on forever and then starts again. They also keep the mentally handicapped character who rapes her against his will (here played by Chad Lindberg), which is a bit surprising, too.

Then things get better. As soon as the bloody rampage of revenge begins, we get to see the guys get exactly what they deserve, which is what we’re really here for.

Now, let me say something about the original really quickly. I didn’t really remember this, but it’s probably because I’ve never seen the film as a woman. I just didn’t think about it, but in the back of my mind I probably thought it was weird, too, just like Lisa Hansen (producer of the remake) always did. In the original, she seduces each guy into a sense of safety, has sex with them and then kills them. That makes no fucking sense at all. This woman was brutally raped by these men and now she’s going to have sex with them? The fuck?!

Here she uses her sexuality exactly once: She wears a short skirt to get the main rapist out to her car. Then she beans him on the head with a tire iron. There is no real sex going on after the rape. She is essentially dead inside and puts them through the ringer before she kills them in nasty, horrible ways. It essentially becomes a torture porn film.

All of this makes it a better film than the original. Does it make it more watchable? Um…VERY hard to say. It’s still the same film, so it’s incredibly hard to watch. But it’s well shot, well directed, well acted and well written. All things that the original was not. So it is actually a good film. It’s just very hard to recommend because of the brutality. I will recommend it to people who are into graphic horror films, absolutely. But I will always put in the caveat of, “It has a 25 minute rape scene that will make you so uncomfortable that you will want to leave. If it doesn’t make you that uncomfortable, I’m not really sure that I want to know you.”

Consider that a warning. Don’t see this film unless you are absolutely ready for it. And also know that you’re not ready for it.

By the way, Anchor Bay is releasing this film in theatres unrated. Good for them. The producers actually made an R-rated version, but it made no sense, so they put everything back in and are no hoping for the best as far as theatres wanting to show it. The closest it’s showing to Austin during it’s initial limited run is Dallas. Now, that’s crazy. I can’t believe the Alamo isn’t picking it up yet. But I’m sure they will.

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Written by: Rhett Reese/Paul Wernick

Why do I love zombies? Because they are us.

But I’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s see some reviews.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET–If Michael Bay makes Freddy sympathetic, I’m gonna have to kill someone. “What do you think I did?! I didn’t do anything!!” Fuck that! Freddy Krueger is a child killer and deserved to die. That’s why it’s so creepy that he came back!

I can only hope that he’s lying, because everything else about the trailer looks alright.

Fuck Michael Bay.

BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN–Not a horror movie per se, but it’s about the horrible things that men do to women…I guess. John Krasinksi (who also wrote and directed the movie) helps a woman interview men about their indiscretion. Looks like it could be funny. And it has Will Arnett in it, so I might at least check it out on video.

Ok, on with the zombie killin’.

Zombies have come a LONG way since 1968 when they were basically invented by George Romero. They were once the beasts of underground/low-budget films like Romero’s. A few Hollywood producers tried in the 80s to bring them out of the horror closet and almost succeeded with Return Of The Living Dead, but those were still independent films that no one in Peoria would ever go see.

Then a little thing called 28 Days Later happened. Not specifically zombies, but damn close enough. Then Dawn Of The Dead happened. No, not Romero’s brilliant, if long, story of zombies in a mall. I’m talking about the nearly brilliant remake.

Then something even better happened. Three British guys decided to make not a parody of zombie films, but a loving tribute in the vein of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. Shaun Of The Dead manages to be hilarious, gross and frightening all at the same time.

So now Hollywood is REALLY taking notice. If these guys can do it, so can we!

What Columbia and Relativity have done, with the help of writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and director Ruben Fleischer (all of whom got their starts in reality tv), is make a zombie movie for people who couldn’t handle an actual zombie movie.

Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg playing a dumbed down version of the same character he played in Adventureland) is a college kid just trying to play World Of Warcraft when the zombie apocalypse happens. He stays alive by keeping up with his own rules of survival, which make constant and increasingly annoying appearances throughout the movie.

Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) is a good ol’ boy who has made an art out of killing zombies. He is truly the best character in the film. Sure, he’s a bit of a caricature, but he’s such a good one that it doesn’t matter. He’s awesome.

Wichita (Emma Stone from Superbad) is the bad girl that Columbus falls for. Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) is her little sister.

The four of them get together for a cross-country trip to a place where “zombie shooting gallery” takes on a whole new meaning.

The first 45 minutes of Zombieland are a little bit excruciating. There are a few good laughs, to be sure, but it’s drawn out and there are WAY too many very obvious jokes. Somewhere around the half-way point, though, things start to pick up and the movie becomes almost clever.

Almost.

Here’s the big problem: it’s a Hollywood movie. There are certain things that you can do in indie flicks that MUST be done in a zombie movie for it to work. Hollywood won’t touch those things.

For all of those who came out of the screening at Fantastic Fest saying that it was better than Shaun Of The Dead, I say you’re a shill or you’ve never actually seen Shaun, but that movie was absolutely brilliant. Zombieland, on the other hand, is funny in fits and starts. It’s funny enough to see (especially once they hit the Hollywood Hills), but it’s not funny enough to say it’s great.

I really wish that I could tell you how my viewing partner and I re-wrote the movie, but it would give too much away. Let’s just say that it was WAY better…and it was actually a zombie movie. The way it’s filmed, though, it’s not a real zombie movie. It’s someone’s idea of what a zombie comedy should be…with a big budget and great make-up effects. (The zombies and gore did look great. And the opening credits are pretty awesome.)

And we’re all the better for it.

It’s that time of year again, kids. Time for what is fast becoming my favorite film festival. It’s so fuckin’ low key and awesome. Not to mention that it features some of my favorite genres.

But enough about the festival. This was the first night and I saw some doozies.

DIARY OF THE DEAD (2007)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: George A Romero
Written by: George A Romero

First up was George Romero’s new Dead movie, Diary Of The Dead. But it doesn’t take place in the continuity of the first four. This is a complete restart. Not that it retells the events of Night, but it starts at the beginning.

Much like The Blair Witch Project, the story is of some film students who set out to make a mummy movie. What they didn’t realize is that a zombie movie would actually take place right before their eyes. And the nation was fall as a result.

There are no stars this time out. Romero had some problems on the Land Of The Dead shoot (although he said that Columbia was actually great to work with), so he decided to go totally indie on this one. He shot it quickly, like he used to. And it has a much more convincing commentary on modern life than Land did.

Jason (Joshua Close) wants to record everything for posterity. He realizes that the news is bullshit (they re-edited the initial zombie attack so that it didn’t look as bad as it actually was), so he wants to post the “real story.” In fact, he wants to do this so much that he often keeps shooting even when his friends (or his girlfriend) are in trouble. He’s very popular with them by the end.

Now, if you’ll all remember, I actually liked Land Of The Dead. It wasn’t a great movie and was the weakest of the Dead movies, but I still liked it.

Diary Of the Dead brings Romero back among the living. I think this movie will do for fans what they really wanted Land to do. It may not be Dawn, but it’s certainly better than Day or Land.

One complaint: the Texas girl is WAY too stereotyped. “Don’t mess with Texas!” Shut up! She was hot and feisty, but, ultimately, annoying.

If you’re a fan, the man is back. Check it out.

And listen for some famous folk doing audio cameos. Stephen King’s is the funniest.

THE LAST WINTER (2006)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Larry Fessenden
Written by: Larry Fessenden

The Last Winter is an ecological horror movie. Matt Dentler (one of the directors of the festival) said that it was kind of like if An Inconvenient Truth had been written by Stephen King. I can kind of see that, but I think Stephen would have come up with a better ending.

Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman) is the leader of a team in northern Alaska trying to get equipment to an oil drill site. Unfortunately for them, the Earth seems to be working against them in pretty strange ways. They start to go a little bit crazy one at a time. Even the ecologists on the team (James LeGros and Jamie Harrold) are falling victim.

Director Larry Fessenden (Habit and Windigo) sure knows how to build tension. I was feeling just about as claustrophobic as the people stuck at the camp. And the Arctic Circle is a great place to stage a horror movie, especially one that deals with paranoia and slow insanity. (John Carpenter knows all about that.)

Fessenden’s film plays out a little bit like Session 9 taking place on The Thing’s set. The tension builds and the paranoia grows until it finally explodes all over the screen.

Unfortunately, he chooses to manifest the insanity in a rather silly looking ghostly creature. It was ok while they were just streams of light in the snow. It looked kind of cool, actually. And it could have been the peoples’ imaginations. But when we actually see the creatures, it’s just kind of lame.

Overall, though, it’s not a bad movie. I actually liked it quite a bit up until the moose monsters were revealed.

And I kind of liked the 2001-like monolith in the middle of the snow. That was pretty awesome.

AACHI AND SSIPAK (2006)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Jo Beom-jin
Written by: Jo Beom-jin/Yeon-won Jeong

Aachi And Ssipak had no such problem, though. This Korean animated film was crazy in ways that even the Japanese aren’t really sure what to do with.

Um…story. Right.

The world has run out of energy, so scientists have come up with a way to create energy from human feces. The more you poop, the more reward you get. That reward is a “juicybar,” an addictive popsicle type thing. The side-effect of the juicybars, though, is that people are starting to mutate into an endless supply of adorable little blue guys who are incredibly stupid. So stupid, in fact, that they don’t always seem to realize that they are dying in really horrible ways.

The leader of these mutants (called the Diaper Gang because they wear diapers on their heads) is a very evil dude who will stop at nothing to get more and more juicybars. He kidnaps a girl that he thinks can poo ten times a day.

It’s up to a couple of hoodlums, Aachi and Ssipak, to save her…and the world. But are they too stupid to do it? Or are they just stupid enough to accidentally do it?

This is one of the strangest animated movies I’ve seen in a long time. The animation is, at times, almost Yellow Submarine-ish (especially with all the blue dudes) and always very cool. The action is almost non-stop and the references show up everywhere. (Misery, Aliens, Temple Of Doom, Paris Hilton…you name it, it’s there.)

It’s certainly not the best movie (the comedy kind of let up occasionally), but it’s a lot of fun…if you have the stomach for it. It’s pretty offensive in just about every way. But there’s really nothing wrong with that. In fact, it really kind of endeared it to me. I can’t say that I loved it, but I had a LOT of fun with it. Definitely worth seeing if you like movies about diaper wearing feces stealers who are addicted to popsicles.

And who doesn’t?

A couple of shorts showed up tonight, too.

SUITYMAN (2007)

Directed by: Jon Spira
Written by: Jon Spira

Suityman (played with The Last Winter) was about a guy (in a suit, of course) who woke up planted in a field. He had no idea who he was or why he was planted there. When a farmer showed up, he was no closer to finding out.

The farmer told him that he was take him to where the other Suitymen hung out…the train station. But where is it? And can Suityman trust Farmer?

It was a pretty interesting little short that ends pretty ambiguously, but I think that’s the point. You never know where you’re going or who you can trust.

TYGER (2006)

Directed by: Guilherme Marcondes
Written by: Guilherme Marcondes/Andrezza Valentin
Based on poem by: William Blake

Tyger (played with Aachi And Ssipak) is based on William Blake’s poem of the same name. A tiger roams around a city, devolving the people and buildings into much more natural things than they originally were.

This was a very inventive short with some really cool ideas in it. The people were all animated, but the tiger was a puppet that was controlled by guys dressed in black body suits. You can plainly see them, but the tiger is much more interesting.

Very cool. Look for it. I’m hoping that I can see it again online somehow.

And, thank Fulci, I was right.

The movie starts off with one of those old school ‘Coming Attractions’ strips with the rainbow letters coming together in the middle of the screen. Anybody who ever went to a sleazy theatre back in the day knows exactly what I’m talking about. Then we move into a trailer for a movie called Machete. If Robert decides to make this movie (which I’ve heard that he might), it may be the first R-rated movie made about a character from a kid’s movie franchise. (Machete is Danny Trejo’s character from the Spy Kids movies.)

And, honestly, this is the best trailer of the bunch. It’s pretty fuckin’ amazing. and I’m NOT just saying that because I recognized every single landmark that they shot in front of, but it’s actually a great trailer. I can’t wait to see Cheech Marin as a priest who kills people with great vengeance. Nothin’ better than that.

Then we move directly into Robert’s Planet Terror. Cherry (Rose McGowan in her best role ever) is a go-go dancer with an apparently sad past. She can’t get through an entire dance without crying. When she goes to JT’s (Jeff Fahey who is looking pretty rough these days) bbq place, we find out a little bit of the reason that she cries so much.

She meets up with the guy she left, Wray (Freddie Rodriguez). This ain’t no meet-cute. They’re pretty pissed off at each other. But things really go to shit when Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis) and his men let lose a biochemical agent that starts infecting people in the sleepy little town. Then again, when a town is full of zombies, it’s not really sleepy anymore, is it?

Meanwhile, Dr. Dakota Bloch (Marley Shelton) is trying her best to get away from her insane husband, Dr. William Bloch (Josh Brolin). Her once and future lesbian lover, Tammy (Fergie and her lady lumps), is on her way to rescue her and her son. Zombies don’t help much.

But things don’t REALLY get started until Wray gives Cherry her new leg.

Robert really knows what he’s doing here. There’s nothing to take you out of the mood of the grindhouse. The music, the story, the gore, the occasional missing reel. (Dammit! Did it have to be right there?!) It’s really hard to say that a movie like this is good, but GODDAM, it’s awesome! It was so much fun that I started to not even notice all of the artificial flaws in the film. It’s just a good, old-fashioned gore film built off of a tiny bit of political commentary.

And, yes that’s b-movie start Michael Biehn as the sheriff and special effects guru Tom Savini as his deputy. No, he didn’t do the effects here. That would be Greg Nicotero and his KNB EFX Group. They have pretty much surpassed anything that Tom can do at this point. He’s too busy with his school in New England to do much these days…unless, of course, Robert asks him to.

Next up are three more trailers. Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is the one that everybody was talking about at South By Southwest this year. It’s pretty awful and over the top, but it’s a lot of fun. And nowhere near as edited as I thought it was going to be.

Edgar Wright’s Don’t is pretty much exactly what a trailer for this kind of movie should be: gory, repetitive and pretty stupid. Which, of course, makes it perfect. Not so sure I would go see the movie (unless Edgar actually directed it…I would see anything he did at this point) but the trailer was great.

Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women Of The SS is the most fully realized of the trailers, but I think it calls a little too much attention to the stars. Sure, there are boobs and gore all over the place, but did we need the announcer to point out the star cameo at the end? No. Not at all. He should have just been a face that people recognize. These movies rarely ever had anyone notable in them, much less someone of this stature. Fun, nonetheless. I would see this movie, even if it does have Udo Kier in it.

Now for the second of the double feature: Tarantino’s Death Proof.

Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) is a bastard. He goes to the Texas Chili Parlor, picks up girls and then kills them with his car. What kind of an asshole does that to someone who looks like Rose McGowan? Or wants to do it to someone who looks like Sydney Tamiia Poitier? Luckily there are women like Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), Kim (Tracie Thoms from the ill-fated “Wonderfalls”) and Zoe (stunt woman Zoe Ball) to keep guys like this in check. (Mary Elizabeth Winstead from Sky High was in here, also…in a cheerleader uniform. Wow. I think I love her.)

My only complaint about Quentin’s movie is that there is actually too much exposition. I didn’t need to know nearly as much about the characters as he wanted me to know. They spend a LOT of time talking about the guys they’re not fucking and the guy who is really too much of an asshole to call them even when they ARE fucking them. It leaves precious little time for the action that we all came to see. I can’t believe that I’m faulting a movie because it had too much character development, but this kind of movie really doesn’t need this much.

Oh, and there’s WAY too many shots of feet. We get it, Quent. You LOVE some fuckin’ feet. The rest of us are over it, though. This movie seems to be about feet for the first, like, half hour. It’s like a Russ Meyer movie with feet instead of breasts. And, while that’s not entirely a bad thing, I’m kinda over Quentin’s fetish. (Oh, and don’t ride in a car with your foot hanging out the window. Not a good idea at all.)

It was good to see Kurt be a bad-ass again. There’s nothing quite like Snake Pliskin telling a girl that he’s going to kill her and there’s really nothing she can do about it. It does the soul good. And he seemed to have a LOT of fun with it, too.

I liked Death Proof a lot, but it was a bit slow. And it really seemed like Quentin just kind of ran out of steam towards the end. I know that he wasn’t done when SXSW rolled around, so I really think he ran out of time. There’s a point where the film is no longer distressed and it starts to look like a normal modern movie. I think that’s where he said, “Fuck it. We need to get this in the can.” and just put it out. Which is kind of too bad because it kind of broke the mood of the whole experiment.

Overall, though, Grindhouse was an amazing experience. My only wish is that I had seen it at the Alamo downtown instead of a big, giant, piece of shit, 30 screen “theater” where you need a fucking compass to find your screen. Fuck these big-ass conglomerates and their noisy-ass buildings with so many kids in them that you can’t figure out who is seeing what movie once they get dropped off by their uncaring parents. I swear that if I see or hear one more kid in a movie like this, I’m going to slap a bitch. There is NOT reason for a kid to be in this theatre while this movie is playing.

AND I don’t know if it’s just because I come from a town where people know how to watch movies (for the most part, anyway), but TURN OFF THE FUCKING CELL PHONES WHEN THE MOVIE STARTS!!!! I was sitting in the front row of the main section of seating and a guy came into the movie (late, of course–he walked in as Death Proof was starting) talking on his goddam cell phone! He was lowering his voice a little bit, but not much. And then he proceeded to walk across the theatre while talking on the phone. I heard him the whole fucking way. And another guy had his fucking Nextel on the whole time! He would go to the hallway at least when it beeped, but THAT’S STILL INSIDE THE FUCKING THEATRE!!! GO OUTSIDE. TELL THE PERSON ON THE OTHER END TO FUCK OFF. THEN TURN IT OFF! IT’S THAT FUCKING EASY!!!

How do people in Houston stand this? I don’t understand. Walk in a movie theatre (or a stage-type theatre). Lights go down. Turn off ALL electronic devices. ALL OF THEM!!! If you’re a doctor, I kind of understand. But turn it on fucking vibrate, so you don’t disturb the entire audience. Unless, of course, you want everyone to know that you’re a doctor. In that case, leave the fucking theatre. Congratulations. You’re a douchebag.

Um…ok. That’s enough of a rampage. I like this movie A LOT. If you love horror movies as much as I do, see it. If you love exploitation as much as I do, see it. If you love boobies as much as I do, see it.

And, by the way, I have a new respect for Rose after seeing an interview with her. I always thought she was just a ditzy dumbass who got famous for fucking all the right/wrong people. She was actually very funny and smart in the interview. I can see why she’s attractive again.

Now, let’s just hope that Robert can keep making awesome, fun movies without his ex-wife. Sigh.

Not being good at anything seems to be a theme at this year’s festival. After The King Of Kong yesterday, now I see Skills Like This.

Max (Spencer Berger) writes some of the worst plays ever. We’re talking Vogon style, here. His latest, The Onion Dance, actually put his grandfather into a coma. After that, he decides to call it quits.

This is when things start to go his way. He finds out that he actually has a talent for something: robbery. He even meets the girl of his dreams at his first bank robbery. Lucy (Kerry Knuppe) is a very down to Earth, practical bank teller who helps keep everyone in line during the robbery. He meets her later in a bar and the two hit it off more than they probably should.

Max’s friends are just as strange as that pairing. Dave (Gabriel Tigerman) has a good job, but is totally uptight. His girlfriend, Lauren (Jennifer Batter) wants to fuck Max now that he’s robbing people. And Tommy (Brian D. Phelan)…well, Tommy’s just kind of a freak. He’s a typical jock type who is obsessed with his girly looking bike and figures that everything should be easy, including evading the cops after a bank robbery.

While not a great film by any means, Skills Like This does manage to keep the laughs coming for all of its 90 minute run time, something that a lot of the movies at the festival this year have had a problem doing. The characters are great and there are some awesome lines. Check it out if it manages to make it to a theatre/video store near you. It’s worth a few laughs.

EAGLE VS. SHARK

A friend of mine loved this movie. She saw it earlier in the festival and fell in love with the characters and said that it was MUCH better than she ever thought it would be.

The next time I see her, she’s dead to me.

Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) and Lily (Loren Horsley) are losers. Lily has lost her job at the local burger barn and Jarrod thinks that he’s amazing. He also has no social skills whatsoever. When the two meet, lint flies.

It really seems like Taika Cohen saw Napoleon Dynamite one too many times and figured that we were all ready for a New Zealand version of it. He also figured that we needed a version without any likable characters. Lily, who I guess is supposed to be the Napoleon character, is pathetic because of her complete devotion to Jarrod. And Jarrod is just an asshole. He’s such a dick that when he gets hurt towards the end, you’re kind of glad. I hated the guy and wanted him to get off the screen as soon as possible.

There were a few funny lines (“You’re a bitch and I hope you die of diabetes!”), but for the most part the movie was pretty well devoid of laughter. Not much in the way of good here.

GRIMM LOVE

A few years ago, a German man put an ad online for another man who would allow him to eat him. This is his story.

It’s also the story of Katie (Keri Russell), a girl who is writing a paper about the psychological ramifications of such a deal. Why did Oliver Hartwin (Thomas Kretschmann) want to eat another human being? And why did Simon Grombeck (Thomas Huber) allow him to do it? Eventually, Katie becomes completely obsessed with these mens’ stories and what led them to their horrific act. She starts to think that maybe, just maybe, she could be like either of them.

This is a very good film that shows us the inner thinking of a cannibal. The cuts between Katie’s life and the Oliver/Simon story show us just how closely related the two are. Maybe Katie ISN’T too far from them. Maybe we aren’t, either.

I loved how this film was shot. The scenes that take place in Oliver’s childhood are shot on old film stock and are very choppy. (All of this could have been done digitally, too.) It’s beautiful and creepy at the same time. Then the later story with the actual cannibalism manages to keep the gore to a minimum. Director Martin Weisz knows just how much we can take and when to string us along.

Check out this twisted fairy tale, but only if you have a strong stomach. The gore is minimal, but it’s still really intense. And there’s no comic relief to take you out of the story.

There is a more underground version of this story called Cannibal. I haven’t seen it, but from what I hear it’s a lot more gory and sensationalistic. This is supposed to be the better film. And it is very good.

A year or so ago, three film students took their gear to Cherry Valley, NY to investigate a house that they heard was haunted. Six months later, their footage was found.

Ok. Maybe not. These kids are still alive and well, but MAN did they try to remake Blair Witch.

Patrick Steward and his crew heard the claims of one of their professors at NYU that the house he lived in in Cherry Valley was haunted. They showed up, set up shop, stayed the night and….got nothing. No images. No bumps in the night. Not a sausage.

So they started asking around. No one had heard anything about this house. But THEIR houses were haunted. All of them. Every house in town seemed to have a ghost in it. They dug deeper and found out that, in the early 1800′s, the entire town was slaughtered by Indians. Could this be the source of the hauntings?

Well, we never really find out. The guys set up shop in a few different buildings around town, hang out on a haunted trail and ask a lot of people. But no real information is given to us about anything. It seems like most of the people they ask are college kids who are more for getting high than talking about slaughters. They ask a few older locals, but they have just about as much information.

Finally, on their third visit, they talk to the town historian. She has more information than anyone, but they don’t put a lot of her footage in. So we get about half the story. Then, when they “investigate” a house, they go there, set up, sit, hear something and run to another room where the noise DIDN’T come from. No night vision. No shots of where the noise was supposed to be coming from. Just shots of their scared faces (occasionally), shots of darkness and noises that could have been made in post. Awesome.

And it doesn’t help that most of the footage was reused for well over half the movie. I got sick of seeing the same paranormal expert say the same line over and over again.

There’s an awesome story here somewhere, but these guys didn’t find it. And, if they did, they certainly didn’t share it with us. But they did have some cool animatics that were a little bit creepy. Too bad they didn’t seem to do anything for the documentary.

THE LATHER EFFECT

Do you ever have the feeling that your whole life has already passed you by? That the best days are over and the rest is just the downhill slide?

That’s what Valinda (Connie Britton) felt, too. So she threw a kegger like she did back in high school. It was a complete blow out and everybody got wasted in so many different ways dressed just like they did in the 80s. The next morning it was time to face the consequences.

Of course, those consequences include cleaning up, fighting hangovers, talking about possible infidelities and, of course, more partying. It’s a much smaller crew today, but it’s still a party.

I don’t think we need a sequel to The Breakfast Club anymore. Sarah Kelly (Full Tilt Boogie) has successfully caught us up with characters that are almost as well drawn as those characters were. In fact, they may be MORE well drawn because they’re not quite as stereotyped. (Come on. I LOVE The Breakfast Club as much as the next guy, but who actually fit into those types that easily? I didn’t know anyone like any of those characters. There were people who could have been wedged in there and it was fine for a movie, but they weren’t all that realistic.)

The acting was great across the board. Britton, William Mapother, Ione Skye, Tate Donovan, Peter Facinelli, Eric Stoltz, David Herman (fuckin’ Michael Bolton from Office Space!!), Sarah Clarke and Caitlin Keats were all awesome and it’s hard to imagine anyone else taking their roles. (It’s pretty awesome that Kelly was able to get all of those 80s near-icons, too. And William is SO much better than his better known cousin…watch for all the references to him, too.)

I loved this movie, actually. It was a lot of fun and hit just the right chords of nostalgia and looking to the future. And it has a great 80s soundtrack, so that’s always good.

Go see it when it comes out. Support it. Let Sarah Kelly make something else.

By the way, this was inspired by something that Sarah actually did. It sounds awesome. Maybe when I get back from my trip…

THE KING OF KONG

When I first saw this title, I thought, “Awesome! A documentary about Marion C. Cooper! I can’t wait!!” Then I found out that it was about video games. Meh. Who cares? Not so into them, so why do I want to hang out for 90 minutes with people who live, eat and breath them?

Then a buddy of mine said that it was the best movie he had seen in a long time and that I had to see it.

Ok. Fine. Whatever. I’ll see the damn thing.

I don’t know about best movie ever, but it was pretty damn good.

It’s the story of Steve Wiebe, a shy guy who shut himself in his garage with a Donkey Kong machine so that he could break the world record score, held by classic video game guru, Billy Mitchell. Steve is the ultimate nice guy. He holds no ill-will towards anyone and he might even be a bit autistic. He’s amazingly good at finding patterns and figuring out how to get around wild fireballs even if he doesn’t have a hammer.

(I didn’t know this, but Donkey Kong is considered the hardest video game ever created. It has something like 60 different screens, each one harder than the ones before it. And only a couple of people have made it to the “kill screen” in public.)

Billy Mitchell is just really good at video games. Like, all of ‘em. He holds about ten world records on different machines and doesn’t want to let any of them go. He got most of them in 1982 and they have held since then. When he finds out about Steve he is almost supportive…almost. (He’s one of the few to make it to the kill screen in public…of course.)

We don’t really find out that Billy is the “bad guy” for about half an hour. Up until then, he’s just the flashy guy with all the records who helps out Twin Galaxies, the top top video game referee/record steward company in the world. (They’re so well known that Guinness has decided that they are the ones to keep track of their video game section.)

It’s a great doc about the struggles of the common man against an empire. (And, yes, the filmmakers made a Star Wars reference in their Q&A. There’s going to be a scripted version of the story and Steve wants Mark Hammill to play him. The studio wants Johnny Depp to play Billy.) It’s also about trying to be good at something for once in your life. Steve was shut out of everything he ever tried, and now it’s his turn to be good at something. And, even if he doesn’t get the record (which I won’t tell you if he does or doesn’t), he’s succeeded.

Good for you, Steve.

FIDO

I saw the preview for this a month or so ago and knew that I had to see it. Not necessarily because it looked amazing, but because it had Billy Connolly playing a zombie. Of course, I wouldn’t get to hear him say, “Fooking brilliant!!” but I’ll survive.)

It’s about a world where zombies are controlled by a company called Zomcom. They put collars on them that keep their hunger for human flesh under control and allow them to be good servants for us humans.

Oh yeah, and it takes place in the early 60s, so everything is prim, proper and poodle skirts.

When little Timmy (K’Sun Ray) and his family (Dylan Baker and Carrie-Anne Moss) get their new zombie (Connolly), they’re a little bit afraid of him at first. But Timmy and his mom warm up to him pretty quickly. His dad, though, is not so easily converted. He’s more excited that a Zomcom agent (Henry Czerny) has moved in next door. All the better to keep the neighborhood safe, right?

I guess that depends on your definition of the word “safe.”

Fido is not your typical zombie movie. It has more heart than a lot of them. (Pun sort of intended.) We’re supposed to care about Fido and his family and, for the most part, we do. It’s not a perfect movie by any means and it’s not nearly as laugh out loud funny as I had hoped. But it’s a sweet little fun movie that deserves an audience.

And director Andrew Currie is trying to make sure that it gets one. They’re going for a PG-13 rating on this one.

Besides all of the acting being just about pitch perfect (everyone’s a bit stilted just like a good 60s sitcom family should be), but it’s a beautifully shot movie. It’s extremely bright and colorful and the darker scenes are awesome.

Before you run off and take the family to this, keep in mind that it is a zombie movie. There is violence and gore, just not as much as most zombie flicks. And did I mention that Tim Blake Nelson has a zombie girlfriend? Yeah. There’s a really sick sense of humor working on this one. And I love it.

What happens when one girl has the entire male population of a high school wrapped around her virginic finger? Apparently, horrible, chaotic murder.

Mandy (Amber Heard) is just such a girl. She has a strange power over every guy in her school. So much so that a guy jumped off of a roof for her at the suggestion of her best friend, Emmet (Michael Welch). After disowning Emmet, she starts to give a little bit more attention to everyone else. She gets invited to Red’s (Aaron Himelstein) ranch for a weekend with some friends. Three guys, three girls and lots of libido. Only Mandy is uninterested in sex.

Until, of course, she meets the ranch hand, Garth (Anson Mount). She falls in lust at first sight with Garth, but her awkward flirting has no effect on him. Not enough to make him rob the cradle, anyway.

Then the kids start dying. And we have a slasher flick that works pretty well. Actually, the whole movie works pretty well. The high school relationships are dead on and the horror aspects are close enough to be completely effective. Hell, the movie was even a metaphor for unrequited teen love! So that made it even MORE realistic.

Great horror flick that will probably get ignored when it comes out later this year. Check it out.

AMERICAN ZOMBIE

A few years ago, Grace Lee decided to look for everyone in the world with the same name as her. I haven’t seen that documentary, but I’ve heard that it’s very good.

Now she’s training her eye on the zombies who are living among us. They’re shit on. They’re ignored. They’re dead. They can be highly functioning and important members of our community. But are they dangerous?

Of course, this is a mockumentary. It’s very funny and well made and well worth seeking out. It’s a bit overlong, but it comes back for the last 15 minutes or so.

Here’s something I just found out: Ed Helms from “The Daily Show” did a short mockumentary called Zombie-American that was basically the same thing. That kind of worries me, but this one is very good. Hopefully they’re different enough that no one calls them on it and sues them or something stupid like that.

This is the first of a LOT of zombie movies this year. (Mulberry Street is a Near-Zombie movie. I count it. Others don’t.) What’s with all the zombie flick at the festival this year? It’s like the South By Of The Dead. I love it!!

UNDEAD OR ALIVE: A ZOMBEDY

One of my friends is on the committee who helps choose films and he loved this one. He is one of the people who got it in the festival and he introduced it and, despite the fact that it has Chris Kattan in it, I took his word for it.

I don’t completely hate him for it, but I did hit him in the arm afterwards. Not so happy.

Elmer (James Denton) and Luke (Kattan) are thrown together when they break out of the small jail and get their money back from the uber-corrupt sheriff of the town that they’re stuck in. But Geronimo’s Curse is about to take the town over. As the boys ride out of town, they meet up with Sue (Navi Rawat from Feast and “Numb3rs”), Geronimo’s neice. She remembers a little bit about the curse. She tends to remember things just as they become not so useful.

The movie has its moments, but not enough of them to maintain even its 89 minutes. And Chris Kattan is still annoying. Overall, even a mix of Western and comic-horror didn’t make me love this movie like I thought I would.

Oh well. You can’t win ‘em all.

Good start to the festival, though. Let’s get right to it.

THE LOOKOUT

Chris Pratt (Joseph Gorden Levitt) was once a big hockey star at his Kansas high school. Then he had caused a horrible car accident that killed two friends and gave him head injury severe enough to do permanent damage. He has trouble remembering things that he needs to do (like use soap in the shower) and sequencing events in the past.

So he works in a local bank as a night janitor hoping to one day become a teller despite his mental handicap. He lives with Lewis (Jeff Daniels) a blind man who was put with him by the clinic that he goes to every week. He is in lust with his counselor (who wouldn’t be? She’s played by Carla Gugino) and lives with constant guilt over the accident.

Then he meets Cork (Aaron Berg). He graduated a couple of years before Chris and now wants to help him have a “normal life.” That normal life includes Luvlee (Isla Fisher) and a bank robbery.

A lot of people were saying that this movie reminded them of Memento. I don’t think it has too many similarities except for the memory thing. And even that wasn’t very close because it was a completely different ailment. But it was a pretty twisty story of someone overcoming a mental ailment in order to solve/undo a crime. And I really liked it.

Joseph, between this, Mysterious Skin and the near-brilliant Brick, is quickly becoming a big star in the indie circuit. He’s a very good actor who is getting some awesome roles lately. Who knew that the kid from “3rd Rock From The Sun” would end up being an indie favorite?

This is screenwriter Scott Frank’s (Out Of Sight, Get Shorty, Minority Report) directorial debut and he did a pretty damn good job. The script, of course, is very good. I can’t wait to see what he’s doing next. Hopefully, he decides to keep directing. I guess we’ll see.

MULBERRY STREET

Rats are taking over Manhattan and there doesn’t seem to be anything that anyone can do about it. It’s so bad that when the rats attack a human, that person starts to become a zombie-like rat-person.

As much fun as that sounds like it should be, this movie isn’t meant to be a fun romp in any kind of Peter Jackson-esque way. In fact, it’s a pretty serious affair, which is a little bit surprising. And, since the premise is so ridiculous, it’s hard to take its seriousness seriously. Director/co-writer Jim Mickle and co-writer Nick Damici even try to wedge a little bit of political commentary into the last 10 minutes or so.

It seems like they’re trying to go for some kind of Night Of The Living Dead gravitas, but they don’t quite make it. The acting pretty much across the board is nearly adequate and the writing is slightly less so. I don’t expect a whole lot from horror movies, serious or not. But I do expect to not be bored. And Mulberry Street didn’t meet that expectation overall. There were only a few spots that were exciting…not nearly enough to recommend the movie to even the most die-hard horror fan.

Just for fun, I looked up Mickle on IMDb. The only other film on the site for him is a short called The Underdogs. It’s about a small town that dogs take over. Hmmm. Running theme? Weird.

I don’t know. I had fun at the festival, but it seems to be kind of coming apart at the seams. After 13 years, you would think that there would be some sort of organization going on. Maybe they can get it together soon. We’ll see.

And I really wish that they would stop being such big rivals of SXSW. There’s room in this town for both of them. It helps that they’re at completely different times of year and focus on different aspects of film.

But, before we close this festival out, they left me with one really awesome, rawkin’ movie:

TENACIOUS D IN “THE PICK OF DESTINY”

After seeing previews for this one, I was a little worried. They just looked lame. I think I laughed once during the preview I saw and it wasn’t a very hearty laugh.

I’m so glad that I was proven wrong!

Jack Black and Kyle Gass have been rockin’ the stage for about 15 years now as Tenacious D. But how did they find each other? How did such musical genius get together to make such amazing and life-changing music?

This is their story.

It opens with just about the funniest scene of the entire festival with a young JB (Troy Gentile who also played the same role in Nacho Libre) singing at his Christian family (including Meat Loaf as his dad–perfect!) about the glories of fuckin’ rocknroll! When he goes up to his room, Meat follows him and sings right back at him about the evils of rock.

And the movie is pure awesome from there. In their search for The Pick Of Destiny (a piece of Satan’s tooth that a wizard fashioned into a lute pick for a blacksmith who saves his life), JB and KG run across a lot of different characters played by, of course, members of their inner circle. Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins (who’s fuckin’ awesome!), Amy Poehler…all of them pretty funny. Watch for Colin Hanks, David Koechner, David Krumholtz and Jason Segel (from “Freaks And Geeks”) somewhere in here, too. I didn’t see them, but they’re in the credits, so they must be there somewhere.

All of my friends agrees that, while this was no Citizen Kane, it was a whole lot of fun and showed us the RAWK is for fuckin’ awesome people who can do cock push-ups…like Ronnie James Dio.

MATANDO CABOS

Instead of ending on that note, my friend and I decided that we had to see one more movie before it was all over. Matando Cabos was that movie…mainly because we couldn’t make it to the IMAX in time for Nightmare Detectives.

Cabos (Pedro Armendariz, Jr.) is a mob boss in Mexico. When he catches his daughter (the beautiful Ana Claudia Talancon from the not so beautiful Sueno) fucking one of his lower level employees, Jaque (Tony Dalton who looks like a really, really young Willem Dafoe), he goes ballistic, falls on a golf ball and knocks himself unconscious. Jaque and his buddy Mudo (Kristoff) “kidnap” Cabos in order to take care of him and apologize for what happened. They don’t want to hurt him, but they don’t want him hurting them, either.

Botcha (Raul Mendez) on the other hand, wants to hurt Cabos. He hates him for the way he treated his father, an old childhood friend who is now Cabos’ janitor. He and Nico (Gustavo Sanchez Parra) kidnap Cabos for ransom. What they don’t know is that they’ve accidentally kidnapped Botcha’s dad who stole the unconscious man’s clothes and was about to steal his car.

The two kidnappings intertwine for the next hour and a half while the audience is left wondering which movie director Alejandro Lozana and writers Dalton and Kristoff are going to ape next or which direction they’re going to go next. This movie is a pastiche of other gangster movies like Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and Pulp Fiction. It starts off with one style (they cut away occasionally to give the back stories of characters) and then goes to a different, more mundane style. And there’s a song that Jaque sings to his girl to win her back, but it’s really silly compared to the rest of the film.

There were some good things about it, though. I kind of like the annoying bird across the hall and the ex-Mexican wrestler (Joaquin Cosio) and his creepy-funny bodyguard (Silverio Palacios). And, in fact, it was a decent movie. I just kind of felt like I had seen it all before, and not too long ago.

This first one is NOT one of those.

BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING

Christine Cegavske is a true maverick. Either that or she is an insane genius. I’m not really sure which. Either way, she has made a movie that is definitely to be admired, if not necessarily enjoyed.

Christine has done some animation work on at least one semi-major indie film, Asia Argento’s The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. But while she was working on that she was also working on this, her magnum opus. It’s the story of…um…some creatures who, um, put an egg in a doll. The doll is then stolen by some…rats? Who then become hedonistic? And then one of them falls in love with the doll.

Honestly, I didn’t get any of it, so don’t ask me what the movie was about.

What I can definitely appreciate is the amount of work that went into the film. Christine did all of the work herself. All of it. Every last detail was her brainchild. She made all of the puppets and costumes, all of the sets, every leaf on every tree. She did all of the stop-motion animation. She had very little help with anything. In fact, the only thing she didn’t do was compose the music.

It took her upwards of 13 years to finish.

I commend her for making such an interesting world and staying completely faithful to her vision. It’s a weird and beautiful world. (Some were saying that it was like Beatrix Potter on acid.) I just wish that the story was a little bit more coherent. Nobody really seemed to understand what the hell was going on. But, seeing as how it was never really made for a mass audience, I guess that’s ok. This is Christine’s vision.

When the woman who chose this film tried to call her to ask about the film, she wouldn’t talk to her. Her husband did all of the talking.

Like I said: and insane genius.

THE BEACH PARTY AT THE THRESHOLD OF HELL

This is seriously the most fun I have had at the festival yet. Beach Party is an awesome post-apocalyptic flick that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but always stays true to its world.

Tex Kennedy (writer/co-director Kevin Wheatley) is going to save New America. He is out to find the much prophesized about savior, Benjamin Remington, the nephew of Clark Remington (Daniel Baldwin). Clark helped all of the survivors of the nuclear holocaust by broadcasting hope over what few airwaves he had at his disposal. It was his decision, of course, that his nephew, would be the savior. This kinda pissed off Clark’s son, Vincent (Lea Coco), who likes to be called The Jackle. He now wants to kill Ben just like he killed his father. (Of course, he didn’t ACTUALLY kill his dad, but he was there, so that counts, right?)

Along for the ride to help Ben take charge are two robots, Yul and Quincy (Chandler Parker and Paul Whitty), Cannibal Sue (producer Jamie Bullock), and Javier Castro (Jonathan Davidson), Fidel’s great-great-great grandson.

And the whole movie is shot in a comic book/History Channel way, with constant asides from historians (including Tony Hale from “Arrested Development” and Richard Riehle from Office Space, who also served as the narrator) and some really cool, kinetic animation that help tell the story. (There’s even a whole animated sequence that, in a very Monty Python way, helped the filmmakers save money.)

The whole movie was kind of remeniscent of “Arrested Development,” which isn’t too surprising since Jamie was on an episode and was probably heavily influenced by it. Good for her and her crew. That was an awesome show and the more people who were influenced by it, the better.

There really wasn’t anything bad about this movie. It’s not perfect, by any means (it runs a little bit long in the middle), but all flaws can be overlooked because it’s so fucking fun. And all of the actors throw themselves into their parts so well that you have to love all of them. Luckily, they already have two more movies mapped out for more adventures. Let’s hope they make enough money to make them. (Get the word out, folks! If you get a chance to see this, make other people watch it with you!) Check out their website and add them to your myspace! Make this movie at least a tiny hit!!

And, for an great double feature, look for Six-String Samurai. Beach Party reminded me a lot of that one.

GAMERZ

In the realm of Dungeons & Dragons, the alpha geek prevails. And when the alpha geek also happens to be a lonely, poor Scottish kid, he has a lot of time on his hands to figure out how to prevail.

Ralph (Ross Finbow) is the alpha geek. But it takes him a while to get that distinction. It also takes him creating his own world for D&D and finding a group of people to play it with on the campus of the college he just started attending. When he does find a group, though, it comes with a price.

That price is love. He falls head over heel for Marlyn (Danielle Stewart), the pretty geek who sometimes thinks she’s actually her elfin character. But there’s also Ralph’s arch-nemesis, Lennie (James Young), who decides that he wants to play, too. They become tentative friends when they strike a deal that allows him to play, but he starts showing some interest in Marlyn, too. And, just to help Ralph have a really terrible time of it, she shows interest in Lennie, too.

But who does she really like? And is she really what she seems to be?

As much fun as this movie should have been, it was really only about half that much fun. That’s not saying it’s a bad movie, it was just a bit too long at 101 minutes. There was some really funny stuff here and some that I just wish that director Robbie Fraser had cut away from a little bit sooner.

Some people will be turned off by the fact that it hit every single cliche of the gamer set, but I didn’t think that it did so in a bad way. The cliches were handled in a pretty funny way and the characters, while being pretty stereotypical (the uber-geeky Risk Management student, the goth kid, the elfin girl) were well written, well acted and endearing.

Not bad. Just not as good as it could have been.

It did get an extra point for the Dagger Of Enlightenment. (Ooh, that’s such an inside joke. Don’t worry if you don’t get it. Only me and a few of my friends do. And that’s what I’m here for: to make my friends laugh. Screw everybody else.)

STREET TRASH

Before this festival I had never heard of Street Trash. But any horror movie from the 80s that warrents a two hour documentary (The Meltdown Memiors by producer/writer Roy Frumkes) has to be worth watching.

I skipped the Memiors because I had never seen the movie. Who wants to see a doc about a movie you’ve never seen? But I did make it in to see the tail end of the Q&A with Frumkes and he stuck around for another one after the screening of Street Trash.

The movie follows the adventures of a young street kid named Fred (Mike Lackey) who knows the streets of his New York neighborhood like the back of his big-ass hat. He’s also an alchoholic who frequents one particular liquor store and berates the owner every time he goes, often for no reason whatsoever.

When the owner puts out a case of Viper that dated back to the 40s, things get a little melty. Fred picks up a bottle the eventually gets stolen from him. The first victim of the Viper melts into a toilet.

And he’s really just about the only victim for about 45 minutes. It takes a long time for Fred to figure out that anyone even died. When he does it’s after a cop (Bill Chepil who actually was a cop) has already started an investigation.

Of course, Fred is the first to figure it out.

There’s also a real bad guy in the guise of Bronson (Vic Noto who was actually a semi-crazy Vietnam vet), a crazed out Vietnam vet who thinks that everyone is out to get him. He’s also a complete asshole who would shove an old lady down a well if it meant he might get to some booze faster than she would.

But the story is really secondary to the gore. This movie, while in the same group as classic genre movies like Evil Dead 2 and Re-Animator, is really a bridge between those better movies and Troma of the day. The characters were slightly better than your average Troma flick, but Frumkes and director J Michael Muro wanted to offend every group of people they could. And they do their damndest. It’s fuckin’ awesome!

It’s an incredibly gory, offensive and awesomely fun flick with no redeeming social values except to show that we all suck in our own special way. And to watch the dates on alcohol. Story be damned. It’s all about the gore and the great lines. (Although, that near sex scene between Fred’s brother and the lead female character, Wendy (Jane Arakawa). He looked about 15. But she looked about 30! What the fuck?!

This is coming out in a special two-disc set on Sept. 26. That’s how much respect this movie is getting these days. Now, if only we could get a two-disc set for Evil Dead 2.

Two things to note about this movie: Director Muro is now one of the most sought after steadi-cam operators in Hollywood. (He shot Crash.) He’s also a born-again Christian. He will only work on movies with moral value these days and pretty much disowns this movie. However, when Frumkes went to him about the documentary, he said that he wouldn’t participate, but “I won’t get in your way.” Good for him. I’m glad he didn’t try to block the making of the doc.

Also, there’s a familiar name attached to the movie. Bryan Singer’s first job on a full-fledged film was as a grip here. (Probably why Muro was his steadi-cam op on X2.) I have no idea if he was in the doc.

OH YEAH! SHORTS!!

Oops. I forgot about one of these in yesterday’s reviews. I’ll try to put them at the end of each day’s reviews from now on.

MEAT THE CAMPBELLS (played with The Last Supper)

Not bad little short about a kid who starts to believe what a friend of his told him: that the new kid’s family are cannibals. Of course, it can’t be true…can it?

It’s got some fun stuff in it and it definitely has its Tim Burton moments. But, overall, it’s a little bit on the juvenile side. That’s not always a bad thing, but it could have been toughened up a little bit. And maybe tightened. It’s not bad, though, and I’ll be looking for director Simon Hynd’s first feature, Senseless, next year. (Hopefully it has nothing to do with that Wayans brothers flick from a few years back.)

MORBID CURIOSITY (played with Blood Tea)

A fun short about a girl (writer/director Cindy Baer from Austin) who makes horrible deaths happen with her own curiosity. If she thinks, “Hmmm. I wonder what would happen if a shark appeared in this pool,” it happens. Is she actually doing it? Or is it just a bunch of coincidences?

This one is really funny and never outlasts its premise. Any longer than six minutes and we would have been wallowing in too much of a good thing. As it is, it looks like Cindy had a lot of fun thinking of these weird-ass deaths. Can’t wait to see if there’s something around the corner for her.

COST OF LIVING (played with Beach Party)

In the future, anyone can live forever…as long as they have at least $6 million. William B. Davis (Cancer Man from “The X-Files”) finds that out the hard way.

This is probably the best short I’ve seen so far at the festival. Davis is a great actor who, surprisingly after his most famous role, can make you feel sorry for him in an insant. It’s funny and heartfelt and kind of makes a statement about current health care problems. (Although I’m not sure that it really meant to do that.) Check it out if you ever get the chance.

CROOKED MICK OF THE SPEEWAH (played with Gamerz)

A kind of funny short shot against digital backgrounds about a strong man in Australia who, along with his barker, finds out that there’s someone who is possibly stronger than him.

The story is a traditional Aussie myth, so I can’t fault it too much. It is a little bit predictable, though, and a little on the long side. The backgrounds are pretty awesome and worth the 10 minutes. I especially like the sheep on stilts. Watch for the sheepdog.