Both the victim and perpetrator of a crime must live with the consequences of the events they were intricately involved in. For the guilty party, provided they possess an inkling of remorse in their body, the stigma carries over an extended period of time, with reminders coming in all shapes and sizes to reiterate that they did bad in the past and that society does not look kindly to them.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one already: a low-level cog in a comically large bureaucratic environment in a grotesque-looking “future” dystopia struggles in the face of obsolescence and oblivion. The character in question is fundamentally good, but incredibly weedy, their resolve and spirit having been ground to stumps by the world around them.
The irony of the penniless cult and mind-control expert is not lost on us. Ansel Roth’s got the tools to get your loved ones back within your grasp, he’s written them down for all to read, but here he is selling copies of his latest book one hotel conference room at a time, living out of an AMC Gremlin, fishing meal vouchers out of the trash, and shoveling ketchup in his mouth with a fork.
From the director of cult classics like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Wild Things, The Harvest is John McNaughton’s first film in over a decade.
The one popular term to describe the picture is ‘badass’. It isn’t a very professional or literarily apt word to summarize what a film comes across as, but as a succinct bit of praise it fits the bill perfectly. One has to be especially averse to modern filmmaking techniques in order to come away disliking the directorial choices exercised in Cold Eyes. Yes, the editing is as rapid as that of so many of today’s thrillers, but the key is know why to cut to another frame and how. Judging by this film, Cho Ui-seok and Kim Byung-seo know just how to proceed. Cold Eyes is easily one of the year’s best action films.
When a filmmaker perfectly aligns the technical and the artistic, we’re reminded of the transformative power of cinema. Lost amid the genre clichés and computer-generated extravaganzas lies an expansive battlefield called ‘the human condition’, where moments of great power co-mingle with insignificant monotony to shape our lives.
Kite is hyperbolic in every sense imaginable. It’s hyper-stylized without reason, hyper-violent, and incredibly stupid.
This latest effort is very much a hodgepodge of various ideas to shock and awe all cobbled together to make a two-hour long festival of insanity. In other words, Miike and the writers throw everything they can think of on the wall and leave it up to the audience to see what sticks and what does not. With a film that tosses in gags, both visual and verbal, at the rapid pace evidenced here, it comes as no surprise that not everything will land.
The movies have long had an intimate fascination with the human eye. They’re the tools with which we absorb film, we view them as a window to our soul, and they’re one of the most romantic parts of the body. No one ever romanticized an ear.
Gone are the days where I pay for tickets and try to snatch interview subjects for a blog no one really reads. This year’s line-up will certainly be keeping me busy. Here are five to which I’m particularly looking forward.
Fantasia isn’t Fantasia unless you’re watching something you almost certainly couldn’t see at most other festivals, and this year’s installment looks to have that in spades.
A number of Sound On Sight editors and contributors are geographically fortunate enough to make the Fantasia Film Festival an annual must-attend event. I have never been to the festival, but have followed it from afar since it landed on my radar years ago when a well-received short film I had a major acting role in called My Sweet Satan, played there.
This will be my third year attending the venerable Fantasia International Film Festival here in Montreal, and this year’s slate does not disappoint. I was asked to pick the five movies I was the most excited to see. This proved to be a difficult task, seeing as how my original list had upwards of thirty titles. But here are the five that have got me the most intrigued.
The third week of July beckons and, if one is a genre film lover in the Canadian city of Montreal, that really means only one thing: the return of the Fantasia Film Festival.
