I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley.
Glasshouse; The Last Thing Mary Saw; and Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It are screening as part of the 2021 Fantasia International Film Festival that runs Aug. 5 to Aug. 25.
Glasshouse is an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller. It explores Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2021 Movie Reviews — Glasshouse, Sweetie You Won’t Believe It, The Last Thing Mary Saw
Not Quite Dead Yet and Hotel Poseidon are screening as part of the 2021 Fantasia International Film Festival that runs Aug. 5 to Aug. 25.
In Shinji Hamasaki’s Not Quite Dead Yet, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company dies after taking an experimental drug meant to temporarily Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2021 Movie Reviews — Hotel Poseidon, Not Quite Dead Yet
Sexual Drive and It’s a Summer Film! are screening as part of the 2021 Fantasia International Film Festival that runs Aug. 5 to Aug. 25.
Kôta Yoshida’s Sexual Drive is a triptych film surrounding themes of anger and lust which revolve largely around a single, lecherous figure named Kurita (Tateto Serizawa). It is hard to know Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2021 Movie Reviews — Sexual Drive, It’s a Summer Film
“Are you stupid or what?” exclaims Zabulon (Harpo Guit) to his brother Issacher (Maxi Delmelle) about halfway into Mother Schmuckers, a crass, raucous comedy from Guit and his brother Lenny Guit. To his credit, Zabulon is quite right. Yes, they are both stupid, and yes, it is an unbearable experience watching them traipse around Brussels exhibiting their idiocy onto everyone that gets in their way for what amounts to 70 unending minutes of screentime.
The film doesn’t have a linear plot, per se. One could say it involves the brothers looking for a lost dog or fending off one of their mother’s lecherous suitors. But it is more rightly described as episodic, with each episode doubling down on the provocation of the film’s opening scene (in which the two brothers are introduced cooking human excrement and Continue reading Review: Mother Schmuckers — Fantasia Festival 2021
Alien on Stage and Frank & Zed are screening as part of the 2021 Fantasia International Film Festival that runs Aug. 5 to Aug. 25.
In Alien on Stage, Lucy Harvey and Danielle Kummer document the unlikely rise of an amateur theater troupe in Dorset whose stage adaptation of Ridley Scott’s Alien made its way from a Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2021 Movie Reviews — Alien on Stage, Frank & Zed
For his thirtieth birthday, the mother of Ah Bee (Thomas Pang) gifts him an invitation to the Tiong Bahru Social Club, a closed-off living community dedicated to providing and spreading happiness among its residents. “Everyone’s happiness is our business,” boasts the community’s advertisement. They are “the happiest neighborhood in the world.”
How do they accomplish this? They harvest data from their residents in order to control the flow of happiness, a statistic they can quantify as a percentage. A resident is not providing enough happiness to their neighbors or for themselves? Then they are Continue reading Review: Tiong Bahru Social Club — Fantasia Festival 2021
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, the directorial debut of Junta Yamaguchi, is a quirky, lean sci-fi comedy about characters in a cafe who discover a two-minute-long time loop which occurs through a computer monitor. Filmed to emulate a single take, we see the characters experience the same events from two different perspectives as they discover that they can communicate with themselves from two minutes into the future (or, later on, four or six or eight minutes down the line).
It is a creative premise, filmed ambitiously given the low budget and with Continue reading Review: Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes — Fantasia Festival 2021
You could call Me You Madness a “female-driven American Psycho.” In fact, the movie would likely be smugly pleased if you made such a comparison. It would happily do you one better. As the over-bearing, ludicrous voiceover from the film’s central figure, Catherine Black (Louis Linton, who also directs, produces, and co-writes), attests, this is a high concept film which is familiar yet oh so unique. That’s right, the film itself tells you how special and great it is going to be. Right off the bat. (It will later explicitly refer to the screenwriters as geniuses, just because they understand how to implement a comedic callback).
Black is a self-described beautiful genius. She runs a massively successful hedge fund. She is a stock market guru. She literally gets off on watching stock market numbers move in her favor. She lives in the lap of luxury in an isolated Malibu estate. Her IQ is 173. And she is a serial killer.
When Tyler, a thief and con man (Ed Westwick), answers her call for a “roommate,” the game is afoot. After giving Tyler a grand tour, Black drugs him, sleeps with him, butters him up in the morning, and then Continue reading Me You Madness (2021) Movie Review
During the first scene of Space Jam: A New Legacy, I wondered if NBA superstar LeBron James would be boring to hang out with. He’s so hyper-focused on basketball and his legacy, I don’t know what I would talk to him about. All those playoff injuries? What weapons Bron needs to win another championship in L.A.? The stock market? I don’t know.
Soon after having this thought, I realized I had fallen right into LeBron’s carefully-placed trap. This was exactly what he wanted me to think, as Continue reading Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) Movie Review
The premise of Willy’s Wonderland resembles the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s. Everyone knows it. They probably knew it when they made the movie. Call it a ripoff if you’d like. I can’t really say, myself, as I’ve never played the games (from what I understand, the enjoyment derives mostly from jump scares, which just ain’t my bag). But there is something to the idea that Willy’s Wonderland is a video game movie of sorts. For one thing, the unnamed protagonist played by Nicolas Cage doesn’t speak—a feature of many a video game.
Cage’s character, a silent stranger who rolls into the rural town of Hayesville, Nevada (the town is so untouched by the modern world that it does not have an iota of internet access), finds himself with his tires blown out on the side of the highway. Towed back to town, he doesn’t have the money to afford repairs. Luckily, Continue reading Willy’s Wonderland (2021) Movie Review
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