Opening nigh
t featured the four hour Japanese movie Love Exposure. I don't know why the words 'crazy' and 'Japanese' go together so often, but this is a pretty good example. The plot involves a young man named Yu growing up with his devout Christian father. His father opens his own church and expects his son to go to confession. Yu is a good kid with nothing to confess to. Not wanting to let his father down he goes out to intentionally sin. He falls in with a group of delinquents, who teach him how to fight. This of course leads him to the art of the Japanese Upskirt Photo- which involves taking surreptitious photographs of young girl's panties. He eventually meets the love of his life who ends up becoming his step sister. It takes about an hour for the title to flash on screen. A love triangle emerges, some cross dressing occurs, there's a bit of gore. The fantastic pace of the first couple hours isn't sustained throughout, there are some lulls. It really didn't feel a minute over three hours, though.The ne
xt day started with Slimed, a delightfully deranged over-the-top film concerning the adventures of a park ranger and a bible salesman. It took a few minutes to get in sync with the movies sensibilities, but by the time an evil mouse puppet and a bunch of easily blown up kids with lasers showed up I was 100% on board. The biggest laugh for me involved a wizard cat reclining in a bed in the middle of the woods. I am a sucker for cats in movies though. You can check out the movie in it's entirety here: http://vimeo.com/9174900 It Cam
e from Kuchar is a pretty decent documentary about George Kuchar, director of such films as Hold Me While I'm Naked and Chigger Country. George and his twin brother Mike started making Super 8 movies growing up in the Bronx. The doc delves in to the brother's past, focusing on a class George is teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute. Students learn the art of film making by starring and assisting in George's movie The Fury of Frau Frankenstein. I enjoyed it and it was nice seeing George in person. I couldn't stick around for the entire discussion because I had to meet some friends next door to see....Piec
es (aka Chainsaw Devil, Der Kettensägenkiller and One Thousand Cries Has the Night) This classic slasher film from 1982 is one of my favorites of the genre. It was great watching it on the big screen and an actual film print! It had been awhile since I had last seen it and had completely forgotten parts. Like the random kung-fu teacher and the insane chainsaw scene in the beginning. Great greatness.The next day I saw some short films and a music video program. I realized I really like the band Die Antwoord. My favorite short, Love Child, is on Youtube- check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYj_nJwtcvc The great Mink Stole was also around to receive an award.
The following day I checked out Playing Columbine, a fairly thought provoking documentary about the role of video games in general and Super Columbine Massacre Rpg! in particular. I never had much interest in playing the game when I first head about it and like most folks found the idea of it to be in poor taste. The movie asks valid questions though about the nature of video games. Like is it possible for a documentary video game to exist? Why can other mediums examine the subject of school violence and computer games can't? I was intrigued the whole way through, but still don't have much interest in playing the game.
Finally the last thing I saw on sunday was Amer, the first full length feature from Belgian filmmakers
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. It is a loving tribute to Italian cinema of the 70's, in particular the films of Dario Argento (most of the film's budget must have gone to procuring leather gloves.) The film is more or less plot-less, with a very loose anthology feel. It follows a young girl at three stages in her life. In the first a young child in a old mansion steals a pocket watch from the corpse of her grandfather. As an adolescent she travels with her mother to the hair salon and runs into some bikers. And finally as an adult she returns to the now empty mansion by taxi and is perhaps pursued by a killer. All the while using colorful lighting techniques and extreme close-ups. It's totally style over substance, but it has a great soundtrack from the films it's paying tribute to and was definitely fun to watch. Plus it was projected on film!It was at this point the programs started to repeat and the filmmakers and actors generally returned fro
m whence they came. But there was still greatness to come. I knew next to nothing about Love on the Rocks going into it, and am pretty glad that was the case. It was a funny, violent and weird trip. I really don't want to ruin the surprises the film has in store, suffice it so say I say check it out, you won't be disappointed. Unless you're some sort of asshole.
The documentary American Grindhouse covers a subject near and dear to my heart. I didn't learn much I didn't already know (except for a Nazis vs. Jesus movie called the Tormentors, which I desperately want to find a copy of now) but it still is great watching people like Joe Dante, John Landis, Larry Cohen, Herschell Gordon Lewis and Jack Hill talk about exploitation films. It was well put together and offered a decent overview, decade by decade.For the last movie I took the Mrs with me. It was a gritty Austin lensed thriller by UK filmmaker Simon
Rumley called Red, White and Blue. I shivered a few times watching this one, which is fairly rare for something to get to jaded old me. A cast of unlikable but occasionally strangely sympathetic characters in a chain of events leading to a brutal third act. A swell looking flick shot on one of them new Red cameras Santa failed to bring me last year. Plus I have a few new ways I do not want to die to add to my ever growing list. It was a great end to a great week of movies.
