MIFF 2011 Writeup
Wow...I've been slack with LJ, but work and life has left me really busy. Here's my MIFF 2011 writeup, hidden out of consideration for the huge chunk of text...
I always miss out on the first few days of MIFF for Avcon, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make :) Avcon is too much fun not to go.
Anyways...
Tuesday 26th July
Curling: A movie where a girl is raised in isolation due to a very very overprotective dad. A canadian movie where I was promised a nice display of magic where what is reality and what is fantasy blends together. LIES. This movie was straight up fact and was very meh. As I was later told by my MIFF buddies, canadian movies usually are snorefest and suck. After this, I agreed with them.
The Piano in a Factory: A nice tale of a steel factory worker who tries to build a piano to keep his daughter after a divorce. A good nice film with it's quirky heart on its sleeve.
Littlerock: A japanese brother and sister are travelling through America and get stranded in a small town for a couple of days. Language barriers and culture clashes commence. I've developed an interest in movies that deal with culture clashes/interaction, but this was just a typical indie movie, nothing much to it.
Route Irish: A private contractor's friend gets killed in Iraq and he starts investigating his death. You'd expect a violence fest to begin but instead it's more about skype calls and shaking down people for information. A nice movie dealing with the more seedy side of PMC's.
13 Assasins: Takashi Miike's entrance into the seven samurai genre, but this time with 13 samurai! Good movie with an awesome 40 minute action piece at the end. Lots of blood and lots of fun.
Wednesday 27th July
Journals of Musan: Fictional tale of a North Korean trying to integrate in South Korea. This is one sad movie about a person trying to establish them self in a whole new place with NO support system and with people who just couldn't care. Sad sad movie.
The Guard: AWESOME movie where a small town Irish cop and an FBI agent team up to investigate drug smuggling. This SOUNDS like a buddy cop movie but it truly isn't. Great great funny movie that I highly recommend.
I Wish I Knew: A documentary chronicling Shanghai. Consists of lots and lots of talking heads interspaced with footage of the city. GREAT idea, poorly executed. The doco is waaaay too slow, and there's a heavy heavy focus on the war period with the rest of Shanghai's history getting very very short thrift. Avoid.
Principles of Life: Romanian movie covering a day in the life of a businessman trying to organise a family holiday and forced to deal with the stress of work, family and a myriad of other factors. Sold to me as a black comedy, but it's not. Miss.
The Future: Indy movie about a couple who decide to adopt a cat but realise that with that decision comes a whole level of responsibility that they're not used to. Therefore they decide to live life fully in the 30 days before they get the cat. This was one heck of an interesting weird indy movie with some pretty funny scenes and some far out there stuff like power over time and a talking cat acting as narrator! Weird movie.
Thursday 28 July
Winters Daughter: Good movie following a girl who discovers her dad isn't really her dad and decides to track down her biological father. Good idea for a movie that unfortunately doesn't quite have enough legs, leading to a whole section devoted to a side story that's interesting if it had been introduced earlier. Alright movie.
Oki's Movie: Korean movie about a girl told over 4 chapters and with her dealing with a relationship with a professor and a student. Set over different time periods and viewpoints, this is one annoying movie as you're constantly trying to work out when the scene is set as the film likes jumping back and forth. Okay-ish.
Tiny Furniture: Another indie movie about a recent colledge graduate moving back home with a useless degree and trying to figure out what to do with their life. I was interested in it from that standpoint, and that's probably why I found it interesting. If you can't relate you'd find this utterly boring and self-indulgant. There's a sex scene that's incredibly realistic and horrifying as well. Hilarious too.
Cold Fish: Holy crap this movie was disturbing and bloody. Details a fish shop owner who gets seduced by a much bigger fish salesman and gets sucked into his crazy and messed up world. Really bloody and just amazing.
Friday 29 July
On the Sly: A little girl decides to run away into the forest and stays there with only her imagination for company. Pretty good exploration about how kids see the world.
Top Floor Left Wing: Fun movie about a normal civil servant giving an eviction notice that rapidly turns into a hostage situation due to an extremely stupid small time crook. Fun movie
The Apple: Interesting story about a father who's locked up his two girls inside his house for the first 12 years of their lives. After neighbours complain to social services, the father is taken to task and the girls are let out for the first time in their lives. Their stunted development and poor social skills are just sooo sad and seeing them experiencing life is just amazing. Apparantly the real life people acted in the film which is just shocking but I guess they needed the money.
The Giants: 3 Kids are left to their own devices over the summer and just completely goof around and get involved with some crazy stuff. "Stand by me" except with more realistic.
Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure: Two friends end up living next to neighbours from hell who constantly argue with each other with shocking tirades of anger and hilarity in equal amounts. In an effort to stay sane, they record the arguments and lend them to friends. These friends lend to their friends via cassette tapes and so on and so on. This doco traces this truly viral phenomenon that happened before the internet and is just truly fascinating.
Super: Awesome movie that is basically the first half of kickass extended over an entire movie. Great movie, highly recommended.
Saturday 30th July
Jiro Dreams of Sushi: Doco about the oldest chef (85) to get 3 MIchelin stars and his tiny 10 seater sushi restaurant in Japan. It follows him and his two sons as they talk about the craft and made me really hunger for sushi. Good doco.
The Liverpool Goalie: Great sweet movie about a young kid who's afraid of everything, and the cute new girl. In an effort to be cool, he lies about being a goalkeeper for the school's soccer team. Fun times ensues. Awesome sweet movie.
Senna: AWESOME doco about F1 driver Ayrto Senna. I'm not a fan of F1 and I watched this purely because of the great reviews it had been getting online. And it totally deserves them...I had no idea about what the guy, but he truly comes across as a great human being. The fact that I knew he had died gave the whole movie a strange pathos as each race I was scared was the one that might kill him. Incredible amounts of close footage were in this, thanks to the fact that F1 was being televised, insider footage from racing teams and even family home movies as well. Great great doco. Even if you're not a fan of F1 and know nothing about the sport, I still recommend it.
Red Dog: Aussie comedy about a dog and the tiny little mining community that adopts him. It sounds twee but it's really good. I laughed, I cried, what more can you ask for? It's good.
The Kid with a Bike: A little kid who's been abandoned by his father stubbornly clings onto the hope that he'll return. A good movie.
Guilty of Romance: Weird sexual thriller about a lonely housewife who's unfulfilled and has a cold husband who tries to seek excitement and sexual adventure in the seedy red light district. Craziness ensues. Weird weird movie.
Sunday 31st of July
Majority: A Turkish guy who coasts thorough life meets a Kurdish waitress who might lead him out of his ennui. Unfortunately culture clash and racist attitudes complicate the relationship. Another culture clash movie with an ok idea but meh.
Beginners: Ewen McGregor stars as a guy who just finds out that his widowed father is gay. Shocked, he tries to support him through this whole new phase of his life and his gay lover, whilst also starting his own relationship as well. There's also a dog that speaks and has subtitles :) Good movie.
End of Animal: "After picking up a man in a baseball cap, heavily pregnant Soon-young and her taxi driver realise they've invited something more frightening into the cab when the stranger starts reeling off their most intimate secrets and counting down to an unknown event. Cue a blinding flash of light and Soon-young wakes up alone with only the howls of a distant creature to accompany her." Great concept and there's some actual payoff! Things get resolved, which is truly amazing for a movie like this. There's still characters behaving in dumb ways which was annoying though. :(
Monday 1 August
Buck: INCREDIBLY AWESOME doco about the real life horse whisperer. It may sound a bit cruddy, but it's just fascinating, and is incredible. Just amazing, watch it!
Polisse: A film about a photographer observing the child abuse squad in france, and follows them over several cases based on real life incidents. Really good movie, with some really sad cases and some really funny ones too. I totally wanted more of this.
El Bulli: Cooking in progress: Fly on the wall doco about El Bulli, a world class restaurant which closes for seven months every year so the chefs can experiment and come up with new food sensations for a whole new menu. Very scientific, and just incredible. Unfortunately as it's a fly on the wall doco, there's not much in the way of explanations as for what's happening on screen, so it's more about experiencing life, and getting a peek behind the curtain, rather than understanding what's going on.
Play: "Over the course of a tense afternoon, five kids of African descent playfully toy with three well-heeled white teens. Using complex intimidation, racial preconceptions, vague threats and menacing head games, they lure the white boys to an isolated no-man's-land where they propose a perverse competition that will relieve their victims of everything they value."
I was interested in this purely from a social interaction standpoint. Seeing the scam occur and the mind-games that happen was interesting.
Tuesday 2 August
Under the Hawthorn Tree: "With her father a political prisoner, trainee teacher Jing is sent to a provincial village as part of her 're-education'. There she meets Sun, a smart, handsome geology student - the attraction between them is immediate and unmistakable.
But their budding romance is dangerously at odds with the social mores and political paranoia of the world around them, and Jing is faced with an impossible choice between love and duty."
Amazing sweet romance between star-crossed lovers. Jing's little siblings are incredibly cute and completely authentic, and the love between Jing and Sun is just incredibly nice as well. A good bittersweet romance that some could argue is manipulative as all hell, but I prefer to think as just a simple nole love story with a really heartbreaking ending.
Natural Selection: "When childless, devout Christian Abe suffers a stroke while making a 'donation' at a sperm bank, his long-suffering wife Linda (Rachael Harris) discovers that Abe has been a weekly sperm bank regular for more than 20 years. Distraught, Linda tries to track down any of his kids but ends up with an escaped convict who pretends to be her son as a ticket out of town and agrees to travel with Linda back to Texas - although unbeknownst to her he has the police hot on his tail." Great black comedy. Just great.
The Unjust: "A spate of unsolved serial killings has the Seoul public outraged. Facing mounting public pressure, the police initiate a plan to set someone up to take the fall for the crime - unleashing a chain of events that finds the city's powerful and corrupt interests pitted against one another."
After accidentally killing their prime suspect, a headstrong cop with dodgy ties is tasked with framing someone else for the killings. Unfortunately he comes head to head with a corrupt prosecutor who wants to take the cop down at the behest of a corrupt businessman. Sparks ensue. Good movie.
The Yellow Sea: "In a lawless Chinese border town, where the boundaries of North Korea, China and Russia intersect, Gu-nam lives one day at a time. Faced with mounting mahjong gambling debts, he reluctantly accepts a proposal to assassinate a business man in South Korea. But when things don't go as planned he finds he must flee for his life - with the cops, a rival hitman and an army of underworld thugs hot on his tail." Great movie.
Wednesday 3rd of August:
Africa United: A trio of kids setoff to cross Africa to see the World Cup. Incredible road movie that whilst aimed at kids, doesn't try to hide the terrible things that happen in Africa. Really good, and the puppet scenes are great.
The Fourth Portrait: "When his father dies, with his mother long absent, ten year-old Xiang is alone. Caught stealing from other people's lunchboxes by the school janitor, social services track down Xiang's long estranged mother and send him to live with her, her malcontented husband and their new baby. Scorned and resented at home and lost in the world at large, Xiang retreats to portraiture as a way of understanding the life unfurling around him." Sad sad movie. If you want that sort of thing this might be for you. Not for me though.
Being Elmo: AWESOME doco about the puppeteer behind Elmo. Covers his entire life from when he was a kid watching muppets on his tv and being inspired to create and hold his own puppet performances, all the way to him working for Sesame Street and how he made Elmo his own. Great doco.
Zebraman 2: Attack o Zebra City: Miike being crazy again, but in an over the top way. You don't need to have seen the first movie to watch this (I sure as heck didn't). Fun.
Thursday 4 August
Innocent Saturday: "Saturday April 26th, 1986. In the 36 hours following the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, Communist party member and white-collar worker Valery Kabysh has seen the panic of his superiors, and has learnt the fate of his town before anyone else.
He knows that every second counts, but every attempt to leave is undone, and as the disaster is revealed to everyone around him, he is sucked back into the comforts and delusions of his everyday life."
OMG this movie annoyed the hell out of me. When the main character does stupid stupid things it just freaking annoys me. I.e. horror movies and now this as well. Great idea, but stupid result.
Life in a Day: Great film exploring the human condition. Basically a huge huge youtube collaboration where people all over the world filmed themselves and their lives all on a specific day. All this footage was then cut together into this movie. It's amazing and truly shows that people are the same the world over. Great.
Footnote: Movie about an obstinate professor and his academic son clashing over academia when the son starts eclipsing his father in the academic world. A bit funny in places but also with a bit of harsh family dynamics as well. Alright.
Viva Riva: "Cocky small-time gangster Riva steals a priceless truckload of petrol; flush with illicit cash, he embarks on a hedonistic spree, even as he flees from his Angolan ex-boss through a seamy underworld of teeming streets and steamy nightclubs, rampant greed and corrupt authorities." Great thriller.
Friday 5 August
My Wedding and Other Secrets: Fun little New Zealander movie about an asian film student falling in love with a white guy. Problem being strict asian parents who wouldn't approve of her dating, let alone a white guy. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, done asian style. As I firmly have an interest in this sort of stuff, for me it was fantastic. A little bit twee but I liked it very much.
Bobby Fischer against the World: Doco about the genuis chess champion who took on the scary Russians in chess. Great doco about an incredible person who just lived and breathed chess and the enormous stress he was under and the ultimate toll it took on him professionally, mentally and physically. Good.
The Bengali Detective: A doco following a Bengali private eye as he investigates infidelity, counterfeit goods and dead bodies. In his off time his team of detectives have also formed a dance group. As crazy as it sounds, it's not an exploitative doco about the "crazy" detective, it's an honest portrayal of a guy trying to do the right thing. I recommend it.
Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest: Fascinating doco about the rap group "A Tribe called Quest". You don't need to even be a fan of rap to watch this, it's just a good doco about a group of musicians and their massive influence on the genre.
The Woman: A man finds a wild savage woman while hunting and captures her. Locking her in his cellar he decides to civilize her with the help of his family. This is one messed up movie that's quite shocking but for me it's all a bit overhyped.
Saturday 6th August
The Hollywood Complex: A doco following a bunch of kids as they try to audition during pilot season in Hollywood. Some of these kids are total freaks hungering for fame, and it's just intersting seeing these family getting sucked into the Hollywood machine.
Take Shelter: A man is plagued by dreams of an apocalyptic storm and is driven to build a hurricane shelter. Very much a Noah's Ark theme to this movie. Waay too long but very good performances by the lead. Needs to be shortened.
A Useful Life & The Little Tailor: Two black and white shorts smooshed together. Frankly I found them boring and I walked out asking why they even existed.
Sunday 7 August
Attenberg: "Marina, a 23-year-old sexual innocent and general misanthrope, is both intrigued and repelled by the idea of physical intimacy. While helping her philosophical father prepare for his imminent death, she finds herself awkwardly beginning her first sexual relationship."
I liked this movie but I'm a sucker for weird quirky films of which this is DEFINITELY one.
Another Earth: "On the night that a duplicate Earth is discovered in our solar system, astrophysics student Rhoda drives into an oncoming car, killing a mother and child and leaving the father in a coma. When she's released from prison, Rhoda goes to find the father, determined to do penance and, perhaps, to escape her past in the parallel world floating above.
Impressive scifi movie with almost no science, it's practically a solid drama with a hint of scifi. The main actress is amazing and is destined for greater things.
Exporting Raymond: Great doco about the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond heading to Russia to help film a pilot russian version of the show. Lots of culture clashing and some great comedic lines as well. GREAT way to end the festival.
I'll put up my list of recommendations soon but for now, ciao
I always miss out on the first few days of MIFF for Avcon, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make :) Avcon is too much fun not to go.
Anyways...
Tuesday 26th July
Curling: A movie where a girl is raised in isolation due to a very very overprotective dad. A canadian movie where I was promised a nice display of magic where what is reality and what is fantasy blends together. LIES. This movie was straight up fact and was very meh. As I was later told by my MIFF buddies, canadian movies usually are snorefest and suck. After this, I agreed with them.
The Piano in a Factory: A nice tale of a steel factory worker who tries to build a piano to keep his daughter after a divorce. A good nice film with it's quirky heart on its sleeve.
Littlerock: A japanese brother and sister are travelling through America and get stranded in a small town for a couple of days. Language barriers and culture clashes commence. I've developed an interest in movies that deal with culture clashes/interaction, but this was just a typical indie movie, nothing much to it.
Route Irish: A private contractor's friend gets killed in Iraq and he starts investigating his death. You'd expect a violence fest to begin but instead it's more about skype calls and shaking down people for information. A nice movie dealing with the more seedy side of PMC's.
13 Assasins: Takashi Miike's entrance into the seven samurai genre, but this time with 13 samurai! Good movie with an awesome 40 minute action piece at the end. Lots of blood and lots of fun.
Wednesday 27th July
Journals of Musan: Fictional tale of a North Korean trying to integrate in South Korea. This is one sad movie about a person trying to establish them self in a whole new place with NO support system and with people who just couldn't care. Sad sad movie.
The Guard: AWESOME movie where a small town Irish cop and an FBI agent team up to investigate drug smuggling. This SOUNDS like a buddy cop movie but it truly isn't. Great great funny movie that I highly recommend.
I Wish I Knew: A documentary chronicling Shanghai. Consists of lots and lots of talking heads interspaced with footage of the city. GREAT idea, poorly executed. The doco is waaaay too slow, and there's a heavy heavy focus on the war period with the rest of Shanghai's history getting very very short thrift. Avoid.
Principles of Life: Romanian movie covering a day in the life of a businessman trying to organise a family holiday and forced to deal with the stress of work, family and a myriad of other factors. Sold to me as a black comedy, but it's not. Miss.
The Future: Indy movie about a couple who decide to adopt a cat but realise that with that decision comes a whole level of responsibility that they're not used to. Therefore they decide to live life fully in the 30 days before they get the cat. This was one heck of an interesting weird indy movie with some pretty funny scenes and some far out there stuff like power over time and a talking cat acting as narrator! Weird movie.
Thursday 28 July
Winters Daughter: Good movie following a girl who discovers her dad isn't really her dad and decides to track down her biological father. Good idea for a movie that unfortunately doesn't quite have enough legs, leading to a whole section devoted to a side story that's interesting if it had been introduced earlier. Alright movie.
Oki's Movie: Korean movie about a girl told over 4 chapters and with her dealing with a relationship with a professor and a student. Set over different time periods and viewpoints, this is one annoying movie as you're constantly trying to work out when the scene is set as the film likes jumping back and forth. Okay-ish.
Tiny Furniture: Another indie movie about a recent colledge graduate moving back home with a useless degree and trying to figure out what to do with their life. I was interested in it from that standpoint, and that's probably why I found it interesting. If you can't relate you'd find this utterly boring and self-indulgant. There's a sex scene that's incredibly realistic and horrifying as well. Hilarious too.
Cold Fish: Holy crap this movie was disturbing and bloody. Details a fish shop owner who gets seduced by a much bigger fish salesman and gets sucked into his crazy and messed up world. Really bloody and just amazing.
Friday 29 July
On the Sly: A little girl decides to run away into the forest and stays there with only her imagination for company. Pretty good exploration about how kids see the world.
Top Floor Left Wing: Fun movie about a normal civil servant giving an eviction notice that rapidly turns into a hostage situation due to an extremely stupid small time crook. Fun movie
The Apple: Interesting story about a father who's locked up his two girls inside his house for the first 12 years of their lives. After neighbours complain to social services, the father is taken to task and the girls are let out for the first time in their lives. Their stunted development and poor social skills are just sooo sad and seeing them experiencing life is just amazing. Apparantly the real life people acted in the film which is just shocking but I guess they needed the money.
The Giants: 3 Kids are left to their own devices over the summer and just completely goof around and get involved with some crazy stuff. "Stand by me" except with more realistic.
Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure: Two friends end up living next to neighbours from hell who constantly argue with each other with shocking tirades of anger and hilarity in equal amounts. In an effort to stay sane, they record the arguments and lend them to friends. These friends lend to their friends via cassette tapes and so on and so on. This doco traces this truly viral phenomenon that happened before the internet and is just truly fascinating.
Super: Awesome movie that is basically the first half of kickass extended over an entire movie. Great movie, highly recommended.
Saturday 30th July
Jiro Dreams of Sushi: Doco about the oldest chef (85) to get 3 MIchelin stars and his tiny 10 seater sushi restaurant in Japan. It follows him and his two sons as they talk about the craft and made me really hunger for sushi. Good doco.
The Liverpool Goalie: Great sweet movie about a young kid who's afraid of everything, and the cute new girl. In an effort to be cool, he lies about being a goalkeeper for the school's soccer team. Fun times ensues. Awesome sweet movie.
Senna: AWESOME doco about F1 driver Ayrto Senna. I'm not a fan of F1 and I watched this purely because of the great reviews it had been getting online. And it totally deserves them...I had no idea about what the guy, but he truly comes across as a great human being. The fact that I knew he had died gave the whole movie a strange pathos as each race I was scared was the one that might kill him. Incredible amounts of close footage were in this, thanks to the fact that F1 was being televised, insider footage from racing teams and even family home movies as well. Great great doco. Even if you're not a fan of F1 and know nothing about the sport, I still recommend it.
Red Dog: Aussie comedy about a dog and the tiny little mining community that adopts him. It sounds twee but it's really good. I laughed, I cried, what more can you ask for? It's good.
The Kid with a Bike: A little kid who's been abandoned by his father stubbornly clings onto the hope that he'll return. A good movie.
Guilty of Romance: Weird sexual thriller about a lonely housewife who's unfulfilled and has a cold husband who tries to seek excitement and sexual adventure in the seedy red light district. Craziness ensues. Weird weird movie.
Sunday 31st of July
Majority: A Turkish guy who coasts thorough life meets a Kurdish waitress who might lead him out of his ennui. Unfortunately culture clash and racist attitudes complicate the relationship. Another culture clash movie with an ok idea but meh.
Beginners: Ewen McGregor stars as a guy who just finds out that his widowed father is gay. Shocked, he tries to support him through this whole new phase of his life and his gay lover, whilst also starting his own relationship as well. There's also a dog that speaks and has subtitles :) Good movie.
End of Animal: "After picking up a man in a baseball cap, heavily pregnant Soon-young and her taxi driver realise they've invited something more frightening into the cab when the stranger starts reeling off their most intimate secrets and counting down to an unknown event. Cue a blinding flash of light and Soon-young wakes up alone with only the howls of a distant creature to accompany her." Great concept and there's some actual payoff! Things get resolved, which is truly amazing for a movie like this. There's still characters behaving in dumb ways which was annoying though. :(
Monday 1 August
Buck: INCREDIBLY AWESOME doco about the real life horse whisperer. It may sound a bit cruddy, but it's just fascinating, and is incredible. Just amazing, watch it!
Polisse: A film about a photographer observing the child abuse squad in france, and follows them over several cases based on real life incidents. Really good movie, with some really sad cases and some really funny ones too. I totally wanted more of this.
El Bulli: Cooking in progress: Fly on the wall doco about El Bulli, a world class restaurant which closes for seven months every year so the chefs can experiment and come up with new food sensations for a whole new menu. Very scientific, and just incredible. Unfortunately as it's a fly on the wall doco, there's not much in the way of explanations as for what's happening on screen, so it's more about experiencing life, and getting a peek behind the curtain, rather than understanding what's going on.
Play: "Over the course of a tense afternoon, five kids of African descent playfully toy with three well-heeled white teens. Using complex intimidation, racial preconceptions, vague threats and menacing head games, they lure the white boys to an isolated no-man's-land where they propose a perverse competition that will relieve their victims of everything they value."
I was interested in this purely from a social interaction standpoint. Seeing the scam occur and the mind-games that happen was interesting.
Tuesday 2 August
Under the Hawthorn Tree: "With her father a political prisoner, trainee teacher Jing is sent to a provincial village as part of her 're-education'. There she meets Sun, a smart, handsome geology student - the attraction between them is immediate and unmistakable.
But their budding romance is dangerously at odds with the social mores and political paranoia of the world around them, and Jing is faced with an impossible choice between love and duty."
Amazing sweet romance between star-crossed lovers. Jing's little siblings are incredibly cute and completely authentic, and the love between Jing and Sun is just incredibly nice as well. A good bittersweet romance that some could argue is manipulative as all hell, but I prefer to think as just a simple nole love story with a really heartbreaking ending.
Natural Selection: "When childless, devout Christian Abe suffers a stroke while making a 'donation' at a sperm bank, his long-suffering wife Linda (Rachael Harris) discovers that Abe has been a weekly sperm bank regular for more than 20 years. Distraught, Linda tries to track down any of his kids but ends up with an escaped convict who pretends to be her son as a ticket out of town and agrees to travel with Linda back to Texas - although unbeknownst to her he has the police hot on his tail." Great black comedy. Just great.
The Unjust: "A spate of unsolved serial killings has the Seoul public outraged. Facing mounting public pressure, the police initiate a plan to set someone up to take the fall for the crime - unleashing a chain of events that finds the city's powerful and corrupt interests pitted against one another."
After accidentally killing their prime suspect, a headstrong cop with dodgy ties is tasked with framing someone else for the killings. Unfortunately he comes head to head with a corrupt prosecutor who wants to take the cop down at the behest of a corrupt businessman. Sparks ensue. Good movie.
The Yellow Sea: "In a lawless Chinese border town, where the boundaries of North Korea, China and Russia intersect, Gu-nam lives one day at a time. Faced with mounting mahjong gambling debts, he reluctantly accepts a proposal to assassinate a business man in South Korea. But when things don't go as planned he finds he must flee for his life - with the cops, a rival hitman and an army of underworld thugs hot on his tail." Great movie.
Wednesday 3rd of August:
Africa United: A trio of kids setoff to cross Africa to see the World Cup. Incredible road movie that whilst aimed at kids, doesn't try to hide the terrible things that happen in Africa. Really good, and the puppet scenes are great.
The Fourth Portrait: "When his father dies, with his mother long absent, ten year-old Xiang is alone. Caught stealing from other people's lunchboxes by the school janitor, social services track down Xiang's long estranged mother and send him to live with her, her malcontented husband and their new baby. Scorned and resented at home and lost in the world at large, Xiang retreats to portraiture as a way of understanding the life unfurling around him." Sad sad movie. If you want that sort of thing this might be for you. Not for me though.
Being Elmo: AWESOME doco about the puppeteer behind Elmo. Covers his entire life from when he was a kid watching muppets on his tv and being inspired to create and hold his own puppet performances, all the way to him working for Sesame Street and how he made Elmo his own. Great doco.
Zebraman 2: Attack o Zebra City: Miike being crazy again, but in an over the top way. You don't need to have seen the first movie to watch this (I sure as heck didn't). Fun.
Thursday 4 August
Innocent Saturday: "Saturday April 26th, 1986. In the 36 hours following the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, Communist party member and white-collar worker Valery Kabysh has seen the panic of his superiors, and has learnt the fate of his town before anyone else.
He knows that every second counts, but every attempt to leave is undone, and as the disaster is revealed to everyone around him, he is sucked back into the comforts and delusions of his everyday life."
OMG this movie annoyed the hell out of me. When the main character does stupid stupid things it just freaking annoys me. I.e. horror movies and now this as well. Great idea, but stupid result.
Life in a Day: Great film exploring the human condition. Basically a huge huge youtube collaboration where people all over the world filmed themselves and their lives all on a specific day. All this footage was then cut together into this movie. It's amazing and truly shows that people are the same the world over. Great.
Footnote: Movie about an obstinate professor and his academic son clashing over academia when the son starts eclipsing his father in the academic world. A bit funny in places but also with a bit of harsh family dynamics as well. Alright.
Viva Riva: "Cocky small-time gangster Riva steals a priceless truckload of petrol; flush with illicit cash, he embarks on a hedonistic spree, even as he flees from his Angolan ex-boss through a seamy underworld of teeming streets and steamy nightclubs, rampant greed and corrupt authorities." Great thriller.
Friday 5 August
My Wedding and Other Secrets: Fun little New Zealander movie about an asian film student falling in love with a white guy. Problem being strict asian parents who wouldn't approve of her dating, let alone a white guy. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, done asian style. As I firmly have an interest in this sort of stuff, for me it was fantastic. A little bit twee but I liked it very much.
Bobby Fischer against the World: Doco about the genuis chess champion who took on the scary Russians in chess. Great doco about an incredible person who just lived and breathed chess and the enormous stress he was under and the ultimate toll it took on him professionally, mentally and physically. Good.
The Bengali Detective: A doco following a Bengali private eye as he investigates infidelity, counterfeit goods and dead bodies. In his off time his team of detectives have also formed a dance group. As crazy as it sounds, it's not an exploitative doco about the "crazy" detective, it's an honest portrayal of a guy trying to do the right thing. I recommend it.
Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest: Fascinating doco about the rap group "A Tribe called Quest". You don't need to even be a fan of rap to watch this, it's just a good doco about a group of musicians and their massive influence on the genre.
The Woman: A man finds a wild savage woman while hunting and captures her. Locking her in his cellar he decides to civilize her with the help of his family. This is one messed up movie that's quite shocking but for me it's all a bit overhyped.
Saturday 6th August
The Hollywood Complex: A doco following a bunch of kids as they try to audition during pilot season in Hollywood. Some of these kids are total freaks hungering for fame, and it's just intersting seeing these family getting sucked into the Hollywood machine.
Take Shelter: A man is plagued by dreams of an apocalyptic storm and is driven to build a hurricane shelter. Very much a Noah's Ark theme to this movie. Waay too long but very good performances by the lead. Needs to be shortened.
A Useful Life & The Little Tailor: Two black and white shorts smooshed together. Frankly I found them boring and I walked out asking why they even existed.
Sunday 7 August
Attenberg: "Marina, a 23-year-old sexual innocent and general misanthrope, is both intrigued and repelled by the idea of physical intimacy. While helping her philosophical father prepare for his imminent death, she finds herself awkwardly beginning her first sexual relationship."
I liked this movie but I'm a sucker for weird quirky films of which this is DEFINITELY one.
Another Earth: "On the night that a duplicate Earth is discovered in our solar system, astrophysics student Rhoda drives into an oncoming car, killing a mother and child and leaving the father in a coma. When she's released from prison, Rhoda goes to find the father, determined to do penance and, perhaps, to escape her past in the parallel world floating above.
Impressive scifi movie with almost no science, it's practically a solid drama with a hint of scifi. The main actress is amazing and is destined for greater things.
Exporting Raymond: Great doco about the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond heading to Russia to help film a pilot russian version of the show. Lots of culture clashing and some great comedic lines as well. GREAT way to end the festival.
I'll put up my list of recommendations soon but for now, ciao