"Fantastic Fest" is an 8 day film festival made up of the wild and weird bits of filmography, taking place in Austin Texas each year at the Alamo Drafthouse chain (currently at the South Lamar location). The platonic perfection of having a film festival take place all in one venue cannot be over-stated - while, yes, it gets crowded and loud and busy, you're immediately concentrated into one location and can share conversations immediately about what you saw, what you missed, what you're catching later and how it all feels. There are 37 slots available to see films, with about 70-80 films on the menu from all round the world, in genres from crime to horror to fantasy to sci-fi (my total only goes to 36 as I skipped a midnight screening)
This year happened to be one of the more controversial ones, mostly due to factors within the organisation (though occasionally, as will be mentioned later, with issues emerging with some of the films themselves). Sexual harassment allegations that had not been handled well at an organisational level put a cloud over the organisers and led to the cancellation of the originally planned opening night screening (the much anticipated by me and other people "Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri"). Without forensic knowledge of the details I can't really comment on the rights or wrongs beyond noting that, yes, harassers should be punished and organisations should not cover up for them, but throughout the festival there felt like the spirit of equity was being mostly understood.
Anyway, what about the films? I'll do short writeups of each of them here (and will write a longer one for any films that actually get general cinema releases in Australia as they come along). But for general recommendations, I'd urge people seek out "3 ft ball and souls", "Killing of a Sacred Deer", "Top Knot Detective", "Blade of the Immortal", "Bodied", "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women", "Gilbert", "Pincushion", "The merciless", "Tigers are Not Afraid", "Salyut 7", "See You Up there", "World of Tomorrow Pts 1 and 2" and "The Endless".
1) "Thoroughbreds"- two troubled girls plan a murder. Stars Anna Taylor Joy as one of the girls and Anton Yelchin in his last role as a drug dealer brought into their plan. It has dry dark comedy and the performances lift it, but it does feel a tad thin. 3.
2) "3 Ft Ball and Souls" - Japanese film about a suicide club who find that time resets to the moments just before their group suicide from a ball of fireworks. It's funny and touching and kinda sweet - for a lot of the film the action is confined to a shed, so it's very performance-and-script dependent and fortunately this is good at both. The ending is a little after-school-special, but there is a witty tagline, and there's sincerity and sweetness that stops this getting overly painful.4
3) "Ichi The Killer" - A 4K Restoration of Takeshii Miike's Crime-Horror hybrid, which remains disgusting, ultraviolent, perverted and kept me awake at a midnight slot. Also undobutedly a masterwork of its kind. 4.
4) Before we vanish - Japanese alien alien invasion film where the aliens are acquiring human sensations as preparation for a full scale invasion. A tad slow and within soppy ending that takes too long to arrive. 2.5
5) Mary and the witches flower - anime from the director of arietty and when Marnie was there - sweet but a tad standard sub-Ghibli - Enough nice bits to be worthwhile without really surprising. 3.5
6) Anna and the apocalypse - the Scottish zombie Christmas musical that combines songs in the style of Glee with violence in the style of Romero - fun if shallow but... who cares? Good giggles. 3.5
7) Killing of a sacred deer. New film by the director of "The Lobster" that applies the same style to a modern grand tragedy. It's good but I love the lobster and I only like this, though I recognize the quality. 4
8) Mon Mon monsters. Taiwanese high school bullies meet and capture a creature - who is the real monster (of course it's the high schoolers). The early bullying sequences are so heavy-handed it's difficult to enjoy when it gets bloody later. Not impossible but difficult. 3
9) Top Knot Detective. Docuparody of a cult Japanese tv show and its making and strange history. Absolutely will appeal to anyone who loves and misses the Des Mangan cult movie. Americans seem to like it too. 4.5
10) Batpussy. A 60s -70s porn that is simultaneously inept as superhero movie, porn and improvised domestic drama. This is the "so bad it's strangely compelling" selection (it's also the "I couldn't get into the film I wanted to see in this slot" selection). I enjoyed some of it but I also spent plentiful time studying the theatre decor. 1.5
11) Super Dark Times - generic American indie about high school boys who get their friendship strained after an accident. Competent, set in the 90s basically so the cast can't use mobile phones, but not particularly special. 2.5
12) VIP - South Korean police procedural - serial killer is also a valued intelligence asset, making arresting him a complex challenge. The procedural stuff was a little dense but it has a satisfying ending. 3.5
13) Les Attanes. A very French Canadian zombie movie. Still got exploding heads but with introspection and an accordion as well. 3.5
14) Blade of the Immortal - Takeshi Miike's 100th film, an immortal ronin helps a young girl get revenge for her murdered family. Beautiful and bloody, I loved the hell out of this. Instantly iconic costume design and beautifully shot plus a lotta blood spurting. 5
15) Take it out in trade - Ed Wood's previously lost final film he had creative control over - a private detective hunts down a missing girl while taking a lot of unnecessary overseas trips. It's certainly an Ed Wood film with bad jokes, stock footage and a few naked women applying lipstick to themselves. 2
16) Bodied - American indie about a white college student who wants to write a thesis on battle rap and ends up being more involved than he planned - hilarious and challenging look at speech and race and the controversies around them. I loved the hell out of this. 4.5
17) Professor Marathon and the Wonder Women - the unconventional relationship between the creator of wonder woman and his two loving partners. I loved this as a film though it opened up a lot of current issues I'm having with rage over the postal plebiscite as unconventional lives are judged again. 4
18) Vidar the vampire - a highly blasphemous vampire comedy, dragged down by interminable Norwegian folk music. 2.
Film 19 - King Cohen - doco on Schlock director Larry Cohen. Interesting but makes me appreciate Mark Hartley's docos as this does not have the tightness and focus those do. 2
Film 20 - Wheelman - getaway driver gets pulled into something more when a job goes bad. Simple genre stuff enhanced by a tight "everything takes place in the car" aesthetic and a strong central performance from Frank Grill, usually a journeyman supporting thug. 3.5
Film 21 - Gilbert - doco on Gilbert Gottfried and his surprising family (in that, yes, he does have a wife and kids and no, he does not always talk like that). Funny but also touching and sweet and thinky. 4.5
22) Secret screening- Death of Stalin - Armando Ianucci's follow up to In The Loop about the events surrounding the title event. It's bitter and twisted and brutal in a way that makes satire tricky. It's interesting but... I was in an audience that wasn't finding it funny. So I liked it but.... 3.5
23) Ron Goosen Low Budget stuntman - Dutch comedy about an alcoholic who becomes a stuntman after a viral video of a car accident becomes a sensation. One of those "this would possibly be funnier if I was Dutch" films. But it does have enjoyably cheesy music videos and a Black Pieter joke so... 3
24) The Originals, Egyptian, a fired bank manager joins a secret society monitoring other Egyptians. Has some striking visuals but the pacing drags and the conclusion is messy. 2.5
25) Pincushion - girl and her mother move to small time and both suffer intimidation. A combination of brutal painful story and beautiful aesthetic means this is angsty pain done well. 4
26) The Merciless - stop me if you've heard this before - young cop gets sent to prison undercover but loyalties get confused. But this Korean film is an excellent version of the genre with multiple betrayals, slapfighting and other violence. Like infernal affairs it's a great execution of a familiar premise. 4
27) Gerald's Game - Stephen King adaptation - Carla Gugino is chained to a bed by her husband in a bit of light sex play which goes wrong when he has a heart attack. It's a bit regular TV movie but with two gory elements that lift it to a 3
28) Cold Hell - German film about a taxi driver who gets stalked by a serial killer and punches people. It's good when she's punching people, less so when there"s a plot. 3.
29) Tigers are not afraid. Mexican film about homeless kids tied into the drug war when one steals a phone belonging to drug-and-human trafficker. Sad and brutal and gorgeous, told completely from the kids perspective with few adults and a bit magic realism. The kind of film that is the reason I come to a fest like this. 4.5
30) Salyut 7. Russian film on the 1985 mission to save a space station after it was damaged in a debris accident. A bit rah rah the glorious Soviet Union but it's on a level with similarly US product like Apollo 13 (except in this case you probably don't know the ending). 4
31) Applecart - yeah, this sucks. A dubious Evil Dead knockoff without any of the good bits of Evil Dead. 1
32) See you up there - two French soldiers after ww1 get involved in the war memorial industry and tangle with their former lieutenant. Beautiful and stylish film - this should end up in the French film festival next year. It also deserves a wider release but film distribution ain't just. 4.5
33) World of tomorrow episodes one and two. A little girl is visited by strange visions of the future. Don Hertzfeldt's work is a mixture of simplistic, almost stick figure animation and complex challenging thoughts about identity, memory and destiny. Plus it's funny and adorable and scary. 4.5
34) 78/52 - an in-depth documentary analysis of the shower scene from Psycho - this is compellingly deep cinematic analysis with a whole lot of detail drawn out of maybe 90 seconds of material. Yes, it's a familiar sequence but there are a whole lot of discoveries still to make. 3.5
35) The Endless - low budget horror/fantasy as two former cult members return and find something strange... Really liked this simple film of ideas and character with minimal on the effects or gore. Some surprising twists. 4
36) Downsizing - From Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways), a shrinking technique is used to combat over-consumption - a film that takes about an hour to work out what it's about, with Matt Damon as an extremely passive protagonist. The second half improves things but it's only a 3.
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