Aw yeah, this is just about my own personal version of Christmas Eve. The first wave of titles for the Austin's lovely Fantastic Fest has splattered into my inbox, so instead of me rambling on about how great Austin is in late September, especially if you're a massive fan of films gory, scary, sexy, twisted and weird, I'll just direct you to a very handy FF press release.
But not before I say this: Of the flicks chosen already, I've seen precisely five: Let the Right One In, Donkey Punch, Spine Tingler, Terra, and Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. A Swedish vampire coming-of-age story, a British thriller about boat-bound terror, an American documentary about a beloved schlock-slinger, a multi-national animated adventure story, and a scrappy little indie full of monsters that Rick Baker would adore. So from just one random sampling, this is one eclectic mixture of movies. Oh, and for the Hollywood fans: DJ Caruso's Eagle Eye will have its premiere at Fantastic Fest. By only a few days but damn cool anyway. Oh, and a screening of The Tingler? Beyond cool.
Click on in for the first full press release on Fantastic Fest 2008.
Back in the old days, moviegoers used to get a cartoon before every movie. A lot of the classic Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Droopy, Popeye, Superman & Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons that many of us grew up watching on TV were once savored on the big screen. Eventually filmmakers began cranking out cartoons much more cheaply for television, and it was the end of an era -- almost. In recent years, Spike & Mike's touring cartoon festival has been a big success and other cartoon festivals have joined in. Earlier this year the five Oscar-nominated animated shorts opened in theaters, although together they ran nearly two hours. The new The Animation Show 4 collects some 18 shorts and series and runs less than 90 minutes. (See official site.)
Curator Mike Judge, the gentleman behind "Beavis & Butthead" and "King of the Hill," is definitely a man who likes his cartoons to get to the point, and so the three longest shorts here run about 7 minutes apiece. Steve Dildarian's Angry Unpaid Hooker is one of them. When his girlfriend arrives home early, Tim has trouble explaining the angry unpaid hooker sitting on his couch. The befuddled Tim will go on to star in his own series, "The Life and Times of Tim." Another epic is This Way Up, from the team of Smith & Foulkes. In it, a pair of long-faced morticians (father and son?) carries a sarcophagus to its final resting place, attempting to keep the box upright despite cruel fate's best attempts to knock it down. Stefan Mueller's Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen and Mr. Horlocker, from Germany, is the other "long" one. A cop investigates some noisy neighbors in an apartment building, but can't quite get the entire story until the same scenes are played out again, behind closed doors. This features the greatest cinematic drug trip since James Toback's Harvard Man.
The year was 1984: The first Apple Macintosh went on sale, Terms of Endearment won Best Picture, Ghost Busters was the year's top grossing film ... and a few guys over in the Graphics Group at Lucasfilm were about to change the world of animation forever. While The Adventures of André and Wally B. is not technically the first Pixar short film, it was animated by John Lasseter and it featured the first use of motion blur in CG animation. And if you thought the folks at Pixar forgot about this lost piece of coolness, think again: During the end credit montage in Wall-E, a small Wally B. can be spotted flying across the screen. Watching the video above is a lot of fun, if only to see how far we've come in the past 24 years since this short first freaked people out over at Lucasfilm. Also, if you like what you see above and are interested in watching more Pixar shorts, pick up the Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume I. It's a blast. Enjoy.
Oh, and speaking of: What did you all think of Presto?
You know what I call 18 consecutive days of horror, sci-fi, action foreign, indie, obscure, and generally weird movies? Well obviously I call it heaven, but most normal people refer to it as Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival, which runs every July and throws a couple hundred features and shorts to a very ravenous crowd of genre freaks. And with folks like Mitch Davis, Tony Timpone, and Todd Brown (among others) on the programming end, you could probably just book a flight to Montreal without even checking the official Fantasia website.
For a complete schedule, lineup, trailer bank, and tons of geeky goodness (in your choice of English or French!), click here and then here. (Montreal's not all that far away...)
Today YouTube launched a new section of its site titled The YouTube Screening Room, which it calls a "platform for films from around the world to find the audiences they deserve." Here, they will showcase four short films every two weeks and will even offer an occasional feature. Some of the films have been previously screened at film festivals and some have been nominated for or have won an Academy Award. But others will be premiering on the site. Apparently, the filmmakers will be paid a percentage of YouTube's ad revenue based on views and each film will also feature a "Buy Now" button so that you can purchase that film or other films.
Today's debuts include Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?, a 2005 short written by Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know), directed by Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl) and starring John C. Reilly, Mike White and July. I've embedded it above for your viewing pleasure. The other three are The Danish Poet, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2007, Love and War, which is a stop motion opera from Sweden, and Our Time is Up, which was nominated for Best Live Action Short in 2006 and which stars Kevin Pollak.
Forget about Kung Fu Panda. Wash the memory of Forbidden Kingdom out of your brain. Ignore the trailer for The Mummy: We Love China, Yes We Do! (or whatever it's called). The real deal is on view this weekend as the New York Asian Film Festival opens for business.
The 7th edition of the festival kicks off tomorrow afternoon at the IFC Center in Manhattan with the North American premiere of Masato Harada's The Shadow Spirit. The first evening presentation features the world premiere of Ryo Iwamatsu's Then Summer Came, with the director in attendance.
This year the festival will show 43 movies, plus two short film programs, their most ambitious outing yet. Organized and presented by Subway Cinema, a "New York-based film programming, exhibition and marketing collective," as they describe themselves, the selections lean toward the pop side of Asian film culture, which happens to be my favorite kind; in fact, I've already written about The Butcher and Public Enemy Returns.
If you're a New Yorker, this should be etched on your viewing calendar, but even if you're an outsider looking in, like me, the program notes are very much worth reading. To give you a further taste, check out our gallery, and then visit the NYAFF site to read and see more about one of the very best festivals in the world.
Good news, indie fans! With The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar, our weekly round-up of screenings and events taking place beyond the multiplex, it doesn't matter whether you mess with the Zohan. Forget those complicated rules regarding what you can and can't mess with, and come bask in the glow of festivals, retrospectives, and special showings. And if you know of something coming up that should be on this list, send me an e-mail at Eric.Snider (at) Weblogsinc (dot) com.
Today, you can watch Adam Sandler do a funny voice and make funny faces (he's really stretching as an actor!) on 3,000 screens. Or, in just a few locations, you can check out these...
INDIE THEATRICAL RELEASES
The Promotion. It's here it's here it's here! You guys, it's finally here! A bunch of us saw this at South By Southwest in March, and since then we've beenravingaboutitprettymucheverychanceweget. And now it's finally in theaters! And everyone we raved about it to will see it with too-high expectations and be disappointed! So, um, forget everything we said and just see it. It's, you know, kinda funny or whatever. No big deal. Opens today in New York, L.A., and Chicago; expands next week.
Mongol is an Oscar-nominated biopic covering the early life of the world's most famous Mongol, a fellow by the name of Genghis Khan. (I believe the sequel will be called Mongol II: The Wrath of Khan.) Cinematical's me gave it a very positive review at the Portland International Film Festival a few months back. It opens today in New York and L.A.
After the jump, more indie theatrical releases, plus our city-by-city breakdown of special events.
For an emerging filmmaker, the Sundance Film Festival provides a starting point for the life span of a feature-length work. There's a far greater sense of immediacy, however, for the filmmakers involved in the shorts program, where a wide variety of material tends to begin circulating the festival world before fading into complete obscurity. That's why the short films that screened yesterday as part of the third annual Sundance Institute at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) signified the most important aspect of the two-week event: With few exceptions, the films on display received the kind of exposure that helped validate this frequently neglected format. While some of the titles are available on iTunes, many that were shown to a packed house finally got the long-delayed reception they deserved.
Animated efforts almost always offer the best ingredients in any shorts program, since it's here that you'll find a combination of inspired side projects from gainfully employed studio animators and the works of struggling independent artists. The latest program couldn't beat the sheer brilliance of cult animator Don Hertzfeldt's short Everything Will Be Ok in last year's showcase, but two particularly memorable films left distinct impressions this time around.
There are four things I will always love about MTV: the videos from the '80s, Daria, the first handful of seasons of The Real World, and the MTV Movie Awards spoofs. In many cases, those suckers stick in my mind more than the films they were spoofing -- especially 1999, when Alyson Hannigan, Jaime Pressly, Chris Owen, and Charlie O'Connell took on everything from Risky Business to Cruel Intentions. The sight of Hannigan reenacting the whipped cream scene from Varsity Blues is forever burned into my brain.
This year, however, things will be a bit different for the awards ceremony. The Hollywood Reporter posts that instead of spoofs, a number of big-name actors are making their own short films for the evening, with the creative control in their hands -- namely, Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Adam Sandler, and host Mike Myers. Not much is being said about the shorts, but Stiller hired Mike Bender to write his, and Nick Stoller to direct it, while Myers' shorts focus on two new characters he's come up with.
While I love the spoofs, this should be great twist on an old habit -- and as a rabid Downey Jr. fan, I'm itching to see what he comes up with. How about you? Will these shorts convince you to tune in?
Usually we go back in time for Stars in Rewind, but we have never gone back in time for the characters. Back in 2003, Hanelle M. Culpepper directed a ridiculously cute and funny short called Six and the City. Yes, it is a spoof of Sex and the City, where Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda are hanging out at the park and having their first discussions about boys.
Carrie has to decide if she wants to kiss a boy. Samantha gets ticked when a boy she kisses moves on to someone else, so she cooks up some creative revenge. Miranda gets nasty on the soccer field, and also convinces Charlotte to play, who doesn't want to get her cute dresses dirty.
I loved it when I saw it ages ago at the WWSFF, and now you can check out the entire short above. It's the perfect appetizer to Sex and the City, which opens next week, and there's at least one tot you should recognize. Adair Tishler, who plays Carrie, is now Molly on Heroes.
I spent three days at the very first Marfa Film Festival, plus two days in transit -- more than 1,000 hard miles of driving -- and it was worth every effort to get there; even the post-fest illness that felled me for an entire week. I saw wonderful outdoor screenings, enjoyed some good docs and short films, and witnessed the debut of two music videos directed by Heath Ledger. Oh, and met many friendly local residents, talented filmmakers, and visiting film lovers.
Located in West Texas, roughly halfway between El Paso and San Antonio, the town of Marfa (population 2121) has the rare distinction of being the setting for two recent films that won Academy Awards: No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Some of the sets for the latter film are still standing, and I traveled there on a sunny afternoon with a small group of intrepid friends over a bumpy, curving, tail-bouncing dirt road that stretched for miles across a ranch just south of town. After depositing our load of bottled water for the opening night reception that would begin a few hours later, we wandered around the fictional town of Little Boston.
As authentically aged and real as the buildings look, it's not a real town, of course, it's a set, meant to evoke Bakersfield, California, circa 1911. Check out the gallery for pictures of the Blood set, visiting filmmakers and other sights of the festival. Read on for more about the festival itself.
Since I posted back in March that we're getting a web short from Joss Whedon, one that stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathon Fillion, and Felicia Day no less, I've been trying to keep an eye on news about Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog. There have been little blips like this over at EW, where NPH mentions that there are plans for a DVD with extras, but the pressing piece of info everyone wants to know is: When in the hell will we get to see it!?
Whedonesque linked to a new interview with Day yesterday, and if she's right, we shouldn't have to wait very much longer. While talking with Patrick Rothfuss, she said: "I believe he said it will be released on the internet before Comicon." Bring. It. On! Oh, it better be on a site that doesn't block Canada, or I'm going to go on a rampage.
If you need a refresher: The short series was created by Joss during that whole writers strike, and it follows a wannabe villain, Dr. Horrible (Harris), who has fallen for a cute girl at the laundromat (Day), but keeps getting beaten up by superhero Captain Hammer (Fillion).
This should be an awesome taste of Whedon before Dollhouse hits the boob tube. (Unfortunately, Joss' new show isn't planning to hit TV until mid-season.)
Finally! Hot Docs might have snuck away with my opportunity to see Green Porno, but now it's available online. Well, it's available for people in the States through SundanceChannel.com, or people who read the comment section of Boing Boing. To give you a taste, check out the YouTube clip above, and pics at TreeHugger.
When I first heard about this, I imagined Isabella Rossellini's voice over gruesome pics of bugs in the act. It wasn't my cup of visual tea, but with Rossellini, I couldn't resist. But oh no, it's so much better. Dressed in different buggy garb, Isabella acts out the mating rituals of these buggy beings -- the bee, the dragonfly, the earthworm, the firefly, the house fly, the preying mantis, and the spider. There's the decapitation by way of the mantis, the broken-off penis of the bee, and more insane mating rituals that make human romps seem downright boring.
When I sat down to watch the excellent documentary Head Wind (review coming soon), I didn't realize that I'd be subjected to the mental torture that was the short called Beginning Filmmaking. I don't think the rest of the sparse crowd expected to see the short, either, because we all kept asking each other in very loud voices, "Why aren't we seeing Head Wind?" and "Why the hell doesn't this guy leave his kid alone?"
In this short, filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt chronicles a year of trying to teach his four-year-old daughter Ella how to become a filmmaker herself, based on something she babbled when she was eighteen months old. He even goes so far as getting Ella a brand new camcorder for her fourth birthday.
Did I say she was four? Well, I can't say that enough, because throughout the 23 mind-numbing minutes of this film, Rosenblatt tries to teach Ella how to be an auteur, giving her lessons in composition, focus, light, and story. He's talking to her like she's an NYU film student, and all she wants to do is play with her toys and flick boogers (well, she doesn't do that last thing on camera, but don't most kids that age do that?).
Now it all makes sense! I keep wondering why the Canadian government is getting so anxious about giving tax credits to films with risque titles (even if there's nothing really risque inside the feature). They must've gotten a heads-up on whats going on in Sweden, and then imagined a Canadian cinematic landscape with films like Crash upped with dirty, Brown Bunny-like sex, or Where the Truth lies with much more, well, laying.
Variety reports that the Swedish Film Institute is going to fund a series of mobile phone-shot porn shorts. The shorts will all come together into a film called Dirty Diaries, and the Institute is giving the production $59,300 of its $76,200 budget. On the bright side, all of the shorts will be filmed by women who have almost free reign, aside from stipulations like the participants having to be at least 18, and can't be harmed, so it should be free of the usual treatment of sex in porn.
But really, why is the Institute funding pornography? It's not like it's a risque film people are calling porn. It's being described as a list of "porn shorts." And why do they need so much money to film sex on flipping mobile phones? Sure, there's transfer costs and the like, but this is just sounding silly. And, what's the benefit of having it shot on mobile phones? The art of grainy, lo-def sex?
How about you? Are you itching for some lo-def porn shorts from Sweden?
Aw yeah, this is just about my own personal version of Christmas Eve. The first wave of titles for the Austin's lovely Fantastic Fest has splattered into my inbox, so instead of me rambling on about how great Austin is in late September, especially if you're a massive fan of films gory, scary, sexy, twisted and weird, I'll just direct you to a very handy FF press release.
You know what I call 18 consecutive days of horror, sci-fi, action foreign, indie, obscure, and generally weird movies? Well obviously I call it heaven, but most normal people refer to it as Montreal's 
Good news, indie fans! With The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar, our weekly round-up of screenings and events taking place beyond the multiplex, it doesn't matter whether you mess with the Zohan. Forget those complicated rules regarding what you can and can't mess with, and come bask in the glow of festivals, retrospectives, and special showings. And if you know of something coming up that should be on this list, send me an e-mail at Eric.Snider (at) Weblogsinc (dot) com..jpg)
There are four things I will always love about MTV: the videos from the '80s, Daria, the first handful of seasons of The Real World, and the MTV Movie Awards spoofs. In many cases, those suckers stick in my mind more than the films they were spoofing -- especially 1999, when Alyson Hannigan, Jaime Pressly, Chris Owen, and Charlie O'Connell took on everything from Risky Business to Cruel Intentions. The sight of Hannigan reenacting the whipped cream scene from Varsity Blues is forever burned into my brain.
Since I posted 
When I sat down to watch the excellent documentary Head Wind (review coming soon), I didn't realize that I'd be subjected to the mental torture that was the short called 
Now it all makes sense! I keep wondering why the Canadian government is getting so anxious about giving tax credits to films with risque titles (even if there's nothing really risque inside the feature). They must've gotten a heads-up on whats going on in Sweden, and then imagined a Canadian cinematic landscape with films like Crash upped with dirty, Brown Bunny-like sex, or Where the Truth lies with much more, well, laying.
