Tomorrow is day one of the Zompire: The Undead Film Festival 2008, so if you happen to live near Portland, Oregon, go get yourself dressed up as the undead and have your self a gory good time!
With a film named “Zombie Western: It came from the West”, you just can’t go wrong!
I don’t know how I missed it, but today is Free Comic Book Day! You should still have time to head on out to your local comic book shop and grab a couple copies of whatever’s on stock. They have a few good looking pulp and weird fiction styled ones.
Have fun! And buy a not so free comic while you’re at it!
May 3rd will see three prominent Steampunks talking on the subject at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds in San Mateo, California. Tickets and information can be found at “The Heather Gold Show” website.
Scorpio Film’s “The Dunwich Horror” will be making its world premiere on May 23rd in Providence, Rhode Island.
This is in my neighborhood (relatively) so not much excuse for me not to go, except for that its on a Friday afternoon. I’ll have to work something out, watch it, and get a review up… for the people, of course.
You can find more details on time and place over at Unfilmable.
This recent weekend was the weekend of the Boston Underground Film Festival, and playing at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA, was a collection of some very interesting pieces as well as some wastes of time. Over all the experience was quite fun, even if the theater itself could use some extra funding. (Please donate to any local theaters you can!) I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to make it to all the showings on Friday, nor did I make it out for Saturday or Sunday, but I will talk about the two showings I did see.
The first viewing I partook of, was “Hyperreel (Shorts Program)”, a collection of short films ranging from “student film”-esque to nearing Hollywood quality. There were a couple of gems in this collection, but like any collection, whether it be folm, comic, story, or chocolate, there’s usually a few you could pass on.
DACH: I really, and I mean really, liked this one. It was like watching a music video put together by Trent Reznor, David Lynch, and the people behind Silent Hill. This one was a short film about a group of people, maybe 50 in total, playing a high-stakes game of dice on the roof of an apartment complex. The whole time theres some real good heavy beat music in the background to go with the dark, jittery, frame-skipping, filming style.
Now about that filming style… This one was done extremely well. Unfortunately for films like this one, when someone comes out with a cool new effect, everyone and their grandmother has to try copying it, and usually its done very poorly. This makes for a very tired viewing of the effect in use. Occasionally there will come someone who does it right, but the high volume of poorly done versions will overshadow the good ones, and people will be reluctant to want to watch it. See Bullet Effect for example.
So, whats with the game of dice? Why is everyone so happy to jump off the roof, and why is the protagonist so mad each time he looses the dice rolls? Thats the main question I had during the film. The party goers were playing what appeared to be a game a craps, rolling the dice to see who would jump off the roof of the rather tall apartment building. As the night goes on, and as the protagonist loses the rolls, he becomes more and more frustrated as he watches others take the flying leap off the building roof. Finally in the end, we see him, the last man standing, start to go up in flames as he looks upwards.
OK. So heres some more questions. Are the jumpers winning the rolls or loosing the rolls? By the looks of things, they seem quite happy to be jumping, so they must be winning, although one would think jumping to one’s death would be the result of loosing. Why is the protagonist getting frustrated and angry because he doesn’t get to jump? In most games, the goal is to be the last man standing. If this is the case, then why would he look so dejected being the winner? Or maybe this game is not a game of determining the winner, but maybe one of determining the looser. And finally, to throw in some Judeo-Christian ideas, if the standard view of Hell is down below, and Heaven being up above, then what does it mean that the happy jumpers are falling downwards, and the protagonist burns upward?
Those are the questions I was left with. Not only was this short an excellent visual and auditory experience, but it was one that left my brain spinning around in little whirly-gigs trying to figure things out. I definitely recommend this short.
SOME OF AN EQUATION: Here was one done on a hand-held leaving much to be desired in the way of quality. “Some of an Equation”, a study on just how quickly a situation can go bad, was “executed all in one shot”. While this may be something to boast about for a well done film, I thought this one could have used a little more quality and some takes. While the hand-held provided for some good views after the accident, it just looked too unprofessional in the car scene with too much moving around in a rather haphazard, unneeded manner, with too many shots where the lighting just wasn’t good at all. That said, it wasn’t really a bad film short. It was a good idea that just suffered from not enough time and effort in editing.
POLAND NIGHTS: I’m not really sure this can really be called one film. It was more like 3 films put together. One part was about a quirky female “reporter” reporting on “the nuclear threat” around a polish town, creating fake “mutant flowers” and running around in a odd metallic suits. Another part was something where I just wasn’t sure what the heck was going on except that there might have been a mutant killing people who was loved by a different female character… I think. And the third bit was what appeared to be a semi-futuristic “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” who used a flashlight/wand to kill off a big floating jagged pile of shadow. Take all three, put in blender, pulse on low three times.
THE SEED: This one was the one with the highest production value, bordering on Hollywood quality. It even included the musical talents of Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park fame. Taking place in a “near” future where holographic technologies can camouflage vast condominiums floating in the sky, the film focuses on a private first class of the military who is trying to keep “The Seed” from falling into the wrong hands. This “seed” seems to be something that can either make someone see the holographically-camouflaged or hide them from it. I’m not entirely sure.
The film takes place in two bits. First we see the protagonist staggering around, falling, appearing to talk to himself, flying through the air as if hit, and finally taking a cork screw to his head. It then shows the whole thing again, except this time we see him talking to a man who happened to be reminiscent of Morpheus from “The Matrix”, fighting with and trying to escape a bunch of masked men, getting hit by a car, staggering through traffic that we previously didn’t see, removing “The Seed” from his head with the cork screw, and then a final awesome shot of the condos being revealed.
I really enjoyed the two part filming showing two different views of the same events. The fight choreography was excellent, as was the physical acting. The music was pretty good in this one as well. This one was one of my favorites of the collection.
RED PRINCESS BLUES: “Red Princess Blues” basically felt like a pilot episode for an anime cartoon series where the animators just didn’t feel like putting in a whole lot of effort. The majority of the scenes where basically still frames with voice overs. Occasionally there was a movement effect in there such as rain or some blowing hair. I’d say maybe 10% was actually animated. Not very deep, and not much animation effort leads to not much attention effort on the part of the viewer. Pass on this.
LIGHT & DARKNESS: THE ROGUE: No offense to “Vampire: The Masquerade” players (I’ve played the game and am an avid D&D fan), but this is what happens when you give a group of Vampire playing Star Wars fans a camera and say “Make me pilot for a show series”. In fact, the film even ended with a “Coming in 2008″ message and URL. Expect cheesy dialog attempting to be deep and profound as robed psyonic monks kill off a family and talk of ascension with a capital A. All we need now are some Mitochondria sucking vampires.
AKAI: It felt like a long time to get to this piece here, but it was worth sticking around for this one. Here’s a film about a Vampire with emotional issues. Those of you shallow types who believe movies are only good if made in English should leave and stick to your cookie cutter plots and “Hollywood endings”. This one, filmed in Spanish, is another excellent film that leaves you asking questions.
We have a vampire who feeds on call girls, sticking their ads to a wall covered in ads from previous feedings. He keeps an odd creatures corpse (maybe another vampire? maybe one he loved?), in a small box in his fridge. At night his TV turns on and scares him so much he’s left a cowering ball of fear. Finally, he changes out of his ratty dirty sweater, into a suit, and opens a door he’s shied away from the whole movie to face a sunrise.
Those were the seven films from the first showing I went to. The second showing I went to was for the main feature “La Belle Bete” which I’ll talk about in part 2 later on. Prior to showing the main film, one short, and one commercial for “Altamont Now” were shown. I’ll talk about those now.
SWEETIE: A complete waste of time is the best way I can describe this winner of the 48 Hour Film Contest. Granted it wasn’t really poorly done, or really that bad. It just wasn’t all that good. It was 7 minutes I could have used to visit the restroom, or restock on Lindt chocolate at the stand.
“ALTAMONT NOW” commercial: This commercial is over the top smorgasborg of zanny weirdness. The movie itself is said to be a rocksploitation rockumentary, but I guess saying “rocksploitation-mockurockumentary-satire” was just a bit long. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing “Wild Zero”, you can sort of guess what sort of a feeling I was getting from the commercial.
Conclusion:
Three excellent films out of seven isn’t all that bad of a score. If you ever get a chance to see “DACH”, “THE SEED”, and “AKAI”, do so with utmost haste. I really enjoyed these films. Quite a lot. They left me asking questions and wanting more.
The whole experience also reminded me that going out to the local theaters and supporting the arts are much needed things. The theaters and the arts need the funding to continue making these great films and having a place to view them.
Its also just a whole lot of fun to get out of the normal routine and see not only the film collections, but the city at night.
Today marks 71 years since Howard Philips Lovecraft’s death. Born and died in Providence, Rhode Island, the cat loving, racist, Anglophile is thought to be the most influential horror writer of the 20th century.
While today, I won’t be making it out to Providence for the walking tour (I hope some of you do make it out), I’ll probably watch a film adaptation of one of his stories, today, and head out there another weekend sometime soon. I’ll also set aside a few minutes to read “Nyarlathotep”, an excellent prose poem said to be based on one of his dreams.
In the meantime, read the Wiki article on the man.
Funny coincidence that Grim Blogger should post up some news about an upcoming performance of Arthur Machen’s “The Great God Pan”, as my current reading is a collection of Machen stories. Machen was a big influence on Lovecraft, and this story was one of Machen’s more acclaimed stories.
Check out the details at Grim Reviews.
The Willows, a band local to the North Shore area, has decided to put together an album inspired by the Salem, Massachusetts amusement park of the same name. Linehan, an H.P. Lovecraft fan, has create some upbeat music with some earie Lovecraftian lyrics.
Still, a concept album about an old amusement park that was originally set up as a place for smallpox patients to recuperate can be kind of a hard sell.
The Willows will be playing at the Dodge Street Grill in Salem on February 15th at 9:30.
Read more at Wicked Local.
