FANTASIA14 REVIEW: Ejecta [2014]

“Something came to me” Many might take my comparing Ejecta to The Fourth Kind as a slight, but I actually enjoy that film a lot. While Chad Archibald and Matt Wiele‘s science fiction horror doesn’t pretend it’s real, the crosscutting between time and styles similarly keeps us off-balance enough to buy into the escalating danger onscreen. We’re shown straight away that a government or privatized military agency has captured William Cassidy/Spider Nevi (Julian Richings) in the woods through night vision goggles and yet this convergence is the mid-point of the…

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FANTASIA14 REVIEW: Time Lapse [2014]

“I believe I’ve seen my death” While ultimately a flawed film, Time Lapse does do what every memorable sci-fi brainteaser should: it makes you blind to the obvious. Well, I should rephrase that and say it made me blind because I don’t have a magical camera to capture the future and your reaction post-viewing. I bought into the premise and mystery, allowing curiosity to help me ignore the somewhat over-wrought CW primetime lineup-like performances that bring director Bradley King and co-writer B.P. Cooper‘s thriller to life. To me standing strong…

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FANTASIA14 REVIEW: The Infinite Man [2014]

“Sexual congress in five” There are some great science fiction films that deal with time travel in a way blockbusters like The Terminator simply cannot due to scale and want for mass appeal. To fans of that series a movie like Primer may be too technically oppressive and intellectual while Timecrimes too dark and finite. Well, Australian Hugh Sullivan looks to change these preconceptions by combining Shane Carruth‘s impeccable plotting and Nacho Vigalondo‘s expert visual repetition in a genre the casual moviegoer can embrace: romantic comedy. In fact the clichéd…

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FANTASIA14 REVIEW: The Harvest [2014]

“God doesn’t think he’s a doctor” I can see why director John McNaughton chose Stephen Lancellotti‘s script The Harvest to be his first feature length film in thirteen years, but I’m not sure it was worth the effort. There are some cool aspects to the horror thriller that may have worked better if its 104-minute runtime didn’t tick along at a snail’s pace—a shortcoming I guess he has no one to blame but himself. A lot of questions are posed, crazy becomes crazy about halfway through with a genuinely startling…

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FANTASIA14 REVIEW: Cheatin’ [2014]

“Ella Heart Jake” Inspired by the works of James M. Cain such as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, iconic animator Bill Plympton‘s Kickstarted feature film Cheatin’ is all about sex, lust, love, magic, and sex. His seventh feature film makes its Canadian debut at the Fantasia Film Festival a year and a half after its successful crowdfunding campaign afforded him the budget to personally hand draw over 40,000 drawings. From there each frame was cleaned, painted, and composited by a team of less than twenty people to…

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NYAFF14 REVIEW: 白ゆき姫殺人事件 [Shirayuki hime Satsujin Jiken] [The Snow White Murder Case] [2014]

“She’s just that kind of person” Based on a 2012 novel written by Kanae Minato, 白ゆき姫殺人事件 [Shirayuki hime Satsujin Jiken] [The Snow White Murder Case] is very much a product of our time. A satirical take on the Twitter age that also to a point provides a compelling murder mystery reminiscent of Gillian Flynn‘s Gone Girl, the story’s as much a social critique as it is dramatic fiction. Our world is currently ruled by attention deficit to the point where journalistic integrity has been usurped by the necessity for click…

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NYAFF14 REVIEW: 風暴 [Fung bou] [Firestorm] [2013]

“Do you have evidence?” For fifty minutes—minus one crazy hand-to-hand combat fight on top of a fallen metal gate suspended over two adjacent buildings’ fire escapes in midair—writer/director Alan Yuen‘s 風暴 [Fung bou] [Firestorm] is a fast paced actioner that fearlessly goes to the darkest corners Hollywood never would. After it crosses that threshold of time, however, the film goes off the rails like an out of control locomotive crashing into everything along its path until it culminates in an epic street shootout with enough destruction to rival Man of…

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NYAFF14 REVIEW: 失魂 [Shi hun] [Soul] [2013]

“I watch the wind and, dreamlike, vanish” Described in equal measure as a slasher horror and psychological meditation on the soul—whether from demonic possession, reincarnation, or both—Taiwan’s entry for the 86th Academy Awards ultimately proves difficult to categorize at all. Mong-Hong Chung‘s 失魂[Shi hun] [Soul] may in fact be better labeled as a drama about familial love and fidelity despite destroying those same two things in the process of their preservation. There’s an unsettling spirituality at play that teeters between supernatural and schizophrenia with a weirdly rigid attitude towards life,…

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BNFF14 PREVIEW: The 8th Annual Buffalo Niagara Film Festival

It’s eight years later and The Buffalo Niagara International Film Festival is still going strong April 24th through May 3rd. I personally missed organizer and filmmaker Bill Cowell‘s inaugural season, but have been attending off and on as both a ticket holder and member of the press since. My first experience was in 2008 at the Riviera Theatre in Tonawanda. I drove over mostly because that night’s feature had a cast consisting of Bruce Dern and Kristen Stewart (pre-Twilight). While director Mary Stewart Masterson‘s The Cake Eaters proved worthy of…

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BIJFF14 REVIEW: Blue Tattoo [2014]

“Religion is a big deal with her, but she has a problem with God” Despite acknowledging it’s a well-made film, I was disappointed by Oscar-winning short The Lady in Number 6 because of its subject’s attitude towards surviving the Holocaust. Her unique concentration camp circumstances inexplicably allowed her to let the experience wash away so she could be grateful it led to a second lease on life. I simply can’t reconcile that way of thinking. In my mind a survivor must be more like Elmira, NY resident Dina Jacobson: a…

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TIFF13 REVIEW: Falastine Stereo [Palestine Stereo] [2013]

“We all should sing and dance and live and allow nothing to break us” No matter how much Stereo (Mahmud Abu-Jazi) loves his country, living in the warzone that is occupied Palestine has to prove hollow at some point. A wedding singer with what many say is a sweet voice—hence the nickname—that moment comes via an Israeli bombardment. The aftermath leaves his wife dead, his brother Sami (Salah Hannoun) a deaf mute, and himself ravaged by the guilt of not being there and the understanding that his government’s words are…

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