Yes, the fear is here.  Dark Floors - the Finnish horror film conceived and created as a starring vehicle for Finnish metal act Lordi - just hit screens in its native country and is making its market debut here in Berlin.  The early teasers were surprisingly effective, making it very clear that Lordi weren’t aiming for a campy cheese fest with this but were rather trying their hand and putting together a legitimate horror film, while also showcasing the sure hand of director Pete Riski behind the camera, and those teasers have been borne out in the finished film.  Not a gore fest by any means - it would likely get a PG-13 rating in the US - the film is a tightly plotted, exceptionally well shot thrill ride that sets the rules of its world very early on, lets the audience know what to expect and then executes flawlessly.  They’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here, but they knew exactly what sort of film they wanted Dark Floors to be and made a very good one.  And, surprisingly, a good amount of the film’s success has to come from the fact that Lordi opted to let others be the stars of their own personal vanity project while stepping back into support roles themselves.

Continue Reading "FANTASIA:  DARK FLOORS Review"...

Tomas Alfredson’s Let The Right One In is a film difficult to summarize not because of its content but because of the way Alfredson handles that content.  The story of a vampire befriending a twelve year old boy, a very bloody story of a vampire befriending a twelve year old boy, you’d think it would be easy to categorize and file away but it is not.  Why?  Because while Alfredson is certainly not shy in indulging in graphic imagery and laying on the blood this is not a film about the blood itself, it is not driven by the need to get from one gore scene to the next, instead being far more concerned with the budding relationship between its two young leads.

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Being a plumber just got a whole lot more violent.  Jack Brooks has got an anger problem, and why not?  His girlfriend’s a nag, he’s stuck taking night classes, his van’s barely running, and there’s also the little matter of witnessing his entire family killed and eaten by some sort of troll monster when he was just a boy.  Jack’s got issues, issues that erupt in burst of violence and rage.  Luckily for him he’s about to find an appropriate target ...

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**Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad guest-reviews Yoji Yamada’s Kabei, which she caught at the 58th Berlinale this year. She was there as a jury member for the Generations section, the category in which her Mukhsin won two prizes last year.

Yasmin has always emphasised the importance of human emotion in storytelling, and here’s her personal take on Yamada’s latest, which she says can soften the heart of even the most hardened cinephile.**

Continue Reading "Review Of Yoji Yamada’s KABEI (OUR MOTHER)"...

The awards are out at the Berlinale and Brazilian crime actioner Tropa De Elite, a film about corruption and violence in Brazil’s elite police squads, has come away with the top prize.  Also awarded were P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure, ICelandic doc The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela and more.

Over the past few years we have kept close tabs on British director Adam Mason in these pages, drawn in first by his remarkable ability to manipulate tension and accomplish rather a lot on very tiny budgets, and then further impressed by the remarkable steps forward Mason has been taking from film to film.  And fresh off of an appearance by his feature The Devil’s Chair in the Midnight Madness program at the Toronto Film Festival that constant striving forward continues with his latest effort, the genre defying Blood River.  By far Mason’s most cinematic film to date it is also his more personal work and features the most thematically complex script from Mason and writing partner Simon Boyes to date.  A simmering study of Old Testament style sin and retribution, Blood River plays like a slow burning Faulkner by way of Deliverance.

Continue Reading "EFM:  BLOOD RIVER Review"...

With global martial arts fans all worked into a lather over Prachya Pinkaew’s upcoming female starring fight flick Chocolate very little attention has been paid to other parts of the world.  Case in point:  Natasha Arthy’s Danish kung fu oriented drama Fighter.  And the lack of attention is truly a shame because this is one film that truly deserves it.  While Chocolate may win more points for sheer spectacle Fighter is clearly superior in terms of story, character, direction and is itself loaded with hugely impressive – and all the more so for how naturally they are shot – fight scenes.  Were you to put Fighter’s Semra Turan – a national level kung fu martial artist - into a fair fight with Chocolate’s female star there’s a better than average chance Turan would come out on top.  Yes, she is really that good and Fighter gives her ample opportunity to showcase both her skills as a martial artist and as an actress thanks to its complex, multi faceted drama.

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Argentina’s Ricardo Darin was born to do noir.  Battered and weathered he has that classic look about him, the look of a man who would rather do than speak, the look of a man who conceals unseen depths just beneath the surface of his skin.  A major star in his native country he rose to international attention thanks to his leading role in neo-noir El Aura an experience that agreed with him so well that Darin opted for the full noir experience with his directorial debut.

Continue Reading "EFM:  LA SENAL Review"...

I’m just going to let this one speak for itself.

Green Porno is a series of very short films conceived, written, co-directed by and featuring Isabella Rossellini about the sex life of bugs, insects and various creatures. The films are a comical but insightful study of the curious ways certain bugs “make love”. “Green” echoes the ecological movement of today and our interest in nature, and “Porno” alludes to the racy ways bugs, insects and other creatures have sex, if human, these acts would not be allowed to be screened or air on television, considered instead as most filthy and obscene.

Each film is executed in a very simple childlike manner. They are a playful mixture of real world and cartoon. Each episode begins with Isabella speaking to the camera “ If I were a…(firefly, spider, dragonfly etc.). She then transforms into the male of the species explaining in a simple yet direct dialogue the actual act of species-specific fornication. The costumes, colorful sets and backdrops as well as the female insects contribute to the playfulness of the films. The contrast of this “naïf” expression and filthy sex practices adds to the comicality of Green Porno.

Green Porno is an experiment specifically conceived with the third screen, namely cellular screens, computers and ipods.

Hit the link below for a quartet of stills.

We have been outspoken supporters of Canadian director Aaron Woodley - nephew to David Cronenberg - in these pages for some time now and following a years-long struggle to get his debut picture Rhinoceros Eyes out to the public it appears things are heating up real good for the helmer.  Yes, he shot a Mariah Carey vanity project to keep the cash flow going but with that out of the way he’s gone on to work on Drone - a dark thriller - with uncle Dave producing and now Woodley also has his sights set on a new title. 

This year’s block of Berlinale Co-Production Market - a funding market that runs in conjunction with the Berlin Film Festival - have been announced and tucked away in there is The Visitor, another new Woodley title.  This one is a science fiction picture about an orphaned girl whose only companion is an alien plant.

Read on for the complete list of Market titles and hit the link below for more details on The Visitor

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Can it be?  The perpetually in production pickpocket drama The Sparrow from Johnnie To - who has literally made for or five other films from start to finish while in production on this one - has finally wrapped up and will be premiering at the 2008 Berlinale.  Insert sounds of rejoicing here.

The first block of titles for the Panorama section of the 2008 Berlinale have been announced and, as usual, there are some compelling choices in there.  We get Bruce LaBruce’s gay zombie film Otto, festival hit I Am From Titov Veles, Brad Anderson’s Transsiberian and a little something titled Filth and Wisdom by a lady you may have heard of who goes by the name of Madonna.  Here’s hoping she’s a better director than actor ...