[In honor of the fact that a) I absolutely adore this film b) it released on DVD today and c) I am quoted front and center on the DVD cover, I hereby reprint this review of Gonazlo Lopez Gallego’s King of the Hill, originally written when the film debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007 and just as true now.]
A sly, deceptive gut punch of a picture Gonzalo López-Gallego’s King of the Hill is a brilliant, vicious little piece of work. It is a fierce piece of social commentary, the sort of picture that could never be made in North America but, by god, does it need to be. López-Gallego gives you just enough of what you expect, just enough of the familiar, to lull you into a sense of complacency. He lets you think you know what’s coming next and then, suddenly and shockingly, it all turns in on itself and becomes something entirely other, entirely more. It is the sort of film that is incredibly difficult to talk about without spoiling the punch but believe this: people will talk. And they will do so for all the right reasons.
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Naomi Klein is known around these parts for butting together sort of pop-activist bibles, one on branding and the shrinking of public space, “No Logo,” and the other on disaster capitalism and free market theory, “The Shock Doctrine.” The latter of which was turned into a short documentary, with Klein herself on narration duties, from Alfonso Cuaron, that played the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007, and CBC television afterwards before more or less vanishing into the documentary ether. Now it seems that things have stepped up a notch. Michael Winterbottom has a habit of flipping back from conventional dramas to activist documentary-like films and after his foray into the small intimate emotional cinema slash suspense thriller Genova, he is already underway making The Shock Doctrine into a feature film.
The film is based on a book by Naomi Klein which aims to expose what she calls “disaster capitalism”. The theory is that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance. Winterbottom´s film will again explore major events in history where the shock doctrine seems to apply, focusing particularly on the dictatorships in Argentina and Chile in the 1970s.
Perhaps the slate of Iraq films prevented Winterbottom and Klein from venturing into the soul-crushing chapter on the rebuilding projects in Iraq since “Mission Accomplished” in 2003, that particular portion does not look the be the focus of (or even broached by) the film. Judging from the timelines that will be covered, this might be a feature which would be an interesting companion piece with Steven Soderbergh‘s two part opus, Che (aka The Argentine and Guerrilla).
It’s gutter tourism for famed author Dries in Koen Mortier’s adaptation of the cult novel by Herman Brusselmans. Transgressive, vulgar, violent, and sexually sexually explicit, Mortier’s debut also showcases a supremely raw sense of style while preserving and oddly tragic and poetic heart. Trainspotting comparisons are inevitable - and apt enough, as far as that goes - but Mortier’s film functions on an entirely different level than Boyle’s. Yes, boys and girls, we have just been introduced to a fierce and uncompromising new talent.
Continue Reading "FANTASIA: EX DRUMMER Review"...
There is an adage about looking at a car crash and as horrific as it is you just cannot turn your head away. What if I told you that I saw I car crash last night and I didn’t want to turn my head away, that I leaned forward in my seat, that I was horrified but I also laughed uproariously at the carnage in front of me. You would think that I was a sick freak. And while it may be years before that is proved in a court of law follow me for a minute here.
Continue Reading "FANTASIA: Stuart Gordon’s ‘Stuck’"...
And the hot streak continues for Johnnie To. While the latest from the prolific action auteur lacks the blistering intensity of the Election films and the extreme high style of Exiled it reunites him with a pair of favored collaborators - screenwriter and co-director Wai Ka Fai and star Lau Ching Wan - and the result is an entertaining, surprising piece of work anchored by a powerhouse performance from Lau.
Continue Reading "FANTASIA: MAD DETECTIVE Review"...
Thank God for English subtitles. Yes, the latest from Japanese cult icon Takashi Miike, his spin on the spaghetti western, is technically already in English but thanks to the vast majority of his performers speaking no English at all and having to deliver their lines phonetically trying to watch this film without subtitles would have been an exercise in pain. With them, however, the film is a loopy explosion of energy, the most overtly crowd pleasing effort from the prolific cinematic freak show since Zebraman. Bright, brash, violent, and intentionally camp Sukiyaki Western Django is that rarest of things: an intentional cult film that succeeds on all fronts.
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There is little doubt that Korea’s Lee Myung-Se is one of the purest cinematic talents working in the world today. His grasp of the language unique to cinema is staggering, his ability to merge cinematography, editing and sound unparalleled. The man is a flat out technical giant. That said, his devotion to form often leads to some problems with story and while with M Lee irons out the tonal problems that plagued The Duelist to craft one of his most unified and focused works to date the film is so heavily constructed that the highly structured form obscures the emotional core of the story resulting in what is arguably his least accessible film thus far.
Continue Reading "NYAFF Report: M Review"...
Meet Dai Saito. He’s your typical, working class shlub in Japan. There’s never quite enough money, there are few prospects for the future, he hardly ever see his daughter, and his grandfather suffers from dementia. But there’s more! Dai Saito is also Dai Nipponjin, the sixth generation superhero who grows to enormous size when exposed to electricity to battle the monsters rampaging across Japan! Too bad nobody cares ...
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With character and thematic links to Eureka, his breakthrough dramatic film, director Shinji Aoyama along with a stellar cast of Japan’s best (Tadanobu Asano, Jo Odagiri, Aoi Miyazaki) here crafts a quiet, inward reflection of people living in the aftermath of extreme loss. In Eureka that loss was represented by a massacre aboard a bus, in Sad Vacation the loss is more realistic and closer to home, all of it keyed on people abandoned by their families. The end runs long and the final shot seems bafflingly out of place on first viewing but Sad Vacation still amply demonstrate that Aoyama is one of Japan’s most distinct voices and greatest talents.
And, yes, for those keeping track of such things this is the film in which Tadanobu Asano finally cuts his hair after years of growing it out for Mongol, and he does so on camera.
Continue Reading "NYAFF Report: SAD VACATION Review"...
No plans tomorrow night? May we strongly suggest that even if you do you cancel those plans right away, make up a strange and rare disease if you have to, and get your butt down to the Bloor Cinema tomorrow night for the Rue Morgue Cinemacabre screening of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s incredible French horror film Inside. No excuses. See the movie that was too bloody and violent for a theatrical release.
Go to this Cinemacabre link for more details.
We here at Twitch have been unanimously supportive of Inside since many of us have seen it at numerous festival screenings in 2007. My only wish was that everyone would get to see this tour de force in the cinema instead of their homes. Mind you, after you see this film you may want to run right outside, do a quick spin around the house and make sure no one is trying to break in.
The uncut release will be presented in anamorphic widescreen, along with a French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. English subtitles will also be provided, along with an English 5.1 dub. The only extra material will be a making of featurette which gets a ‘boo-urns’ from me since the guys who directed Inside were fun to talk to and have a lot to say. Myself, I’m mixed about the cover. It gets the point across, sure, and I guess when you have a brand like Dimension Extreme it makes sense on their end to make ALL their covers look the same, so that the uninitiated buyer can identify a product line instead of an individual property and it’s own merits. Can’t say I am a fan of the tag ‘UNRATED’ either. Ooh, that means it is extra, extra special.
Sleep with the lights on; Inside is coming on April 15th!
As Dave Hudson has prefaced to my Greencine interview with Stefan Ruzowitzky, the director/screenwriter of The Counterfeiters (nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category), the film is based on true events: “the Nazis planned to destabilize the American and British economies by flooding the markets with fake dollars and pounds. And they enlisted prisoners in concentration camps to counterfeit the bills. This presents a dark dilemma to the prisoners: cooperate and survive—or sabotage the project and possibly pay with their lives.”
I first reviewed this Mephistophelian dilemma at the Toronto International, skeptical that audiences would digest this bitter fare; but, I’ve been proven wrong. Dave Hudson has gathered the most recent reviews upon the film’s theatrical release, most of which are thoughtfully argued.
Cross-published on The Evening Class.
Stuck is a thrillingly outrageous howler. Its IndieFest audience was yelling at the screen even as they were laughing and shouting, “Bravo!” This under-the-radar thriller came highly recommended by David D’Arcy when we swapped tips at the Toronto International. D’Arcy wrote it up for The Greencine Daily as “a dark tale of an accident gone awry—if that’s not a conceptual oxymoron.” Twitch teammate Andrew Mack likewise praised how director, Stuart Gordon, took a “horrible story of inhumanity” and “turned it into an excruciatingly funny and dark film that surprises as much as it shocks.” Mack concluded: “Car crashes should never be this entertaining but thank god this one was.”
Blake Etheridge prefaced his Twitch interview with Gordon, scriptwriter John Strysik, and actress Mena Suvari with a detailed synopsis of the real-life atrocity on which Strysik based the film’s script.
Continue Reading "INDIEFEST08—REVIEW of STUCK"...
As Dave Hudson has prefaced at The Greencine Daily: “Tony Gilroy had been writing screenplays and watching directors turn them into movies for about a decade when he wrote Michael Clayton. For six years, the project simply would not get up off the ground. Then along came Jason Bourne. With the help of, among others, George Clooney, Sydney Pollack and Steven Soderbergh, he was finally able to get Michael Clayton made—and direct it himself.
“The film was well-received when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival and lauded in Toronto. But when it hit theaters ... well, you may have missed it. Now’s your chance. It’s out on DVD this week, just in time for the Oscars. It’s been nominated for seven of those, including Best Picture. And Gilroy’s been nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay.”
My interview with Tony Gilroy is up at Greencine‘s main site.
Cross-published on The Evening Class.
Ex-Drummer, a film about three disabled guys who ask a celebrity to join their rock band, and one of Todd’s favorite films from last year, is getting a subtitled DVD release from Tartan UK on February 25. I haven’t seen the film myself but I’m sure we can all take Todd’s word for it that it’s one to watch! So If you want to catch this film, check out the trailer after the break, and the links below.
Three drug-addled punk rock misfits are looking for a drummer. They approach Dries, a well known writer. His problem is that he can’t play the drums, which appeals to the band’s punk sensibility. Fascinated by these dysfunctional characters, Dries joins the group, but his arrival awakens the personal disputes and the family feuds latent in the band. A shocking, hardcore, blood-splattered depiction of small time rock musicians losing the plot rather than living the dream.
Continue Reading "EX-DRUMMER receives DVD release from Tartan Video with English subtitles"...
