Author: Travis Keune

Hopeless film enthusiast; reborn comic book geek; artist; collector; cookie connoisseur; curious to no end

SXSW Review: PHILLIP THE FOSSIL

It’s a relatively modern trend for movies being made with such realism and authenticity to real life — the lives of average, everyday people – often producing some amazingly poignant stories without the glitz of Hollywood standards. PHILLIP THE FOSSIL is one of these films and it really had me hooked.

Written and directed by Garth Donovan, PHILLIP THE FOSSIL starts out presenting Phillip as a really despicable, unlikable main character. As the story progresses, the audience begins to see a more mature, perhaps even slightly enlightened version of the man hidden just beneath his macho exterior.

The story also follows two other male characters, whose stories intermingle with and have great influence on Phillip’s story. Phillip’s friend Nick (Nick Dellaroca) is a soldier returned home from war, struggling with the experience of being sent overseas to kill other human beings, never quite sure how to differentiate between the good guys and the bad guys.

Sully (J.R. Killegrew) is less of a friend and more of an acquaintance and client to Phillip’s casual, small-scale drug peddling, focused primarily on steroids. Sully is a driven young man, passionate and desperate to bulk up as a way to ensure his place at the top of the football game. As his passion overtakes his sensibility, Sully increasingly becomes detached from his life, throwing away a relationship with Summer (Angela Pagliarulo) and creating tension between himself and his steroids supplier as a result of Summer’s rebound with Phillip.

The women of PHILLIP THE FOSSIL play primarily a role of beacons for the male characters, indirectly influencing their decisions. Summer is primarily a negative influence, while Julie (Ann Palica) serves as a positive reinforcement of the man that Phillip truly wants to become. The film is a compelling story of the male psyche, in three distinctly but closely connected manifestations of fear and insecurity, all of which factor into Phillip’s metamorphosis.

PHILLIP THE FOSSIL gets in line with a relatively short list of films that include SLACKERS and KIDS. These are all films that delve deep into the interpersonal, social relationships between “common” realistic lives. The images are often extreme in the content, but only in the sense that these are images that feel like documentary footage. The films feel like they’re drawn from actual occurrences, facts and true stories.

The cinematography is grainy, handheld and rough for a reason. As a society, we’ve grown to exist within a reality that is heavily filtered through the lens, more comfortable and responsive to life as its digitally reproduced than we are to life as it truly is and occurs, in the moment. PHILLIP THE FOSSIL allows the audience an opportunity to capture these moments, freeze frame them in our minds and study them. It allows us to look at the less flattering sides of our selves as if we’re looking into a mirror.

Overall, PHILLIP THE FOSSIL creates characters whose lives are just as surreal as they are real, manifesting reactions that place the reality of life directly on a collision course with ridiculous nature of the characters actions. The film places a microscope on the characters’ lives and forces them to look more closely at what they are doing, how they are acting and what consequences can ultimately play out, for better or for worse.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

SXSW Review: TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL is a comical fan fest of the horror movie genre, busting the stereotypes of creepy redneck hicks across the country. Director Eli Craig dishes up a bountiful load of laughs and hilarious kills, but despite the violence, this is not a horror movie.

Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are a couple of Appalachian country boys. These two are BFF’s and are pumped to get out to their newly acquired vacation home. It’s a fixer-upper, but they’re darn proud of finally having a little cabin in the woods to call their own.

Simultaneously, a car load of six college kids ready to party are traveling into the Appalachians to enjoy a bit of secluded youthful debauchery. The college kids first meet Tucker and Dale at the Last Chance Gas station, where first impressions fail Dale as Tucker encourages him to go talk to the sexy blond college girl named Allison (Katrina Bowden) he’s ogling over. Fearful of the stereotypical image of backwoods DEER HUNTER types that Dale unintentionally delivers, the college kids tear out of the gas station lot, never to be seen again.

Well, we know better than that, don’t we? The college kids arrive at their comfy cabin while Tucker and Dale arrive at their slightly more run-down cabin. After a bit of evaluation, Tucker and Dale head out on the lake for some night time fishing and beers. This is where things begin to go downhill as a purely innocent accident snowballs throughout the film into a terribly deadly misunderstanding. The chain reaction of events that take place weave an almost slapstick style of physical comedy with the classic buddy style humor of Abbot and Costello.

Eli Craig clearly has a fondness for the genre, but his intent is to portray the rednecks in a light very much the opposite of how they’re normally seen in the cinema. For Craig, Tucker and Dale are about the nicest, well-mannered (in their own special way) couple of gentlemen in the Appalachian Mountains. This is obvious right from the beginning, as the audience is immediately smitten with the lovable pair, overalls and all.

The college kids, however, remain the stereotypical horror genre fare. All the classic shallow personalities are there, speaking all the typical dialogue and doing all the typical stupid stuff college kids do in horror movie. The catch is that they’re doing it all to their selves, leaving the vulnerably unlucky Tucker and Dale to serve as the unquestionable culprits in this comedy of carnage.

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL is fun and fast-paced, the dialogue is spot on and the humor is refined… in the redneck sense of the word. For a smaller film, the special effects makeup is accomplished and effective, offering gore hounds plenty of blood and guts. The film draws on the obvious influences of films past, but becomes its own beast through Eli Craig’s simple yet unique vision.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

SXSW (Short) Review: EQUESTRIAN SEXUAL RESPONSE

When do children really take that first step towards understanding human sexuality? Love and sexuality must be a confusing thing to a kid, especially in today’s society where they’re inundated with images and language and ideas pertaining to the topic more than ever before. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, one question emerges… from where and how will children attain their initial understanding of these ideas and human emotions?

EQUESTRIAN SEXUAL RESPONSE addresses some of these general themes, written by Courtney Stephens and directed by Zeke Hawkins. The story is of a young pre-teen girl named Alice (Christina Robinson) who lives with her father (Scott Roberts) on their horse farm. Alice’s mother has left, leaving her father to raise Alice on his own, uncertain of exactly how to connect with his daughter and understand what she is going through as she grows up and begins to experience new things.

Aside from being a self-proclaimed vegetarian, misunderstood by her father, Alice holds great love for the horses. In particular, Alice finds herself fascinated by the relationship of mutual love she perceives between the mare named Molly and the steed named Red. She maintains a romantic interpretation of their love for each other, but when Red’s weak heart leads Alice’s father to breed Molly with another steed, her world is suddenly rocked and her perfect equestrian example of love is shattered.

Alice sees a parallel between her parents’ failed relationship and her father’s interference with Red and Molly’s relationship. Alice feels like an outsider, both at home and at school, uncomfortable with the other students’ increasing, albeit immature, exploration of sexuality. Christina Robinson’s performance is compellingly realistic, poignant and heartbreaking. She connection to the horses is evident by the way she naturally interacts with them.

The most successful element of EQUESTRIAN SEXUAL RESPONSE is how the filmmakers approached the subject matter indirectly. This isn’t a film about a girl talking to her father about the “birds and the bees” but rather a film about a girl discovering many of the realities of life on her own, while her father watches over her, struggling to understand what she is going through. Scott Roberts also gives a heartfelt performance, often relying effectively on non-verbal queues to convey his inability to fully empathize with Alice and help her through this difficult time in her life.

EQUESTRIAN SEXUAL RESPONSE is a product of the American Film Institute Conservatory, so it’s almost a given that the cinematography is sublime, provided by Martim Vian. The warmth of the natural sunlight is captured and utilized wonderfully while Alice is fully given over to her equestrian infatuation. Evan Scot Hornsby, provoking an additional layer of thoughtful depth to the viewing experience, provided the original music.

While the story leads the viewer to believe Alice’s heart is growing bitter, she witnesses a life-changing event that ultimately helps her to understand and move forward. EQUESTRIAN SEXUAL RESPONSE is a sweet and tender film that handles the subject matter of sexual discovery with tact and respectful insight, friendly as much to younger contemporary audiences as it is intelligent and original enough to satisfy adult audiences.

SXSW Review: KICK ASS

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is your average, middle-of-the-road nobody with a small entourage of nobody friends, invisible to girls and a prime target for bullies and teenage thugs. Beneath his seemingly harmless exterior, a drive to help others and make the world a safer place leads Dave to ask one question:

Why hasn’t anyone ever tried to be a super hero?

Dave is the last guy anyone would suspect to be a super hero, much in the same way Peter Parker was clearly the opposite of what one would expect a super hero to be. This works to his advantage for secrecy, but he soon learns being a hero also means taking a beating. In a strange twist of fate, a near death beating ultimately provides Dave a medical advantage in his heroic endeavors.

KICK ASS is a film based on the comic books created by Mark Millar, which he revealed after the screening was inspired by his own childhood contemplations strikingly similar to those of Dave’s. Matthew Vaughn (LAYER CAKE, STARDUST) directed this comic book movie, a film that is almost as amusing as it is, well…kick ass! For those who have read the comic books, the above statements will come as no surprise. KICK ASS will surely satisfy fans of the comic books, staying true to the overall theme and many of the key details with only a few deviations of note.

I will no longer use the term “kick ass” to describe this movie, as its obvious, cliched and most importantly, deserving of a more detailed explanation. KICK ASS has plenty of humor, but is surprisingly not strictly a comedy. In fact, the movie far better fits the classification of a hardcore, R-rated action movie.

The “R” – for those who give a rat’s ass about the MPAA – is very much a product of both language and graphic, violent action, much of which comes from the pre-teen character Hit Girl, played by Chloe Moretz. Perhaps the best part of KICK ASS, Moretz offers over-the-top action galore, amazing comic book action stunts, fight scenes and weapons proficiency. If she were to keep up her training, Moretz could literally have a good shot at being the western hemispheres first female action star since, say, Cynthia Rothrock?

Hit Girl’s father Big Daddy (Nic Cage) has trained her well, creating a powerfully non-super powered vigilante duo out to rid the city of criminals. Especially key to the father-daughter agenda is the removal of crime boss Frank D’Amico, played by Mark Strong (SHERLOCK HOLMES).

Nicolas Cage is a riot, one part well-mannered father and ex-cop and one part merciless vigilante with an alter ego likened to that of Adam West’s Batman. After seeing KICK ASS, it would be difficult to imagine anyone else filling Big Daddy’s black cape and body armor any better. Likewise, Mark Strong plays a slightly more subdued, but sinister crime boss and arch-nemesis, somewhat oblivious at first to Big Daddy’s vendetta. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (SUPER BAD) plays D’Amic’s son, who dawns the alter ego of Red Mist as a way to vie for his father’s attention and convince him to bring him into the family business.

While there’s not a significant underlying theme, the moral of the story remains consistent with the idea that we can all do more to help make the world a better place. In reality, isn’t that the ultimate theme of all super hero stories? On some minor level, KICK ASS is a loving parody of comic book movies, respectfully poking fun with inside jokes and details not likely to be caught by those outside of the comic book subculture.

Vaughn has managed to create a film that is stronger than it appears on the surface, displaying a keen sense of direction, especially within the realm of action. Killer fight sequences abound, brimming with high-octane energy. Vaughn’s choice of music for these scenes (strike that, for the entire film) are perfectly symbiotic, conjuring nostalgia and emotional ambiance alike.

Overall, KICK ASS is am enjoyable ride that focuses on one otherwise invisible kid’s dream to be something more. Dave Lewinski is a character we can all relate to on some level, making him an easy hero to root for, an everyman without super powers or massive bank accounts, a kid who wants to do more in life.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

SXSW (Short) Review: NOT INTERESTED

Driving down any typical American suburban street — passing one front door after another, all lined up in perfect geometric harmony – a question crosses my mind… What exactly goes on beyond that door? Who are these people? What are their lives really like? Not the performances they put on for the rest of us to see, but their “real” lives.

My apologies, as I got off on a bit of a tangent, but this question resurfaced as I watched D.W. Young’s newest short film NOT INTERESTED. There’s an element of this curiosity that seeps through the surface of the story. D.W. Young is probably best known for his 2008 award-winning documentary A HOLE IN THE FENCE and his last short film AMI UNDERGROUND.

NOT INTERESTED is a fairly straightforward story about a clueless slacker who sells… no, sorry… he “demonstrates” a fabulous line of high-end cutlery, door to door. The Salesman (Khan Baykal) arrives at his appointment’s nice suburban home in a pathetic jalopy, finishing his joint before approaching the client’s door. Half-stoned and oblivious to his surroundings, The Salesman knocks diligently until Ms. Samuels (Leslie Hendrix) answers the door. The Salesman proceeds with his pitch and Ms. Samuels proceeds with a persistent, yet awkward, string of repetitive answers.

“Not interested!”

The meat and potatoes of NOT INTERESTED, which runs a mere 8 ½ minutes in length, is the interaction between The Salesman and Ms. Samuels. Something about this encounter just isn’t quite right. There’s a bit of a mystery for the audience to sort out, but once they do its all about witnessing the event unfold and waiting for the outcome.

NOT INTERESTED has a touch of dark humor, but its primarily a subtle venture into the comedy of the absurd. The Salesman is something of a stereotype, as is Ms. Samuels, but she’s got an intensity to her that makes the audience suspect something is off. The Salesman presents more of a frustrating annoyance, completely unaware of the heroism that is implied upon him.

This is a short film that truly takes a tiny moment, a microscopic sliver of life, and dissects it so that the audience has the pleasure of fully digesting the intricacies of the moment these two characters share. That’s what makes NOT INTERESTED such a cool piece of cinema. Not a big budget, special effects or some elaborately complex and impossible puzzle story for the audience to try and piece together before it ends… its just a moment in time between two people, albeit a very strange and ultimately life-altering moment.

SXSW (Short) Review: TUB

I suppose it all sort of started in 1968 with Roman Polanski’s ROSEMARY’S BABY, then taken to the next level of weird in 1979 by David Cronenberg with THE BROOD and most recently twisted in a wholly new way in 2009 with GRACE. If you haven’t figured out the trend by now, you’re clearly not a fan of quality horror. So, let me spell it out for you and say the trend is horror movies about babies and pregnancy.

Exactly. The concept alone is twisted enough for most people to shy away at the mere thought of cute, innocent little babies being associated with movies intended to scare or repulse the audience on some level. For those people, Bobby Miller’s short TUB is not immediately recommended, but… I still dare you to give it a try.

Written and directed by Bobby Miller, TUB is not his first short film and it shows. TUB is a well-crafted piece of shock cinema. This is a dark and to some, possibly controversial comedy. It’s a film that, intentionally or not, draws upon the unmistakable influence of David Cronenberg. Miller adds his own touch, creating that delicate mix of repulsion and rubbernecking interest that holds the viewer’s attention as we watch the character’s ordeal unfold on film.

Paul (Eric M. Levy) fails at seducing his live-in girlfriend Emily (Megan Raye Manzi) so, he does the obvious… after Paul finishes taking care of business in the shower he cleans up and goes to bed. The next morning begins on the wrong foot and progressively gets worse as Paul realizes he has impregnated his bathtub.

Late for work, Paul rushes to leave his apartment but is distracted by what appears to be a clogged drain in his bathtub. What he finds instead is the aftermath of his one-night-stand with the porcelain seductress. Paul now must figure out what is to be done with his grotesque little love child.

TUB is a story that will have a strong niche audience of fans, with its popularity encouraged by those who find the film offensive. That’s the beauty of movies like TUB, whereas the controversial aspects of the film ultimately increase its exposure through failed attempts at discouraging others. It’s a strange but ironic dynamic that often assists the filmmaker in achieving notoriety.

Paul is a nervous wreck, always stressed by his job, so this new chapter in his life only makes things worse. Paul’s little bathtub bambino begins to grow on him, as he forms an unlikely bond, no different than a mother with her newborn human child. The tension works well in TUB as Paul stumbles through fatherhood. He juggles hiding the truth from his girlfriend Emily as she questions Paul about avoiding her.

The special effects within TUB are very admirable, given the scale of the project. The bathtub baby somehow manages to be both cute and grotesque at the same time. The morbid humor of the film in enhanced with wonderful mood-inducing songs from Sam Cooke and Conway Twitty.

TUB is a film that aims for the viewer’s heart, either to capture it or cause it to abruptly fail, the outcome is up to the individual.

SXSW Review: ERASING DAVID

Right now, this very moment, do you feel like you’re having a “private” moment? If you’re on the Internet, a cell phone or even walking down a public street… then, don’t count on it. In fact, award-winning filmmaker David Bond literally goes out of his way to show just how unlikely it is to have a truly private life in the documentary ERASING DAVID.

After receiving a notice in the mail from a major corporation, apologizing for a breach of private digital information, David Bond decided he would try and disappear for 30 days. He became fascinated with the idea that every detail of his life was being tracked, recorded and stored in databases.

David’s plan was not to erase himself from the system, but rather to escape the system and see if the system could find him. He challenged a pair of successful UK private investigators to track him down, using any and all legal means to track his whereabouts. Meanwhile, his wife is seven months pregnant and proves to be the overly trusting, shall I say slightly naïve opposite of David’s increasingly concerned and suspicious character.

At first, David’s fascination is an intellectual curiosity, but his ambiguous approach quickly spirals into a state of self-induced paranoia and fear. David moves from one place to another, in and out of the UK as he meets with various experts on privacy in the modern world.

Co-directed by David Bond and Melinda McDougall, ERASING DAVID uses David’s first-person experience (a la filmmakers like Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore) to unravel the surprising truth about how vulnerable our information is to the world. Combined with expert meetings on the nature of privacy and how to maintain it and a few traditional interviews spliced in from other experts on the subject matter, be prepared for a beginner’s course in how the government and private corporations keep tabs on public citizens.

Amongst the most shocking bits of information gleaned from ERASING DAVID is that the UK has some 5 million closed caption cameras watching and recording the public’s every move and that the UK is the nation with the third most surveillance in the world, right behind China and Russia. The relatively frightening facts presented add their own sense of uneasiness, but the film is enhanced in this respect by composer Michael Nyman’s (RAVENOUS) original score, which is almost enough reason on its own to see this film.

ERASING DAVID is more than just a documentary, documenting David’s experiment and informing the public of the very public nature of their private lives, it is also an entertaining narrative. David Bond attempts to maintain a loose, casual personality at first before slowly drifting into the more paranoid side of himself that has him hiding in more rural regions.

There is occasionally a quirky, playful element to Bond’s film. In particular, David spends some time in a rural region and this scene has an odd feel of Jason Bourne spy conspiracy meets the lurking unknown sensation of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. The scene is meant to evoke a sense of fear and the point gets across, but ultimately comes across in a humorous tongue-in-cheek fashion.

The film is in black and white, but bits of color occasionally bleed through, which suggests the film was converted for effect. It’s an interesting, moody touch, giving the film a bit of the film noir, gritty private detective atmosphere.

For the same reason SUPER SIZE ME and BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE received flack from some critics, similar questions regarding the “authenticity” and “spontaneity” of ERASING DAVID occasionally surface. This doesn’t really pull away from the effectiveness much, as this element sort of comes with the territory when making this type of documentary film. ERASING DAVID is still a fresh, engaging and relevant work.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

ERASING DAVID is currently available on iTunes and Amazon, soon to be available on cable video-on-demand beginning April 1, 2010. Visit FilmBuff.com for further details.

Review: A TOWN CALLED PANIC

Amidst all the technological advances and trending focus on computer animation, I am pleased to see a continued interest in the traditional art of stop motion animation. Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar continue the trend with their stop motion animated film A TOWN CALLED PANIC.

The feature film, a short but sweet 75 minutes in length, is a follow up to the filmmakers’ 2000 short animation Panique au village. A TOWN CALLED PANIC is filled with frantic and energetic, showcasing comical creativity within its structured chaos. In short, watching A TOWN CALLED PANIC is akin to experiencing GUMBY, having been genetically spliced with TOY STORY, all jacked up on speed and adrenaline.

A TOWN CALLED PANIC follows a small village of folks, created in the style of old school molded plastic toys. Horse, quite literally a plastic toy horse, lives in one house across the road from farmers Stephen and Janine. Living with Horse are the dim-witted stooges Cowboy and Indian, essentially Larry and Curly, whereas Horse replaces Moe with a more Lou Abbott straight man… I mean, horse, of course.

In the town of Panic, a policeman and a mailman also reside, along with many farm animals. It’s a small town, but the town experiences more that its share of antics and accidents at the hands of Cowboy and Indian. The two bumbling idiots mean well, but their good nature causes havoc as they rush to scrape together a last minute gift for Horse’s birthday.

The trouble all begins with Indian making a simple careless mistake while ordering bricks for a homemade BBQ pit, intended as Horse’s birthday gift. This sizable mistake carries a heavy weight, triggering a chain reaction of absurdly bizarre events to unfold. Unsuspecting of his birthday surprises, good and bad, Horse pursues his interest in Mrs. Longray — an attractive female horse that teaches music at a nearby school.

The animation is A TOWN CALLED PANIC is playfully psychotic, with characters running around on their plastic bases, flying through the air as a result of repeated explosions, beat downs from other characters. The colors of the film are rich and the pace of the story and action is fast. I do mean fast! The film is in French, spoken rapidly to match the pace of the action on screen, so the English subtitles move quickly to keep up… so, break out your CLOCKWORK ORNAGE eye clamps and prepare yourself for animated craziness.

A TOWN CALLED PANIC has a familiar feel, similar to the numerous recent “adult” animated programs on late-night cable, but this film has a slightly more refined essence to its madness. In some ways, the encounters and humor that Cowboy and Indian encounter have a hint of Monty Python in their arsenal of influence. One chunk of the story I particularly enjoyed involved three mad scientists and a giant robotic penguin on tank tracks.

Accompanying Cowboy and Indian’s zany little world of make-belief are goggle-wearing fish men, musically-talented farm animals and even an angry woolly mammoth. Much of the action in A TOWN CALLED PANIC is reminiscent of the classic Nick park WALLACE & GROMIT, conveying a sort of Rube Goldberg quality, except in this film its much more chaotic and less choreographed in its purpose, while still moving the story along without any hiccups.

A TOWN CALLED PANIC is pure, enjoyable motion picture viewing. It’s simple, yet complex. It’s not a sloppy or choppy film, but more fluid. Watching this movie is like being transported back to the playground for 75 minutes, but allows the audience to maintain their adult sense of humor in perfect harmony with their awkward inner child.

SXSW Preview: THE WHITE STRIPES – UNDER THE GREAT NORTHERN LIGHTS

During the week or so leading up to the start of SXSW 2010, I’ll be providing a glimpse into some of the films I am looking forward to at the festival. SXSW will feature many great films, many more than I can cover, ranging from narrative fiction to documentary, comedy to horror, foreign to animation, independent to studio films.

SYNOPSIS: Under Great White Northern Lights is a visual and emotional feature length film documenting The White Stripes making their way through Canada and culminating with their 10th anniversary show in Nova Scotia. The film documents the band playing shows all over Canada; from local bowling alleys, to city buses, and onward to the historic Savoy Theatre for the 10th Anniversary show. Along the way, they have some nice casual conversations about their ten years together, fire cannons, play some of their biggest songs together on stage, and even play a ‘one note show.’ The cameras were there to capture every waking moment.

SXSW Preview: ELEKTRA LUXX

During the week or so leading up to the start of SXSW 2010, I’ll be providing a glimpse into some of the films I am looking forward to at the festival. SXSW will feature many great films, many more than I can cover, ranging from narrative fiction to documentary, comedy to horror, foreign to animation, independent to studio films.

SYNOPSIS: Pregnant porn star Electra Luxx (Carla Gugino) is trying to make a living teaching sex classes to housewives. But her life is thrown into disarray when a flight attendant (Marley Shelton) with ties to Electra’s past approaches her for a favor. Chaos ensues as fiancees, private investigators, a twin sister and even the Virgin Mary force her to face up to an unexpected series of decisions and revelations.