On September 22nd through the 29th Fantastic Fest take place in Austin, Texas. Billed as the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world, this one is worth the effort to get to. Some of the more interesting films already in the venue (they are still adding more) include Beyond The Black Rainbow, a dystopian retro-future with a unique visual style, and Invasion Of Alien Bikini, a Korean ultra low budget kung-fu/action/comedy/sci-fi/bikini romp that made 5 times its production cost when it won the Grand Prize at the Yubari Film Festival. Also A Lonely Place TO Die, a UK presentation of a survival film that has fully believable characters in every roll and real heart in its storytelling, and Underwater Love, a Japanese romantic comedy about the relationship between a woman and her Kappa (watersprite deity). The list goes on, including a rare big screen presentation of Versus, the classic Yakuza vs. gun toting Zombies fim, a from Japan.
The most interesting selection this week is in very limited release: Restless is a story about a man who crashes funerals with his best friend (the ghost of a WWII Kamikazi pilot) who meets and falls in love with a dying girl while doing so. Like all the best stories, this is about how people change and grow while proceeding through life, even when their life is a bit stranger than average. The question at the core of this one is Who do you live for, I look forward to seeing if they can pull it off well enough to make the film live up to the promise of the trailer. If it does, it may just become another cult classic on a par with Harold and Maude.
In limited release this week, Shaolin looks like the most interesting selection. It is a historical epic of the feudal warlord period of China’s history (yes, I know that only narrows it down to a few thousand years, but the fact that they have rifles helps narrow it further, to the last several hundred years). The name from the cast everyone should recognize is Jackie Chan, and as you can see from the trailer the cinematography is excellent as is often the case with Chinese made epics.
An interesting twist on the Shakespeare legend, this historical fantasy looks like it could be intellectually satisfying as well as just plain fun. Anonymous opens October 28th in the US, November and December for the rest of the world.
The second in the series of Mardock Scramble movies is going to be rolling out shortly, and in honor of that there will be a live-broadcast talk event on Ustream and Nico Nico Douga at 7PM Tokyo time tomorrow, 30Aug11, which is 5AM PST, and 8AM EST, but at least all on the same day. The guests on screen include the writer (Tow Ubukata wrote both the sci-fi novels and the screenplays), the director, and the lead actor (actress, in this case). The first film doesn’t get released in the US for another month yet on September 27th, but the English trailer for it is now available (the second one here), and it will be OnDemand from The Anime Network in October.
Both of the two offerings this week seem to be in the horror field, which I am not a fan of (unless the film has a good level of comedy to balance it out, which these don’t appear to have). If I had to pick one, I suppose it would be Apollo 18, because at least that one takes place off Earth, unlike Shark Night 3D. But I think I will give them both a pass, and use the time I free up to catch up with some current Anime series I am behind on, instead.