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This month I'm not going to center my article on one simple
review but instead an !EVENT!. That's right ladies and
gentlemen, Im going to talk to you about my great experience at
the FANTASIA film festival, a local, yearly movie festival that
airs sci-fi, horror, and fantasy movies from all over the world,
such as Akira, Riki-oh, Cannibal! the Musical, which are all
movies they've played in previous years. But this years movies
aren't cult classics yet, and everyone is after the aforementioned
"cult" status, and Fantasia helps them get that title. Another great
thing about Fantasia is that a lot of the movies are introduced by
its director followed with a Q&A session and an autograph
signing. On with the experience...
So it all started on July 9th, the day the box office opened..
after certain duties I'm chained to do, I got a lift to the place and
noticed a huge line around the block leading to the ticket booth..
I knew it'd be bad, but not this bad. This is how bad people
wanted to see the opening film, which was, in this case, Final
Fantasy. So I go up to the front of the row to grab the yearly
schedule/magazine, free of charge thanks to the sponsors, and
start walking to the end of the line, a good 10 minute walk or
maybe its just 2 minutes, but it doesn't matter for I need not do
this walk.. because after turning around, I spot my ever so joyful
friend Marc and he's only a few steps away from being let in to
the ticket place, so I use my ancient art of line cutting and jump
in next to him. We share greetings and introductions, I then
realized that the two people in front of me were 2 other people I
know from a video store I visit ever so often. It was my lucky
day. We sat around and talked about movies, music, and the
events to come. Finally it was our turn, my friend picked up 10
tickets, one for himself, one for his brother and another for his
valiant army of techno groupies. I just got 1 ticket and walked
out with shoulders high. As I walked towards my moms waiting
car, I had to wave my ticket in the air.. People screamed and
stared, but it was fun! I ended up spending 10 minutes getting
my ticket instead of 2 hours to get a Final Fantasy ticket!
Congratulations, oh me! That night I got home and called a good
buddy of mine and asked what movies he wanted to see, so I
marked them down.
July 10th, the launch day for Fantasia, the launch movie..
Final Fantasy. I got there at 6:00 and the lineup wasn't as long as
I thought it was, so I went walking around, looking for a
bathroom for 10 minutes. I ran into a buddy of mine at the
record store and we talked. He hadn't gotten tickets, so I left
and got back in line at 6:15. No sign of the guy who I was
supposed to meet who let me cut the day before, so I stood
there alone, looking back and forth like a dancing beaver until
finally he appeared before me, and shook my hand for saving
him a spot... him and his 9 friends, but it's cool. Returning a
favor and all. We stood around and waited for the people to
open the doors, the doors magically opened at 7:25 and people
rushed in to get seats above on the balcony. We got one, a
whole row! Haha! Suckers! Then I went to buy candy, popcorn
and a highly sugared soda pop (kidding ^_^)... The two brother
dudes came out and talked about how after six years of doing
this thing, they are very happy that its gotten so big and that
when they were younger, they thought they were the only one
who liked these flicks and bla bla bla.. then the janitor dude (If
you've been to Fantasia before, you know who I'm talking
about! Now he's cult!) came out to take down the microphones.
Everyone cheered as loud as they could because everyone hails
the janitor dude. The lights dimmed and we were shown
previews for FOUL KING and DIE BAD. People cried, people
laughed and yelled obscenities and then the screen went black
with a little black and white logo saying SQUARE in it, the
movie was starting. I won't say anything about Final Fantasy
except for this. The animation in this flick is beyond insane, half
the time youre questioning what you see and the other half your
questioning SQUARE saying its all animation. The movie itself
was ok in story plot, better then most based on video game
movies. The plotline is very reminiscent of the Final Fantasy
mold with a lot of stereotype anime plotline. All in all, a good
watch! A lot better then I expected, but I won't say anything else
because this isn't part of my chase for the great cult status.
July 12th. Die bad
I got to the place at 8:00, the lineup consisted of 5 people, so I
went to the ticket booth and got my tickets for Ghost World and
Cannibal Holocaust for the Saturday to come, I then saw that
the organizer guy was talking to a camera inside, so I thought to
myself... "Jon, you can score an interview with him! He seems
like a cool guy! Try it". Then I walked away and went to the
record store.. I met my friend once again, he was packing a
PS2, he just bought it with SSX and some other game, of which
the name slips my mind at the moment, so I told him I'd be in line
if he wanted to skip in with me. I walked back to the place and
the organizer was still talking to the camera, so I was like,
"Man.. Im gonna score this interview!" So I asked this dude
heading out if it was possible, he said to ask the ticket person,
so I went and asked, and she said to hold on for a second, she
went in the lobby area, I stared awkwardly through the window
as she walked over, talked to a few people and then one guy
came up to the window, took one strong look at me and left.
The girl came back and told me to knock on the window, so I
knocked, a bald guy answered the door and said to wait a
minute. I waited 5 seconds and was greeted by the happiest man
on earth. This guy is a tall dude with long brown hair and he's all
dressed in black like "the bad", so I asked if it was cool if I
could interview him, he said !!!YES!!! woohoo! I then
proceeded to ask if I could do it some other time when I had
some sort of recording device so that I could interpret what he
says, word for word, and he said it was cool! I was in, so on my
way out I got in line.. what just happened only took about 5-10
minutes. Back in line, I saw the people from Space TV walk up
to someone and ask for an interview, so I asked the kind
gentlemen in front of me to hold my place and he said "sure." I
ran to the side of the cameraman and stood patiently as the
Space newscaster asked her questions to the man, fairly hot lady
she is, that interviewer. As she walked away, I tapped her on
the shoulder and said, "Hey! I can do an interview!" so they got
me a spot, and filmed peeps walking out all mystified by
Escawfloney:Y2. I stood there and answered questions. I was
quite dazed at first, but then once I got used to how it worked. I
think I popped some good answers. Back to the line, 2 of my
friends showed up(not the guy from the record store), got in with
me and started talking about how bad Escaflowney Y2 was.
They trashed this movie from left to right and up and down and
flushed it down the toilet several times..
The doors to the theater finally re-opened and everyone was
let in. As I walked in the Organizer Dude (I'll get his name next
time I see him) introduced me to the Asian film organizer who
was a really cool guy. He talked about "Battle Royale" and other
crazy movies they couldn't get this year. I was so wrapped up in
the conversation at hand that I didn't realize I was missing the
movie. I said bye and went up to the balcony section where my
two buddies were already goofing the movie. DIE BAD. Die
Bad, in my opinion, was a poor take on the Quentin Tarantino
style of film-making. They went for the jumbled puzzle-like
plotline about this guy who gets involved with gangs, then he
becomes a cop and his brother starts up in gangs, too. Now I
won't ruin this movie, because although I didn't like it that much,
it does have potential for distribution, some cool fight scenes,
extreme gory moments and a solid enough plotline to keep a
Die Hard fan at bay while waiting for a new Tai-seng release.
I left the theater smiling, the two at hand still mocking the film
and what not, I said my farewells and went my way. I scored an
interview with the head honcho! Damn, I'm cool. So look for
that in the next couple of days.
July 13th. St-Johns Wort / Ripper: Letters from Hell
I arrived downtown at around 6:30 and the lineup for St-
Johns Wort was getting pretty long already, so I headed over to
Amirs and took my shishtaouk plate to go. I went back to the
lineup and waited patiently, hoping I'd meet someone I knew but
to no avail, they opened the doors and we were let in. I talked
for 2 seconds with Mitch(the aforementioned Organizer
Dude/head honcho) but not for long because he had some
business to attend to. I stood around the lobby hawking the
door for anyone I knew.. high school buddies, people I've seen
on the streets, people I know from video stores, anyone! But as
before, to no avail... So I waited patiently for them to open the
balcony (they only open it once the floor is packed) and they
never did, so the doors started closing and I rushed in. Once in,
I couldn't find a seat for the life of me. It was too dark and I was
getting scared by the cannibal holocaust trailer. So I headed to
the top and stood next to Mitch for a whole 2 minutes. God, I
felt cool! Then a dude in a white Fantasia t-shirt came to me and
said, "Lookin' foh a seat?" and I said, "Yes! I couldn't find one!"
and in the blink of a buffalos eye, I had a seat. I wedged myself
into the row of people and sat down, just in time for the movie
to start.
St-Johns Wort, supposedly means REVENGE in old
Japanese poems, but in this case it was just a great film. It was a
psychological thriller about a girl who inherits the house of her
father. She never knew her father, for she was taken away when
she was very little. Through searching the house, her and her
quasi-boyfriend find secret rooms, doorways and video
cameras. The main character, Nami also finds out she has a twin
sister.. or does she? This movie was shot in a very original light.
It was made to be portrayed as if it were a video game, so when
the main characters talk to people who aren't in the main cast
list, it comes on screen as a RPG dialogue, all typed out with a
little flashy green arrow pointing down to read more, and when
they find keys or secret doorways, the camera colors go black
and white or red and black to highlight the item, kind of like
when you find an item in Resident Evil or such other Survival
horror games. I also liked the fact that at the household where
Nami's friends are helping to assemble a map of the house for
further use in a video game(coincidence?) the lighting is EXTRA
luminous and when they are in the abandoned mansion, it's dark
and gloomy and often presented through security cameras. The
main characters put on a good show even if I don't understand
said language, but I think that the cute little blonde Asian girl
back at the apartment stole some of the better moments, but
thats just my honest male opinion. The ending is very disturbing
but fits appropriately and so does the little bit after the ending.
All in all, it was a good movie and if you have the chance to see
it, go for it!
Walking out of the theater I was in reflection mode, thinking
about the movie and all its twists and all that. I got back in line
right away so as to avoid getting crappy seats again. Next
movie, Ripper: Letters from Hell, another teenager slasher flick
in the foot of scream or I know what you did last summer, wich
I'm not very fond of, but in the article for this movie, they said
how the killing scenes were kind of interesting so I decided "I'll
be there anyways, might as well check it out". So in line, I
waited, five minutes after a waited, about 2 meters ahead of me
someone breaks away and comes to talk to me, it was my friend
Jordan, he asked me how the movie was and told me he'd see
me inside, he wasn't going to let me cut in! so I asked if I could
and he said yes, so I gave up my spot and moved up, but just a
little bit, he told me we were waiting for another friend and his
girlfriend which were also friends of mine but they were
supposed to be here by now, and that he was supposed to give
Jordan's friend a ticket for the movie, so I went in to keep some
seats and he waited outside, so I stood in the lobby so they
could find me and the floor filled up quite quickly. and when all 4
of them got in, I told them I couldn't find 5 seats together, so we
came to the decision that'd we'd wait for balcony seats, and as
the words were spoken, so it was made, the balcony opened up
and we ran for seats, we had about 5 minutes before the movie
started and so we talked about our good times in NAM and
how nice it was to be back.
Ripper:Letter from Hell is the definition of a bad movie, but it
was cool. It wasn't so unbearable that you couldn't watch it, it
was just a movie that was easily made fun of, and it was mutual.
Every time something I awarded as totally bizarre or out of
place, I wasn't the only one to laugh... the whole room blew up
with laughter several times and it was a great atmosphere to be
in for a movie like this. An example of silliness: Bruce Payne,
playing the role of the serial killer study teacher goes over to the
main character Molly's house to console her about her falling out
with the rest of her class, and out of nowhere they both get butt
naked and lock into passionate embraces. The funniest of it all is
that while they're at it, Molly's love interest shows up to
apologize for earlier but doesn't go in because of the shadow
theater being projected on her window. The movie is about a
group of kids in a college "serial killer theory" class and they all
start getting killed off, one by one and in the same stylings as
Jack the Ripper. Our little Heroine takes it upon herself to solve
this murder and starts to compare all the murders to those of
Jack the Ripper. Her and her rag tag group of schoolmates find
out that they all have the initials of the old Jack the Ripper
victims, so they break down in order. Who gets the shank first?
Some of the murders were kind of cool, but none of them were
as innovative as the article made it out to be. The one I preferred
the most was the first one amongst the circle of friends. She gets
hung from a building by huge links of chain, slashed to crap with
a knife and smashed through the window of a night club she was
just at, only this time she's not at upbeat as she was. Overall, it
was a funny experience. The movie was a basic horror movie
and could hold its own against Scream, and the other titles
mentioned, but for true die-hard horror fanatics, spend your
money on Cannibal Holocaust or even better, Dead Alive.
I left the theater and stood around for five minutes talking,
only until I checked my watch and saw that it was 12:05, so I
bid everyone farewell and ran for the metro. I got the last
running metro and got to my station safely. I then got to my bus
stop and saw that I had just missed my ride home by 7 minutes..
How shitty that was, so I called home and told them I could wait
till 1:30 and get the next bus, but they didn't like that so my mom
elbowed my dad into coming to get me.. As I waited, I met a
Yugoslavian fellow who had also missed his bus, we talked
about this and that. Youre asking yourself, "WHAT THE HELL
DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH FANTASIA?!" Well, I
gave him a Fantasia magazine and told him to check it out. He
said, cool. I got home at 1:35 and I was glad to be home.
Tomorrow, or today I should say, Im going to see, not 1, not 2,
but THREE movies. Foul King, Ghost World and Cannibal
Holocaust.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: KANE IS AMAZING!!!
July 14. Foul King/Ghost World/Cannibal Holocaust
Back for another day of fun! I got to the theater at 7:10, the
movie started at 7:15, this was the latest I'll ever be. Luckily, I
was able to cut not too far in back of the line and ended up
getting good seats. All my mates were already inside because
they had gone to see the movie that was playing inside. I just
went up to the balcony secretly and sat myself down next to
them. They joyfully made fun of the previous movie as usual and
we were prepared to see Foul King, a wrestling movie from
south Korea. I didn't expect much of this little piece but it
seemed funny, in the least.
SO the movie is about a puny little man who gets picked on by
everyone. His boss has an obsession with putting him in
headlocks and threatening to fire him and kids half his age beat
him up on the way home from work. What is a man to do? He
goes to the local gym and decides to become... A
WRESTLER!! This is when you should just turn off your brain
and forget about making any sense of this movie. The trainer
says no because this man is obviously very puny, but later on,
the trainer goes to a meeting with someone who says he needs a
wrestler who is only good at fouls, that can only win a match by
cheating. In comes the puny protagonist again, he goes through
severe training to become the Foul King and blah blah blah.. The
moment that stuck with me the most in this movie is when he
uses the wooden prop fork for the first time. That was totally
unexpected, but I'll leave it a secret for the public. Overall, the
movie was quite funny and it had a very light feel to it, and it was
a lot better then I expected. I'm not a big fan of wrestling, but
the movie doesn't really emphasize many actual wrestling
matches, only 1 or 2, and when they happen, they're hilarious
because Foul King is a dumbass and he just runs around the ring
aimlessly until he finds some way to cheat. It was an overall light
experience, but it's not the kind of movie I'd have enjoyed alone.
You need friends sitting with you to comment on the sillies.
After Foul King, I went to the lobby and all my friends left
because the next film, Ghost World had been sold out. It was a
big hit, and so I was to watch it alone. I stood at the door
hoping for someone I knew to come in, but alas, no one did, so
I just grabbed a seat and waited patiently for the movie to start.
An old man sat in the seat next to me and he seemed to be
enjoying himself so it was good. The lights dimmed and I sat
back and got hypnotized by the hum of the projector (I was
sitting right next to it).
This movie is a diamond in the rough! I loved this movie so much
and I really hope it gets a wide release so that everyone reading
this will understand why I say so! This little gem had no place at
Fantasia. Why? It wasn't sci-fi, gory, international, horror,
fantasy.. etc, It was a simple coming of age movie based on the
old Eightball Comics of the time. The story follows two friends,
Enid and Rebecca, two outcasts from school who decide they
want to move in with each other. High School is over and they
start looking for jobs. Rebecca is a little more lucky and nabs a
job at a cheesy Starbucks place where she's pestered by an old
man in a wheel chair for coffee. As for Enid, she befriends a 39
year old man (brightly played by Steve Buscemi) who she met
by pranking his house through an ad in the paper. Enid is forced
to go to summer school for art class and the teacher is a total
whack job and most scenes in the art class totally mock new age
art and all its stupidity, Enid draws comic book drawings and
gets turned down by the teacher while another student puts a
bunch of coat hangers together and says it represents feminism
and gets the teachers everlasting praise. I won't give any more
away from the story line but I will say this: this little flick that I
almost didn't get a ticket for is now my new favorite movie, I
mean #1! I have a lot of favorite movies, but usually the slot for
#1 doesn't change often, it's been Clerks for 3-4 years now..
But this movie, in all its cleverness, abducted me into its beauty...
from the light hearted high school graduation, to the somewhat
tear jerker ending, I sat with eyes gaping for more. I felt bad for
anyone who didn't see this movie and I hope it gets a wide
release. It seems that this movie is suffering a usual good movie
fate, MGM has decided to play it in two cities in the USA and if
it goes well, then have a somewhat bigger release, and if that
does good, an even bigger release. If it does poorly, then it goes
straight to video. So I beg you, as the readers, if this movie is
playing in your city, go see it now!! That will be all.. *coughs*
and on a side note.. yes, I cried.. just a little ^_^
I left the theater in total bewilderment and headed outside
because I was meeting a buddy of mine, Detroit his name is, for
Cannibal Holocaust. I found where they were camping and got
in line, talked about the bad movies we'd seem in the last month
(I hadn't talked to Detroit in a while). Names mentioned such as
Yor:warrior from the Future, Immortal Combat, Choke Canyon,
etc. We got in to Cannibal Holocaust and got a couple of seats
up front, off to the side. The crowd consisted of old rotting punk
rockers, metalheads and dreary couples looking for a Blair
Witch. I'm being quite general, there were some nice folks too.
The lights faded and the tick of the projector was heard, the film
was starting and it cut straight to the chase with no previews. It
was midnight and Cannibal Holocaust was starting. Now you
can go out and buy/rent this movie, but no video store around
here has it, so I decided I'd see it for the first time on the big
screen. This movie is EXTREMELY gory, but not Dead Alive
gory.. I'm talking realistic gore and lots of it. I can see where the
Blair Witch dudes got most of they're ideas. The film is the found
footage of 3 young folks looking to make a documentary on the
Amazon cannibalistic tribes, but what happens is much worse.
To make the documentary spicier, the 3 lively film makers
decide to anger the cannibals by shooting them, burning down
they're huts, raping their villagers, etc.. and they film all this,
planning to cut it out of the actual film. So all is well for the three
as they torture cannibals, turtles and all kinds of other animals.
The sheer close ups of a turtle being decapitated with a big knife
was very disturbing, as it lashed out for its last breath on camera
as the 3 film makers laughed. I found the movie to be just a huge
gore fest and that the story was kind of lacking. Walk through
the Amazon, torture an animal, shoot a cannibal, eat an animal,
repeat. Until the demise of the 3 film makers, which looks like
its bloody but the camera is shaking like crazy at the time so
you don't see much. I don't think I'd want to see this movie
again, but I wouldn't turn it off if it was playing or anything. I
personally liked Cannibal Ferox better, because it was kind of a
rip off of this one, and its very cheap and funny at moments. As
for Cannibal Holocaust, the only time I laughed was when they
were filming an impaled girl on a stick. One of the film makers
has a big smile across his face until his girlfriend elbows him in
the side and reminds him that they're filming. His face them goes
blank as he goes "Dear god!... Thi.. this is terrible! Who would
do such a thing?!". The movie got out at 2:00am, so there was
no way I'd get home, so I just crashed at Detroits house.
Tomorrow is Chasing Sleep, with a Q&A from the director, if
he shows up.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Ahhh.. Fantasia, the only place where
the lineup for the guys bathroom is longer then the one for the
girls" --spoken by a man in the lineup for the guys bathroom.
July 15. Chasing Sleep
I never went home last night, so I was downtown all day and
convinced someone to come see the movie with me, so I
wouldn't have to sit alone again. As much as I tell myself it
doesn't bother me, it feels awkward, so we met at a metro
station and I gave him his ticket that I had purchased previously
so as he wouldn't have to worry about the flick selling out. He
hadn't had supper yet, so I went to Burger King with him. He
got some food and I sat and watched, drooling like a mad man.
I showed him the pictures from the movie and the article in the
magazine. As we sat, I saw a girl from my school walking
around outside, so I ran out to say hi. When I got back, my
friend had gotten rid of his tray, so we left and walked along
towards the theater. About half way there, I stopped to think
and immediately turned to him and asked, "You didn't throw
away your ticket, did you?" remembering that it was on his tray.
He stared at me blankly and said, "oh shit...." I started laughing
hysterically, we both ran to the box office and luckily it wasn't
sold out, so we got a ticket, and continued to walk around. We
were 40 minutes away from movie time, anyway. We walked
around, witnessed a drug bust, met some of his friends.. the
usual downtown Montreal activities. Then we got in line, it was
long, but it didn't matter, we were after balcony seats, anyway. I
stepped out of the line to go find a bathroom. I really had to go,
OK!? When I got back the line was moving.. they were being let
in! Holy crap! How was I going to find my friend? I didn't.
Instead, I stood outside and said hi to Mitch and asked what he
thought of this movie and he told me it was good but it wasn't
going to be an action packed gore fest, if I was expecting that. I
waited for the whole line to be gone, said my goodbyes and
went in. I couldn't find him! He'd gone to get a seat. I didn't
know if he was up, down, in the bathroom or what, so I just
started with the lower floor. I found another friend of mine
who'd been there all day with his golden pass, and only a couple
rows ahead of him I found my initial friend. I rounded both their
asses up and we headed up for balcony seats. Just in time for
Chasing Sleep to start.
This movie was a nice film. Its about a man(played by Jeff
Daniels, there is life after Dumb and Dumber, after all) whose
wife doesn't come home one night after work. At 5 in the
morning, he calls the police and they tell him they can't file a
report until 72 hours. He goes into a deep fend of insomnia, not
sleeping a wink or passing out and not knowing. This film was
beautifully shot. For example, he opens the door one moment to
talk to someone at the door and its fully sunny outside and he
closes the door. Right after he closes it the cops show up, but
when he opens his door, its dark outside, showing that he slept.
The crowd doesnt see it, because as he says in the movie, "I
must sleep, time passes by, but I don't seem to get the benefits".
After the cops search his house, he finds out things about his
wife that he didn't want to know and a fruit of those events
comes and knocks him in the face, literally. The director had a
deep fixation with any type of plumbing and when asked at the
Q&A, he said ever since he was a child he loved old rusty
bathrooms... quite a fixation. The Q&A went well. People asked
some really good questions and I asked him. "Why didn't you
put Ultraman in your movie?" and got the answer of, "Who is
Ultraman?" That was cool, so if you reading this Mr. Walker
(Micheal Walker), I was the one who asked that question, and
Ultraman is a Japanese man in a suit who battles monsters in city
models. Now you know. I put the whole crowd in a state of
confusion, which was good. I left right after, not because I was
afraid of a mob, but because my parents were waiting for me
outside.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The Question is..... Why didn't you
include Ultraman in your movie?" --Spoken by Kareem, one of
the Fantasia organizers.
July 18th. Seance
For Seance, I was to meet my friend Pat at a underground
railroad station, locally known as a metro. The meeting went fine
and the air was good. We talked up about our day and all that
conversational jive. We stopped a couple places on the way
there to check stuff out, etc, and we got at the theater around
9:15. The movie was at 9:55, so I did the usual line check to see
if we could skip into the line, and to my surprise, my good
buddy from a video store I shop at (Boite Noire*shameless
plug(link:http://www.boitenoire.com*) was there and he let me
cut with him. My friend Lance walked up and got in line with us.
He talked to Pat about business ordeals and me and Matt talked
about Takashi Mikee and a lot of other movies at Fantasia.
When we got in, I went with Pat and Lance to the balcony and
Matthiew from Boite Noire went downstairs, so we went our
separate ways.
The lights dimmed and the spotlight burned bright on the
stage. I had forgotten the director (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) was
there. One of the Fantasia organizers introduced him and said
that there would also be another surprise, and out he came with
a big black box. He said we'd see the box in the film and that in
the box, there'd be a little girl. They couldn't put one in there
tonight, no matter how hard they tried, so instead they put a
cake with a drawing of a little girl in a green dress in it. Turns out
it was Kiyoshi's birthday! So everyone sang happy birthday in
unison and he thanked all of us and introduced his film through
his translator. The movie started and it was quite a movie,
indeed. It was a spooky little piece about a couple. The man, a
soundman for a local tv station, the woman, a psychic who
hasn't had a big break yet.. The story goes along as a little girl is
found missing and the cops come to the woman for help. She
says she might be able to help if she has something of hers, so
they give her a handkerchief. Meanwhile, the Husband is out in
the woods recording sounds for upcoming shows. While at
work, the little girl escapes the kidnapper and hides herself in his
sound equipment box. Only thing is, he doesn't open the box
until 3 days from then when his wife clenches the handkerchief
and gets a vibe from the box. They open the box to what seems
to be a dead little girl, they sigh, and head to call the cops. As
they are dialing, she comes to the steps. The two decide to hide
her in the guest room so that the wife can become famous for
finding her. So they lock her in the room and feed her every so
often, only theres a hitch... She accidentally dies one night and
they're screwed. Her ghost haunts them, but not like in
Ghostbusters, but just by showing up in places and staring at
them. The two eventually start cracking and the movie ensues
with an eerie flow the whole way through. Kurosawa has once
again astounded the crowd with his eerie settings and pin point
accuracy characters. The characters were played well and the
subtitles were good, unlike some movies I've seen so far that
have had phrases like, "Hey! Would you like some can of
juices?" and others of that sort. There was a slight feeling after
the movie that everyone was kind of uncomfortable, but not
because it was a bad movie, but because it had touched them.
Everyone clapped and I ran quick to catch my ride.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Esque je peux les toucher? (can I
touch them?)" --Drunk Lady who begs people in the lineup at
Fantasia for change every day, asking to touch my hair.
July 19th. Slashers
Slashers is a small independent gore flick made by a
Montrealler, all filmed in Montreal, and with actors from
Montreal. It was really good! I enjoyed it a lot, but Im not
going to review it now. Instead, Im getting an interview with the
director + a thorough review for next month. Hopefully, if that
goes as planned.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "How y'all doin' folks! Well, I'm
Chainsaw Charlie!" -- Spoken by Chainsaw Charlie, the coolest
killer I've seen in a movie since Killer Klownz.
July 20th. Ebola Syndrome
This picture was playing at midnight on Friday, I was getting
a ride to the metro from my brother who I had just gone to see
Jurassic Park 3 with. I didn't enjoy that too much, but it was ok.
Check his review for that, I think he enjoyed it, not sure though.
So I got to the theater at 11:57, got my ticket ripped and ran up
to the balcony where hands in the dark waved to me. My friend
Phil had already gotten a seat, so I began to head up, but as I
ran up another friend waved to me. Jordan was there also, so
Jordan joined us up top, and almost the second we all sat down
and introductions were through, the movie started. I should say
the previews started, I don't know what happened in the
projector room, but they weren't showing previews for Fantasia
movies, but instead previews to old 80s musical Grease rippoff
flicks. Mitch, if you reading this, please tell me what was up with
that?! There was like 3 previews of this sort and then the movie
started.
This movie is by far, the #1 movie I've seen at Fantasia, right next
to $la$her$. It's a movie of love, bonding, sorrow and most of all, skin
peeling, blood oozing, seizure causing Ebola Syndrome. When a butcher gets caught
courting the local restaurant owners wife, the owner tries to kill him, but the butcher kills him and his wife
and their friend. Extremely gory, the owner gets his head crushed between
the legs of a folding table, the friend gets stabbed in his jewels with a pair
of scissors and the wife gets her tongue cut out of her mouth. Just as he's
about to kill the daughter, a neighbor shows up and the butcher says, "What?! I'm
just killing them!" and he leaves, leaving a scared little girl. The butcher
then moves to S. Africa, where he works in a new restaurant under a new
name, his boss wife always yells at him. This movie is one of the bloodiest movies I've
seen, almost tying up with Riki Oh and DeadAlive. What happens is that the
butcher goes out to see African tribes to buy pigs cheap for the restaurant,
and when he sees a girl seizuring of Ebola in a field, does he save the day?
Of course not, being the hero he is, he rapes her on the spot and takes off.
He's then diagnosed with Ebola. Lucky for him, he's 1 in a million who's immune
to the disease, so he carries it with him, but doesn't get any of the effects.
He uses this to his advantage and spits in peoples food, jerks off in the meat,
and later on kills the restaurant owner and
his wife. Everyone starts dying of Ebola and it leads to an extremely comical
and insane ending that I could watch over and over again. I truly hope this
movie finds its way into my hands soon. I highly recommend this movie to any
extreme gore fans! It's one of the best!
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Y twoooooooooooo" -- Spoken by me and my friend Nick at
any cheesy moment of any movie. (backstory: there was a short movie playing at
Fantasia that a couple of my friends saw, and they say its the most amazing
movie they've ever seen, but they say it extremely sarcastic, so whenever we
think something is "amazing" in any movie, we yelled out Y2222222222222.. I
apologize for any permanent damage to anyone who had to withstand us.)
July 22. Sakuya.
Headline: worst movie I ever saw at Fantasia! No kidding folks, I
was expecting this to be good, especially the makeup. I knew the story would be
lacking because it was a kids movie, but I was expecting some cool visuals.
Thats all I got, good costumes, good muppets, etc. but the rest of the movie
sucked. I don't know if it was the subtitles mistranslated or the childish
storyline, but this movie was actually hard to sit through. What I did for
my Loyal Fans! (Jon.. you don't have any fans.. ) right.. well. anyways
*coughs*
The movie was about an unlikely little girl who raises a water
sprite as her own brother and she handles the Maramusa, a demon killing sword and fights
what seems to be high budget Power Ranger bad guys with two ninjas. The movie was
just boring until, out of nowhere, the evil villain mean looking girl with
tentacles growing out of her side, I mean she was evil, started singing a
song, not an evil song, but a lovely soft song, when she was done, she grew to
about 100 feet tall and started destroying buildings ala Ultraman/Godzilla. I
can't say in words how much I didn't enjoy this movie. I don't know why, so if
anyone disagrees with me, we'll chat, because I really wanted to like this movie,
it looked like it was gonna be good. Maybe it was the age setting, but I love
kids movies usually.. so I don't know...
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Jon, Seriously, that was the biggest load of crap I've
seen at Fantasia.. Ever. And I've been coming since the start.. no wonder the
director was so nervous.. The movie SUCKS!" -- Spoken by a true fan of the
film, Jordan.
July 27th.Closing Statements.
The festival isn't over but I'm off for family affairs. I had a good
time at the festival and saw some good movies, only one that was honest to goodness
bad, which is cool. I leave you with these words: Hollywood may have a big
chunk of the cinema, but they just do because they buy out big directors
from all over the world like John Woo, who had already reached cult status, and
they get him to make Hollywood movies. Hollywood is an irreparable force and
Fantasia is its response, proving once again that independant and
international cinema will reign in the hearts of many. If you were at Fantasia, whether a
fanboy or a first time comer, it seems as if everyone had a good time. I'd
like to thank Mitch and Kareem for holding a great festival. all the other guys
and girls who helped out, Daniel for doing such a good job at taking
the microphones on and off the stage, and most of all, all the
people I went with to see all these movies. It wouldn't have been
the same alone! Till next month, this is Jon signing out, half dead
from too many movies.. glad to be over.
P.S.: Alas, I did not get any interviews because of busy
schedules and dead lines, but maybe next year around or
something.
Jon Morrell
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