independent Tagged Articles at Cinematical

You know what I call 18 consecutive days of horror, sci-fi, action foreign, indie, obscure, and generally weird movies? Well obviously I call it heaven, but most normal people refer to it as Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival, which runs every July and throws a couple hundred features and shorts to a very ravenous crowd of genre freaks. And with folks like Mitch Davis, Tony Timpone, and Todd Brown (among others) on the programming end, you could probably just book a flight to Montreal without even checking the official Fantasia website.

I'm still not sure if I can make the trek up north next month, but I have been invited and (based mainly on the recently-released full lineup of flicks) I can pretty much guarantee that the current registrants are in for one hell of a good time. Among their selected titles, I can very strongly recommend All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Dance of the Dead, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Let the Right One In, Mother of Tears, [REC], Stuck, and Timecrimes -- plus they're offering solid titles like Fear(s) of the Dark, The Objective, Red, Second Skin, and Spine Tingler. Among the stuff I'm still drooling to see: Babysitter Wanted, Dark Floors, Midnight Meat Train, Pig Hunt, Repo: The Genetic Opera, and (of course) a new Uwe Boll flick. Plus this festival seems to offer more "Asian weirdness" movies than you'll ever find in one place. At least a dozen that look and sound certifiably insane, unless you'd define Tokyo Gore Police and Negative Happy Chain as "mainstream."

For a complete schedule, lineup, trailer bank, and tons of geeky goodness (in your choice of English or French!), click here and then here. (Montreal's not all that far away...)

Have you been reading Cinematical Indie lately? If not, here's what we've been talking about ...

COLUMNS, REVIEWS, and INTERVIEWS

• Killer Bs on DVDs: Matt Bradshaw reviews The Blood Rose and Dead Clowns.
• RvBs After Images: Danny Devito in The Van
• Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows: The Match Game 2007
• Review: Jeffrey M. Anderson on Belle Toujours.
• Cinematical Indie Seven: Asian Flicks You Might Not Expect to Find on DVD
• Film Clips: Fleshing Out the TIFF Foreign Film Selections
• The Rocchi Review Podcast: Summertime Roundup with Cinematical's Scott Weinberg
• Review: Puzzlehead
• TIFF Madness: Scott Weinberg brings you the Midnight Madness Preview

... and more right after the jump ...

Have you been reading Cinematical Indie lately? If not, here's what you've been missing ...

COLUMNS, REVIEWS, and INTERVIEWS

• Indie Seen: Women in Filmmaking -- Monika Bartyzel takes a closer look at some of the most important women in indie film.
• Killer Bs on DVDs: Matt Bradshaw reviews Dead Time Stories.
• Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows: The Life and Death of Small Films
• Erik Davis interviews Rocket Science director Jeffrey Blitz.
• Fan Rant: Scott Weinberg wonders why the heck Nathan Fillion can't get a break already.
• Review: Rocket Science
• Cinematical Indie Seven: Freaks and Geeks -- Why Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow are Superhot.

... and more right after the jump ...

Have you been reading Cinematical Indie lately? If not, here's what you've been missing ...

COLUMNS, REVIEWS, and INTERVIEWS

• Matt Bradshaw reviews Hollywood After Dark -- with the guys from MST3K!!! -- for Killer Bs on DVD.
• Nick Schager reviews Your Mommy Kills Animals
• Podcast: On The Rocchi Review, James Rocchi chats it up with Andrew Grant, the voice behind one of my fave film blogs, Like Anna Karina's Sweater, and Aaron Hillis, who reviews film for the likes of Variety The Village Voice and Premiere. Both guys are also the brains behind Benten Films, which will release Joe Swanberg's LOL on DVD August 27 28.
• Erik Davis interviews Four Eyed Monsters Co-Director Arin Crumley. The guys talked so much we had to break it into two parts, so be sure to check out both Part One and Part Two.
• Jeffrey M. Andersons 400 Screens, 400 Blows: Coming to America
• Cinematical Indie Chat: Deliver Us from Evil director Amy Berg.
• RvB's' After Images: Zouk's Lair in Mr. Arkadin.
• Review: alleyball
• James Rocchi interviews No End In Sight director Charles Ferguson.

... and more, much more, right after the jump ...

**Thanks, Aaron, for the corrections ...

When MTV stopped airing Liquid Television many years ago, I lost an outlet that let me see groundbreaking animation that I'd rarely get to see anywhere else. With the rise of the internet, and the birth of networks like The Cartoon Network, animation finally has more places to be seen, but it's tough to find quality stuff that pushes the envelope. Like the different shorts programs, this is where Sundance steps in. I've made it a point to book tickets to the animation spotlight before anything else, and I've always enjoyed the different films they choose. This year was no different, and the program was chock full of different types of animation and genres. From serious to comedic, and CGI to paintings on glass, there was a little slice of everything.

Probably one of the reasons that people admire a director like John Sayles so much is that he really is an independent director. Sayles has sometimes been referred to as one of the original "DIY Filmmakers" and always managed to make films his way and with his own distinctive style.

Production has just wrapped on Sayles latest film Honeydripper. The announcement came from the film's producer on the official production blog last Friday; Maggie Renzi posted that the film had just wrapped the 100-person crew in Alabama. Sayles must have run a tight ship, as the film only began shooting last September ... and the director has been aiming for a 2007 release. The film stars Danny Glover as the owner of a floundering "Juke Joint" in rural Alabama with a serious clientele shortage. Glover's character hires a new guitar player in the hopes of drumming up business. (I wonder if that counts as a mixed metaphor?) The film also stars real-life musicians Keb' Mo and R&B singer Ruth Gordon Brown.

Renzi is currently working with emerging pictures to get distribution for the film when she posted "And I'm damned if after all this work we're going to see another movie sacrificed to the Petty God of Bad Distribution". So if you are a fan of Sayles, stay tuned as Honeydripper fights it's way to a screen near you.

[via The Hollywood Reporter: Risky Biz Blog]

Everyone has heard the cliché, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," but how can we tell when an imitation has become the sincerest form of a rip-off? Evan Almighty is due to hit screens June 2007, but another "divine comedy" is already on the way. Although, it looks like this one might be a little more profane in its approach.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Aesop Entertainment has picked up the comedy Jesus on Line Four. The story follows a regular guy who starts receiving phone calls from none other than the Son of God himself. The twist on the regular-guy angle is that he's a shock-jock with a local radio call-in show. Bob Comfort wrote the script and Richard Davenport is on board to direct. Davenport is better known as an F/X artist and had worked on Daredevil and X2. Jesus on Line Four will be Davenports first attempt at directing a feature film.

It looks like Jesus on Line Four will hit screens sooner rather than later, as it garnered a fair share of buzz at The American Film Market. No casting announcements have been made, but Aesop is currently in negotiations with BBC Films to start preproduction this January.

There had been a lot of fuss over movies like Hostel and Wolf Creek , whose plots sparked controversy over this new trend of 'snuff' horror. What did their popularity really say about the morbid curiosity of the moviegoing public? And how far should a film go before it's deemed absurd and unwatchable? Well, what about a flick that had real footage of a person ending their life?

The idea of the 'snuff film' came to prominence mainly as an urban legend in the 70's, but an article in The New York Times thinks that two new documentaries that are about to premier at New York's IFC Center may 'legitimize" the idea of an honest-to-goodness snuff film. The Bridge was directed by Eric Steel and has a deceptively simple premise: Steel placed cameras with telephoto lenses across from the Golden Gate Bridge, which was a common spot for jumpers. The film shows footage from several suicides, and Steel used the film to successfully argue for a suicide barrier on the bridge. The film Exit (directed by Fernand Melger), chose not to film the final moments of people who are members of Exit Society; a Swiss organization which helps facilitate suicides for the terminally ill.

As disturbing as the thought of watching these films might be, at least there is hope for a thoughtful approach to the subject as opposed to, say, Faces of Death. No subject should ever be considered off-limits and maybe 'snuff' is a harsh term for what these movies really are. Either way I'm just not sure I have the stomach for it. Do you think that these films have gone too far?