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DANGER AFTER DARK
Haute Tension
If you're a regular reader of Filmmaker, you'll recognize Travis Crawford's byline. He's often in our pages writing about cutting-edge genre films, Asian auteurist work, and unclassifiable Euro arthouse pics. (See his feature on Bruno Dumont's 29 Palms in our current issue.)
But when he's not writing for Filmmaker, Crawford is, among other things, programming the Philadelphia Film Festival's "Danger after Dark" program, the genre-section that allows him to cherrypick the best new titles as well as the essential works that have been on the fest circuit for the past year.
Crawford is the king of the long, thoughtful, exceedingly well composed email (no "lol!" or ":)"'s for him), so when he sent the message below to his personal list, I thought I'd post it here. It's an advance look at this year's "Danger after Dark" titles, which aren't scheduled to be formerly announced until next week. And, as usual, Crawford's descriptions comprise a "must-see list" for everyone wanting to catch up on new horror, fantasy, and suspense films.
The Philadelphia Film Festival runs April 8 - 21.
"ACACIA (South Korea): Director Park Ki-hyung (WHISPERING CORRIDORS, SECRET TEARS) is chiefly responsible for the new wave of Korean horror cinema, and this is his most affecting, mature film to date, a story of a young adopted boy's malevolent influence on his new home. The saddest horror movie since DON'T LOOK NOW. (North American premiere)
AZUMI (Japan): Yes, VERSUS and ARAGAMI director Ryuhei Kitamura is back in Danger After Dark, with this lavish, big-budget female swordplay epic. The major studio coin has allowed Kitamura to spend more on swords, hyperactive camerawork, and blood effects. Otherwise, little has changed, and fans will dig it. (East Coast premiere)
DRAGON HEAD (Japan): A huge special effects-laden manga-adapted spectacle about my favorite cinematic subect: the complete and total end of civilization. Two teens on a school trip dig themselves out of the train tunnel that has collapsed during their travels, only to find that the Japan above ground has been devastated by a mysterious plague. Grim, downbeat science fiction cinema at its most pessimistic. Thumbs up, of course. (North American premiere)
HAUTE TENSION (France): This sick and slick French slasher movie (see image above) is awash in more gratuitious gore than almost any other film in Danger After Dark history, and it's been making quite the festival impact at Toronto and Sundance. Two girls, one crazed killer, industrial power tools, you get the picture. Much fun; it's the opening night film. (East Coast premiere)
KING OF THE ANTS (U.S.A.): RE-ANIMATOR director Stuart Gordon's new film is probably his best work since that classic debut. A vicious, unsparingly brutal crime thriller about a hitman with a taste for revenge, this will likely cause lots of audience cringing, much to my satisfaction.THE LAST HORROR MOVIE (U.K.): ...and speaking of lots of audience cringing. This uncompromising British exploration of viewer culpability in the enjoyment of violent cinema plays like a cross between MAN BITES DOG and HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, only with greater wit and imagination, as a serial killer videotapes his crimes for your entertainment. Preceded by the Brazilian short film LOVE FROM MOTHER ONLY. (East Coast premiere of the feature)
LEGEND OF THE EVIL LAKE (South Korea): Lavish widescreen fantasy-horror film from Korea, that plays like the best Hong Kong genre films of the late-1980s, with a visual sensibility that recalls THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR. A girl is possessed by an evil spirit imprisoned in a sword, and subsequently wreaks havoc on her tormentors. "Comes the closest of any Korean movie so far to reaching the excellence of Hong Kong examples...wildly entertaining ride (that) hardly pauses for breath." -- Variety. (North American premiere)
MOON CHILD (Japan): Former sex film director Takahisa Zeze helms this ambitious gangster film that features the eerily beautiful Japanese pop stars Gackt and Hyde. Part John Woo-styled bullet opera, part gothic vampire opus, the film is an endearing collision of various genres. (North American premiere)
THE PARK (Hong Kong): Hong Kong horror in 3-D! This colorful ghost story of a haunted amusement park is directed by Andrew Lau, the hit-maker behind the INFERNAL AFFAIRS and YOUNG AND DANGEROUS series. 3-D glasses will be given to you at the door. This film is rather, um, heavily derided in some circles, but I found it most enjoyable. Preceded by the short film TATTOO. (East Coast premiere)
A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (South Korea): Gorgeous Korean horror film with enough plot twists in the final half-hour to make FIGHT CLUB and SIXTH SENSE seem wholly predictable and routine. Two sisters move back into the house with their evil stepmother, and various frights ensue. Very beautiful, and a great triple bill with ACACIA and THE UNINVITED (see below).THE TESSERACT (Thailand/U.K./Japan): New film from Oxide Pang, one half of the Pang Brothers duo who brought you THE EYE and BANGKOK DANGEROUS. The lives of four characters intersect in a seedy Bangkok hotel that ultimately erupts into violence in this predictably visually stylish work. (East Coast premiere)
THE UNINVITED (South Korea): Hmm...will everyone in this e-mail list do me a personal favor and see this film? This somber Korean horror film is likely to be the most controversial entry in Danger this year -- not so much because of its admittedly shocking images of children in danger, but because it takes some surprising detours throughout its narrative and deviates from any traditional horror film rhythms -- but I think it's a great film, and one which should be seen by all. The last word in post-RING Asian dead kid ghost story movies. (North American premiere)
WHO KILLED BAMBI? (France): A timid nurse with a penchant for fainting encounters a sinister surgeon with a fondness for abuse of power in this new French thriller with a subtle Lynchian vibe and the most meticulously art-directed hospital ever committed to film.
PHANTASMAGORIA AWARD: Tobe Hooper in attendance.
TOOLBOX MURDERS (U.S.A.): Tobe Hooper receives our festival's Phantasmagoria Award, and attends the event with his first film, and his newest. TOOLBOX MURDERS, a remake of the late-70s slasher film in name only, is Hooper's best work in years, a gory, stylish, and suspenseful shocker set in a crumbling old apartment building that houses an evil force who enjoys claw hammers and nail guns. (East Coast premiere)
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (U.S.A.): Hooper will also be here for a 30th anniversary screening of his debut film, presented in a new 35mm print. Do you need me to tell you what this is?
CENTERPIECE SELECTION: LIGHTNING BUG (U.S.A.): The world premiere of FX-artist-turned-director Robert Hall's largely autobiographical story of a teenage horror movie fan in 1980s Alabama who dreams of fleeing to L.A. to make monsters for a living (and escape the real monsters in his own home). Not a horror film, but obviously a work of great interest to genre fans, and all are encouraged to attend. Particularly since everyone from the film will be here, including Hall, and the whole cast (including HELLRAISER's Ashley Laurence and the lovely Laura Prepon, currently the star of some sort of television show or the other...). (World Premiere)
That's all the genre-oriented stuff, but there are some general Asian films in the main body of the festival which are absolutely fantastic: *highly* recommended are VIBRATOR, NINE SOULS, and JOSEE THE TIGER AND THE FISH from Japan, as well as the new film from Hideo (RING, DARK WATER) Nakata, LAST SCENE. From Thailand, the wonderful LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE and from China, the award-winning UNIFORM and the moving WHEN RUOMA WAS SEVENTEEN. And I have assembled another New Korean Cinema program this year, with such excellent films as MEMORIES OF MURDER, A GOOD LAWYER'S WIFE, SINGLES, PLEASE TEACH ME ENGLISH, THE ROAD TAKEN, CLASSIC, and DOUBLE AGENT. And we're North American premiering the new Catherine Breillat film ANATOMY OF HELL, which is perhaps her most confrontational work to date. And there are some great European and American Independent films programmed too, but I'm tired of typing, so just come to the festival already, OK? Can't you see how hard I've been working, people? And I'll bet you'll all complain because there's no Takashi Miike films this year, right? There's no pleasing some people, I'll tell you..."(On the subject of Takashi Miike: Stockholm-based NonStop Entertainment acquired his latest film, ONE MISSED CALL, at the recently closed American Film Market. A Japanese psycho thriller in the same genre as THE RING and The GRUDGE, the film grossed $10 million in Japan in its first month of release partly thanks to the popularity of actress-singer Kou Shibasaki, who played the sadistic girl in BATTLE ROYALE. In ONE MISSED CALL Shibasaki plays the nice-but-disturbed Yumi Nakamura. A nasty cycle starts to unfold when Yumi's friends receive voice messages on their mobile phones, messages that are recordings of their own imminent deaths. And the date for each message is only a few days in the future. An American remake of the film is under consideration. NonStop Entertainment bought the rights to the film from Horizon Entertainment for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.)
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 3/4/2004 05:45:12 PM
SUPER SIZE THIS!
Count Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me along with Bowling for Columbine and The Thin Blue Line when discussing contemporary documentaries which have actually produced real social change. In an upcoming Filmmaker piece, Spurlock discusses the influence Moore has had on his Sundance hit Super Size Me, in which the filmmaker explores America's fast-food mania by eating only McDonald's food for one month. (By day 21 he's gained almost 20 pounds and is on the verge of liver failure.)
Today, in an echo of K-Mart's decision to stop selling bullets following Moore's cinematic targeting in Bowling for Columbine, McDonald's has turned Spurlock's title into an anachronism by announcing that, by the end of the year, super-size meals will no longer be offered.
"The driving force here was menu simplication," explained McDonald's spokesman Walt Riker. But despite Riker's protestations to the contrary -- "[The decision] had nothing to do with the movie," he added -- it's hard to believe that Spurlock's film, which will likely be a publicity magnet upon its release next month, wasn't a key factor in the fast food chain's decision. In a separate McDonald's memo, it was explained that the elimination of the seven-ounce super-size french fry carton was part of the company's "healthy lifestyle initiative." If that "healthy lifestyle initiative" includes McSalads, check out Spurlock's film when it's released -- you'll be shocked at the fat content of those leafy treats.
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 3/3/2004 06:42:16 PM
PLASTIC PEOPLE
Tom Kalin's long-awaited sophomore feature, Savage Grace, based on the book by Natalie Robins and Steven M. L. Aronson, is finally set to go into production this summer. Savage Grace was named the best true crime book of 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America.
"The book is about the Baekeland family," explained producer Christine Vachon in a 1998 interview in index magazine. "They invented plastic, but they sold out too early. So even though they made a lot of money, they should have made a lot more. By the '50s, the fortune was dwindling, and Brooks Baekeland, [the son of Bakelite inventor Leo Baekeland], married a girl who had socialite aspirations. They had a son, and he eventually ended up having an affair with his mother and then killing her. It's a really cool story."
Julianne Moore has been cast as Barbara Baekeland, the Bakelite heiress who was stabbed to death by her 25-year-old son, Antony, in her London penthouse in 1972.
A model and would-be Hollywood starlet, Barbara Baekeland was reportedly so deeply distressed by her son Antony's homosexuality that she attempted to seduce him as a "cure." When police arrived at the scene of her murder, Antony was calmly placing a telephone order for Chinese food. He was later institutionalized at Broadmoor until a bureaucratic mistake resulted in his release in July 1980. He lived with his grandmother in New York for a short time until he beat and stabbed her. He was eventually sent to Riker's Island, where he suffocated himself to death on March 20, 1981.
"I'm sometimes drawn to these really extreme things," says Moore. "I read the script, and there's some really horrific stuff in it, and I just thought, 'Oh no... Think I'm going to have to do this one....' "
The $12-million production is scheduled to shoot in the UK, Spain and France this July. Killer Films' Vachon and Pamela Koffler will produce, with Hamish McAlpine and Caroline Stiller of Tartan Films as UK co-producers. John Wells is the film's executive producer.
Kalin's debut feature, Swoon (1991), which "put the homo back in homicide," explored the 1924 kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb.
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 3/2/2004 01:29:25 PM
-scopeNEWYORK
-scope Art Fair Inc. has announced that the third annual -scopeNewYork will take place March 12-15 at the new Hotel Gansevoort, located in New York City's meatpacking district.
A throwback to the Gramercy Art Fair of the mid-1990s, from which the much larger Armory Show evolved, -scope Art Fair Inc. presents one-person and thematic group exhibitions organized by innovative international galleries, curators, dealers and arts organizations in the intimate and relaxed atmosphere of a hotel. More than 65 exhibitors from around the world are expected to attend. At last year's -scopeNew York, "The prevailing esthetic was pop-culture saturated, with a lot of low-tech figurative works," wrote Walter Robinson in Arnet Magazine. "Installations had a youthful, 'anything is possible' vibe and were frequently accompanied by rock music. And the hotel setting banished the clean, white cube, of course, in favor of a totalizing sensibility, with art works installed in showers and videotapes playing on the TVs. Even the bedspreads were art."
In addition to visual arts exhibitions in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, -scope features programs such as Cinema-scope (which brings together the work of emerging international video artists and filmmakers), -scopeSound (showcasing emerging local DJs, sound artists and bands at each), -scopeTV (a six-part series documenting the development of the art scene on a worldwide basis), and panel discussions on a range of art-related topics.
Two panel discussions have been organized in conjunction with -scopeNew York: Collecting the Hard Stuff on Saturday, March 13, and Sex and Religion on Sunday March 14. Both run from 5-6pm and are included with the $10 admission to the fair.
-scopeNewYork kicks off with a party entitled Culture on the Verge on Friday, March 12 at 9pm.
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 3/1/2004 04:09:31 PM
THE 2004 INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS
The biggest surprise at the 2004 IFP/Los Angeles Independent Spirit Awards occurred during John Waters's opening monologue. As Waters spun out an outlandish, increasingly hilarious story involving him being imprisoned in an MPAA cell for participating in screener bootlegging, none other than MPAA topper Jack Valenti appeared to grab the microphone away from Waters, handcuffing and dragging the mustachioed director offstage. Indeed, the tale of the screener battle -- recounted by IFP/Los Angeles (a co-plaintiff) Executive Director Dawn Hudson -- was, more or less, the afternoon's sole political topic of discussion. There was no Michael Moore rant and, perhaps remembering last year's Britney Murphy on-stage meltdown, all of the celebrity presenters were polished and on-point, smoothly executing their comedic intros or satirical musical pieces. (I'm sure every agent and manager endlessly played the Murphy clip as a cautinary tale to their presenting clients.)
A high point amongst the presenter bits occurred when the announcer intro'd, "You love them, you want to be them... Jennifer Aniston and Mike White!" The Chuck & Buck and School of Rock scripter hilariously grilled Aniston as to why she failed to win a Spirit for The Good Girl.)
Among acceptance speeches, Bill Murray's was the favorite at my table. After declining to thank the film's director or producers -- "because their heads are getting too big... and that's not independent! -- he then humbly wished the success Lost in Translation has had in attracting an audience to every filmmaker member of the crowd. (I'm paraphrasing here, but trust me, it worked.) Another personal moment was Jim Sheridan, accepting for Best Cinematography winner Declan Quinn, telling young In America star Sarah Bolger that the event wasn't actually the 2004 Spirit Awards but really her 13th birthday party and then leading the audience in a "Happy Birthday" singalong. (This impromptu highlight was not televised on Bravo, as they presumably had not cleared the rights to the song.)
The big winners? Lost in Translation (Picture, Director, Screenplay and Actor), The Station Agent (First Screenplay and John Cassavetes Award for Features under $500,000), and Monster (First Feature and Actress). Other winners were Nikki Reed (Debut Performance), Shohreh Aghdashloo (Supporting Female), Djimon Hounsou (Supporting Male), Whale Rider (Foreign Film) and Fog of War (Documentary).
The Turning Leaf Someone to Watch Award went to Funny Ha Ha director (and Filmmaker 25 New Faces pick) Andrew Bujalski and the DIRECTV/IFC Truer than Fiction Award went to Lost Boys of the Sudan directors Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk. Both awards came with cash prizes of $20,000, but the Producers Award this year was sponsorless, so winner Mary Jane Skalski (The Station Agent) picked up an IOU. (Luxury goods manufacturers, global media concerns, and cutting-edge software and technology startups interested in supporting indie producing talent contact the IFP/Los Angeles.)
There was also special recognition given to several undistributed films, including Virgin and Anne B. Real.
See the next issue of Filmmaker for more on these films and other Spirit winners.
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/29/2004 07:00:30 PM
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