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Cinequest Short Film Preview - Contact

1/29/2018

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Eventually, we're going to meet someone. Eventually, we're going to lose someone. Eventually the relationships we create are going to break down. Eventually, the systems we design are going to break down... or be broken down. 

This is the idea behind Contact, that moments of joy will eventually break down when exterior forces exert themselves. In this case, a couple are having a lovely day out in the gently rolling hills, well in a simulcrum of gorgeous gently rolling hills, and then one blinks out of scene. This is the beginning of a cataclysm, it appears. A cataclysm that is befalling the group of pods that are heading out to a new world. 

Let's not beat around the bush, this is a science fiction story about first contact. It's a science fiction story about first contact where the contact is only a tiny part of the story. The real story is what matters in those moments, what we want to know, how we process the existential threats and the little things that we need to know, what to discover, wish we could have more of. That's Contact, a film about the end of the world, for varying values of the World, that deals with the immediate, the small, the emotional, the moment of watching a massive disaster that we never see, that we don't need to see. 

The script here is ideal for the kind of acting we get. There's the couple, loving men who manage to make us care about them with so little time together, who have a layered interaction which makes the rest of the short that much more painful. There's the computer voice, and it's incredible voice-acting. She manages to infuse the film with a sort of painfully cold, calculation that makes the emotional responses, nuanced and at times perfectly measured, all the more impressive. 

A wonderful film, one with so much power in all the details, as well as the absolute chutzpah it takes to make a film about first contact where we never see the contact, but we realise that this sort of event is not merely the massive effect on the pods, but on those who live, love, and lose along the path. 

You can see Contact as a part of the Mindbenders showing at 3Below on FRI 3/2; 11:30PM and FRI 3/9; 9:00PM, and at the Century Redwood City on  MON 3/5; 5:30PM and SAT 3/10; 10:20PM (RWC 10)
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Registry - The Black Cat (1934)

11/8/2017

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Bela Legosi and Boris Karloff in their first on-screen pairing in a film that really should be on the National Film Registry! 
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Registry - Eraserhead

7/5/2017

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One of the most important avant garde feature films of the last fifty years, David Lynch's Eraserhead is on the Registry and for very good reasons. 
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Fantasy Film 101 - Echo Torch

3/15/2017

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A look at the brilliant short Echo Torch, what is Science Fantasy, and how this film treads between many genres so beautifully! 

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Cinequest 2017 Preview - Prodigy

2/23/2017

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When I watch movies, I have an agenda. It's not fair to the filmmakers, I know, but if I didn't have an agenda, I'd never be able to program film festivals, I'd never be able to write a single review. I watch for pleasure, sure, that's always under the surface, but almost always I am watching with an endgame in mind. In the case of the science fiction film Prodigy, the plan was not specifically defined beyond 'watch, write a review' and then 'promote', because I am always the one who champions Cinequest's science fiction offerings, but what I got was much more than I expected, much more than I would be able to easily talk about. 

Let me start with the image on the screen. Science Fiction exists in two worlds - one is full of colors either muted or over-saturated, giving us a sense of a reality that we can find around us every day. The other is black and white, greyscale, The classic scifi of the 1950s that didn't have the budget to go colour made the most of it, infusing the cinematography with contrast, the scripts with fascinating dialogue and a style of acting that was both broad and full of subtlety. In Prodigy, we return to the latter, especially with regards to the acting, and a form of restraint in both script and performance. 

The story is simple - a psychologist, Fonda, is called in to evaluate a young telepahthic girl, Ellie. She's a psychopath, and is being held by the a vague-but-menacing government agency, and they've got a dark plan for her. 

Really, that's all you need to know about the story, because what starts to unfold is a deep set of personal interactions that examine the boundaries of what we can expect when we are presented with a potential end-game we do not approve of, as well as how our pasts are exploitable, and not only by those that would do us harm. 

Almost the entirety of this film is about the interactions between Ellie and Fonda (played by the excellent Richard Neil who also is in the wonderful short film EXO which we're showing as a part of Mindbenders) in a single room. They have limited physical space while being given room to explore their characters. In a scene where they play chess, they work towards a result that we are certainly aware will come, but the way they work together, the way the chess game becomes darker and more deeply layered, it infuses everything from that point forward with a sense that this is a two-player game where we do not fully understand who is playing on what side. 

The performances are all strong, especially the way that Savannah Liles plays Ellie. She hits her emotional marks perfectly, but also puts out the hooks for Richard Neil to hang his performance on, and for the emotional reservoir that every other character draws from. She is stunningly tied-in with her performance, and the direction of every scene is exceptional. The acting here is flawless. 

The shooting of Prodigy is gorgeous, sumptuous. The kind of black-and-white contrast-y lensing that I am drawn to, not only because it gives that sort of space to the acting, but because it also allows us to dig into the idea that there is a black-and-white world that these characters live in, and all the attempts to find middle-ground result in loss, in muddled thinking. It seems that everyone understands that there is an outcome that they approve of, and one they do not, and there is no potential for anything in-between. The one who is trying the hardest to come up with the middle ground is also the one whop truly understands that they're almost certainly never going to be able to achieve it. That sort of paranoia/determinalist sensation is perfectly heightened by the shooting, and the effects chosen, and how they are handled, never stick out. That is something that even my old buddy Robert Wise would have appreciated. The acting is remarkable, the script is smart, but what really hit as the film went on, was the way it was laid out. 

The pacing is phenomenal. As the film moves along, at first largely measured, but they begins to find purchase within the discussions, and then we are moved through things with greater alacrity. We are never shoved, nor are we ever so firmly downshifted that we lose the thread or momentum. There is a thoughtful pacing, and such strong writing and characterization. 

I had an agenda; I would write a review, look at it through the lens of science fiction fan and festival lover. What I got was a feature film that moved me and carried me to a place that reminded me of why I love science fiction film, why I love high-contrast cinematography, why I love movies. 
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Cinequest 2017 Short Film Preview - The Call of Charlie

2/15/2017

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H.P. Lovecraft is the perfect source for comedy, right? 

Nick Spooner has created a hilariously bizarre short comedy with The Call of Charlie. It's a simple story - a dinner party, and then a set-up to get their single friend (CTHULHU or Charlie) happens as an unexpected friend stops by. 

Let me say this the simple way - it's freakin' hilarious. Seriously, everything, even the cinematography, manages to make the comedy even more comedy! The way it was cut, smart and clear and without an overly-showy sense of flash, it lets the acting and script and the general absurdity of CTHULHU coming to dinner play with the audience's expectations. Horror Comedy is not usually played like this, in fact, I can't think of another one that goes this way other than Cinequest 2014 favorite A Night at the Office. This makes it all the more impressive, because there is no template, and you can tell that it works at every step!

The Call of Charlie plays as a part of Shorts Program 7 - Comedy Favorites and shows at the Hammer Theatre Downtown SJ on Fri, Mar 3 9:30 PM and at the Century 20 Redwood City on Sun, Mar 5 3:50 PM, Mon, Mar 6 4:30 PM and Thu, Mar 9 8:30 PM

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Cinequest 2017 Short Film Preview - Instapocalypse

1/31/2017

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They're saying that Zombies are played, but I think there must still be some magic in that old silk hat they found. The festering dead are still ambling strong when headed by a good script, a smart director, and a well-deployed cast. This proves to be the case with Instapocalypse. 

There's two intrepid hold-outs roaming the ravaged Earth, and a zombie, and there's an iPhone, and there's an Instagram post waiting to be checked. That's the basis for the film, and in five minutes, it gives a smart and funny play off of those elements in conflict. While it's short, it's stylish, but not showy, and funny, but not dumb. There's some beautiful craft on display in setting, make-up, and especially cinematography. As quick as a flash, it hits, and ultimately, that left me howling!

Instapocalypse shows as a part of Program 5 - Mindbenders  at Century 20 Redwood City Fri, Mar 3 9:45 PM Tue, Mar 7 6:00 PM and Fri, Mar 10 4:45 PM and at the Hammer Theatre in Downtown San Jose Sun, Mar 5 9:15 PM and Thu, Mar 9 3:45 PM
 
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52 Episodes to Science Fiction Film Literacy - Gravity

11/28/2016

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How does a series like 52 Episodes damn near have a lost episode? Poor list version control! Here, I talk about a film that is Science Fiction, but perhaps not speculative fiction. A memetic drama that deals with all the ideas of 1950s scifi? 'eh, who knows, but I talk about it!
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52 Episodes to Science Fiction Film Literacy - Hyperfutura

11/24/2016

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An avant garde work of SF that asks sone neat questions... and gives messed up answers
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52 Episodes to Science Fiction Film Literacy - The Rocketeer

11/17/2016

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Yup, I'm talking about the Rocketeer, but let me give a longer thing about movie posters. 

You see, The Rocketeer has the most beautiful movie poster ever made. It does all the work a movie poster has to do. It gives you the genre of the film (because a guy flying through the air like that in a weird helmet means Science Fiction) and a period (1930s like) and an idea of the aesthetic values of the film. It gives all of that, but there's more if you're like me and dig into these things. 

The design is reminiscent of the Art Deco movement, in full flower by 1925, with the design of the helmet and the uniform he's wearing. It's not only calling back to Robert Stackpole's statues of the 1930s, the trains of the 1930s, specifically those from the 1939 World's Fair, or the thing that always comes to mind when I get to The V&A in London, Ronson's desk lighters. It's gorgeous, and it communicates so much. In the background, there's a globe and a few spires that seem to be piercing the sky. To me, they all back to the Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 Fair, or to the kleidascopic images used in The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra or the trippier dance numbers of Busby Berkley. 

To give the illusion of the rush of flight, The illustrator, John Mattos, went with a Futurist technique. Futurism pre-dated Art Deco, flourishing up through World War 1, and the paintings of Joseph Stella or Natalia Gonchorova and the statuary works of Boccinoni are certainly influencing here, allowing the Rocketeer to appear to powering through the field, as if we're experiencing the sensation of his flight in a single static moment. 
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