Posts by Elizabeth Wells31

Elizabeth Wells31 said:All in all, it was a killer festival held in the absolute wrong spot... damn.

So, what about the 50th anniversary at Madison Square Garden? 😁

el Duderino said:About 90% of these movies were basically trash—cheap philosophy and overacting. The king of them all was Surface and Time Take #4. Ten minutes of a static shot of a construction site. It’s such a long shot you can barely see anything but a building. The sound design is weak and pointless too... a total disaster.

The only thing that confuses me is why that movie didn't win, especially since it doesn't "appeal to the audience," which was one of the reasons they gave for choosing Ascension 🙄

Given how stupid the last two nights were, Ascension (they translated it as "rise above oneself" 🙄) looks like a masterpiece. But honestly, it's nothing special; there were plenty of better films on the first night. They say Take It Back was a "shortlisted" contender. Maybe they skipped it because people actually liked it, who knows.

The newsletter claimed that "a successful festival relies on three things: large crowds, a great lineup, and a good sponsor. We achieved one of those," or something like that. I don't remember perfectly. Was that supposed to be a witty joke, or is the writer just acknowledging the reality? I can't tell. There were crowds, and the sponsor was Target. So there.

Oh, and keep in mind that the cinematographer for the "film" Welcome is none other than Vedran Šamanović 🙄

And I don't want to be rude, but I did enjoy the free beer. 😬

Narantxa said:Look... people are complaining about the sound at the Tokyo show, but I thought it was great. It sounded just like the CD—pure, beautiful noise.

Yeah, the sound was killer. Noise rules. Half the crowd practically ran for the exits.😁
They were louder than usual this time, too. They had some weird aunt on the synth, so there wasn't any downtime.😈 Just constant energy.

Btw, Housemartins? Is that the band Norman Cook used to be in?
A buddy mentioned them to me ages ago, but since his taste leans more toward U2 and Bruce Springsteen, I don't pay much attention. Are they the ones?

Well, last night was an absolute rock bottom. Total zero. I missed the festival last year, so I’m wondering if it was always this pointless? I mean, if they can't pull together three hours of actual content from a whole year of production, then honestly...

I guess they just threw everything worth watching into the first night for the opening or whatever...

It kicked off with some British film about people standing in a line. But—get this—they DON'T KNOW why they're in line! How controversial. They say things like, "Can somebody help me? I've lost something but I can't remember what." Then the camera pans around a building and we see... well... the end of the line is actually its BEGINNING!!! That existential weight just floored me.
It's been a long time since I've seen anything this stupid. The acting was terrible too. At least it was shot with a decent camera in black and white so it looks okay, but that doesn't help. Even free sandwiches wouldn't save this one.

Then we get some work by what I assume is a Bavarian high schooler who picked up a ridiculous camera and spent ten minutes filming himself talking nonsense. It was so unnecessary and meaningless that it was almost charming at times (especially when he plays guitar and improvises some deep lyrics where being a great Human is central), but this is supposed to be a festival. Someone actually accepted this and decided to show it on a big screen in a massive hall at an *international* (not a middle school) festival. Why?

Next, we got to enjoy a few minutes of static footage showing absolutely nothing happening in some industrial setting, set to some industrial noise soundtrack, I guess. So deep and original. But look, everything moves slowly, and moves. And it stays like that for several more minutes (which, fine, it looks alright). The thing is, this is experimental *video* that some student probably whipped up at the last minute just to get credit, and it's just barely passable. I really don't get why it's at a *film* festival. Sure, it has one shot. So what?
After that, I mentioned to a friend that they could just show news anchors reading the news, since that's usually just one shot too. I didn't know my own powers...

Then, a miracle. Cape Cod, a *film* that's actually good, witty (not funny, but witty) and short. In a better world, this would have been a wicked joke by the programmer about how the rest of the evening was mindless, pretentious garbage. But since that same person is responsible for the garbage, the joke feels too long and the point gets lost. We just see one striking static shot of a room. Only the light changes as the sun comes up, and finally, two dead bodies become visible. Atmospheric, simple, and very short. Exactly measured, which is more than I can say for anything else last night.

Morning news (*ahem*) and a singing bird. An anchor reads the news (basically listing various utopias). Am I psychic or what? One absurd little gag, because the scene basically rotates, showing nothing but wine in a bottle and a little bird turning in its cage. This would have been a cute filler elsewhere, but if this filler is one of only two decent works all night, then screw it.

Then things continue to go downhill. No, they go into a freefall.

Something with an apple. I was fascinated by how she managed to peel it in one continuous motion. Impressive.

Something with food. I was fascinated by how she managed to eat everything on the plate using only two spoons without helping herself. This is... a little hard to explain exactly.

Something with a damn leaf. Someone levitates a leaf for 10 damn minutes. I assume using one of those little handheld fans that drains batteries instantly. This is trash. Pure trash. I'll just take my digital camera and film 40 seconds of running water. I'm sure they'll show that next year. When I mentioned this to a friend, they suggested I could submit it to a one-minute film festival. I'd be a star.

Do programmers actually know the difference between a *film* in one shot and just a random, irrelevant shot?

It ended with some Iranian movie. I couldn't stay objective if I tried—I was in a terrible mood. The fact that it wasn't actually terrible probably just meant my standards had hit rock bottom because there was nothing else playing. Honestly, the only entertainment I got was from subtitles riddled with typos and random, aggressive capitalization. Oh, and this is the first movie I've ever seen that uses numbered footnotes. It also featured the first set of subtitles I've encountered—aside from closed captioning—that included stage directions. <recites poetry in a sarcastik way> is one of them.

Whatever, the main feature was just one continuous take. At least for now.

Thanks to the organizers for the free drinks. Though maybe we didn't even need them... yikes...

Anyway, enough about my struggles. Let's talk movies.

It felt like they were lined up by quality from worst to best, so when the last film (genius, btw) finally ends, you’re sitting there all hyped up realizing an entire hour of the main program just vanished and that was it for the night. A pretty clear sign of a limited selection of films to choose from, I guess.

First was Ascension, Australian if I remember right. A stylistic exercise—a nice one with good music, but nothing more. Just subway escalators and one woman.

Then the Mexican version of Cast Away, which was a decent exercise in story structure. The plot repeats cyclically, revealing new elements until everything is laid bare. It reminds me of something, but I can't quite place it. Still, that's a positive thing I can say. The acting was terrible, the plot felt like it was written by a random Script generator tailored for the Mexican market. Corrupt cops, dealers, a family murder, and way too many "puta madre" and "joder" lines.

Next, the British Sleep tight, my baby. The organizers clearly assumed the young, urban, hip crowd (including Maja Freundlich) knows English well enough that subtitles weren't necessary. With English like this, they definitely needed them. But whatever, not a huge deal; just a dysfunctional family and a lot of "fucks." A really fine black-and-white film with a dark twist and a fantasy sequence at the end (not sure how much I should say about this, someone might actually go out and buy it). That final sequence is a masterclass in low budgets—all you need is a little imagination, which in this case meant the lead actor using his twin sister as a stunt double (or actress?).

Nest, Australian again, is a total drag! Some woman behind me kept grumbling about how boring it was. Not entirely wrong, though; the movie is basically just close-ups of the narrator's face, who mumbles incoherently over some clicking sounds, making the whole thing sound deeply unsettling. Subtitles crawl along the bottom so we can follow the story about him needing to remove a wasp nest from his tenants' house. Very atmospheric stuff.

Dmitri is a documentary about some guy (presumably Russian) getting out of a UK prison. It shows about ten minutes of his walk from the cell to the outside. His broken English and sheer luck are endearing, but overall, it didn't leave much of an impression on me.

But the last one is a beast. Take it Back from Ireland. Hide yourself, Christopher Nolan 😁 it's a powerful story about a horrific misunderstanding, told in reverse. What I found particularly fascinating was the visual style. At first glance, it doesn't look like the film is being played backward; it looks like the actors are simply acting weirdly. But things like hair and clothing show that the footage *is* actually reversed, since human movements don't have that obvious unnaturalness you get from a reverse projection. Which would imply they were acting forward but doing everything backward, or something... ugh... I'm not really in the headspace to explain it properly today 😬 🙂 anyway, damn near genius.

Let me wrap this long rant up. Even with the free drinks, people didn't stick around for the afterparty. Why? Because after a certain point, the vibe got depressing. The poor DJ was trying so hard, but it was useless; the place was totally empty, so we headed out around midnight.

Look, regardless of how much I lost my cool over seeing "poganin Hlopci" and Bill being such a total 🤣, I actually kind of dig this. Most movie posters are garbage anyway. If it's my only choice, I'd much rather watch some gritty, hand-drawn amateur work from some guy who spent fifty years making posters for local indie theaters than some sterile "designer" crap tested on focus groups.