V/H/S (Adam Wingard, Glenn McQuaid, Radio Silence, David Bruckner, Joe Swanberg & Ti West, 2012)

8.5/10
Anthology horror movies are commonplace at any genre film festival, and it's usually the same story - kinda fun, but always marred by inconsistency. V/H/S is indeed somewhat inconsistent, but on the whole far stronger than almost anthology film I've ever seen and one of the best horror movies I've seen in a while.
The central narrative segment concerns a group of friends who get paid to tape themselves doing stupid stuff - vandalism, sexually harassing girls on the street, etc. Their backer tells them there's more work for them if they steal a VHS tape out of an old man's house. They break in and find the guy dead in front of a group of televisions, a VCR and some tapes. The tapes that are popped in are the other segments of the film. I have no idea who did what but directors include popular names of current horror like Ti West, Adam Wingard and Joe Swanberg. Most of the segments are original, scary, gory, and fun - even the weaker ones are at least some combination of the three. The approaches to the 'found footage' aspects are quite interesting too. One movie is filmed entirely through "camera glasses", some are done on (what's supposed to be) VHS, some look digital, and one is even set-up to resemble a Skype conversation replete with desktop background (how something like this would get transferred to a VHS tape and left in this old man's house is a question the movie would prefer you not ask). The storylines and logistics might not always make sense and the acting is a bit sketchy at times, but there's a lot of originality on display and the movie is above all else a really good time. Highly recommended.

The Blood of Dr. Jekyll (Walerian Borowczyk, 1981)

Also known as Dr. Jekyll et Les Femmes and Bloodlust (none of which really make much sense), this is an extreme oddity directed by Walerian Borowczyk, most famous for The Beast, a movie that, like this one, features a lot of rape and an oversized phallus. In this one, Udo Kier plays Jekyll, about to be engaged to Miss Osbourne, played by the lovely Marina Pierro. Jekyll is receiving honorable, Victorian guests at his home (along with his bride-to-be and her mother) to celebrate the engagement, but has recently become further obsessed with his mutation experiments.
It's unquestionably weird. When Jekyll (Kier) undergoes his transformation, Gerard Zalcberg takes over to play Hyde, which sort of neuters Kier. However, when Pierro takes a dose herself of Jekyll's mixture, she's still Pierro. That's the least of the film's inconsistencies - scenes crash into each other often going unresolved, and sometimes the action is so frantic it's guesswork trying to figure out what just happened. The plot is often ludicrous, but it usually moves along at a good pace, helped along by the dirty, gothic photography and Bernard Parmegiani's (!) droning, unsettling synth and piano score.
Also it was interesting to see Patrick Magee here (playing a general who quickly becomes a near-comedy character), better known to me for playing the old man in A Clockwork Orange.

Christiane F. (Uli Edel, 1981)

7.5/10
Christiane Felscherinow was a 12 year old, heroin-addicted prostitute in Berlin in the late 70's. A couple of journalists told her story in a series of interviews published as serials in German magazines, which were cobbled together into an autobiography and she became something of a celebrity. In 1981 a film was made, based on her life via the book and it was championed in production and received ample funding due to its potential as a 'cautionary tale' (David Bowie both scores the movie and appears in it). However, it's exceptionally (and appropriately) brutal - what some thought of as possible after-school special turned into what Roger Ebert called "a movie of hell".
What's also noteworthy is the actors in the movie - all high school kids (the girl playing Christiane is only 14, exceptional considering everything she does and goes through and something that would never happen today), most non-professionals, and most who would never act again.
The plot follows Christiane as she goes from bored young teen to part-time partier to full-blown heroin addict. It's gritty and graphic and uncompromising but not very artistic - aside from an extremely blunt, matter-of-fact portrayal of a young girl hooked on heroin, there isn't a whole lot to the movie. It's pretty remarkable regardless, and I'm glad I saw it.

Resolution (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, 2011)

5/10
There seems to be a disturbing trend in horror lately of movies that take a good premise, and build it to go absolutely nowhere. I think most immediately of Paranormal Activity, Hollow, and now Resolution.
The plot is solid, if unspectacular: crack addict Chris is squatting in a shabby shack in the woods, and his self-righteous, good-guy best friend Mike tracks him down and forces detox upon him by handcuffing him to the wall. A variety of troubling things occur - two junkies threaten Mike and Chris for drugs Chris owes them, a group of nasty looking Native Americans extract hush money from them when it's discovered that Chris' shack is on Native land, and most disturbingly, Mike keeps stumbling upon a variety of media (records, books, slides, CDs, VHS tapes) that depict events involving Mike and Chris that haven't happened yet. Through some murky plot detailing, Mike determines that the woods is home to some disturbing folkloric tales and they're part of the next story - and the woods is demanding a 'resolution'.
First-time directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead do a lot of things right - the handheld camera work lends a tense immediacy, the friendship between Mike and Chris is genuine, the performances are naturalistic, the woods are ominous enough, and the horror device (the mysterious media) is pretty cool, enough so to keep us interested. But that can only propel a horror movie desperately short on scares so far. It's kind of like being impressed by the direction in a comedy - I can appreciate good directing, but I want to laugh. Resolution has so many possibilities for great scares but frustratingly does nothing with them. It would be more accurate to say this is a buddy movie with something of a creepy/supernatural bent.
In all of the aforementioned slow-building but ultimately disappointing horror movies, there comes a moment where the tension dissipates as you pass from "wow they're really building this thing up slowly" to "wow, is anything ever going to happen?". Resolution does a lot of little things right but misses the big picture, and I can't recommend it for that reason.

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists (Brian Knappenberger, 2012)

7.5/10
A documentary focusing on "hacktivists" and the internet collective known as Anonymous had a lot of promise, but with "We Are Legion" in the title, you knew you probably weren't getting an unbiased account. It does do an admirable job of telling the history of hacktivism, through l0pht and 4chan to harmless memes like "pool's closed" and lolcats up into globalized attacks on scientology and the role Anonymous and social networking played in the upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia. Of course, the contradictions are many, but that's part of what makes Anonymous so interesting - there's no centralized ideology, no manifesto that all members subscribe to. The collective is inherently contradictory and while the film acknowledges that, it's clearly on their side too. Which brings up another sticking point - did we really need a pro-Anonymous movie? Isn't this giving a voice to a group that has never needed one? A movie looking at the negative side of Anonymous would surely be interesting, but could one even be made without its creator having his email hacked and a thousand pizzas sent to his house? I don't know. There's still room for a good, unbiased account of the hacktivism phenomenon, but it might take a while before it gets made. Anyone interested in internet history who isn't expecting a masterpiece of investigative journalism should at least have a little fun with this in the meantime.

To Rome with Love (Woody Allen, 2012)

6.5/10
It doesn't come close to last year's Midnight in Paris, and it would be a pretty fluff entry in anyone's filmography, but Woody Allen's latest isn't really as bad as the reviews would indicate. It's not a great movie, but it's light and fun enough. A bunch of separate storylines are told (and never interweave), some stronger than others, but the movie starts to drag and the humour is sucked out as Allen is forced to finally tie up the threads. There are inspired moments but nothing here comes close to 'must-see' territory.

Profound Desires of the Gods (Shohei Imamura, 1968)

7/10
2nd of the 3 Nikkatsu movies I'll be making it out to was Shohei Imamura's 3-hour epic. It's about an incestuous family who live on an island they founded, and their (and the villagers') turmoil when an engineer from a sugar plant in Tokyo comes to the island to supervise construction of a new mill. It obviously is a commentary of Japan at the time (it was released in 1968) and focuses heavily on technology vs. tradition, but I don't know enough about Japan of the time to make a lot of the connections. The film looks gorgeous, shot in lurid color and restored masterfully, but it's a marathon at 3 hours and sometimes it's a struggle to figure out who's doing what and why. Interesting and crazy as any Nikkatsu noir I've seen, in any event.

The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)

8/10
A very good movie that, if it suffers, suffers only because the bar was set so high with The Dark Knight. But Nolan makes a very good show of it and TDK trilogy (if it stays at 3) is now confirmed as one of the previous few trilogies out there with no real weak links. The strong points are many - good story, great acting, beautiful locations, incredible CGI - but they're not as fun to talk about as the weak points so I'll go right to those. If there's one thing about Nolan's movies that annoys me, it's how disjointed they always seem - you always get the feeling a lot of explanatory stuff was left on the cutting room floor, or is in cold storage for the eventual "director's cut". There are so many questions unanswered and the plot is, like TDK, unnecessarily knotty. I also thought a Bane/Catwoman villain combo was a weak showing in comparison to Joker/Two-Face, but what can you do. Lastly for a final movie in a trilogy (even in a "comic book movie") I didn't get the emotional punch I thought I would get from the ending. All that aside, still a very good movie, but not without some flaws.

Tokyo Drifter (Seijun Suzuki, 1966)

8.5/10
As part of Japanese film studio Nikkatsu's 100th anniversary celebration, many Nikkatsu films are touring the world as part of festivals. Montreal is getting 15 of those films (5 now and 10 in October) and one of them is arguably the most famous, Tokyo Drifter. It is postively insane and all the stronger for it, a delusion of eye-popping colors and dreamlogic set to a wild, jazzy score. There was more dialogue and less action than I expected but it was still a lot of fun.

For Love's Sake (Takashi Miike, 2012)

7/10
Must be Fantasia time in Montreal if I'm seeing a Takashi Miike movie in July. This was the festival opener, a musical/romantic comedy filled with Miike's signature sillyness. In fact, the movie is at its best when Miike is at his silliest - it starts to take itself a bit too seriously by the end and drags because of it. The musical numbers are ridiculously catchy and well-written, and often the film is quite funny though it's hard to figure out just when Miike is being serious and when he's being ironic. It actually reminded me a lot of Sion Sono's Love Exposure, but nowhere near on the same level. A tighter edit would have stopped the act from becoming stale, in the end.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen, 2008)

5/10
As far as Woody Allen movies go, this one fell pretty flat for me. It's not a comedy, but the issues the characters go through are tackled so lightly and are without any real resolution that I was left wondering really what the point of it all was. The acting was solid (though I felt Penelope Cruz was over the top, as she often is) and Barcelona was well photographed, that's about all I came away with.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012)

7.5/10
I've seen this movie take a beating from snobs on online film community websites, but that's bound to happen when you take major prizes at Sundance and Cannes. Terms like "poverty porn" and "exploitation" are tossed around, and that seems to be the typical kneejerk reaction when a white writer/director tells a story of non-white hardship, especially post-Slumdog Millionaire. It's a pretty good little movie - the acting is great, particularly 6-year old Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy, though similar to Kallio I would stop well short of Oscar discussion for her performance. But if it's a weak year, you never know. Dwight Henry, as her father, is also very good.
I'm not really a big fan of growns-ups-philosophizing-through-children at the movies, because I feel like it's an easy out for the writer to get to say cornball lines that would be met with aggressive eye-rolling if they came from adult characters, and Hushpuppy tends to spouts a lot of that stuff - sometimes it's charming, sometimes not. But writer/director Benh Zeitlin shows pretty good restraint in this regard so it's not a big detriment.
On the whole I felt slightly underwhelmed by the emotion that this movie failed to generate. It's a touching story with disadvantaged people in difficult situations, but it never really succeeds in tugging any major heartstrings. It is beautifully shot with great acting and fascinating locations, but outside of those superficialities, it didn't really connect with me.

The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, 2012)

6/10
The main problem with this movie is what everyone thought it would be - it's still too soon after the Raimi movies. The first half is a chore because we're being given minor variations on a backstory and history we already know. The movie picks up in the second half but it takes too long to get there, and seems to want it all. In the wake of the Batman successes, there's clearly a bigger attempt to make Spidey more "real", in terms of his suit, webslingers, etc. But director Marc Webb (Webb, really?) takes the easy way out, glossing over those rather important parts of Spidey's evolution with quick montages, or barely a word at all. Why bother?
Another "post-Batman" problem is the tone. TASM is definitely darker than any of Raimi's versions (without coming remotely close to something like The Dark Knight, mind you), but I don't think "dark" is a tone that suits Spider-Man. There are things this movie does better than the other trilogy - take the fantastic CGI, the fight scenes and the great actors (the five main leads all run circles around any of Raimi's cast) and mesh it with the tone and colour of the first or second Spider-Man movies and maybe you finally have a winning combination. As it is, I just don't think there's a heck of a lot here to excite anyone who isn't already a diehard fan.
Oh and despite the movie trying its hardest to stay away from the "sci-fi" aspects of the Spider-Man universe, inventing a high school where kids who look like Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield are the outcasts may be the most surreal thing in film all year...

In the Family (Patrick Wang, 2011)

7/10
Patrick Wang's directorial debut (which he also wrote and stars in), he was actually here in person to present it yesterday, but I couldn't make it. So I went tonight instead. Wang stars as Joey, a man who loses his partner Cody in a car accident. An old will from his partner gives custody of their son Chip to Cody's sister Aileen (Cody is Chip's biological father), who absconds with Chip. Joey has no legal right to Chip despite co-raising him for six years, and the movie's primary thrust deals with Joey trying to reunite with his son. If it sounds like a dozen Hollywood "one person's impossible fight" courtroom dramas, it really isn't. At 3 hours in length, the movie is composed of long, static takes (sometimes a little too long). Wang refuses to play on the audience's emotions, but it's restraint to a fault. Despite losing his partner and his son within a week of eachother, Joey is never once shown crying or even really angry...or anything at all. I admire Wang's decision to go in a less "weepy" direction, but it dehumanizes his character and the movie, despite such heavy subject matter, seems emotionally vacant. One thing I did especially enjoy, however, was the way Joey and Chad's sexuality impacted the movie. A more ham-fisted writer would have used homophobia and discrimination to throw obstacles at Joey in his struggle. Although Joey's sexuality is what leads to his unique legal situation involving his son, nothing that happens to deter him is attributed to homophobia. Cody's sister is, more than anything, trying to do right by her just-deceased brother, while the litany of lawyers who won't touch Joey's case are doing so not because he's gay, but because according to the law, he has no case. It was refreshing and interesting to see a movie focus on two gay men yet refusing to use their sexuality as a crutch. It's a very intelligent movie, well-written and strongly acted, but I wish Wang would have indulged the audience's emotions a bit more because it's much more dry than it should be.

Hot Tub Time Machine (Steve Pink, 2010)

4/10
This had "looks stupid but actually is pretty funny" hype so we watched it...yeah it was only stupid. In fairness, I already disliked half the main ensemble (Rob Corddry has been shrill and obnoxious in everything I've seen him overact in and John Cusack has the charisma of a baked potato) so the movie didn't have much of a chance with me. I do like Craig Robinson and Clark Duke was okay but I thought his role had a lot more potential. There were a few good jokes and a lot of throwaways, but the actual plotlines were pretty boring in themselves, so it was lose-lose in that regard. Just wasn't for me.

Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer, 2009)

6.5/10
I was hoping for better, but what I got was okay. It has its funny moments and inspired bits here and there, but at a certain point (especially the first half) you start to wonder what the point is. I appreciate that the movie didn't waste time on back stories or character development but it seemed starved for an excuse to throw Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson's characters together on a cross-country trek. The pacing is kind of uneven; the movie struggles to balance emotional moments with the comedy. But it's still fun, and Eisenberg and Harrelson work well together.