The Unrepentant Cinephile

by Jason Coffman

  July 26:

  Tokyo Idols (UK, dir. Kyoko Miyake)

  Pop music is big business in the States, but in Japan it’s taken on a major role in the culture at large. Tokyo Idols takes a look at the phenomenon of “idols,” young women who cultivate followings of fans online—mostly adult men—and try to work their way up from tiny local venues to the national stage. The focus of the film is largely on 19-year-old Rio Hiiragi, a popular idol whose star is on the rise, and her #1 fan Koji, a 43-year-old electronics reseller who spends every spare second and dollar on her fandom. Director Kyoko Miyake follows Rio as she performs live cam shows for her fans and does meet and greets after performances where fans get a ticket to shake her hand with purchase of a cd. Between discussions with Rio, Koji, and a few other idols and their fans, Miyake gives the stage to journalists, historians, and cultural commentators who offer bleak observations on what impact idols have had on Japanese culture at large. The most uncomfortable segments of the film focus on extreme ends of the idol culture spectrum. On one side are the annual elections for which members of AKB48--a sprawling idol conglomerate made up of hundreds of teenage girls--will be featured in the main group’s lineup draws hundreds of thousands of votes and dominates the Japanese press. On the other is a small independent group made up of young teen and pre-teen girls and the adult male fans who follow them. Tokyo Idols is a fascinating and occasionally disturbing look at a cultural phenomenon with no real analog in the West.

  July 27:

  Dead Man Tells His Own Tale (Argentina, dir. Fabián Forte)

  Womanizing commercial director Angel (Diego Gentile) has too many plates spinning at once: a constant stream of gorgeous young women to bed, a wife and daughter at home, and clients demanding huge changes at the last second. On top of all this, he has an encounter with some strange women that complicates the situation even further: now he’s undead, prone to blackouts from which he wakes up covered in dirt and exhausted. Who are these mysterious women, and what are they making him do? More importantly, can he keep working while this is happening? Dead Man Tells His Own Tale is an exceedingly wacky horror/comedy that seems interested in commenting on the kind of harmful macho mentality of its lead character, but it also puts him into the position as a protagonist set against a bunch of scheming witches. Obviously there’s some cognitive dissonance there that makes it difficult to know where the film stands on these issues. Angel is transparently a selfish jackass, but he and his fellow undead bros don’t seem to have learned much of anything as a result of their actions. The film builds to a coda that hints at a much more interesting direction the movie probably should have taken earlier, but it’s far too little and way too late to make much difference. It’s too goofy to take seriously, but with just enough drama that it’s not quite as cartoonish as it should have been.

  My Life As a Zucchini (Switzerland, dir. Claude Barras)

  Icare is a little boy who lives with his alcoholic mother who spends all day drinking beer, yelling at the television, and calling the boy “Courgette” (French for “zucchini”). After a tragic accident, Courgette is sent to an orphanage run by kindly Madame Papineau where he meets a group of other children and joins their makeshift family. When Camille comes to live with them after her aunt is tired of taking care of her, Courgette and the new girl strike up an instant friendship. In addition, he is regularly visited by Raymond, the police officer who handled his case. Courgette learns to love his new makeshift family, even though it comes with its own peculiar problems. Adapted from a French novel by Gilles Paris, My Life As a Zucchini is a touching stop-motion animated feature that doesn’t shy away from the darker and more difficult aspects of its young characters’ lives. The characters and their world have a charming, handmade look and the design of each “actor” is perfect for conveying a wide array of emotions both obvious and subtle. This is easily one of the best and most affecting animated films of the year.

  Fantasia International Film Festival 2017: Dispatch #6

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 1 August 2017

  July 28:

  Fritz Lang (Germany, dir. Gordian Maugg)

  Fritz Lang (Heino Ferch) is searching for inspiration for his next film, which will be his first “talkie.” He’s disdainful of this new technological advance, and struggling to find inspiration while his relationship with wife and collaborator Thea von Harbou (Johanna Gastdorf) deteriorates. One morning he happens to see a newspaper headline about “The Vampire of Düsseldorf,” a serial killer terrorizing the city who had eluded police for some time much to the anger of the citizenry. Lang impulsively heads to Düsseldorf to investigate the murders himself with the assistance of chief inspector Ernst Gennat (Thomas Thieme), who provides Lang access and seems to have some connection to a mystery in Lang’s own past that haunts both men. Fritz Lang uses some novel approaches to construct its hypothetical history of Lang’s film M, including using footage from the film and inserting actor Heino Ferch into it. It also uses stock footage in lieu of some establishing shots and other such material, but some of this is jarringly different from the footage shot in modern day due to the vast difference in the texture of the footage. No attempt is made to match the sharp digital video footage of today with the grainy, rough film shot during the time in which the film takes place. Despite this distracting disconnect, Fritz Lang features a compelling lead performance from Heino and a show-stealing supporting role for Samuel Finzi as Peter Kürten (the “vampire”). It’s an interesting work of speculative historical fiction about one of the most influential films of all time, but Fritz Lang ultimately doesn’t quite work as a thriller on its own terms.

  July 29:

  Attraction (Russia, dir. Fedor Bondarchuk)

  A huge alien spaceship enters the atmosphere and appears to be on course for Moscow. The Russian government decides to make first contact by shooting it out of the sky, causing it to crash-land right in the middle of the city and causing massive amounts of damage and killing hundreds of people. Yulya (Irina Starshenbaum) is instructed to stay home by her father Colonel Lebedev (Oleg Menshikov), who is now in charge of dealing with the alien “threat.” The aliens seem harmless if not exactly “friendly,” and they just want water to use to repair their ship and leave. But many of the citizens of Moscow are angry at the aliens for the deaths caused by the ship’s crash, and Yulya joins her boyfriend Artyom (Alexander Petrov) and his crew of would-be thugs to sneak into the forbidden zone to see if they can find some aliens to rough up. They sort of get their wish when they encounter an alien in an exoskeletal suit and manage to knock him off a building, allowing them to take the suit when the alien disappears. Yulya returns later and discovers the alien, but he’s not what anyone expected. Attraction looks and feels like a big-budget Hollywood sci-fi film, for better and worse. It portrays the Russian government as hilariously inept, ready to shoot down the first alien craft ever encountered at the expense of hundreds of their own people, while it focuses most of its time on Yulya and her school friends dealing with the situation. This could be an interesting “on the ground” look at a major event, but instead it’s pretty much exactly the same kind of story seen countless times since E.T. and Starman in the 80s. Yulya helps the alien—who has superior technology and seemingly superhuman strength but somehow can’t figure out how to effectively fight a bunch of teenagers—and everyone learns an important lesson about what it really means to be human. Attraction would seem embarrassingly earnest if its lesson wasn’t couched in such a transparently cynical attempt to separate as many people (specifically teenage girls) from their money as possible.

  Tragedy Girls (USA, dir. Tyler MacIntyre)

  McKayla (Alexandra Shipp) and Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand) are the #TragedyGirls, publicly campaigning for the right of their townspeople to know what’s really going on behind a string of unsolved murders. But their interest is less in civic duty and more in quick fame and the thrills associated with killing people--they’ve kidnapped serial killer Lowell
(Kevin Durand) in hopes of having him train them in the ways of the slasher, but when he refuses to do so they decide to just frame him for their own murders. With the help of Jordan (Jack Quaid), son of the local Sheriff (Timothy V. Murphy), the girls get a ton of attention for their cause. But will their newfound fame and the budding romance between Sadie and Jordan drive a wedge between them? Tragedy Girls is the arithmetic mean of Heathers and Scream with a dash of social media commentary to remind the audience it was made in the 2010s. Shipp and Hildebrand are charming leads, but their characters are irredeemable sociopaths. As the body count rises and their obsession with raising their online profile intensifies, it becomes increasingly difficult to stay invested in their fate. They look on amused as the family and friends of their victims grieve, which stands in pointed contrast to the slasher film norm where all the killing happens in a vacuum. But this also undercuts the entertainment value of the film, which is clearly supposed to be a dark comedy. The main problem with the tone of Tragedy Girls is that it never quite tips over into really disturbing territory such as pitch-black comedy/horror films Office Killer and Parents. It wants to be fun but offer some tacit condemnation of its characters, but it never really commits.

  July 30:

  Tiger Girl (Germany, dir. Jakob Lass)

  Maggy (Maria-Victoria Dragus) blows her police school entrance exam with a spectacular fall off a pommel horse. She decides to take a training course to be a security guard instead, and while out with her fellow trainees for a drink she meets Tiger (Ella Rumpf). Tiger is everything Maggy is not, namely fiercely independent and utterly certain of who she is. Tiger dubs Maggy “Vanilla the Killah” and tries to help her realize her own potential with advice such as “Politeness is a form of violence, but against yourself.” Impressionable Vanilla takes Tiger’s wild ways to heart, Tiger hardly has it all figured out. She lives in an abandoned bus and hangs out with a couple of drug dealers who squat in the attic of an apartment building. Vanilla, excited by chaos after a life of repression, starts acting out in ways that put both women in danger. Ella Rumpf made a big impression on international horror fans in Julia Ducornau’s Raw, and she’s unquestionably the star of the show here. Tiger is charismatic and convincing, even when she says things that don’t make much sense if given even a moment’s thought. Some of Tiger and Vanilla’s antics are highly amusing, especially a stunt in which they pose as mall security guards and subject a series of randomly-chosen people to increasingly bizarre tests. But there’s a dark undercurrent in the relationship between the two women, and Maria-Victoria Dragus does a fantastic job of depicting Vanilla’s escalating addiction to antisocial behavior. Even at her worst, her reprehensible behavior is understandable if inexcusable. These two great lead performances make Tiger Girl well worth a look.

  Indiana (USA, dir. Toni Comas)

  Indiana resident and part-time demon hunter Michael (Gabe Fazio) is exhausted. Things at his day job aren’t going well, he comes home to an empty house every day since his wife left, and his long-time “Spirit Doctors” business partner Josh (Bradford West) is getting to be a little too much to deal with. After a disastrous radio interview, Michael is just about ready to pack it in when they get an intriguing call and he decides to go on one last case. Meanwhile, Sam (Stuart Rudin) leaves his boarded-up old house on a grim mission that will eventually cause Michael and Josh to confront something darker than they could imagine. Co-writer and director Toni Comas previously hit Fantasia with a very different film: He wrote Bag Boy Lover Boy, only recently released on home video and VOD by Severin Films. Indiana is a completely different beast, not least because it takes place in the wide-open spaces of the titular state instead of the grimy back alleys of New York City. This is a quiet, patient film with well-drawn characters and gorgeous cinematography by Anna Franquesa Solano (who also shot Bag Boy Lover Boy). Comas and Solano expertly use their Indiana locations to convey a sense of simultaneous wonder, isolation, and the ennui familiar to anyone who has lived in the Midwest for most of their lives. The small cast is excellent, and despite its brief running time Indiana packs a serious emotional punch. The interviews that bookend the film feel a bit unnecessary, but that’s a minor nitpick for something that otherwise is a near-perfect example of how to make a great low-key independent horror film.

  Fantasia International Film Festival 2017: Dispatch #7

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 3 August 2017

  July 31

  Deliver Us (Italy, dir. Federica Di Giacomo)

  A priest arrives at his church to find a long line of people waiting to see him one-on-one before Mass begins. This may not seem totally out of the ordinary, but a good number of the people waiting to see him want themselves or a loved one to be exorcised of demons that cause them problems. Bad behavior in school, lust, drinking, drugs, exhaustion—anything and everything that they may consider out of the ordinary. Deliver Us is a fascinating snapshot of a place where exorcism isn’t the Earth-shaking battle depicted in horror movies, but an accepted facet of everyday life. He’s even shown performing multiple exorcisms via cell phone with the “demon” hissing at him from the other end of the call. The film follows the priest as he deals with people’s problems both demonic and prosaic, as well as a handful of the “possessed” as they try to deal with their issues. Director Federica Di Giacomo’s documentary observes passively as episodes unfold, providing no voiceover or interaction with the film’s subjects and allowing the viewer to take what they will from the proceedings. Whether you believe in the concept of demonic possession or not, Deliver Us is a candid and unsettling look at a unique phenomenon.

  August 1:

  Going to Brazil (France, dir. Patrick Mille)

  Best friends Agathe (Alison Wheeler) and Chloé (Margot Bancilhon) are having a rough week. Agathe’s younger sister Lily (Philippine Stindel) has anger management problems that are causing her trouble in school and in the world at large, while Chloé’s latest boyfriend has abruptly dumped her in the middle of a work shift. While hanging out together being miserable, they get a big surprise: Katia (Vanessa Guide), their other best friend who unceremoniously ditched them, is heavily pregnant and getting married in Brazil and she wants them to be at the wedding. Chloé is reluctant, but it doesn’t take much convincing on Agathe’s part to get the three young women on a plane to South America for a wild weekend. Although they hardly could have expected just how wild it would get when they hit a party the first night in town and Lily ends up accidentally killing a guy who tries to assault her. Before they can sneak out of the hotel and back onto a plane to France, circumstances for Katia to join them in a cross-country trek to French Guiana, their only chance to escape the country. But will lingering issues between the women ruin their escape? It’s difficult not to think of Going to Brazil is a sort of French counterpart to Rough Night—both films focus on a group of friends and an accidental murder, but Going to Brazil is considerably darker and less straightforwardly comedic. The relationships between the leads are convincing and relatable, and all four women give solid performances. The tonal zig-zagging between charming relationship comedy and, say, people being thrown off of buildings or shot is also much more pronounced than the comparatively zany antics throughout Rough Night. It’s an uneasy hybrid of comedy, drama, and action that never feels entirely cohesive, but Going to Brazil has enough unpredictable energy and heart to make it worth a watch.

  The Endless (USA, dir. Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead)

  Brothers Justin and Aaron Smith (writer/directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, respectively) are muddling along in their lives without much direction. They grew up in a “UFO cult” and escaped in their teens, but after a brief period of public interest they’re stuck in dead-end jobs. Aaron wants to go back to the cult’s compound for a visit, and after some reluctance Justin grudgingly agrees. They arrive to find things exactly the way they were when they left. In fact, not just the grounds, but the people are still exactly the same. Aaron finds himself
attracted to Anna (Callie Hernandez), a young woman who used to babysit him when he was younger and who still looks the same age. Justin chalks it up to their strict regimen of organic foods, exercise, and hard work, but as the brothers spend a few days in the camp it starts to look like something else might be the source of the cult members’ youthful vigor--and it may already be too late for the brothers to escape again. Benson & Moorhead’s debut feature Resolution was a brilliant take on the basic “cabin in the woods” template that spiraled out from the tense relationship between two best friends to encompass a brain-breaking cosmic horror. The Endless is something of a return to that world, and it’s arguably even better. The writer/directors have a convincing fraternal chemistry, and they’re a great comic team as well. The Endless expands on the mythology established in their first film and the obscure online companions that helped flesh out this world a little beyond the text of the film itself. The writer/director/stars manage an impressive tightrope act between the comic and horrifying, and while it’s certainly not a requirement to see Resolution before this film it is that rare sequel or companion film that not only improves on its predecessor, but actually improves the experience of watching its predecessor. This is one of the biggest surprises and best films of the year in any genre.