QT FEST - Day 4
Missed it, but it was The Gravy Train AKA The Dion Brothers, The Outfit, and The Muthers
April 28, 2006
April 27, 2006
QT FEST - Day 3
You know the drill, hit Ain't it Cool or Nick's review.
The night started out with Tim stalling because Tarantino was not there, but by the time he really started to move into real stall mode, QT popped up from the back of the theater.
Wipe Out
There is nothing like a good mafia film, especially if it comes from Italy. Using some bygone stars of hollywood yesteryear this film taught me that all women are sluts, well, maybe reinforced the notion. Ok, maybe not all women, but women that fall victim to Stockholm syndrome and drink a lot of whiskey. This girl is captured and she totally just hoe's out, then when she is rescued, she does it again for her rescuer. Moral of the story, if you like a girl, just kidnap her until she falls for you.
Nothing like a bit of kicking some klan booty. The story on this one was great, could be a comic book or something. A bunch of soldiers head back to their small town after the vietnam war and guess what they do, they drive around in a bus and beat up klansmen. Wardrobe was just great. While in Vietnam the soldiers were wearing these goofy green and orange camo fatigues that were jumpsuits. They were priceless. One of the best parts is when this guy kills a klansman and then steals his robe and starts taking out the other guys without them knowing.
April 26, 2006
QT FEST - Day 2
Once again for some kind of a real review, check out Ain’t It Cool News (although I disagree with the statement that the beer was "flowing like you wouldn’t believe" unless you thought it would be flowing like crazy).
This screening was out at the Glenn. Getting there was such as hassle as directions were poor, but luckily I called Daniel to figure it out. One of the reasons it was so difficult was because of FREAKING HUGE NEW DEVELOPMENT that was not there before. It really upset me, because I stood there on the property almost 6 years ago and was told by the developer that he bought the land surrounding his master-planned community so the land would never be spoiled with new projects . I should have known when he balked a bit at Roger's blueprints of a house that created more energy than it used because of the unattractiveness of the solar panels that were hidden in the roof. I guess if you are worried about how your house will look to low flying aircraft, then you are not the right kind of person to be building an environmentally friendly green house. Also he didn't like the Big Ass Fan in the living room. Well, enough venting, I'm sure he made plenty of money on the deal and is happy to be on my dead to me list.
Savage Seven
After seeing The Stunt Man, I was really looking forward to seeing another Richard Rush film. Richard Rush claims to have invented the rack focus (when focus goes from one thing in the frame to another), which is ubiquitous in filmmaking today. This biker film was great. Lots of rough and tumble action centering around a town of native americans that a land developer wanted kicked out to make way for a resort. Wait a minute, wtf. I didn't think of the connection until I started to write this. Alright, I'm all pissed again. Well, it's a pretty decent film with a good message. And that message is Bikers will mess things up if you hire them to run off a bunch of people, cause they will turn against you and everyone will end up dead.
QT serenaded the audience with the theme song to this film before hand. Maybe serenaded is the wrong word, more like mocked the living daylights out of the ridiculous lyrics that will be with the audience for the rest of their life. I didn't find this movie nearly as exciting as the 1st, but not every film can be great, especially in QT fest. The best thing about this movie was the lightning on screen and the lightning outside at the same time. It was crazy. This film taught me not to ask the mafia for money unless you are prepared to pay the consequences aka death.
Nick also has a nice rundown. And like him, or his friend really, I was pulled over by UTPD for rolling a stop sign on campus and all I could thing was "Just tell me one thing. Who do you hate the most? Is it me? Or these punks? Or yourself?"
April 25, 2006
QT FEST - Day 1
For a real review, maybe check out Ain’t It Cool News (I'm lazy, you know it) Snake in the Monkey's Shadow
Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
So the best thing about this movie is the crazy similarities to Moonraker. The plot to take over the world is just genius. The villain plans to launch a satellite that will kill the sex drive of every man on the planet, while he of course will be safe in his underground bunker, and therefore he will be the only one that can repopulate the earth. That’s genius. I think it would go somewhere along the lines of “it’s for the good of the world babe.” And for some reason there is this running gag with bananas, got me, maybe a requirement to shoot in Brazil.
Talk about some kung-fu action. This film had an amazing fight seen between a real monkey and snake, where the main character learns, after being defeated by two snake style masters, that monkey beats snake. It makes you wonder how they did it, it looks like the python got a few good strikes on the monkey, but it didn’t die, it killed the snake, it was crazy. Guess there were no animal cruelty laws at that time, which makes for good filmmaking. The idea that the Drunken Master would have such an inept group of students was a little far fetched for me, but I guess he had to pay for his drinking habit and maybe the rich kids were good fighters, but they paid on time.
April 14, 2006
For All Mankind
I just finished watching For All Mankind. It was an amazing conglomeration of film shot during the Apollo Program. The film has some really amazing shots that have become iconic in our culture about the space program. There is no real character development, so don't watch it thinking there will be some giant drama, like focusing on Apollo 13, because it focuses on the program as a whole and the individuals involved.
Al Reinert supposed watched over 6,000,000 feet of film for this movie, that's more than 1100 hours edited down to a very tight 80 minutes.
The amazing score was done by the wonderful Brian Eno and it just takes you into the world of space without you even really noticing it.
It was nominated for an Oscar, but lost out to Common Threads by Rob Epstein, a name that I have been hearing a lot lately since he might be doing a project in Austin.