British-born David Peace comes on like James Ellroy with a pint of warm Yorkshire ale in his hand. Like Ellroy’s, Peace’s novels are brittle, brutal dissections of societies, springing from true crimes. For more than a decade, Peace has chronicled the bloodstained history of his birthplace from his adopted home in Japan, and the payoff to that literary exile is Tokyo Year Zero.
Continue reading Review: Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace (2007)
Category Archives: Review
Review: A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex by Chris Jericho (2007)
Pro-wrestler Chris Jericho must have a bucket of hyphens somewhere, since he seems to be setting new records for the term “wrestler-turned-“. Since his “retirement” from the WWE, he’s recorded successful heavy metal albums, gained a good rep as an improv comedian with LA’s the Groundlings, become a VH-1/E-Network regular talking head, and now finally pumped out an autobiography.
But there is a long, dark shadow hanging over A Lion’s Tale, and it is cast by Chris Benoit. Between writing this book and its publication, the grisly details of the wrestler’s last days became public knowledge. It’s hard to describe the impact of Benoit’s murder/suicide on the pro-wrestling community, and especially to Chris Jericho, a.k.a. Chris Irvine. Benoit was his friend, his mentor, his role-model and, prior to the terrible events of his death, someone that everyone who knew him loved.
Continue reading Review: A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex by Chris Jericho (2007)
Review: The Tree of Ghibet (2007)
Directed by Nevina Satta, Amedeo D’Adamo
Starring Corinne Kameny, André Bang, Elisee Koundé.
A small boy (Koundé) is left in the city by his aunt to fend for himself and finds himself taken in by a witch and her gang of little thieves. If that sounds fantastical, it belies this hard-hitting drama that owes more to Ken Loach than Eli Roth.
Review: Grimm Love aka Rohtenburg (2006)
Directed by Martin Weisz
Starring: Keri Russell, Thomas Huber, Thomas Kretschmann
When Armin Meiwes, a German computer technician, was found guilty of cannibalism, the world was shocked. Yet what was most shocking was not that he ate someone but that someone willingly volunteered to be eaten. Shooting this semifictionalized account of the crime in the washed-out blues of a German winter, debut director Weisz uses American grad student Katie Armstrong to coolly unravel this conundrum. Played by Russell, who has come a long way since Felicity, she reconstructs and tries to comprehend the incomprehensible. In flashbacks, veteran German actor Kretschmann is Meiwes’ analog Oliver; Huber is willing victim Simon. Both bring a dark, disturbing understanding to their characters.
Continue reading Review: Grimm Love aka Rohtenburg (2006)
Review: Robot Chicken: Star Wars
A successful spoof needs two things: an audience that gets the joke and a spoofer with an encyclopedic knowledge of what it is he or she is ripping on. SinceStar Wars has been common cultural currency for the last 30 years, it’s an easy target for satirists, presuming everyone knows a stormtrooper from a tauntaun. No piece of science fiction is so ubiquitous. (Yeah, try making a Serenity parody, and see how many people get that hi-la-rious Reavers gag, fanboy.)
This easy target has paid varying bounties (Clerks good, Spaceballs bad), but Adult Swim’s stop-motion sketch-comedy series Robot Chicken and its half-hour Star Wars special have an advantage in the form of hyperactive actor/writer/producer/all-around creative force/Star Wars fanboy Seth Green. He’s the kid with all the coolest toys, which is handy, because the whole show is a tribute to the twisted, puerile joy of making your Ben Kenobi and Chewbacca figures make kissy-face. It’s Star Wars when the camera normally turns away to follow the heroes, focusing instead on a lascivious Boba Fett and cereal-shilling Adm. Ackbar.
Continue reading Review: Robot Chicken: Star Wars
Review: Election Day (2007)
Directed by Katy Chevigny
After the 2000 elections, a swathe of political documentaries painted a grim portrait of the democratic process. For anyone embittered about the whole poll thing, Election Day takes a bittersweet snapshot of voting, American style. From the polls’ open to the final counts on Nov. 2, 2004, it shows the highs and lows of elections.
Continue reading Review: Election Day (2007)
Review: Otis (2008)
Directed by Tony Krantz
Starring: Daniel Stern, Illeana Douglas, Kevin Pollak, Jere Burns, Bostin Christopher
Otis is a serial killer, abducting and torturing that most stereotypical of Hollywood victims, the cheerleader. But he’s also slightly incompetent, and after accidentally killing one of his victims too soon, he kidnaps her replacement with plans to make her his latest plaything. Her very dysfunctional family has a very different idea about that. But like the killer’s clueless attempts at playing psycho, this vengeful but overenthusiastic family brings a cheese knife to a manhunt.
Continue reading Review: Otis (2008)
Review: Four Lions (2010)
Directed by Chris Morris
Starring Kayvan Novak, Riz Ahmed, Nigel Lindsay, Adeel Akhtar
Ever since the 2005 al Qaeda attacks on London, there has been a siege mentality in the UK. That makes first-time director Morris’ broad comedy about homegrown jihadists in the post-industrial English city of Sheffield so timely and essential. This extraordinary combination of high farce and lo-fi filmmaking is a textured and incisive examination of what drives ordinary people to become suicide bombers – with added exploding crows for giggles.
Controversial British satirist Morris made his reputation as a ruthless critic of the media and government on TV and radio, As he explained during the films debut at SXSW, even with his reputation this was a difficult project on which to sell backers, noting that they saw it as “delicious like a lobster and revolting like a locust.”
Review: The Dungeon Masters
Director: Keven McAlester
If a group of friends gets together once a week for years to swap stories and share a meal, they’re sociable. Put a Dungeons & Dragons rule book in the middle of the table, and suddenly they’re written off as socially malformed. Rather than picking apart the world of role-playing games or mocking the players, director McAlester’s documentary takes three gamers and shows how tabletop fantasy fits into their lives.
Continue reading Review: The Dungeon Masters
Review: Smash Cut (2009)
Directed by Lee Demarbre
Starring: David Hess, Sasha Grey
Somewhere on his car, Lee Demarbre probably has a sticker that says “WWHGLD” – What would Herschell Gordon Lewis Do?
The man behind zero-budget schlocker Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter has placed the man that turned a cow tongue into a star up on a pedestal in one of Fantastic Fest’s quirkier outings (and that’s saying something).