Category: Festivals

This film was watched as a part of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Year of the Fox has its World Premier on Saturday, May 13 2023.

One might wonder what the Year of the Fox refers to. I of course naturally assumed this was Chinese Zodiac reference. And no matter how many times I have seen those episodes of Jackie Chan Adventures, where they had the amulets based on the zodiac, I gradually accepted yes, there is probably a year of the fox. But I was wrong! No fox at all!

Pretty wild, but also, not wild in the sense that its a wild animal. Nah, they got a rooster though.

Year of the Fox was a film that stood out to me when looking for movies to watch for the festival. Something about the plot or the name just drew me to it. Hope it was justified!

Dang, those flowers should be put in the grass. They can’t grow on these tiles. 

Ivy (Sarah Jeffery) was adopted at one point. From two straight up white, rich parents. Is it the dream? Well, only if wealth is the dream. Because now she is 17 and her parents are going through a divorce. She doesn’t love her mom as much as her dad. Her dad is fun! He takes her on trips. He shows her the world!

So when given the chance, she decides to go live with him, and she can still hang out with her friends. Now these parties are wild. They are doing coke in the bathrooms. And don’t care about underage drinking. Is this something she wants to be doing with her life?

Unfortunately, it turns out that the social and wealthy elite aren’t always sunshine and lollipops. People get taken advantage of. People get led astray. And these relationships might not be ones that Ivy would like to grow.

Also starring Jane Adams, Arden Myrin, Balthazar Getty, Lexi Simonsen, and Jake Weber.

I have two rules: Don’t touch my Percocet, and do you have any Percocet?

Year of the Fox was one of the first films I was able to see during the festival. And I can certainly say it has very gorgeous scenes and interesting situations for some of the characters. But in all honesty, it doesn’t ramp up until the very end. I would say it takes awhile to get going, but in reality, the main going is just the climax of the film.

Year of the Fox is certainly a good idea for a story. It is just a bit boring along the way. Which is a shame, because I think Jeffery did a fine job in the lead, and so did the actor playing her father. You could tell he was a sleazeball, we just didn’t know his levels of sleaze.

Year of the Fox isn’t a bad film, it is just too long for the effort I believe. Because again, it has some nicely shot areas for a few of the scenes, and I enjoyed the first and final party scene. But I am having a huge problem remembering anything else about the film, and it isn’t just because I watched a lot of movies this festival already. I watch a lot of movies all of the time. It just doesn’t have a lot for me to remember after the fact.

2 out of 4.

This film was watched as a part of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). The Mattachine Family has its world premier on Friday, May 12, 2023. You can see my interview with the director here!

Without a doubt, I think if I just saw the name of this film, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. The Mattachine Family? That is a real fancy sounding word that I don’t understand, being the illiterate adult that I am. Turns out, Mattachine isn’t really an adjective to describe the type of family, but it can be a reference to many things.

Personally, I think that it mostly would refer to The Mattachine Society, which ended up being an early organization that came about for gay rights. Huh, look at that, I am learning already.

And before I get further, it is most important to point out that this film with many producers, also has Zach Braff attached as the executive producer. Which means he is putting that Scrubs money to good use. Diverse films!

If you look closely, those steps are The Mattachine Steps. Damn, I was wrong!

This is a story about family, which you probably got from the title.

Specifically, it is about Thomas (Nico Tortorella) and Oscar (Juan Pablo Di Pace). Thomas and Oscar are not only in a relationship, they were foster parents for a little kid! Wait, let’s back up a little bit.

Oscar used to be an actor! He was a child star, on sitcoms, got really famous and was himself a foster kid. So it makes sense for him to want to do the same. Things came crashing down when it came out that he was out.

Thomas and Oscar met at one point, and the rest is history! Just kidding, it has its ups and downs as well. In fact, Thomas is a photographer and is struggling to figure out what it means to have a family as an adult gay man. But fostering a kid is certainly one way.

But then, well, his mother is better, and takes him back, after a year in their life. And it turns out, Oscars career is finally starting to pick back up. So he is going to be away filming. And their kid is gone. So what is Thomas to do? He is alone, not sure where to go on in life. Should he try for adoption? Should he ignore kids completely and just focus on living his life with his friends? Being an adult is hard, and it turns out, so is making a family.

Also starring Garret Clayton, Khalilah Joi, Jake Choi, Heather Matarazzo, Emily Hampshire, Colleen Foy, and Annie Funke.

What is love if it is not holding someone from behind in your arms?Let’s go back to that “What is Mattachine” introduction I gave. Well, from the screenshot, you can see that there are Mattachine steps. These steps are known as outdoor workout stairs. Oh, so like, designed actually to be used for exercise? Maybe the real Mattachine family is the one that you need to put work into, and hopefully in the end, it will work out.

But if you dig deeper…you find out that they were outside of the home of Harry Hay…the founder of the Mattachine Society. Oh good, we are back to that, and it looks like I was right! But hey, the metaphor works nicely as well.

Anyways, this is a very unique film I would say. It isn’t really a standard family film, it isn’t a romcom for the leads. It is almost like dealing with a middle age crisis on what to do for the rest of your life, if you want a family but can’t seem to have one. Obviously the goal here is to define families in a more broad sense, for the friends and people you have in your life and choose to spend your time with. But it is certainly in the drama film, if not loosely, barely, in the romance genre side of things.

I think all of the leads did a fantastic job. They felt believable and were fully fleshed out characters. At the same time, this film had so many ideas floating in it, with the side characters and subplots. I wasn’t sure what the film was meant to be about, until we really got to the final scenes and conclusions began. In my mind, it felt like that this film was maybe first envisioned as a pilot for a television show, that can continue to tell the story of these friends and characters as they continue on for life, but somewhere it pivoted into what we have. I know it isn’t true, but it is the feeling I get from the film, with how disjointed some moments are from scene to scene.

Again, well acted, and honestly, a beautifully shot film. And if the “driveway fall” doesn’t suck you in early on, I am not sure if movies are meant for you.

2 out of 4.

These films were watched as a part of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Next Sohee has its Seattle premier on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. The Hill of Secrets has its Seattle premier on Friday, May 19, 2023.

In this dual review, I am going to look at two films out of South Korea. Do they have a lot in common? No, not really. But they do deal with youth experiences, at vary different levels. And they deal with the expectations on these kids, whether via extreme pressure, or a complete lack of pressure and apathy. And thus, a good enough reason to double up on these movies.

Next Sohee

Next Sohee is about a girl named…Sohee (Kim Si-Eun)! Surprising, I know. She is the top student at her high school, always putting in the work to get the best grades, make her teachers happy, and never fail. She is also a pretty damn talented dancer, best in her group. She even has a boyfriend. As part of her school program, she is given a job! It is a prestigious job because it is from a big corporation, one type that her school never gets job opportunities from. They only wanted the best.

Well, it turns out the job is a call center job. And the goal of the call center is to not help the customer with their internet plan. But it is to instead give them the runaround, transfers, and get them to change their mind about canceling. It is to not make things easy, and that leads to anger, and it leads to self resentment. But she can’t just quit this job, her school and family is counting on it. But the call center culture has its own rules and standards that make things unbearable, until Sohee can no longer take it. And after that? Who is to blame.

Also starring Hee-jin Choi, Bae Doona, Yo-sep Song, and Yoo Jung-ho.

Certainly not Sohee. It is a SOCIETY problem.

Next Sohee is a film to talk about real issues going on in South Korean schools. For example, ranking of students, so publicly, for every little thing and assignment, builds that competitive stressful experience. But apparently, so do the call centers. And even if you do good, if you are 28th out of 28, you feel terrible, and will be chastised. Even if all of your goals are met. But when it turns out that schools themselves are ranked based on how their students as employees do, putting these pressures on teachers to have their students go through inhumane work conditions, and all of society is working to just tear down these poor kids. It is heart wrenching.

It is pretty obvious to tell what sort of thing happens to Sohee in the film, and I am sure the trailer says it as well. Because a good half of the film takes place later, while a police agent is discovering all of the issues that went on in her life, that could take a normally great kid into someone gone tragically too soon. It is like a journalistic expose, in movie format. And yet it also asks the question, well, even if we know all of this, what can be done to change it? Which is a harrowing question on its own.

4 out of 4.

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The Hill of Secrets

In the Hill of Secrets, this time our protagonist is just a kid in elementary school. It is about Myung-eun (Moon Seung-ah), a girl from a poor family. Her mom works all the time, her dad is a bit of a slacker, and she has siblings that don’t care about her too much. She is dreadfully embarrassed by them. But for some reason this year, she decides she is going to put on a new façade at her school. She is going to tell people her dad is a business man, her mom stays at home, but they are both also extra busy because of a sick grandmother, so they can never come to school for events.

She also is going to run for Class President, beating out the popular kids! Her teacher is happy to hear her ideas. She even has a suggestion box for them that she stuffs with her own ideas so she can incorporate changes in the class without it looking too weird? She even starts writing at a high level, which she hasn’t done before. But things start to change when a new girl enters the class, who also has ideas, and can write well, but is from a tragic background and actually letting people know. All of this while Myung-eun is lying! Well, maybe she needs to lie even harder. But maybe, just maybe, she needs to tell the truth, even if it will hurt her family more.

Also starring Sun Jang, Kang Gil-woo, Jang Jae Hee, and Sunwoo Lim.

I have both found the hill, and see where she writes down secrets. Movie solved! 

For a film like this, the film lives or dies on the performance of the lead, which is a child actress. No pressure. And she definitely knocks it out of the park. Her life seems so sad at the start, and you can’t help but feel bad for her. It seems like her parents are distant, and don’t want her to draw attention to herself. Sure they will celebrate her victories, but in minor ways because they are limited on funds, and can’t go to the school itself to interact with her there.

It is a story of a determined girl who DOES have a lot of good ideas and tries to pull herself up purely based on perception and boot straps. But just like a child, she acts irrationally nonetheless, and responds poorly to situations she could not predict. In fact, she acts quite childish a few times, which help ground the character and the film. This isn’t some family film about doing your best and being the best you can be and everything will work out. No, it goes for a deeper level of realism.

The Hill of Secrets is not a very flashy film, but it is also well shot and tells a simple story. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and you never know what might be the catalyst for change in your household.

The Hill of Secrets: 3 out of 4.

This film was watched as a part of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Anu has its world premier on Sunday, May 14, 2023. You can see my interview with the director here!

If there is anything we vastly need more of, it is stories of non-white people in films. I fully believe that, and it is up to us as movie watchers to seek out these stories when they become available.

That was my driving factor for seeking out the film Anu. Anu is actually based on the book, Looking for Bapu, which came out in 2008. Written by an Indian-American woman, about a kid growing up in a mixed culture environment. And now, with Anu, telling the same story, is with Indian American director, Sudeshna Sen.

See? Exactly what I want, new perspectives, from people who aren’t like me, and non-male directors is only a plus at this point. Throughout these festival reviews, I will try my best to highlight and seek out films that aren’t the standard.

And if I don’t, Anu said she would glare at me all night and I don’t need that on my mind.

Anu (Diya Modi) is a preteen Indian American girl living in the Seattle region (hey, that is where I live. And where the festival is!) and has to deal with normal preteen girl issues. However, her life starts to change really early on when her grandfather, Bapu (Abhijeet Rane) passes away unexpectedly. With this, her life does begin to unravel a bit. She loved her Bapu, and she misses him, and how can she go on living without him?

From there though, she begins to see visions of him as a ghost! And it is definitely real. Anu wants to begin a quest to bring him back to life as a reincarnation of Siddhartha. But before that can happen, she has to go on a spiritual journey…in her own neighborhood and school. She has to become holy. Whether it is fasting, giving fortunes, or changing her style, she knows she needs to be able to bring him back, that is the only solution left in her life.

Also starring Lowell Deo, Pratik P. Shah, Tanvee Kale, Hudson Bruener, and Eden Campbell.

Clearly a walk to remember. Oh, no, different movie.

Anu is a classic coming of age story, or at least, a coming of age story, where culturally the way the character acts and interacts with her surroundings makes it more unique than the standard film of this variety. First I want to talk about the main actress, Diya Modi. This is her first feature length film where she has a major role and she knocks it out of the park. It is arguably my favorite aspect of the film. Her character has flaws and makes mistakes and acts like a girl that age, and is not some “perfect kid” learning to deal with death. She is a regular kid, learning to deal with death, through the good and bad reactions one might go through based on what they were taught.

Rane as Bapu was also delightful, and I wish he had more screentime. (This is arguably the plot of the film as well, getting him more screen time).

And although it is easy to remember the things that Anu did in the film in order to complete her spiritual journey, I will acknowledge I don’t remember much more of the film. It was great to see local sights and sounds, and just hear a character saying “Ballard” (a neighborhood of Seattle), but I don’t think the other supporting characters added enough for the full film. Her parents, her friends, it all becomes a little bit of a blur.

Anu is certainly not close to being a bad film; it was certainly a unique and interesting film! It is just also one where I was hoping for a bigger character catharsis and cast to help elevate it into bigger and better levels. It also gave me enough interest to seek out the book the film is based on, even if it is meant of elementary/middle school aged students.  I hope that the lead continues her acting career, not just for diversity sake, but because she handled the lead role so well.

2 out of 4.

Unicorn Boy is part of Make Believe Seattle, and it is playing on Saturday, March 25, 2023. 

As has come up in many reviews before, my high school mascot was the noble Unicorn. So, did that make me a Unicorn Boy? Am I still a Unicorn Boy now? I will say yes to both.

I was of course very happy to pursue a film with a title like that, as I need more movies that are about unicorns or at least unicorn adjacent. For some reason it is a market overly saturated in TV shows, video games, and books. But not movies. I wonder why is that. Do movie watchers not like Unicorns? I hope that isn’t a stereotype.

Stereotypes make me make these faces.

Matty’s (Matt Kiel) life is currently spiraling downward. He has friends, fineeee. But he broke up with his girlfriend. It was a little awkward the timing too. It was after she said she loved him. And he panicked shortly after, and broke up with her. Okay, sorry, it was a lot of awkward, not a little. Don’t worry, Matty realized he missed her greatly. Life wasn’t as good without her. So he could just like, call her back and apologize and they could reconnect. Surely that would work.

Well, several voice mails later, sure enough, he is not able to get ahold of her. Wild right?

Unfortunately, while in a bathroom at a coffee shop, Matty gets sort of abducted by a unicorn, and brought to a strange colorful, rainbow filled world. This unicorn, Prince Purpleton (Sarah Natochenny) also doesn’t talk much and seems to be…uhhh, broken almost. And messy. Hard to describe. But Matty is brought back to their palace, where he learns that there might be a giant Unicorn running around, threatening things. But no one believes this story but the prince. The king (Patton Oswalt) is extremely passive and the queen (Maria Bamford) is mean. What is going on, how does this effect Matty?

Well it effects him a lot, apparently. Especially when he gets revived in the bathroom, and he is taken from the Unicorn world, and he spends a majority of his time trying to get back, to help his new friends, in a world that seems to be better than his own.

Also starring Sethward, Parvesh Cheena, and Harold Perrineau.

Messy rainbows, a picture.Unicorn Boy is a lot. A lot of interesting voice work, a lot of interesting colors, and certainly a lot of interesting facial expressions. Honestly, when cartoons focus on extreme facial reactions to events, it reminds me back to Ren and Stimpy, and I never really love it. It makes me make an extreme facial reaction and I never really get over it. And I never got used to in in this film either, which leads me to looking away from the characters more than watching them, which is a strange position to be in, and might be my own personal preference.

But the best news about this movie, is that the story totally works and is worth exploring and watching. My own biases on animation aside, I think Unicorn Boy not just tells a relatively unique story, but an important story. It tackles quite a few issues. In general, grief and depression, finding yourself, dealing with different levels of abusive parents, and of course, determining that the body you are in is not the body that matches you. You know what I mean? I think you do.

And to go with the story, the voice acting itself was top notch. Our lead, Matty, is voiced by the director, writer, and main animator of the movie. Sethward is his real life friend in some comedy group, who got famous from America’s Got Talent. But we also got a few celebrities for roles, and of course, the voice of Ash Ketchum. An impressive lineup for an independent animated film.

Unicorn Boy is a movie for a lot of people, and a lot of people can probably interpret it different ways. But regardless of which way you interpret it, you should be able to recognize that it is definitely done with heart and humor in mind.

3 out of 4.

Poundcake is part of Make Believe Seattle, and it is playing on Sunday, March 26, 2023. 

Heh. Poundcake.

If you want to make an attention grabbing movie, it always starts with an attention grabbing title. And poundcake would certainly make most people curious about your film.

I mean, there is a chance it is about actual cakes. Which would for sure be a win overall. But it could also be slang and go a lot of different ways. And I am here to let you know, it certainly goes those ways.

Immediately, it is one of the more negative of those ways based on this image.

A new killer is out on the loose! Apparently. It is amazing that one could even find that out since it is in New York City, but these deaths are a bit different.

First of all there is a pattern. Everyone at that point had been a straight white male. Not too surprising there, I guess. They all had been strangled as part of their death. So there is some level of pattern there. Oh, and they also had been raped. Yep.

So despite no one seeing the killer, all of these happening in isolation, there is a clear theme and focus. And it has the city in, well, has them curious. Is this okay? Is this revenge? Is this a form of justice?

Who is to say overall, but those who have some level of minority are feeling a lot more safe about themselves during these times, for sure.

Starring Onur Turkel (also the director), Eva Dorrepaal, and Ron Brice. A lot of others too, but this isn’t on IMDB yet and I am limited in finding people.

People should talk more about serial killers at the workplace. 

To start off, this movie was a lot funnier than I thought it had the right to be. I mean, it was very low budget and its visual framings were never that creative. But it has got personality, friends. A lot of it. A lot of weird, oozing personality.

A large percentage of the film is framed through podcast recordings. Various different groups talking about current events in their lives and cities. Most of them themed around gender, race, or some sort of drug using identity. And from that we got to hear the discussions of “other New Yorkers” about their thoughts and feelings during these attacks, and how they affect their views on other people. The podcasters are real characters too, not just a narrative device, and their lives are explored for a bit in the film, including when groups break apart, change members, or share guests for interviews. Outside of the whole, murdering of white dudes angle, it was basically the other main plot in the film.

A film that also had some strange subplots, like the director playing a character really certain in his sexuality while exploring new things sexually. It related to the rest of the story, a little.

Honestly, the ending of the film, during the memorial, had me in all sorts of giggles. Quite a lot of scenes, but the ending went full ridiculous and I am happy that the film embraced the ridiculousness of the story. The write up on the festival site calls the director, “one of the most astute and fearless satirists of his generation,” which is obviously written by his team/PR group, but it is definitely some level of fearless satire going on here. In films we want originality, and if anything, Poundcake has some originality.

3 out of 4.

Mister Organ is part of Make Believe Seattle, and it is playing on Sunday, March 26, 2023. 

Did you see Tickled?

I said, did you see Tickled? You know, the documentary, from several years ago? It was pretty good, and dived into a deep world that none of us really knew about until it was exposed in the documentary. It really asked some questions that I didn’t know I wanted answered.

So of course I am excited to see Mister Organ, a new documentary by the same director. And shit, what a title. What is this about? A guy who sells body parts? Is it about health care? Is it about someone who kills and murders?

I don’t know, but I am ready to unravel some very dark and decrepit things going on in New Zealand.

From a quick glance, everyone seems to have a normal number of organs here. 

So it turns out that Mister Organ is just about a person, named Mr. Organ. Nothing illicit with body parts. The director first came across him as he worked a “clamping business”. If a private business had a special area for parking, and people parked there for not the appropriate reason, he would drive up in his car and block them in, preventing them from leaving. And he would do that until they paid a large sum, and it was technically legal, because appropriate signs were posted at that business. It obviously left a lot of people upset, having to be slightly threatened and stuck into paying hundreds of dollars.

A viral video went on about this, which led the director to investigating this issue, and trying to report on it as a journalist. But he sued back, and the case went to court. The court was not in our directors favor, and Organ was apparently a very talkative, and enigmatic fellow. Despite the lawsuit, he wanted to still talk to our director, and it just…kept, going on from there.

This is a documentary where the director is actively investigating the subject, and the subject is aware of it, and aware of their conversations being recorded and filmed, and just things get weirder and weirder for our director.

Lies upon lies, a strange backstory, and a man who doesn’t shut up.

It is honestly, very hard to talk about this documentary, as it had a sort of meta feel to it the entire time. Was this whole thing a strange ruse? Did this situation lead to some exciting conclusions, or was it a total time sink the whole time? Why is he like that? These are various questions I have about it, and honestly, I won’t say all of them get answered.

If anything, Mister Organ is certainly an experience, and a wild trip if it is a trip you want to take.

3 out of 4.

Pursued is part of Make Believe Seattle, and it is having its world premier on Saturday, March 25, 2023. 

Pursued is one of the many films getting its world premier at Make Believe Festival in Seattle this week. What personally drew me in was not the few actor names I actually recognized, but the teenage sleuth feel of it all. I am sure it would have normal horror and thriller vibes throughout it. But high school students finding clues, and finding a killer? At the threat of their own lives? That could be fun.

I mean, I used to be a teacher. The high school students I know, for the most part, were very apathetic, even when it came to passing their classes, so it is always nice to see there are some students out there, even if they are fictional characters, who have passions and desires in SOMETHING.

Besides. Horror film that take place with high school students usually means we get to have deaths in the school, and hey, public schooling at this point already feels like death.

Is this old guy a clue? Is it her dad? Is it a killer? 

Lark (Madison Lawlor) is a high school girl, just trying to live her life, go to parties, and kick ass. Like everyone else. But one night she sneaks out, and when her dad was driving on the way to get her, he got into a car accident. Shit. Now her dad is dead, and it is sort of her fault. She has to carry that guilt.

Some time later, still in high school, we have her actively dating and doing things now, trying to live her best life. Her mom (Molly Ringwald), is finally in the dating game, and dating Mark Franc (Angus Macfadyen). Hey, that is a pretty generic sounding name. In general, Lark doesn’t like the sound of him, so she does her own googling.

And somehow, strangely enough, this leads her on a dark path. Where she finds out the identity of another Mark Franc, who just so happens to be a serial killer. But first she needs proof! She needs help! That way justice can be had. But soon Lark gets far too over her head, and her friends start dying, and she starts to get threats, and well. Hope she doesn’t ruin her mom’s new found happiness by also getting murdered, ya know?

Also starring Joel Courtney, Paul Sorvino, Sam Trammell, Miesha Tate, and Taylor Blackwell.

Same question. Is he the killer? He could easily just be a teacher getting home after working with assholes.

Lark in this movie is no Nancy Drew, but to be fair, the movie didn’t advertise that element at all either. It is just something I wanted. Did the lead solve some clues, and do some nice breaking and entering to solve a murder? Oh, you betcha.

But she also was still a teenager, who made bad decisions, and dug herself into a hole she did not know how to get out of.

Unfortunately for this hole, it felt more laughable than scary. There is always a suspicion of disbelief in these films, you know, murderers who are strong and apparently the best at covering up their tracks. But there was too much in this film for me to get over that fact, unfortunately. It wasn’t giving a film with supernatural elements, so having the murderer go “Halloween Kills” on a group of people who were bigger, stronger, and had him already trapped felt more annoying than anything, at what felt like a good an appropriate ending. [Editor’s Note: That scene in Halloween Kills I hated so much, and this movie is not really that close]. But the film instead needed to continue, and go further. It already felt like it was dragging at that point, but to make it go even more further felt like an awkward decision.

If it broke some cliches in the process, it would have helped. But instead we got still a pretty standard ending, after a less than exciting film. Even though it ended on a weak note, its mediocrity of a story wasn’t going to save it either. I would not pursue Pursued into theaters at any time soon.

1 out of 4.

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What’s this, a double review? Yes, I sometimes review more than one thing, if they are part of a series, for special reviews. But here are two unrelated documentaries showing at Fantastic Fest. Or maybe, they are related?

You see, with A Life on the Farm, it is about some old VHS tapes made in the 1990s, about Charles Carson. He was an old man with a farm, in England, who decide to start filming what can only be described as promotion films about his farm, and life on it.

With Chop & Steele, it is about a fictional duo named Chop & Steele. But the people who play this fake body building champion duo, Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, are actually friends for decades who have made history pranking local TV news stations and collecting VHS tapes. You know, tapes they have shown at their Found Footage Festivals on tour, with audiences laughing about the absurdity of things people filmed from television or in their own homes.

One of those VHS tapes they found, being the A Life on the Farm series, which was one of their biggest hits. And hey, that is the other documentary! Boom, connection, let’s talk about both.

Oh my god, so many skeletons on this farm. 

Charles Carson is the archived star of A Life on the Farm. He has won people over through his edited shots and set up scenes around his farm, using very limited technology at the time, and doing it at his old age when most people would assume he would know very little.

But more importantly, because like him for the things he did. Like, having his dead mother, pre burial, on a wheel chair around the farm, filming her saying goodbye to the land. A lot of folks would be creeped out by a dead body, but not him. He is death positive, and just wants to ensure that they get to pay their last respects.

In terms of the footage, I bet the actual unedited stuff is great, especially with a nice MC putting it in better context, and with a group of folks. But a documentary about the footage, its history, and it being broken down, did not make it seem more exciting. It just felt weird and uncomfortable split up this way, not the jolly interesting time I was hoping and expecting.

These guys are swoll. 

Now, in this documentary we can learn more about Nick and Joe. It is how they got started, their first festivals, and their first pranks! Like pretending to be an expert Yo-Yo expert, while not being an expert Yo-yoer. And more importantly, their Chop & Steele persona, which got them real big and famous because…they were sued over it!

Yep, a parent company of a TV station, once they found out they were a prank team, sued them for Fraud and more. They wanted it to be settled, and to apologize to the station, but the pair of course did not, and wanted to go all the way with it. It did become a talking point on other morning news shows, noting that this just shows that journalists didn’t do their first job. And also, eventually it did lead them to getting to America’s Got Talent, which was a claim they made to get on the shows!

But honestly, a lot more is just about the duo and their lives. Their friendship. Their direction in life. What their future plans on. Is it acting, or writing, or splitting up eventually? It brings a lot of heart into this documentary, much more than I expected about a few pranksters. And much more than I expected after watching the former documentary in this review.

It breaches a lot of good topics, while also being funny in its own right. I can’t wait to see what Nick and Joe do in the future, and if they plan on going any new direction with their antics, or if they dial it all in and retire.

1 out of 4. / 3 out of 4.

Here is an interview with the director of Razzennests, Johannes Grenzfurthner!

Razzennest is a snazzy title, and something that really makes me crave pizza. Makes me want to seek out that razzle dazzle. That is all of the double z words I can think of in a short span of time, I apologize for not being able to make that introduction joke go longer.

Razzennest might be a German word meaning Rat Nest, or it can be something very different on who you ask.

Regardless of who you ask on translating Razzennest, the film itself is a film that cannot be translated into any other film for comparison. It is a film unique on its own, and we shall see why in a moment.

This is a cock. 

The Thirty Years War (which lasted about 30 years) took place in Central Europe in the 1600’s. It involved the church, of course, people getting kicked out of windows, and just a lot of religious inspired death. Razzennest is about that war, kind of.

The imagery that starts the movie, landscapes, broken buildings, statues, fill the screen, until we hear a voice. Whose voice? Why Babette Cruickshank (Sophie Kathleen Kozeluh) of course. Because she is introducing us to the director’s film commentary of the film, Razzennest. Strange names aside, you would have been confused (if you didn’t read this description first) and thought there was a mistake, but do not worry, this is intentional. Because while you will see the film Razzennest with your eyes, you will quickly see the real Razzennest was not just the friends we made along the way, but the fake director commentary on top of it.

Because director Manus Oosthuizen (Michael Smulik) is an asshole, and has a vision, and hates dumb questions and mispronounced names. And the beginning of the commentary is full of conflict and angst. But unfortunately, darker forces are afoot in their commentary room, and things will only get weirder and scarier from there.

Also featuring the voices of Roland Gratzer, Joe Dante, Jim Libby, Anne Weiner, and Bob Rose.

This is a hole in the ground. Razzennest is a HARD film to talk about, because honestly, just mentioning the type of film it is feels like a spoiler, even though that happens immediately. It almost felt like telling people to “get ready for the fake trailers” in front of Tropic Thunder. Just let it happen. But I also know it would be hard for me to talk about anything else, than the commentary track, since that is 95% of the film.

Yes, it still has visuals. But the visuals were clearly chosen to not be distracting, but aiding instead. Real footage of places in Europe, of old destruction, of old structures, of nature, and former battlegrounds. But there are no characters on that screen. There is not other dialogue, or interactions. It is just scenes spliced together, sometimes aggressively, to enhance the commentary story. It often matches the tone and uncomfortableness in some ways with the commentary, clearly being extremely deliberate with the editing so that it is an enhancer, not a hindrance.

In terms of the dialogue, you know, the 95% of the film, it has a pretty varied cast of characters with distinct enough voices and mannerisms to not confuse the viewer. Without knowing exact amounts, the first 1/3 of the film is meant to just be uncomfortable, awkward, and a bit silly and funny. But there are hints of what to come. And damn it, I can keep at least that part a secret still. After all, this is a Horror Comedy, not just a Comedy.

The film’s goal is to both make fun of the pretentiousness of arthouse award winning indie films, while also, at the same time, being one itself. It is punching across, not down or up. It was done on a shoe string budget, with an idea that Hollywood would never try out, because it would be a hard sell for audiences.

I had to go back into my memory banks, the only experience I had that was similar to this was Sounds Dangerous!, which was a Drew Carey audio show attraction at Disney World. The audience was given headphones, and were mostly in the dark, to experience this audio story telling device, with many sound cues to make the audience get all weird feeling. It was unique, and yet, Razzennest is clearly unique-r.

Razzennest is adding complexity to it, by having visuals, by making it meta, and by both deconstructing a genre while partaking in the genre at the same time. There is really nothing like Razzennest, and I honestly can’t imagine too many things being like Razzennest in the future either. Unless this sort of film starts to take off, like Found Footage films did after The Blair Witch Project.

I fully recommend checking out this movie if it is ever in your vicinity, although I realize that will likely be hard for some time. Because there is nothing else like it available. Until we get Razzennest 2 in twelve years, to tell a similar story, but with water!

3 out of 4.