Filmshi catches up with Linas Phillips as he speaks about his latest WALKING WITH WERNER.
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Filmshi catches up with Sara Lamm and Ralph Bronner discussing the film DR BRONNER'S MAGIC SOAPBOX.
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With over 120 films screening and two films opening the festival, Mill
Valley's 29th annual run will offer some memorable gems to its
audiences, regardless of their cinema selectiveness. Opening night
(October 5) is a night of options, with Kevin Macdonald's THE LAST KING
OF SCOTLAND (10/5 7pm) playing opposite two separate screenings of the
fest's gala film, Anthony Minghella's BREAKING AND ENTERING (10/5 7pm).
Both films see wide theatrical release and, as is the benefit of big
fests, you can see them even before America even hears about a
QuickTime teaser trailer. Additionally, Forest Whitaker from KING and
both Sydney Pollack and Robin Wright-Penn from BREAKING will be in
attendance. |
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World premiering at DocFest was Ilko Davidov's
UNAUTHORIZED AND PROUD OF IT: TODD LOREN'S ROCK N' ROLL COMICS. An
ironic documentary about Loren and his line of faux historical comic
books about the lives of rock and roll celebrities, the film emulates
the anx and sacrilege of Loren's Revolutionary Comics while
simultaneously showing it's early MTV roots. Part VHS, part digital
video, part animation, the film uses interviews with Loren's co-workers
to flesh out a story of the controversial personality who was loved as
much by his friends as he was hated by his enemies. |
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SIMON KING OF THE WITCHES is a super fun, sorcery themed suspense story
from 1971. Filled with clearly researched mystic esoterica and peppered
with sometimes silly, sometimes ponderous special effects, the film
reads like a cross between a Corman psychedelic flick and an exposition
on practical occultism. Having no fear about alternative faiths, the
pairing of Theremin sounds with nudity and pentagrams doesn't creep me
out, and maybe that's why the film was so easy to enjoy - and so hard
to call horrifying. SIMON uses the tactics drilled into the ground by
those Time Life "Unsolved Mystery" book ads, and one can assume it used
these techniques before they'd been drilled into the ground on daytime
television. What is most enjoyable, and possibly most threatening,
about the film is the way it requests the audience's belief in Simon's
witchery. In fact, without our belief in his capacities, there's no
possibility this film could be frightening at all. To an effect, the
film needs our permission to be fearful and an engagement so explicit
is...well, really fun. It needs our permission to be effective and that's
all there is to that. |
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Beginning June 8, IndieFest's third annual HoleHead Fest, serves up sardonic performance art, mind altering Japanese film, fantastic American fair, and more puns about gore and dread than you can shake a stick at. Though the film's opening night is not the traditional opening, (no film or following party), HeadFest shows off their interest in breaking traditions with the Rock and Roll Horror Show [Annie's, 6/8]. A musical stage production of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, the show is a genre bender, and promises fun, especially for the set that relish in their irony. |
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Festival coverage
