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I really feel as if I owe this movie a lengthier review, but, uh...the festival's over. Anyhow, it's a deftly-balanced melange of psychological horror and environmental activism, and I'm a complete sucker for any movie featuring a remote arctic outpost, AND Connie Britton is completely hot, so this hit all the right notes for me. Plus it had a very solid B-list cast that included genre stalwart Ron Perlman, and had just the right level of ambiguity--how much of this is really happening, and how much of it is taking place only in the imagination of the characters? Wonderful closing shot that leaves the question unresolved in an oddly satisfying way.
I wrote this up in my festival blog, so I won't drone on at length here. Very good film, a group of solid performances, effective settings and props and nice use of a limited color palette and subdued lighting. The scenes with the Invisibles are very well-staged. This is another movie where the ending may have you saying "WTF? Dude, that blows!" But if you can roll with it, you'll find this to be a most excellent effort.
A nifty premise that's well-executed, featuring some nice performances all around. Hugely hilarious and unafraid to turn in some dark directions. A bit overlong, perhaps, and the ending is a little too drawn out; the ultimate conclusion may spoil you on the whole movie, as it did for my viewing companion. Simon Baker is appropriately amusing, and Leslie Bibb is great as Miranda.
This one is probably THE film of the festival for me. Other posters here have covered the high points, but I'll reiterate the praise for the strong script and dialogue, the unexpectedly different directing by the guy who brought us "Hatchet" at the last fest, and the strong lead performances, particulary by Tamblyn, who is an adorable delight here. Kudos as well to Moore and Levi for wearing multiple hats in this movie. It's a valid point that it's unlikely that someone as charismatic and appealing as Tamblyn's character would actively pursue Moore's excrutiatingly withdrawn loner, but that just adds to the mystery of the plot, because it suggests, however misleadingly, that perhaps she's running her own game.
This one should alternately have been called "A Boy and His Bat". Or perhaps "The Tale of Wolfhound and His 23 Quest Companions". Very formulaic, but the Slavic elements will be new to most, and the production values are very high. Even though we've seen a lot of this kind of thing before, the "Conan"-style clan massacre and ensuing "his was a tale of woe" section of the story comes off well enough, propelling us into "You killed my father" territory from "The Princess Bride", and then on to a standard "Deliver the woman you secretly love to become the bride of another" tale, which doubles as the hero's quest where he picks up more comrades.
Sturdy fight scenes, FX that aren't dazzling but get the job done, performances that are more than fair, and an amazing wonder bat. The soundtrack edged into Soviet-era bombast a few times, but that's a minor flaw. This is a must-see for fantasy fans, if only so they can see how folks outside of the Anglo-American world get it done.
Sidesplitting in an unexpectedly macabre way that wallops you across the jaw from left field, to mangle a metaphor. Guilty laughs coming from the revelation of the occupation of one of the players, as he explains the pros and cons of a career path you've likely never considered. Sam Lloyd from "Scrubs" is excellent in the role, and the other actors acquit themselves well. Sharp writing. Highly recommended.
Very well done, but there are some very significant problems, most notably that the movie is tightly paced up to its peak two-thirds of the way through, at which point the producers realized they still had one more reel to fill and had run out of story. We then meander lazily to a semi-pointless ending that completely lacks dramatic punch. But before that, we are treated to some nicely executed scenes where desperate characters must play childish games to save their lives, fearing what personal revelations of their sordid pasts will be shown when the ominous movie projector clicks itself to life. A lot of nice sound effects, by the way, and a quite good performance by the strangely compelling Sarah Jane Redmond. Also, it was nice to see "Stargate SG-1" stalward Colin Cunningham as a nerdy cop. On the downside, the whole angle about the 17th century exorcist was completely unnecessary and added something like negative zero to the plot.
Kinda old and busted. We've seen this story played out, what, three or four times before in other films? Eh, it's executed well enough, but the ending did not really satisfy.
Not bad. The dialogue's not quite as quirky and witty as it believes, but the performances are amiable. Doesn't end with as much of a punch as one might want, but overall it's pretty nifty.
Comparatively well-done for a short with a limited budget, but I'm sorry, I just can't believe in hyper-ambulatory killer newborns. The twist ending was also visible a mile away. And there's no way this one should've beaten out "The Fifth" as the best of the show.
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