JDIFF 2014

fitzy45

One of the criteria for the surprise film is that it must be in the English language. It won't be Raid 2, even though I wish it was.

johnny_ultimate

Embargo is until 12th March. Thankfully, that means 300 is a non-runner.

Sad Professor

Need for Speed?

Squelchy

There appears to be only 2 camps

1. That was genius, a masterpiece, Johansson was "iconic"

2. That was a load a cobblers.


I am definitely in the latter camp.

e_e

Sad Professor wrote: »

Need for Speed?

First film to occur to me. The embargo doesn't rule The Muppets out either.

Sad Professor

It kinda does. The Muppets isn’t out here until the 28th. Unless they are messing with us, but they did show Welcome to the Punch last year...

e_e

I kinda get the sense that this whole embargo thing is all for hype anyway, to make it seem all the more secretive.

Decuc500

Under The Skin last night was quite an experience. I don't think I've ever felt as uneasy watching a film before. There are a couple of scenes in particular that are very disturbing. I was repulsed by and admired it in equal measure but I don't think I'll be watching it again in a hurry!

And yet I gave it top marks for the audience award (not that it will win, it's got to be one of the most divisive films at the festival).

Of the other films I saw over the past few days I really enjoyed The Last Days On Mars. It was very cliched but had a great look to it on I'm sure what was a low enough budget. Good to see an Irish director make a very effective and enjoyable horror film.

Noise Annoys

Squelchy wrote: »

There appears to be only 2 camps

1. That was genius, a masterpiece, Johansson was "iconic"

2. That was a load a cobblers.


I am definitely in the latter camp.

I'd be somewhere in between. It was good, but it's no masterpiece.

Bozo Skeleton

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Embargo is until 12th March. Thankfully, that means 300 is a non-runner.

Hopefully. The first 300 was the surprise film a few years ago. I felt like walking out of the cinema about 2 seconds in (I'd seen trailers for it), but I was in company so I endured the whole movie.

Memo from Turner

Decuc500 wrote: »

Of the other films I saw over the past few days I really enjoyed The Last Days On Mars. It was very cliched but had a great look to it on I'm sure what was a low enough budget. Good to see an Irish director make a very effective and enjoyable horror film.

Very impressive, but wasn't it basically a remake of Alien?

I liked Cannibal last night. It's a Spanish film about a serial killer, and reminiscent of Las Horas Del Dia in its unhurried pace and coolly objective camera. Something is going on in Spain, obviously.

If you can imagine Bresson making a movie about a cannibal murderer, this is what it would look like.

Baze

Sad Professor wrote: »

I don’t think Surprise Film has ever been an Irish film. A British/American film with Irish connections, yes, but never a bona fide Irish production. What would be the point showing something that could have been screened as part of the main festival with special guests, red carpet, press, etc? All the tickets are sold in advance, so the Surprise Film is a good opportunity for a distributor to test or build buzz for an upcoming film. And if it’s the world premiere of said film, the festival benefits from the publicity, so they obviously want the biggest film they can get, not some little Irish film that they would have no trouble securing anyway.

I agree that it should be about that, but then how do we explain Cedar fecking Rapids and Hamlet 2 being chosen? Surely nobody thought either of those were going to have anything but short cinema runs. I understand the optimism behind the likes of Greenberg and This Must Be The Place (and maybe even The Escapist), but some of the films chosen over the years have been baffling in that regard.

mark13

Bit confused, I got tickets to the Surprise film and got the e-mail about the embargo, are we supposed to reply to the e-mail now and bring the form to the cinema or whats the deal with it?

Bozo Skeleton

I've seen 9 or 10 so far. The ones that have stood out for me:

JDIFF Shorts. Hadn't attended this in a couple of years. Always a good buzz, as the audience is full of cast and crew from the shorts playing, and other film makers. 8 shorts, 3 of which I thought were great, hopefully they'll end up being shown on RTE or TG4 at some stage.
Breakfast Wine - "They say it just takes three alcoholics to keep a small bar running in a country town." Set in a rural bar, Dylan Moran, and the beardy guy from that RTE show Trivia are 2 of those alcoholics in barman Pat Shortt's pub. Funny.
The Mechanic - Dark/funny.
Rubaí - An atheist girl has her first holy communion looming. Delightful, with poignant moments. An absolute gem. As Gaeilge. Hope it get's shown on TG4, deserves to be shown to a wider audience.

Concrete Night. Beautifully shot in black and white. Dark. Miinimalist. Finnish. Ambiguous ending. Check, check, check, check, check. Liked it a lot.

Ida. Another black and white one. I thought this was great too.

The Grand Budapest Hotel. Very Wes Anderson, of course. I like Wes Anderson's movies, so that's fine with me. Delightful, in a distinctly Wes Anderson way.

Los Wild Ones. Documentary. Veteran of the DIY Dublin punk scene, Reb Kennedy moved to LA in the 1980's. He sets up a record label/recording studio in his gaff and records, distributes, manages, tour manages, even does the sleeve artwork for Mexican rockabilly underground scene bands. Liked this a lot. The cinema was full of rockabilly guys and gals. If you're in to the rockabilly scene, you'd love it.

Still a few more to see. Hopefully one of them will be a jaw dropping amazing film festival moment. Other than that, hoping the surprise film won't be the new 300 one. Please god, no.

johnny_ultimate

A Story of Children and Film - sort of an extension to A Story of Film, Mark Cousin's film is an insightful, cine-literate essay about the various ways children have been portrayed throughout cinema history. Mostly focusing on the neglected gems (albeit with some nods to the likes of ET or Shirley Temple) it has significantly elongated my must watch list. Still not the biggest fan of Cousin's narration, but his aesthetic analysis and passion for the artform are always delightful.

Finsterworld - an unusual multi-character comedy-drama, it takes a while for the multitude of characters and subplots to settle. When it does, it's a surprisingly dark examination of contemporary Germany and characters trying to find their way in life. Quirky at times, quite grim at others, I warmed to it slowly, but I ended up intrigued and satisfied with the directions it opted to go. Bit uneven, but mostly a likeable watch. It's also the rare film where a furry is a lead character.

The Reunion - disappointing. A great concept - artist not invited to her reunion, films a fictionalised version of said reunion, shows film to classmates - is barely taken full advantage of, and comes across as excessively navel-gazey and self-important at times. The first half hour - the fictional reunion - is actually very well handled (reminiscent of Festen), but for the rest of the film it's as if Anna Odell is merely spinning the wheels, and the docudrama presentation feels off. A few interesting moments as classmates react in pretty different ways, but I came out feeling decidedly underwhelmed (a completely pointless and overlong aerial shot at the end is a particularly uninspired note to finish on). A case of potential largely unrealised, which is a shame as individual scenes do hint at some of the more intriguing possibilities behind the concept. A considerably less romantic take on teenage nostalgia, but again I almost like the theory, ideas and themes of the film more than the end product.

e_e

On the contrary, when the perspective shifted in The Reunion I found myself even more hooked. My favorite of the fest so far and didn't find it navel-gazy at all. If anything I loved how it kept sidestepping it anytime it risks stumbling over itself. Half simmering drama, half filmmaking experiment and both aspects worked very well imo.

Baze

Seen Starred Up tonight and felt it easily the most enjoyable film I've seen at the festival so far this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkAGsmwwN2o

It was written by an ex-prison therapist (his first script) and it's theme revolves around how anger is a major issue in prison and the story itself focuses on how the lead character (played by Jack O'Connell from This Is England) learns to deal with his, complicated by the fact that his father (Ben Mendelsohn) is also an inmate.

I really liked it. It's gripping and totally unpredictable (mostly anyway). The acting is superb also.

One minor point from me was that I really didn't think that it was plausible (or necessary) for the film to show that the prison warden and staff were willing to fake a suicide on the orders of a powerful inmate. The story was doing just fine without it. In fact, if anything, I think that element to the film took away from the film as a whole and thought it totally needless. The changing relationships between all concerned in the story was powerful enough in and of itself, without restoring to such a head scratching tangent.

Other than that aspect of things though, I was thoroughly immersed in the film and certainly feel it has earned a place in prison movie genre.


On a side note: it was cringeworthy in the extreme to see 60% of the audience streaming out past the director (David Mackenzie) as was he was being introduced for a post screening Q&A. Could people really not sit fecking down for a another ten to fifteen minutes? They can't all surely have had to catch a bus or train at 10:45 at night.

Squelchy

Noise Annoys wrote: »

I'd be somewhere in between. It was good, but it's no masterpiece.

There is no in between! :mad:

Baze

Seen The Double earlier and loved every second of it's wonderful weirdness.

A modern day masterpiece from Ayoade, who have to say, came across as being extremely humble, genuine and unassuming in the Q&A.

delbertgrady

Er... weren't they supposed to, you know, give Terry Gilliam a Volta award? What the hell happened there?

Hugh Linehan kept hogging the questions, even after they opened it up to the floor. Then, once he was given a two-minute timecheck, he kept on.
Gilliam was great, but considering it was one of their marquee events, it should have been managed better.

Decuc500

Didn't Terry Gilliam say something about Dublin getting something Biblical soon? Noah as Surprise film?

I enjoyed both The Double and The Zero Theorem but I can't help thinking the Gilliam Q&A was the highlight of the whole night.

Great to hear Richard Ayoade recommend the band Buffalo Tom and give J Mascis a cameo in the film. He really does like 90's alternative rock!

johnny_ultimate

He was given the Volta earlier in the day, apparently. And for the best - better to keep the limited time open for questions instead of a meaningless awards ceremony / photo op!

Thought The Double was delightful, which caught me off guard as I wasn't that fond of Submarine. Less obtuse than early reviews had led me to believe it was, and tackles often dark subject matter with a knowingly playful touch. But it was a joy to watch, Ayoade and his art, camera and lighting teams creating this giddily morbid, surrealistic dystopia. There was something fairly predictable about the way it handled its central concept, but more than enough psychological peculiarity to keep us engaged. It was realised with such visual panache and impressive soundscapes (brilliantly odd flourish to have all the music cues Japanese or Korean!) that it was a very distinct sort of pleasure to experience it. Eisenberg if not exactly stretching his scope (sorry, Richard ) fits in perfectly, and Mia Wasikowska is becoming an increasingly reassuring presence - has any recent young actress made such inspired career and collaboration decisions? Above all, though, it was wickedly deadpan and very funny.

Despite Ayoade's assurance the only time the production team referenced Brazil was so that they could distance themselves from it, it's a far more successful successor to that film than the actual spiritual successor The Zero Theorem. There's much to like or at least admire about it - the wild cinematography and production design, the cartoonish and very physical film world, plenty of interesting themes and singular delivery of the same. But, as has become sadly standard for Gilliam's film output over the last two decades, it's so relentlessly zany, haphazardly paced and insanely inconsistent that it frustrates as much as if not more than it impresses. Also a shame that the characters are so clinically presented for the first half of the film (that improves later on, to the point where a sudden empathy and emotional core seems pretty jarring). I still think CGI hasn't been his friend (well, besides financially) in realising his surrealistic visions - perhaps a result of watching The Double beforehand, but Gilliam's visual style here lacks coherence and is almost too artificial, even when the film is imagining a full-on virtual reality.

That said, Gilliam himself - like Ayoade, albeit in a very different way - was a delight to hear and see speak in person, still overflowing with enthusiasm and energy. Indeed, hearing him talk about the film so passionately and insightfully afterwards I was disappointed that I didn't enjoy it more than I actually did. But then, with only one or two exceptions (mostly Brazil), I think I always like the theory and idea of Gilliam's films more than I do actually watching them.

delbertgrady

I agree the whole Volta thing is just an excuse for a photo op, but if they're going to hand them over at all, it seems a bit daft to do it privately, considering the big song and dance they always make about who is getting them each year.

griffdaddy

Have two tickets to Out of Here for face value if anyone's interested. Way too hung over to sit still

johnny_ultimate

Managed five films today, which wasn't as intense as I expected.

Kicked off with Tracks, which I really liked. It's not the sort of film I'd tend to warm to: true life story, told pretty conventionally. But I actually found myself engrossed and quite moved by this tale of one woman's solo adventure across the Australian desert. Lots of beautiful imagery and moments, although could have done without some of the more on-the-nose flashbacks and voiceovers. Third Mia Wasikowska film of the fest, and she's excellent in the lead role here.

Our Sunhi - Hong Sangsoo doesn't stretch himself here, but I still loved it (unashamed Sangsoo fanboy that I have recently become). Has all his hallmarks: awkward romancing, speculations on the nature of filmmaking, those elegant zooms, incredibly long takes of people talking / eating / drinking. The unique focus is here is the way we look at ourselves and how others perceive us - here realised as three separate male suitors attempt to woo the eponymous Sunhi. As ever, there's great truth and honesty in Sangsoo's approach, even if the characters themselves aren't always 100% genuine (well, at least until they've emptied a couple of Soju bottles). And it's effortlessly witty and funny. Such a pleasure to watch.

Bad Hair - odd little Venezuelan drama that plays out like a slightly nightmarish, unloving portrait of a mother her young son. Tackling issues such as class inequality, gender confusion and self-identity, there's interesting ideas but the film itself didn't quite set the heart a flutter. Worth a watch, but left me a little underwhelmed to be honest - a film that's equal parts hard to hate and difficult to love.

The Gambler - ugh. A pretty grueling assault of grimness in this pitch black Lithuanian-Latvian character study. It's committed to its horrible characters and almost cartoonishly repugnant world, so in that way I guess it succeeded in what it set out to do. But it's an endurance test as opposed to something I enjoyed, and felt a lot of it was deeply contrived. Felt in need of a good shower afterwards to wash off the layer of grime.

Touch of Sin - magnificent 'state of the Chinese nation' film from Jia Zhangke. Four vaguely interconnected stories manage to encompass and critique the director's home country - migrant working, industrialisation, ideological hypocrisy, changing methods of communication, corruption, shifting (degrading?) morals etc... It's punctuated with acts of extreme violence - violence of vengeance, self-harm, self-defense, necessity, even pleasure. It's a wildly ambitious and wildly successful film, laced with moments of black humour and empathy. Expertly crafted and visually drowning in smog (oddly out of focus in a few shots, though) this is one of the most thought-provoking, thematically complex films I've seen in quite some time.

Decuc500

Some day of movie watching at the festival.

Started off with true story Tracks which was a beautiful looking film about a woman's journey with her dog and three camels across the Australian desert. As usual with John Curran it was a really well made film and Mia Wasikowska was great but her character annoyed the hell out of me. She struck me as being a spoilt girl who thought this almost impossible trek was going to be a stroll. And what was she doing bringing a dog with her? Instead of being uplifted at the end I kept on thinking about what an irresponsible thing it was to do.

Our Sunhi was a sweet, deceptively simple comedy. Some interesting little flourishes like camera zooms in and out of conversations that I liked.

I really enjoyed the Ricky Jay doc, Deceptive Practice. I'm not a big documentary fan but this was fascinating. Great Q&A afterwards also.

Finished up with Pioneer, a Norwegian film that reminded me of the great American 70's conspiracy thrillers. Quite a slick and entertaining movie.

Baze

Seen Gold earlier in the Savoy and I really enjoyed it.

Some hilarious scenes and some really harrowing ones also.

Not many directors can manage to make a decent comedy and yet at the same time tackle some serious issues (without somewhat trivializing them that is) but that is just what Niall and Brendan Heery seem to have managed to do here.

It's not a fantastic film but it is a very very good one and hope it does well on release and also be very interested to see what these brothers (director / writer) do next.

e_e

Our Sunhi was an absolute delight. Quaint, funny and I love Sang-soo idiosyncratic touches, like the zoom-ins, repetition and letting scenes play out for a good while. His style is really growing on me.

PolarBearClub

Was anyone at the screening of Salvo? They told us before the film began that the two directors were there and would host a Q&A afterwards.

I was looking forward to this as it had a good premise - Mafia henchman performs hit, only for his conscience stopping him from killing the target's blind sister, who he then attempts to protect - but the actual execution was lacking. The opening 20 minutes or so were fantastically tense, and while the rest of the story was technically very well made, it was severely lacking in story or any sense of urgency. I also didn't feel invested enough in the characters to care, and they inevitably started to have feelings for one another, which seemed cliched and overdone.

I counted at least 6 people who walked during it, but I'd say if there was around 150 people at it, only 30 stayed for the Q&A (I was not one of them). Aside from not enjoying the film a great deal, it also ended after 11pm, so for those of us reliant on public transport, it was a poor decision to screen the film so late.

Sad Professor

I’m in bed with fluey symptoms, so going to miss the last day, including the Surprise Film. Although I’m more disappointed about missing Safety Last on the big screen.

Tracks yesterday was superb, if maybe a little undercooked. I heard some people complaining it was too long but I thought it was too short and could have done with more focus on the solo parts of her journey and the isolation she experienced. Wasikowska is a fascinating though somewhat impenetrable screen presence and Curran never really gets inside her head. This isn’t a bad thing, I think she was inspired casting, but the script, while staying very faithful to the facts, plays things a bit too safe, offering up simplistic character motivations via flashback. A bit more Walkabout and bit less Into the Wild would have been welcome.

It might be festival fatigue and sickness talking, but Our Sunhi didn’t work for me at all. Despite the sophisticated simplicity of Hong’s direction and the occasionally very amusing scenarios, I just found it staid and tedious. It was all a bit too familiar and predictable after The Day He Arrives and Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, which I enjoyed a lot more. I don’t know how accurate the subtitles were but it felt like a lot of the humour and nuance was being lost in translation.