Fantasia Film Festival 2011: The Odyssey begins!

The 2011 Fantasia Film Festival has begun! Yes, I know, this announcement comes a solid 48 hours late, seeing as the event opened on Thursday night with a screening of Kevin Smith’s newest and arguably most intriguing film to date, Red State. However, as has been written more than once at Between the Seats, we are not professional critics, and hence do not earn a living by writing for the pleasure of our faithful readers. In other words, we have real jobs that prevent us from hopping down to the nearest theatre whenever we feel like it.

Shaw Brothers marathon: Vengeance is a Golden Blade

Vengeance is a Golden Blade (1969, Ho Meng-Hua)

Ah, the McGuffin, the prized object that each and every character in a film is influenced by, seeks and has any sort of relation with, but which in the end bears no relation on the heart of a story. The story is typically about something else entirely, yet the film will cheekily try to remind the audience that it is the ever elusive (or not) object of everyone’s desire that matters most. This is one of the oldest storytelling tricks in movie history, and one of the most recognized. The idea of the McGuffin is pretty interesting because it can assist a film in so many essential ways, such as actually helping a film in question focus more on character relations. The hunt for the object everyone desires will, if we follow the screenwriting logic, inadvertently cause rich character development.

Definitive Bond marathon: Thunderball (1965)

Following the hijacking of an ultra-modern NATO military aircraft and its nuclear arsenal by the international terrorist organization SPECTRE, the British government was informed that this group demanded a ransom within the next seven days, otherwise a major American or British city would meet annihilation. Working with whatever leads it had, MI6 sent agent 007 to the Bahamas, where the sister of the NATO pilot was residing.

The girl in question, Domino Derval, lived with a member of the local wealthy elite, a certain Emilio Largo. Through his encounters with Derval, 007 grew suspicious of Largo’s true nature. Following his investigative instincts, it became apparent that Largo was in fact a member of SPECTRE, and a high ranking officer at that. Getting to him, however, was not easy, for Largo also believed Bond to be an enemy as well, and was soon dispatching his minions, most notably a SPECTRE assassin, Fiona Volpe.

Freaks and Geeks: Fantasia 2011

Shootout at High Noon: Ravenous

Ravenous (1999, Antonia Bird)

*Caution: while the author does his best not to reveal everything in the film under review today, certain significant plot points are revealed for the sake of properly formulating thoughts and ideas for discussion. The reader has received a fair warning.

There is deconstruction and then there is doing something different with something familiar. In the realm of film, both ideas share a lot of common ground, but nonetheless remain separate entities and ways of sharing stories. A deconstruction of the western genre would involve explicit use of familiar tropes, signature ingredients which the majority of film lovers recognize as part of the genre...and tossing them upside down to create something new. Then there is what Antiona Bird attempts in her 1999 effort, Ravenous, in which she loosely uses the western genre to develop a tale of dark deeds and courage. The use of the term ‘loosely’ was intentional, for other than a few period decorations and mentions of a major event that helped shape the United States into what it is (the reference to significant, United States-building, historical events being a popular tool in westerns), there is not much here for the film to feel truly at home in the genre. But that is a matter of semantics. More importantly, how is the movie?

Definitive Bond Marathon: Goldfinger (1964)

007, following an encounter of the most extraordinary kind in Miami, USA with multi-millionaire and entrepreneur Auric Goldfinger, was given the task of investigating the man’s suspected practice of smuggling gold bullion around the world for as of yet unknown purposes. Following a less than quaint match of golf with Goldfinger, 007 followed the shrewd business man to his largest factory in Switzerland via a homing device. It was there that our man learned that not all was what it seemed with Goldfinger. In league with the Chinese, Goldfinger had in fact been smuggling gold by clever means, but before 007 could do anything, he was kidnapped.

Shaw Brothers marathon: The Wandering Swordsman

The Wandering Swordsman (1969, Chang Cheh)

A hero need not be impervious to error. The most noble of heroes can in fact become boring because the characters are too clean, too neat and tidy. A character that can be lead astray and can commit mistakes often makes for much more compelling storytelling. A nuance should be elaborated on however. The protagonist does not have to be written as someone with a ‘bad side.’ He or she can genuinely try to be an upstanding person, but by the nature of whom they are or the uncooperative circumstances around them, they sometimes fail when one thinks they could have succeeded. Director Chang Cheh, who is at it again with Wandering Swordsman (that’s 3 out of 4 films we have discussed that were helmed by the same person), taking this notion of the imperfect hero to heart and builds a tale of mistakes which were difficult to avoid and lead to dire results.

Definitive Bond Marathon: From Russia With Love (1963)

In one of his more peculiar missions, agent 007  was commissioned with the task of recuperating an important decoding machine, a Lektor, from a low ranking officer of the Russian embassy in Istanbul, a certain Tatiana Romanova What’s more, it appeared that the instigator of this mission was the Russian clerk herself, who hoped to defect to the West with asylum in Britain in exchange for the decoding machine. The only condition was that agent 007 specifically had to escort her. It appeared the girl had fallen in love with 007 from seeing a picture of him in a file at the embassy. Even our clearer heads agreed that the operation hinted at a trap, but the opportunity of owning a Lektor was too great to pass.

Parting Shot: Open Range

For a proper understanding of what follows, please read Bill's review of Open Range over at his Movie Emporium.

Such vocabulary, Bill! Never one to mince words, you went straight to the point as to why you fancied Kevin Costner’s 2003 Open Range. Each of your paragraphs began with a simple word describing your feelings towards the film, with the first pertaining to the language spoken by the characters themselves. Open Range does feature interesting wordage. It isn’t too fancy, but nonetheless provides a strong sense of what these people are what the time that they lived in was like. Without going for anything especially stylistic, the dialogue did set a precise and appropriate tone.

Capsule reviews: Super 8, Transformers: Dark of the Moon