Fantasia – Day 18 (Sunday, August 5)

Throughout the past weeks, people have asked me how the hell I’ve been writing so much and watching so many movies. The answer is a simple one: I watch the movies because, hey, that’s what I’m here to do, and I write as much as I do because if I don’t get it down on virtual paper now, it’s going to slide away into oblivion. Case in point: due to a migraine creeping up my hindbrain on Sunday night, I didn’t get around to recording the day’s events until now (Tuesday morning) and even though it was only two days ago, it feels like I’m looking back through an immense fog of sights, sounds and memories. THIS is why I’ve been writing every day. Hell, I look back at the entries from Fantasia’s first week and I think to myself, “Wow, that’s right, that happened.” It’s been a surreal experience unlike any I’ve had before, the closest of which would have been BIFFF, a mere four months ago (an adventure that similarly feels like a million years gone by and that I’m glad I recorded in as much detail as I did).

Anyway, setting the stage for what might be a little fuzzier collection of recollections…

Sunday? Sunday. Right.

EXCISION (2012) review

Excision (2012) (1st viewing) d. Bates, Jr., Richard (USA)

Writer/director Bates’ feature debut, based on his original short, is a fascinating mixed bag; a film as willfully weird, unique and occasionally tiresome as its lead character, (AnnaLynne McCord, impressively outside her 90210 comfort zone).

Much in the same way that McCord’s eccentric, abrasive adolescent acts out against authority figures and social standards, Bates’s cinematic beast may keep some viewers at arm’s length – I found myself observing without empathizing, critiquing without engaging, more distracted by the stunt casting than impressed. (Seriously, what are Malcolm McDowell, John Waters, Ray Wise and Marlee Matlin doing in this movie other than calling attention to their overqualified presence?) On the other hand, Traci Lords is terrifyingly good as the image-conscious matriarch, inviting favorable comparisons with Annette Bening’s Oscar-nominated turn in American Beauty; she is well-matched by beaten-down Roger Bart’s vanquished spouse.

Genre fans take note: the horror elements exist tangentially, via several well-realized fantasy sequences in which beetle-browed McCord envisions herself as a goddess-like sensualist, bathing in pools of blood and the like – this is primarily a quirky character study a la Juno or Napoleon Dynamite that finds its way into May territory in the closing reel.

Undeniably assured filmmaking, entertainment mileage may vary.

Fantasia Day 17 (Saturday, August 4)

A full day of flickers in the large Concordia Hall, covering the gamut from bombastic Japanese space opera to bare bones torture efforts, with a nifty creature feature sandwiched in the middle. This latter title, Grabbers, will undoubtedly end up in my top 3 for the festival, perhaps even in the top slot, so enjoyably engaging it is.

Special guests included writer/director Boris Rodriguez and co-stars Dylan Smith and Alain Goulem from the Canadian crowd-pleaser, Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal…