Jason KingSalty's Sydney Film Festival Choices
June 2nd 2008 10:18
OK - after spending hours perusing the guide for the Sydney Film Festival and actually ensuring I make it to at least 6 of these films, and the inspiration of JD, here is the films I want to watch at the Sydney Film Festival. They are not in any order, ooh actually they are in screening order. And I do apologise - I could only find trailers for a few of them. This is just what I am picking to view - once I have seen I will write my own more descriptive review but it maybe too late to see it by then. Book your tix and suss out all the films playing - maybe make your own list at FESTIVAL HOME PAGE CLICK ME DAMNIT
Donkey Punch:
Three brash young girls from Leeds hit the beaches of Mallorca looking for a good time and end up heading out to sea on a yacht with four thoroughly British lads after a night out clubbing. Sauced up on a heady cocktail of drink and drugs, two of the girls get into some steamy business with three of the guys in the master suite. Things go from hot and sexy to horribly wrong after an accident (or is it?) sends everyone into a spiralling panic. Escalating into a gory fight for survival, this low budget horror/thriller smartly riffs on reality television set-ups as much as late-night genre tropes, and is a riveting variation on the gender plays in Polanski's Knife in the Water and Noyce's Dead Calm. I was obsessed with Dead Calm and anything close to this I am going to love!
This one screens at 8.45pm on Fri 6th at GU George St.
Choke
The first adaptation of a novel by cult writer Chuck Palahniuk since David Fincher's Fight Club, Choke is full of the writer's signature manic black humour. Sam Rockwell is sensational as med-school dropout Victor Mancini who spends his days working at New England theme-park and his nights attending meetings for sex-addicts or staging fake choking episodes in restaurants to benefit from the expansive generosity of the middleclass saviours who rescue him. Most of Mancini's funds are designated to pay for the care of his mother (Angelica Huston) a paranoid criminal who spent most of her life on the run and has ended up in a hospice for the insane. Directed by actor Clark Gregg, and featuring the ever-fabulous Kelly Macdonald, the film won the special jury prize at Sundance. I just LOVED Fight Club and Sam Rockwell - great mix think this one will kick ass!!
Screening: 6th June, 9.10PM State Theatre & 8th June, GU George Street
Elite Squad aka Tropa de Elite
This film is a few years old, is bIg and if you liked City of God I have been told you will LOVE this!! A friend of mine is living in Brazil (hey Ellman) and he says that after City of God this is pure MUST SEE stuff.
Twitchy as a crooked cop and saturated in the rich, sweaty hues of a favela funk party, José Padilha's high-octane thriller has been the subject of much debate since its premiere opening at Festival do Rio and Golden Bear win at Berlin. Accused of sharing the fascistic perspective of its central character (despite the fact that he repels emotional identification), the film follows Nascimento, the captain of an elite military-style squad that fights police corruption and drug trafficking in the Rio favelas. Hellbent on leaving his job due to the encroachments of impending fatherhood, mayhem turns to chaos when Nascimento recruits two honest cops to train as his potential replacement. It is well worth making up your own mind about the politics of this relentless, stylish and indisputably impressive film. This movie spurred a TV show in Brazil and Ellman guarantees - he says if you don't like to find him in Brazil and he will buy you some cheap shit to drink as an apology.
Screening: 9th June, 8.35PM State Theatre & 14th June, 3.30PM GU George Street
Slingshot
Filipino director Brillante 'Dante' Mendoza's sixth feature film in two years plummets headlong into a Manila slum, the camera hot on the heels of a police raid in a truly extraordinary opening sequence. Achieving a perfect interplay between the flexibility of digital shooting, the labyrinthine architecture of the squats and the multiple stories of the gang of hustlers and thieves it follows, the true brilliance of this film is to be found in its seamless staging.
Screening: 11th June, 7.45PM GU George Street & 12th June, 2.00PM Dendy Opera Quays
The Class
Award winner at Karlovy Vary and Warsaw Film Festivals, this confronting feature was inspired by the Columbine High School massacre, but director Raag takes a different approach from Gus Van Sant's Elephant. The violence in this case is triggered by a brutal bout of bullying, something that started out as a lark but turned nasty. Sixteen-year-old Joosep has been picked on all his life, but when newcomer Kaspar intervenes, he finally thinks he can stop it. After the two join forces the rest of the class turns against them. Raag workshopped the script with schoolkids and the young cast (all amateurs) and the result has a ring of authenticity which makes it all the more powerful.
Screening: 13th June, 4.30PM GU George Street & 14th June, 2.15PM GU George Street
Children of the Silk Road
Children of the Silk Road, the first Australia-China co-production, is inspired by British journalist George Hogg's (Rhys Meyers) adventures in China in the late '30s. As a 23 year old, Hogg witnessed the Japanese army's brutal ransacking on Nanking and was threatened with execution - he was saved by 'Jack' Chen (Chow Yun-Fat), a Chinese partisan. Hogg stayed in China teaching a group of orphaned boys, and when fighting drew near, decided, along with an American nurse (Mitchell), to trek over more than a thousand kilometres of mountainous terrain to find a safe haven for the boys. The sweeping beauty of the Chinese landscape (shot by Zhao Xiaoding, House of the Flying Daggers) contrasts vividly with the poverty and violence of the boys' lives, and give this story an appropriately monumental quality.
Screening: 14th June, 9.00PM State Theatre
Apologies for the dodgy clip from the film - it was all I could find.
Newcastle
Dan Castle's debut feature strikingly melds teenage surf film with dysfunctional family drama, and dramatically responds to the inherent contradictions of Newcastle's industrial setting and its wild beaches. Ambitious and headstrong surfer Jesse (Lachlan Buchanan) lives in the shadow of his bitter older brother Victor (Reshad Strik), an ex-champion who failed to become the 'next big thing'. As a distraction from the pressures of the upcoming Junior Surf Pro, Jesse and his mates plan a weekend away with a couple of local girls, when to his embarrassment they are joined by his clumsy twin brother Fergus (Xavier Samuel) who is grappling with his sexuality in a heavily masculine culture. Richard Michalak's visceral cinematography perfectly frames the unpredictability of the waves and the lithe sensuality of the teenage bodies.
I have no idea why I want to watch this hmmmmmm? LOL
Screening: 16th June, 8.30PM Dendy Opera Quays
Ben X
As the title suggests, at the centre of Nic Balthazar's debut feature is Ben - a withdrawn teen who rarely speaks. He's been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a variant of autism, although his mother isn't particularly convinced that this lengthy phrase has any meaning at all. She just knows he's uncommunicative and exhausting. Ben retreats into a fantasy computer game, derived from the actual game 'Overlord', in which he plays a heroic knight with a heroine sidekick. When he's the victim of a particularly nasty prank at school, he withdraws further into this fantasy world - with surprising effects. Winner of three awards at the Montreal Film Festival, including the Grand Prix, Balthazar's film as well as being an entertaining ride, looks at life for an autistic teen from an entirely new angle
Screening: 18th June, 8.15PM Dendy Opera Quays & 19th June, 3.45PM Dendy Opera Quays
THIS IS MY PICK AND FAVE FOR THE FESTIVAL!!!
Cochochi
A sweet, fairytale story about two young brothers who lose their horse and then each other while trying to find it provides the frame for this subtle, languid film set amongst the indigenous people of the Sierra Tarahumara in northwest Mexico. Sent by their grandfather on a mission to take medicine to a remote community, Evaristo, the keen and obliging student, and Antonio, the intuitive traditionalist (played by real life brothers) embark on a mission that will ultimately reveal the different directions they are destined to take in life. Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán spent considerable time with the Raramuri tribe, and they are clearly as interested in capturing the local customs as they are in filming the spectacular geography of the region. Winner of the discovery award at Toronto Film Festival. This film just looks beautiful!!
Screening: 9th June, 12.00PM Dendy Opera Quays & 20th June, 3.50PM Dendy Opera Quays
Son of Rambow
Director Jennings based this film on his own '80s childhood, when he made a Rambo-inspired home movie on a clunky video camera. He even did his own stunts, including setting fire to the garden shed. In Son of Rambow, there's one notable difference from the original, the hero of the film, Lee, is raised in a strict religious household (Jennings says that in reality it was the family next door, he thought his own family was too boring). In Jenning's grown-up production, Lee meets up with the school rebel, Will, and together they direct and star in a most elaborate production, which ends up involving a host of schoolmates and a very glam French exchange student. Philip French in The Observer has called this the 'best school comedy since Gregory's Girl' and it certainly shares the honesty and vitality of that classic British charmer. This looks amazing and I am so into British comedy of late. Bring it on!!!
Screening: 9th June, 12.00PM State Theatre & 22nd June, 1.45PM Dendy Opera Quays
Donkey Punch:
Three brash young girls from Leeds hit the beaches of Mallorca looking for a good time and end up heading out to sea on a yacht with four thoroughly British lads after a night out clubbing. Sauced up on a heady cocktail of drink and drugs, two of the girls get into some steamy business with three of the guys in the master suite. Things go from hot and sexy to horribly wrong after an accident (or is it?) sends everyone into a spiralling panic. Escalating into a gory fight for survival, this low budget horror/thriller smartly riffs on reality television set-ups as much as late-night genre tropes, and is a riveting variation on the gender plays in Polanski's Knife in the Water and Noyce's Dead Calm. I was obsessed with Dead Calm and anything close to this I am going to love!
This one screens at 8.45pm on Fri 6th at GU George St.
Choke
The first adaptation of a novel by cult writer Chuck Palahniuk since David Fincher's Fight Club, Choke is full of the writer's signature manic black humour. Sam Rockwell is sensational as med-school dropout Victor Mancini who spends his days working at New England theme-park and his nights attending meetings for sex-addicts or staging fake choking episodes in restaurants to benefit from the expansive generosity of the middleclass saviours who rescue him. Most of Mancini's funds are designated to pay for the care of his mother (Angelica Huston) a paranoid criminal who spent most of her life on the run and has ended up in a hospice for the insane. Directed by actor Clark Gregg, and featuring the ever-fabulous Kelly Macdonald, the film won the special jury prize at Sundance. I just LOVED Fight Club and Sam Rockwell - great mix think this one will kick ass!!
Screening: 6th June, 9.10PM State Theatre & 8th June, GU George Street
Elite Squad aka Tropa de Elite
This film is a few years old, is bIg and if you liked City of God I have been told you will LOVE this!! A friend of mine is living in Brazil (hey Ellman) and he says that after City of God this is pure MUST SEE stuff.
Twitchy as a crooked cop and saturated in the rich, sweaty hues of a favela funk party, José Padilha's high-octane thriller has been the subject of much debate since its premiere opening at Festival do Rio and Golden Bear win at Berlin. Accused of sharing the fascistic perspective of its central character (despite the fact that he repels emotional identification), the film follows Nascimento, the captain of an elite military-style squad that fights police corruption and drug trafficking in the Rio favelas. Hellbent on leaving his job due to the encroachments of impending fatherhood, mayhem turns to chaos when Nascimento recruits two honest cops to train as his potential replacement. It is well worth making up your own mind about the politics of this relentless, stylish and indisputably impressive film. This movie spurred a TV show in Brazil and Ellman guarantees - he says if you don't like to find him in Brazil and he will buy you some cheap shit to drink as an apology.
Screening: 9th June, 8.35PM State Theatre & 14th June, 3.30PM GU George Street
Slingshot
Filipino director Brillante 'Dante' Mendoza's sixth feature film in two years plummets headlong into a Manila slum, the camera hot on the heels of a police raid in a truly extraordinary opening sequence. Achieving a perfect interplay between the flexibility of digital shooting, the labyrinthine architecture of the squats and the multiple stories of the gang of hustlers and thieves it follows, the true brilliance of this film is to be found in its seamless staging.
Screening: 11th June, 7.45PM GU George Street & 12th June, 2.00PM Dendy Opera Quays
The Class
Award winner at Karlovy Vary and Warsaw Film Festivals, this confronting feature was inspired by the Columbine High School massacre, but director Raag takes a different approach from Gus Van Sant's Elephant. The violence in this case is triggered by a brutal bout of bullying, something that started out as a lark but turned nasty. Sixteen-year-old Joosep has been picked on all his life, but when newcomer Kaspar intervenes, he finally thinks he can stop it. After the two join forces the rest of the class turns against them. Raag workshopped the script with schoolkids and the young cast (all amateurs) and the result has a ring of authenticity which makes it all the more powerful.
Screening: 13th June, 4.30PM GU George Street & 14th June, 2.15PM GU George Street
Children of the Silk Road
Children of the Silk Road, the first Australia-China co-production, is inspired by British journalist George Hogg's (Rhys Meyers) adventures in China in the late '30s. As a 23 year old, Hogg witnessed the Japanese army's brutal ransacking on Nanking and was threatened with execution - he was saved by 'Jack' Chen (Chow Yun-Fat), a Chinese partisan. Hogg stayed in China teaching a group of orphaned boys, and when fighting drew near, decided, along with an American nurse (Mitchell), to trek over more than a thousand kilometres of mountainous terrain to find a safe haven for the boys. The sweeping beauty of the Chinese landscape (shot by Zhao Xiaoding, House of the Flying Daggers) contrasts vividly with the poverty and violence of the boys' lives, and give this story an appropriately monumental quality.
Screening: 14th June, 9.00PM State Theatre
Apologies for the dodgy clip from the film - it was all I could find.
Newcastle
Dan Castle's debut feature strikingly melds teenage surf film with dysfunctional family drama, and dramatically responds to the inherent contradictions of Newcastle's industrial setting and its wild beaches. Ambitious and headstrong surfer Jesse (Lachlan Buchanan) lives in the shadow of his bitter older brother Victor (Reshad Strik), an ex-champion who failed to become the 'next big thing'. As a distraction from the pressures of the upcoming Junior Surf Pro, Jesse and his mates plan a weekend away with a couple of local girls, when to his embarrassment they are joined by his clumsy twin brother Fergus (Xavier Samuel) who is grappling with his sexuality in a heavily masculine culture. Richard Michalak's visceral cinematography perfectly frames the unpredictability of the waves and the lithe sensuality of the teenage bodies.
I have no idea why I want to watch this hmmmmmm? LOL
Screening: 16th June, 8.30PM Dendy Opera Quays
Ben X
As the title suggests, at the centre of Nic Balthazar's debut feature is Ben - a withdrawn teen who rarely speaks. He's been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a variant of autism, although his mother isn't particularly convinced that this lengthy phrase has any meaning at all. She just knows he's uncommunicative and exhausting. Ben retreats into a fantasy computer game, derived from the actual game 'Overlord', in which he plays a heroic knight with a heroine sidekick. When he's the victim of a particularly nasty prank at school, he withdraws further into this fantasy world - with surprising effects. Winner of three awards at the Montreal Film Festival, including the Grand Prix, Balthazar's film as well as being an entertaining ride, looks at life for an autistic teen from an entirely new angle
Screening: 18th June, 8.15PM Dendy Opera Quays & 19th June, 3.45PM Dendy Opera Quays
THIS IS MY PICK AND FAVE FOR THE FESTIVAL!!!
Cochochi
A sweet, fairytale story about two young brothers who lose their horse and then each other while trying to find it provides the frame for this subtle, languid film set amongst the indigenous people of the Sierra Tarahumara in northwest Mexico. Sent by their grandfather on a mission to take medicine to a remote community, Evaristo, the keen and obliging student, and Antonio, the intuitive traditionalist (played by real life brothers) embark on a mission that will ultimately reveal the different directions they are destined to take in life. Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán spent considerable time with the Raramuri tribe, and they are clearly as interested in capturing the local customs as they are in filming the spectacular geography of the region. Winner of the discovery award at Toronto Film Festival. This film just looks beautiful!!
Screening: 9th June, 12.00PM Dendy Opera Quays & 20th June, 3.50PM Dendy Opera Quays
Son of Rambow
Director Jennings based this film on his own '80s childhood, when he made a Rambo-inspired home movie on a clunky video camera. He even did his own stunts, including setting fire to the garden shed. In Son of Rambow, there's one notable difference from the original, the hero of the film, Lee, is raised in a strict religious household (Jennings says that in reality it was the family next door, he thought his own family was too boring). In Jenning's grown-up production, Lee meets up with the school rebel, Will, and together they direct and star in a most elaborate production, which ends up involving a host of schoolmates and a very glam French exchange student. Philip French in The Observer has called this the 'best school comedy since Gregory's Girl' and it certainly shares the honesty and vitality of that classic British charmer. This looks amazing and I am so into British comedy of late. Bring it on!!!
Screening: 9th June, 12.00PM State Theatre & 22nd June, 1.45PM Dendy Opera Quays
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Comment by Rix
Comment by Jason King
Salty Popcorn
Ben X is my fave - did u watch the TRL?
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
All sound like they are worthwhile, its so tough to shortlist isn't it?