Though it's already spring, the start of my year truly begins with the Boston Underground Film Festival. Each year since I've lived in the Boston area, at least two or three BUFF selections invariably make my year-end top ten list. Some have gone beyond as all time favorites including last year's offering John Dies at the End or Amer from a few years back.
Opening Night: I Declare War (2013), The Manson Family (2003)
I Declare War
Opening night of BUFF featured Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson's I Declare War, a deconstruction of the war film using a cast composed entirely of children. It's a commentary on the horror of war, as well as an affecting coming-of-age story. The film is sure to provoke controversy as the characters' fantasy play using sticks as weapons crosses over into a harrowing imaginative landscape where real guns rule the woods. Read my Full Review over at Paracinema Magazine's Website.
Following up was the re-release of James Van Bebber's shocking The Manson Family, marking its 10th anniversary. The Manson Familyis part fictional narrative, part documentary, and a savage imagining told through the eyes of Manson's most recognized cult members. Van Bebber's dizzying grindhouse-era aesthetic is one for which Rob Zombie reaches, but never quite grasps. This film - particularly the third act - will haunt you. Night 2: A Band Called Death (2012), Guilty of Romance (2011)
Guilty of Romance
Sadly, I missed out on Blue Dream. I was, however, able to find myself among an enthusiastic crowd for the stellar documentary A Band Called Death. Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett trace the history of unknown proto-punk band Death, formed by three brothers in Detroit in 1971. Inspired by the music of Alice Cooper and The Who, this passionate trio was lost to obscurity (including the death of one brother) until record collectors discovered them three decades later which prompted a re-release of their album once relegated to an attic shelf.
Sion Sono concludes his "Trilogy of Hate" with Guilty of Romance, a provocative examination of Japanese culture and the roles of women within a constrictive society. As usual, Sono's film is brazen and beautiful, but requires the viewer crack the codes of his lyrical delivery of challenging themes. You can read my Full Review over at Diabolique Magazine's website.
Recaps of the remainder of BUFF's programming on the way including Cheap Thrills, See You Next Tuesday, White Reindeer, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Jug Face, and BIG ASS SPIDER!
Here's an opportunity to give back to a genre icon who has graced screens both large and small. Karen Black, the incredibly talented star of Day of the Locust, Trilogy of Terror, and Easy Rider, is currently battling a very serious form of cancer. She and her family are raising money to help with expenses associated with cancer treatment. Please consider donating to her campaign to help restore the strong, captivating presence we all adore.
Spring Breakers (2013) Director: Harmony Korine Writer: Harmony Korine Cast: Ashley Benson, James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Rachel Korine, Gucci Mane Website:Spring Breakers Official Website
In Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, shaman-like OG Alien (James Franco) utters the mantra "spring break forever" in an ethereal tone that echoes throughout the film. His words are the lynchpin between two colliding yet converging worlds. The participants in those worlds are each living a fantasy life with a fast approaching expiration date; the difference is that one group has the ability to escape that world whenever they chose, while the other is trapped by circumstance.
College friends Faith (Gomez), Candy (Hudgens), Brit (Benson), and Cotty (Korine), a group of pretty blondes (and one brunette), are a few dollars short to make it down south to St. Petersburg, Florida for Spring Break. The obvious solution is rob a local restaurant for the loot, one performed with aplomb by the ennui-stricken girls. Each is looking for a life changing experience among the partying crowds of the beaches and clubs, and find a world ready to embrace their pent up emotions and lust for ACTION. When they land in jail after a drug raid, Alien bails them out and takes the enthusiastic crew on a violent voyage into his world of hustling, guns, and drugs.
A superficial look at Korine's multi-layered film would have you believe this is just a Girls Gone Wild video taken to the utmost extremes. That couldn't be more inaccurate. Sure, the film is filled from beginning to end with tanned naked bodies, rampant drug use, and violence, but peeling those layers reveals an affecting examination of intersecting cultural, economic, and existential themes. The film is actually a rather complicated piece of filmmaking once those conversation threads are breached.
College kids descend like a plague upon communities like St. Petersburg, stripping the towns to the bone. Conversely, these communities are dependent upon a tourism trade that requires them to look the other way as privileged young adults yearning for "freedom" or "release" do so under a veil of perceived consequence-free debauchery. On the outskirts lie the people born and raised in those communities whose only chance of survival is in benefiting from the destruction. Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, our four young protagonists - deemed "special" by Alien - penetrate the fringes where people like Alien and his rival Archie (Gucci Mane) battle for control of the illicit profits and the infinite perpetuation of gangster culture. This subculture is now in danger of succumbing to the same fate that befell the city around it.
Disney star Gomez as the wholesome Faith is the only character given any sort of depth, and for a reason. Her character is the only one with plans for genuine soul-searching. She, however, heads home quickly when things get too uncomfortable. The rest of the characters live in a state of arrested development, opting instead to take Alien literally on his offer to live like it's Spring Break forever. Already having it all, they now want Alien's lifestyle - a house full of guns and money - because nothing else could possibly be fulfilling. As he puts it, "this is the American dream".
The interchangeability of the remaining female characters plays into Korine's challenges to pop culture and its rotating cast of used child stars, co-opted culture (hip-hop in particular), and other forms of throw-away exploitation. His casting of child-stars Gomez and Hudgens, as well as running tributes to Brittney Spears serves to drive his point that innocence is not only lost, but it's been taken out back behind a shed, shot in the head, and buried in an unmarked grave while the next "big thing" is trumpeted just above the freshly buried corpse.
Part of what makes Spring Breakers fascinating is the sumptuous visuals provided by Benoit Debie (Irreversible) who contrasts the frenetic party scenes with periods of wondrous beauty. This can be shots of the setting sun on a beach, or just the image of the four girls playfully contorting their bodies in silhouette against the walls of narrow hallways and breezeways. These are the moments when the characters feel most human with a world truly open to possibility. These moments are also fleeting...
The scenes of violence employed by Korine may seem over-the-top, but it's a clever way to subvert expectations. These girls commit crimes without remorse or fear, believing that they do, indeed, rule the world. They do so brazenly, right in the faces of their victims, believing every second that they are invincible. In this extreme and satirical way, Korine is contrasting their behavior with that of politicians, corporations, entertainers, and the like that anonymously do the same. These are the children of those so-called leaders who will grow up to replace them in their pursuit of money, money, money. Think of Spring Break as depicted here an internship for the larger crimes surely to characterize their career trajectory.
Cinedelphia - the portal to the best cinema in the greater Philadephia area - has launched their own festival to celebrate the rich film history of the City of Brotherly Love. The Cinedelphia Film Festival takes place from April 4 - 27 featuring the best films with a Philadelphia connection.
Part of the event is a special presentation of subversive films entitled Vivisections, programmed by area filmmaker Matt Garrett. Mr. Garrett has collected some of the most challenging, brutal, and brazen films from all over the globe. Each sinister film is hand-picked to startle, disturb, or arouse. All selections are Philadelphia premieres.
Titles include Karen Lam's The Stolen (2012), a fairy tale gone horribly awry when a young girl helps out the wrong fairy princess. Sam Walker's Bite Horse (2012) is a nightmarish music video featuring the unnerving sounds of the band Mississippi Witch. Maude Michaud's RED (2012) is a stunning cinematic crossroads where erotica meets the snuff film. Greg Hanson and Casey Regan's Meat Me in Plainville (2011) blends Soylent Green with the sensibilities of a 50's sitcom. Josh MacDonald's Game (2012) is a satirical take on backwoods hillbilly survivalist fare, and Matt O'Mahoney's Adjust Tracking (2012) puts a neat VHS spin on bloody revenge flicks. These are just a sample of the horrible treats in store for Philadelphia area fans of provocative film.
Below is Cinedelphia's Official Press Release with ticketing info, dates/times, more film descriptions, and a few trailers:
CFF: VIVISECTIONS International Short Horror Films
THE CINEDELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL presents
Sunday, April 14 2013, 9:30 PM
VIVISECTIONS: International Short Horror Films Program
Voyeurism,
snuff, cinema and sex collide in Red, a provocative slow-burn shocker
from Montreal horror maven, Maude Michaud (Hollywood Skin). In Rafael
De Leon Jr's Birthday Boys, teenaged Riley turns to dark forces in order
to bring back her lost love. Cinematic madman Sam Walker (Tea Break)
presents his short film/music video hybrid Bite Horse, the first chapter
of a multi-media collaboration with the Southern Gothic band
Mississippi Witch. Next is Doll Parts and Stained director Karen Lam's
The Stolen, a dark fairy tale about a young girl with a big heart who is
forced to strike a bargain ur program concludes with the stop-motion
animated nightmare, Crépuscule, from visionary director Éric Falardeau
(Thanatomorphose). A young woman, bound at the wrists, attempts to
escape her demented redneck captors in screenwriter Josh MacDonald's
(The Corridor) beautifully photographed and wickedly funny directorial
debut, Game. Aussie director Dave Wade's slick, sick and hilariously
crude A Tale of Obsession follows an overweight teen goth as she
attempts to curb her hunger to win the heart (and body) of the
perpetually shirtless school hunk. Matt O'Mahoney, director of the
Fantastic Fest award-winning Electric Fence, returns with Adjust
Tracking, a lovingly meaty homage to the Golden Age of VHS Horror. And
finally, from the delightfully twisted minds of Greg Hanson & Casey
Regan (Thy Kill Be Done) comes the definitive argument against
USDA-approved cannibalism, Meat Me in Plainville. Think Soylent Green
meets I Drink Your Blood with a healthy dose of Father Knows Best thrown
in for good measure. Human Meat Is Murder!
Every film in this
program is a Philadelphia Premiere, having previously played such
festivals as Cannes, Fantasia, PiFan, Sydney Underground,and Fantastic
Fest.
Advance tix are $10, no refunds or exchanges.
The Cinedelphia Film Festival is a Philly-centric celebration of Philly film running from April 4-27, 2013.
http://www.cinedelphiafilmfestival.com
