Neil Maskell (Kill List) may not look like a typical cinematic badass, he just looks like a normal dude you’d pass on the street and not give a second thought. But holy hell, people in movies need to stop messing with him because he will straight up wreck them and be terrifying as hell in the process. Case in point, Paul Andrew Williams’ revenge thriller Bull.
Movies love to look to the near future in order to delve into the topic of human cloning and the various moral and ethical ramifications of playing god and creating life in a lab. As often happens, these stories also turn into meditations on what it means to truly be human, a whole other can of metaphorical worms. And into this framework comes writer/director Lee Yong-ju’s Seobok.
When coffee shop owner/aspiring musician Kato (Kazunari Tosa) heads to his upstairs apartment after close, he’s shocked to get a message on the TV. From himself. From two minutes in the future. This kicks off director Junta Yamaguchi’s Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, a cascading series of sci-fi time travel antics with a crew of oddballs, like Megumi (Aki Asakura) and Ozawa (Yoshifumi Sakai), among others. They try to decipher the mystery, maybe get Kato a date, and quickly find themselves in way over their heads.
Zombie stories often get a bad rap. Sometimes for good reason. There are a ton, and, admittedly, a lot aren’t great. But then there are those that show up, do something new, fun, and different, or at least deliver a strong story and compelling characters within the genre. (Recent ones that spring to mind include #Alone, Black Summer, Train to Busan, and others.) Canadian director Julien Knafo’s Brain Freeze definitely falls into this latter category, presenting a zombie movie with an intriguing set up, a few tweaks to the formula, and a showcase interesting personalities.
A cop haunted by the past, trying to right previous wrongs. Who’s a bit of a hotshot and plays by his own rules, though still operates by a strict code. With a pregnant wife. Yeah, we’ve seen this set up before. But when that cop is Donnie Yen, and we’re talking about Raging Fire, the final film from the great Benny Chan, the result is a top-tier action banger of epic proportions. This sprawling, Heat-inspired cops-and-robbers opus delivers in all the right ways and rules every ounce as hard as one might hope.
Folk horror is in the midst of a global resurgence at the moment, so what better time for a documentary to take a deep-dive into the fascinating subgenre? And that’s exactly what filmmaker Kier-La Janisse (author of the great House of Psychotic Women) and company do with the three-plus-hour documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror. It is every inch what that title suggests and more.
Three friends, a van full of inflatable sex dolls, and a fishing trip gone very, very wrong. What about a quartet of inept killers and a mysterious one-eyed man with a brutal vendetta? All wrapped in a bloody, violent, patently ridiculous, near-slapstick package? If that sounds like a fine time, add Yernar Nurgaliyev’s Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It to your mist-see list.
With the proliferation of COVID-19 vaccines and at least some people caring enough about their fellow humans to take it, in-person events like film festivals have made a comeback. [Editor’s Note: Hopefully this holds, but it looks like we’re going backwards.] Not all, however. Canada’s Fantasia Film Festival is sticking to the virtual model for 2021. I usually cover the fest remote, so this isn’t much of a change from the norm for me. Regardless of the platform, the fest has yet again assembled an eclectic, weird-as-hell program, and we have some suggestions of things you might want to check out.
