Film review: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

There have been any number of film and television adaptations of John Le Carre's celebrated work but, until very recently, I had never read one of his novels. Before watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy I finished The Looking Glass War - a dry, intelligent and involved work with no happy ending. An ending, in fact, that I could see coming from the beginning but that was no less effective in its bathos.

Le Carre's spies are as far away from the globe-laying, gadget carrying, running, shooting, jumping Bond archetypes as it is possible to get. These are far more believable, flawed, human characters, with the upper echelons peopled entirely with Old Boys -  no women or lower class people here thankyouverymuch These are spies that deal with intelligence, counter-intelligence, misinformation, disinformation and the blurred lines between them all. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy concerns the hunt for a Russian mole who has penetrated the inner circle of the Secret Intelligence Service, the Circus. George Smiley - recently forced out of the SIS along with John Hurt's Control after a botched attempt to flush the mole - is tasked by the Minister to hunt out the mole amongst them. Smiley is a spy, spying on the spies in an attempt to find the spy among them.

The film unravels at a perfectly measured and mesmerising pace. Not being packed with action scenes and shaking cameras, director Tomas Alfredson instead allows the characters to do all of the talking and heavy-lifting. It is a spy film filled with a lot of people sitting around talking. And it is absolutely riveting; I barely moved for the entire run-time, so absorbed was I.

It surely doesn't hurt any when there is a cast as accomplished as this. Gary Oldman, headlining as George Smiley, is a magnetic presence able to hold the attention of the camera with but a look. He speaks only when necessary and keeps everything beneath the surface. At first glance, Smiley is a buttoned down man; a typical English stuffed-shirt. But Oldman lets us see the fire and iron lying just behind the eyes when needed.

Tom Hardy as field-operative Ricki Tarr is the closest Tinker Tailor comes to the traditionally thought of cinematic spy. He's one of the men the Circus sends out into the field, to spy on foreign targets and eliminate or turn them as required. Ciarin Hinds, Toby Jones, Colin Firth and David Dencik are the men running the Circus, one of whom is the turncoat. Toby Jones' Percy Alleline is a weasel of man, with Hinds' Roy Bland seeming to serve as his right-hand man. Firth is the smooth talker of the office, easily hopping from office-girl to office-girl, the only man in the office exuding any sense of charm or charisma. And Benedict Cumberbatch is Peter Guilliam, the only man inside the Circus that Tarr and Smiley trust and who often finds himself in the lion's den.

Alfredson doesn't talk down to the audience, instead trusting them to keep up with the oft-confusing details as he sets the steady, steady pace and cold-soaked atmosphere. Tinker Tailor is a very English spy story, in a very English setting (with some influence from real events) and captured with an outsider's eye. The film, like the characters, can be cold and grey but there lurks a tension beneath it all. Come the end, mole or not, almost everyone is hurt or destroyed in some way. No-one comes out clean; no-one comes away happy or victorious.

Film review: THE WHISTLEBLOWER

This is one of those all too rare films I had never heard of until it was released. I'll clarify: I read a lot of film news and reviews, across a number of different websites and blogs, based here in New Zealand and overseas and I had, not once, come across any mention of The Whistleblower. It's odd enough I felt moved to mention it here. And to also ponder the confusing nature (from an outsider perspective) of international distribution. Why is it The Whistleblower is afforded a theatrical release in New Zealand while other small-medium films - Super, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil etc - are released straight to DVD, months after they've played internationally? Perhaps a question to be explored in a longer post.

The Whistleblower is the true-story of Nebraskan cop Kathryn Bolkovac who takes a job as a peacekeeper/supervisor in post-war Bosnia and comes to find herself involved in investigating prevalent trafficking of female sex slaves. She's a tough but caring character, an honest cop apparently taking the job for the big pay-day which will allow her to move closer to her daughter. Her expectations and sense of Western morality are challenged once she's actually got boots on ground - the majority of her fellow peacekeepers seem to have no experience in law-enforcement and crimes against Bosnian women, Muslims especially, are all but never investigated. The successful conviction of an abusive husband leads to her being appointed to a Women's Affairs role where she where she comes across a dodgy, dingy Bosnian bar. There is evidence not only of women being sexually abused and trafficked across the borders, but that UN employees are active participants.

The film is structured like a police procedural thriller - the uncovering of evidence, the horrific crimes - but the sense of tension never really extends to Bolkovac. There is no real point where it feels like she herself could be in any real danger. Oh, there are some threatening phone-calls and there is increasing evidence of the higher-ups attempting to cover everything up, but there is no threat of physical harm to her, or even threats to her reputation. So while there is a genuine threat of harm and possible death hanging over the poor girls who are abused and degraded, Bolkovac feels largely untouchable. Weisz is, of course, an easily assured presence as Bolkovac as she tries to navigate the confounding bureaucracy surrounding the post-conflict area.

More frustrating the sense of flat tension though, is the cinematography choices. Honestly I'm about at my limit of close, shaky camera work; there's is something to be said for a well-constructed and laid out shot. This type of camera work no longer serves to bring me in closer to the action but instead distances me by making itself known.

The Whistleblower is a decent enough, generally pretty intelligent film that really isn't too much more than that. It doesn't really achieve any sort of screaming indictment or powerhouse presentation: the power of the film comes from the actual true-story itself, rather than any effort from the filmmakers. Again, which is not to entirely deride it or them. Everyone does fine enough work here. There are appearances throughout from other great actors like Vanessa Redgrave, David Strathairn, Monica Bellucci and Benedict Cumberbatch with painful and powerful work from the unknowns playing the poor girls.

And this is all in service of telling us about very real, very horrific historic events; events that serve to anger any right-minded individual. The extent to which the UN heads are shown to be complicit in derailing the investigation to avoid scandal is an indictment on everyone involved. It's just that the film doesn't achieve anything more than that; it doesn't fully engage and involve it's audience. 

21.12: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL

Poster by Matt Owen

There are three spy/espionage franchises currently top of the heap in our current age: the continuing Bond films, the Bourne trilogy and Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible series. Which is interesting if you compare and contrast the lead character from those three franchises. Everyone knows Bond - he may change from actor to actor (most radically, of course, with the recent Daniel Craig outings) but he has the identifiable tics; the gadgets, the women, the catch-phrases and the Britishness. And - those recognisable things aside - the role is open to interpretation. Matt Damon's Jason Bourne is a more tortured, ground-level character and his story was (in my opinion) definitively completed with The Bourne Ultimatum. Damon and Paul Greengrass had finished the story they had begun with Mr. Bourne and those three films stand on their own; it will be interesting to see how Tony Gilroy and Jeremy Renner's The Bourne Legacy fits in past the name recognition. Ethan Hunt, until recently, has been more of a cipher. This may have to do with Cruise's desire to have a new director for each Mission: Impossible film, each bringing something of their own style to the mix. But so far the defining characteristic of Ethan Hunt has been getting his ass disavowed/going rogue - he has no characteristic tics like Bond and is a role entirely owned by Cruise but without the journey of Damon's Bourne.

Thankfully, there's a little bit more meat added to the Ethan Hunt bones in Ghost Protocol, partly due to it being a sequel to M:I III rather than an entirely self-contained adventure. And, hey, what an adventure those crazy IMF kids get up to this time! What's the impossible mission this time? Why, stopping nothing less than nuclear Armageddon of course. Oh, and they have do it while on the run from the Russians, as the IMF have been blamed for the bombing of the Kremlin and the entire IMF have been disavowed. Which means the small surviving team have no backup, no IMF network and will be branded as rogue terrorists if caught. This isn't Mission: Slightly Difficult y'know.

The action begins with an IMF mission gone awry, as Josh Holloway's Agent Hanaway is on the run from some bad guys in Budapest. It's a fairly impressive cold open, with the audience having to play catch-up right away. From there we come to Ethan Hunt in a Russian prison, about to be broken out by fellow IMF agents Jane (Paula Patton) and Benji (the returning Simon Pegg). The breakout leads into the rather aces opening credits, flashing brief glimpses of the action to come with Michael Giacchino's riff on the classic Lalo Schifrin theme.

After the Kremlin mission ends up going all explodey with Hunt and the IMF being hung out to dry, Hunt has to go on the run and picks up IMF Chief Analyst Brandt along the way. Meeting up with Jane and Benji the team have to clear their name by tracking down the real culprits and stopping them. The emphasis is not on the awesomeness of Hunt (and, by extension, Cruise) but on the team working together. From there, it's a series of intricately constructed set-pieces each with their own ticking clock aspect. 

Director Brad Bird hardly gives you a moment to breathe the entire run-time. Right from the start, it's go, go, GO. The sheer momentum behind the plot manages to get you over a few holes, giving you barely any time to question story problems before whipping you off to the next encounter, the next crazy impossible task. And the craziest, most impossible of them is the much publicised centre-piece ascension of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Bird seems to take some perverse pleasure in amping up the danger and getting a bit "Vertical Limit" with it - basically, anything that can go wrong does go wrong. Which doesn't detract from it being a genuinely thrilling and tense set-piece. As if there was any doubt, Bird proves himself equally adept at constructing and shooting an action sequence with live actors.

The high energy chase of the bad guy becomes a little exhausting come the final wrap-up in Mumbai. The tense scenes of various countdowns, of the team barely scraping through, really start to wear you out. Ogtherwise, this is an incredibly solid entry into the franchise and action film in its own right. Ghost Protocol may be not be an outstanding and flawless film but it's the best Mission: Impossible move since the original. It feels like more of a sequel, more of a continuation of a connected story, than any previous entry and, as such, Hunt the intense, the cipher becomes a little bit friendlier. A little bit easier to relate to. It benefits from an engaging (and engaged) cast, tech and gadgets just beyond next gen and, overall and shared by everyone, a sense of fun. It will be interesting to see where the franchise goes from here.

19.09: CONTAGION

Steven Soderbergh is one of those directors I am endlessly fascinated with; he flows between genres as if it ain't no thing: from sex, lies and videotape to Schizopolis to Out of Sight to Traffic to Erin Brokovich to Bubble to Ocean's Eleven to The Girlfriend Experience to Che to Solaris to The Informant! to Contagion. And that's not even half of the films he's directed but already you've got low-fi indie, breezy caper, intelligent sci-fi remake, sweeping true-life epic, comedy, multi-character narrative, big-time Hollywood film and, now, disaster film.

As with Traffic, Contagion tells an overarching story with multiple characters; occasionally inter-connected but often not. Beginning on Day Two of the epidemic - i.e. we're already screwed - Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns track the spread of the virus and the growing panic and pandemic across the globe. The cast is suitably large and the science (at least to the lay person) scarily accurate. Gwyneth Paltrow is the first human carrier identified, bringing this extraordinarily effective virus to the United States from Hong Kong. She stops over in Chicago on her way home, thereby infecting the windy city too. From there it's all downhill for humanity. As the virus spreads, we are rapidly introduced to characters at varying levels of authority and proximity. Matt Damon, Paltrow's husband who is seemingly blessed with rare immunity and who provides a ground-zero viewpoint.  Laurence Fishburne is the head of the CDC and provides a high level, government response with a vulnerable humanity. Kate Winslet is the CDC lead on the case in the States while Marion Cotillard is dispatched to Hong Kong from the World Health Organisation. Jude Law's sleazy, muckracking and conspiracy theory obsessed blogger provides a rough approximation of the media response. John Hawkes, Demetri Martin, Elliot Gould, Chin Han and Bryan Cranston all make appearances in supporting roles. Burns and Soderbergh pull no punches; no cast member is safe.

Whoo. Ok, so I hope all of that gives you a fairly decent idea of the basic plot and the cast! Contagion is a wide-ranging film, hopping to places all over the globe but managing to remain remarkably focused (and, unfortunately, American-centric). Not all the threads work as well as one another: the storyline with Law's blogger is the weakest link. Law plays him with an increasingly sleazy kind of charm; a man seemingly just interested in stirring up trouble and trying to make a buck. Something about it just doesn't click, possibly that he has a fairly small impact on the overall proceedings. Far more intriguing is Damon, a regular guy who happens to be immune and works hard to keep his daughter safe from infection. Through him we see Contagion become something closer to a sci-fi film, with society falling apart and the survivors looting what remains. Damon again shows himself as one of Hollywood's least showiest actors. He's a guy who just does the work, letting little moments shine and not needing to go for the big, obvious speechifying.

All of these story lines have their moments of impact and the cast is peopled with such gifted actors that every character has at least one moment to truly shine. And with a multiple storyline film such as this, you really need that to connect with. Contagion is an intelligent disaster film, positing a "what if?" scenario and working its way through to a logical extension of the thought. The pace just doesn't quit, especially in the scenes of CDC scientists rushing to find a cure for this previously unseen disease. But this is no "miracle cure to save the world" type of film, this is a "shit gets fucked up in a very real, very frightening way" kind of film. Come the end the world is irrevocably changed. You'll want to bring hand sanitiser.

13.09: HANNA

An ace alternate poster by UK artist Jock

Joe Wright, it seems, is not a director that will do what people expect. This is the man who has previously brought us two English period dramas (one an Austen adaptation!) and a true-life tale about a mentally-broken musician. Now, with Hanna, he gives us an art-house thriller; the espionage film as music-video; Bourne as a not-so-sweet 16 year-old girl. 

The young chameleon more commonly known as Saoirse Ronan is the eponymous Hanna, a remarkable young girl raised in the frozen far North, removed from civilisation by her father Erik (Eric Bana). Erik (with a pretty great Russian accent from Bana) has been raising Hanna in hiding, for her own safety. There are covert powers that would love nothing less than for her to be wiped from the face of the Earth, and these are personified in the brittle and deadly CIA agent Marissa (Cate Blanchett). Hanna and Erik spend their days hunting, learning, fighting and testing. Erik is doing what he can to prepare Hanna for the day when she is ready - ready to be unleashed upon Marissa and the world. He has taught Hanna numerous forms of armed and unarmed combat, a vast array of languages and a host of other skills pertinent to a top secret agent. It's the kind of education that has taught her the theory of music, without her ever hearing any.

And then the day comes when Hanna is ready. The signal is sent, the black helicopters are on their way and Hanna is forced in to the world to kill Marissa and rejoin Erik. What Wright gives us is a chase/espionage/coming-of-age story as Hanna is quickly captured, escapes and hooks up with a vaguely hippy English family in Morocco. She hitches a ride with them and, through their daughter Sophie, catches a glimpse of the "normal" life she has been sorely missing. Marissa, determined to hunt Hanna down at any cost, employs the cruel, camp Isaacs (Tom Hollander - creepy and wonderful) and his henchmen. It's a propulsive plot, moving quickly across countries before climaxing in Berlin, amongst a host of symbolically decrepit playgrounds.

The score by the Chemical Brothers pumps throughout - especially during Hanna's initial escape through tunnels and airducts large and small. It is defintely a case of the score becoming an organic part of the action, the visual and aural feeding and feeding off one another. And Wright proves himself a more than capable action director - the centrepiece being another of his long one-takes involving Eric Bana, a subway and multiple agents being taken down with surgical efficiency. These scenes are also constructed with more thought and care than any other CG spectacles you care to name; these action sequences all speak to character and themes and are meant to be more than just "cool shit".

Hanna is not a perfect film, with a couple of missteps taken, and it will not redefine the action or espionage genres but it is something special and unique. And, in this ever-franchising world, that is something to be enjoyed and celebrated. 

FANTASTIC FEST: DAY SEVEN

Jo's - where I get coffee every morning

This is it, the penultimate day of the Fest. And my first film of the day is the bonafide classic (and never-before-seen by me) An American Werewolf in London. I assume everyone who really wanted to see the film were lucky enough to nab tickets to the earlier screening with the Rick Baker Q&A as the theatre was all but empty for this screening. An American Werewolf was fucking fantastic and I'm psyched I got to see it on the big screen. I was surprised by the streak of humour throughout but seeing as how it was directed by John Landis (the guy behind one of my all-time favourite comedies, The Blues Brothers) I shouldn't have been. The relationship between David and his buddy Jack is quickly and gracefully established; these guys have the easy chemistry of old friends. And then of course they don't keep to the roads and are attacked on the moors. The creature effects by Baker are astonishing work and he and Landis are really working together to build the best effect possible, Landis often cutting away to something mundane but still surprising. Also, Nazi demons! Crazy.

Taking a chance with my next screening I opted for The Devil's Business, a film I knew almost nothing about. An unmitigated bore is what I turned out to be watching. Two English gangster cliches arrive at a house to lie in wait to whack someone. Things start getting a little spooky but the action consisted chiefly of these two blokes nattering away at one another. Despite writer/director Sean Hogan's best efforts there was no tension, horror or surprises to this film. It felt cheap, derivative and talky. It may have been a half-decent idea for a short film, but stretched out to feature length it (and I) suffer for it.

As my preferred option of Summerland was, once again, sold out I took another chance on my selection and chose the late-confirmation Love. This was billed as something of an experimental sci-fi film, part of a larger work by band Angels & Airwaves (from ex-Blink 182 frontman Tom Delonge). It begins in the American Civil War with a young soldier sent off to see and catalogue some strange sight many miles away. It then cuts to the ISS in the near future, staffed by lone astronaut Capt. Lee Miller. The majority of the film is then taken up with Miller isolated and slowly going insane, as all communication is cut off. The last few minutes then go all 2001 on your head. I can definitely see what everyone involved was going for, aiming to tackle some big themes, but it does become tedious and feels a lot longer than it actually is. 2001: A Space Odyssey becomes a transcendent piece of cinema but Love, though it tries, cannot reach these stunning heights. I'm still unsure how the Civil War ties in to it all as well. But they did apparently get a lot of right with regards to the ISS - the spirit of at least, if not the absolute details.

Rounding out my day was the final selection from the Hong Kong genre vault. Unfortunately, I can't really talk about it as the distributor is one of those crazy, kooky types who doesn't actually want the film screened anywhere. I will say this though: it was truly awesome and Grady Hendrix as the host for these events is a firecracker of excitement and knowledge and the Q&A with him afterwards was hilarious and informative. 

There was the second Secret Screening tonight as well, at midnight. Again, it was a sellout and the security surrounding it as intense: all electronic devices had to be turned in and attendees had to pass through a metal detector. What was the film in the end? Paranormal Activity 3. Woop-de-doo. I'm sure the folks enjoyed it but not really my cup of tea. And again, I had to skip a night of drunken revelry at the Highball (with a prom theme) as I was feeling really, really fuckin' sick. 

One day to go.

FANTASTIC FEST: DAY THREE

Well it wouldn't be a film festival without a ticketing snafu, would it? I believed myself lucky enough to have snapped up a ticket for the Fantastic Debates - the annual event where two people debate a topic, and then settle things in the ring. This year had Tim League (Fantastic Fest co-founder) vs. undefeated bare-knuckle boxing champ from the film KNUCKLE, James Quinn McDonagh in the first match up and Elijiah Wood vs. Dominic Monaghan in the second. I was pretty well excited. It was not to be. Due to a technical glitch, the tickets kept selling past allocation and anyone with a boarding pass over 150 (I was 286) was not getting in. Gutted? Yes. Going home? Hell no.

Day Three started out though with the Fantastic Shorts, one of three short film collections at Fantastic Fest. I have no idea what previous years were like, but I thought it was an overall great offering in the programme. In my experience, the short film programmes at a festival can be one of the lowest attended, but Fantastic Shorts was pretty decently packed out. Stand outs included The Coldest Caller, about a wily old English lady fooling the Grim Reaper; No Rest for the Wicked, with music by Lalo Schifrin and starring Ray Park and Chuck’s Zachary Levi that played more as a pilot of possible adventures to come; The Swan and the Hunter on Their First Meeting took a mythical fairytale and juxtaposed it into an indie drama scene

Next up was, no doubt, one of my most anticipated films at Fantastic Fest: Karate Robo-Zarbogar. Based on a more-than-obscure and uber-cultish Japanese TV show from the Seventies, Daimon and his transforming robot motorbike Zarbogar must stop the evil cabal of villains Sigma from harvesting the DNA of Japanese leaders in order to destroy the world. Things get decidedly complicated when Daimon falls for one of the villains, Miss Borg and they both struggle with their feelings. The film is essentially split into two parts: the first half with the young Daimon playing like a final never-resolved cliff-hanger episode to the TV series, while part two takes place 25 years later as Sigma’s plans near fruition and Daimon is an over-the-hill washout. Director __ is obviously having a blast (especially in the first half, setting everything up) but I was expecting less of the early-years and more of a focus on the older Daimon. But it was a riotous adventure with some knowing cheapness. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay for the Q&A with __ as I had to rush off to...

Comin’ At Ya, the film that kick-started the 3D boom of the late-70’s/1980’s. It is a film designed entirely to be seen (and only seen) in 3D; as you can probably guess from the title, there’s a lot of things flying out at you from the screen. In fact, if there’s a chance for something to fly out at you (arrows, spears, beans, a yo-yo, hands, anything) you can bet it will. As a 3D adventure, it’s a hoot. As a film though, it’s a bizarre melding that doesn’t all the way work. Despite the title, and the fairly “gimmicky” use of the 3D, the story is a pretty serious Western about a man (producer Tony Anthony) on the hunt for his wife who was kidnapped by slavers.

With three films down, it was time for dinner. And again, I headed to a diner trailer and again, it was really great food. With free beer. Free beer! You might be skipping these bits of the blog where I blather on about the food and whatnot, but I think it’s important to give you a greater picture of the Fest and to give me a chance to write about the great food and friendly people of Austin. A massive pork Cuban sandwich with fried plantains, free beer and a chat with Phil, the guy in the sandwich cart, is just a great way to recharge the batteries during Fest.

And then it was time to head down to Urban Explorer. Set in the vast labyrinth of underground tunnels in Berlin (the director apparently being arrested for filming down there without permission), this is a horror tale about a group of young folk on a less-than-legal tour that encounter, as they so often do, trouble. The setting does half of the work in building the tension but the young folk also encounter a crazed ex-East German border guard. Things go from bad to worse and it really is a tense thriller, even if I began to get annoyed at the constantly stupid (and movie typical) decisions made by the characters.

While waiting for the Fantastic Debates, I just got chatting to a couple of guys as you tend to do at Fantastic Fest. As my brain was already a little fried from so many movies and so little sleep, it took me a while to click that these were the director and star of The Incredibly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon. This is another thing I really love about the Fest - everyone here is a fan and everyone loves to come to this Festival. Missing out on the Fantastic Debates, I decided to instead see another thriller in a unique location: A Lonely Place to Die. Moving from the Berlin underground to the mountains of Scotland, this is a better crafter thriller. A group of mountain climbing friends, out on a hike, hear a strange cry for help and come across a young Eastern European girl buried in a cage. They do the only thing they can: help her. This, of course, sets off a chase across the rugged and dangerous highlands as the friends are pursued by the girl's kidnappers. Events get a little over-the-top come the final act but, for the most part, A Lonely Place to Die is a good ole' thrill-filled chase movie. 

And that was Day Three. Stumbling out of the Alamo at 2am, brain wired from cinema I made it back to the motel before comaing out.

FANTASTIC FEST: DAY ONE

Psyched

Seeing as how I've only just wrapped up my last review for the New Zealand International Film Festival (that finished waaaaaay back in August) I thought I'd do the Fantastic Fest day-by-day to start with, focusing more on my experiences at the Fest and then hope to bring you actual write-ups of films as and when I can (I also have a few films I saw in between the two Festivals I'm trying to finish writing up. Terribly behind, I know).

So, how did Day One of Fantastic Fest go? Well, first off, I was incredibly happy to be spending my entire day in an air-conditioned cinema! (have I mentioned it's hot in Austin?) I got to four films in total, and as I've said I'll be writing them up in separate posts as and when I can: 

Blind, a South Korean thriller that, though it has it's own unique tension inherent to the set-up (the only witness to an abduction is a blind ex-police recruit), unfortunately pales in comparison to the other amazing South Korean thrillers I've seen this year (The Yellow Sea, I Saw the Devil). 

Borderline a French comedy about a middle-class married couple who fall into drug dealing. Genuinely hilarious and would easily fit into the larger NZIFF programme. 

Polvora Negra, a Mexican film that was, well, kinda boring. Some kind of crime story, involving variously inter-linked families in a small town. 

Manborg, a cheap-as-chips sci-fi from Winnipeg that fully embraces and celebrates the shoddy video movies of the 80's and early 90's. Shot, as the filmmakers said, almost entirely in their garage and a basement. A heady injection of insanity. This also played with a couple of shorts in front: The Incredibly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon (which I urge you to check out here) and it's sequel Spoon Wars.

Fantastic Fest is, well, kinda fantastic. The place is absolutely filled to the brim with geeks; geeks of all types and persuasions. Generally, but not exclusively, male there are folks big and small, bearded, tatted and in suits. And most people are just downright friendly - it's not hard to just start talking to someone about what they've seen so far and Fantastic Fest in general. It's a really great buzz to the Fest and marks it out as something totally different to the NZIFF. Which is not to knock the NZIFF (because I love it) but I guess it's just what you get with a film festival in one location with a "theme" to it.

And there's a fair amount of downtime between films (most of the time), as each part of the day is divided up into segments and you can only have one ticket per "segment" allowing the Alamo crew to clean the theater before the next lot of patrons begin boarding*. So, for dinner, I went across the road where a collection of three diner trailers sit together - Trey's Cuisine, The Odd Duck and Gourdough's Donuts. Folks sit around at picnic tables, lit by strings of lights, with their own booze and talk home-brew as a red-headed waitress with a large rose tattoo up her entire leg delivers orders. I got a couple of things from The Odd Duck - a trailer serving up wood-fired, organic and local food. It was also fuckin' delicious. Amazing food you'd be thankful to be served in a cafe or restaurant, let alone from a mobile diner.

In fact, that was one of the great highlights of the day - sitting down, eating amazing food, sucking down a root beer (also organic & Fair Trade) as I scribble my notes while watching the sun set and the storm clouds move in. 

And, of course, there was the Opening Night party. The Opening Night film was the don't-really-think-I'll-see-it-thanks-though Human Centipede II and the party was appropriately themed: three poor whole roast pigs lined up, well... yeah. Like, um, that. And a cocktail special called the "Laxatini". It is, however, rather discombobulating for me to go from a film festival where I pretty much know everyone to a festival where I know no-one. Yeah, most people are friendly enough but they're also all busy talking to their own old Fest friend and I'm still a crushingly shy kiwi guy. We'll see how that changes over the next week...


So that was Day One. I stumbled home around 2/2.30am in the morning, my head aching and spinning from cinematic insanity and tiredness. But I feel great. I'm here. I'm in Austin, I'm at freakin' FANTASTIC FEST. Two words sum it up really: FUCK. YEAH.




*OK. The ticketing works thus: with a regular Festival pass you can log on to the website two hours before the first session of the day and reserve your seats. You then head down to the Alamo to pick your tickets up and when you pick them up you're assigned a boarding number - like 75 or 106 - and these then get called up in lots. Seats aren't assigned, it's first in, first seated. Kind of like airplane boarding. Got it? Great.