Fantasia 2019 Review: KILLERMAN Feels Like a 1990s Thriller
The opening moments of Killerman are a masterclass in moving money on the streets. In a sequence that runs 8 minutes or so, a mid-level money launderer first swaps a banker's box full of cash for a solid block of...
Friday One Sheet: JESUS SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO THE HIGHWAY
This striking poster is for Ethiopian avant garde science fiction satire (or farce) Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway, which is the follow-up feature to equally strange, but more subdued Tarkovsky-Jodorowski inspired Crumbs (2015). Taken from a still from...
Fantasia 2019 Review: SWALLOW, Gorgeously Composed, A Film About Pica and Personal Empowerment
We are introduced to young house-wife, Hunter, in a pastel Christian Dior outfit. Surveying the picturesque Hudson River in Upstate New York, from the raised terrace of her expensive home, she is the kept woman of a wealthy family and...
Fantasia Review 2019: ODE TO NOTHING Tells a Curious Ghost Story of Death and Minimalism
In deep focus photography and an olive-pewter colour palette that is nearly monochrome comes a crafted and curious film out of the Philippines. We first meet Sonya winding up the innards of a cassette tape so she can keep...
Review: LUZ, A Stylish Experiment in Seduction and Possession
A demon or some kind of evil entity travels from a Chilean boarding school to a German Police station to ensnare the woman it desires to possess. The simplicity of this basic story kernel belies the stylish and convoluted manner...
Interview: Tilman Singer on LUZ, His Wildly Experimental Demonic Possession Film
In 2018, at the Berlin Film festival and then later at Fantasia, a wildly sophisticated student film by the name of Luz, flabbergasted moviegoers and blew some minds. The story of a demon attempting to possess 'the girl that got...
Fantasia 2019 Review: DREAMLAND Plays Free Jazz With Genre Conventions
In Dreamland, the ubiquitous Stephen McHattie plays a weary, nameless, assassin, who does the dirty work for a mid level gangster named Hercules. Disgusted to find out that his boss is getting into the human trafficking of young children involving...
Fantasia 2019 Review: COME TO DADDY Delights in Putting Elijah Wood Through The Ringer
I am drawn to father-son stories like a moth to flame. The difficult communication barriers, awkward processing of emotion. The silence and the rage. In the movies, these stories often culminate in the father expressing a deep pride or love...
Fantasia 2019 Review: VIVARIUM Is An Abstract Suburban Gothic
“The strawberries have no taste.” This might be my favourite line of dialogue from this high-concept science fiction satire, an Irish-Danish-Belgian co-production that has a go at the American dream. For decades now, the gargantuan frankenberries are picked and shipped...
Fantasia 2019 Review: THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE Is A Comedic Swiss Watch
Casey is a quiet, nebbish, accountant who lives by himself. He has no friends except his impossibly cute Dachshund. He is introduced sitting quietly and nervously in a cafe, attempting to learn French. The line he is practicing is "I...
Fantasia 2019 Curtain Raiser: A Guide Through 3 Weeks of Genre Frenzy in Montreal
The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 11 to August 1 this year in the lovely, and often sweltering, province of Quebec, Canada. Three weeks across multiple venues running all day and night --- a supreme genre feast of...
Friday One Sheet: ECHO IN THE CANYON Recalls Jack Davis
By a strange co-incidence, this Jack Davis inspired key art appeared for Andrew Slater's documentary on the Laurel Canyon folk music of the 1960s, Echo in the Canyon, debuted almost exactly the same time that the iconic Mad Magazine issued...
Melbourne 2019: ScreenAnarchy Reviews First Glance Features
Now for something a little different. The Melbourne International Film Festival, like every year, has revealed its First Glance titles. These are a hodgepodge of different program streamed films and documentaries to whet the appetite prior to the full guide...
ScreenAnarchy's Top Movies Of The First Half Of 2019
With 2020 only half a year away, let's do the mid-2019 Top-Ten thing. We asked our staff of writers and editors what, in their opinion, were the best films this year so far. And because that's too easy, as writer...
Friday One Sheet: SPIRITED AWAY in China
In light of most of Canada being on holiday this weekend, and America to follow shortly thereafter, today's column will be about a Chinese release of a Japanese film. Nearly 20 years after its original release in Japan and to...
COLD CASE HAMMARSKJÖLD: Get Lost in the Details of the Trailer
Armed with a plinth hat, a metal detector, two Cuban cigars and an investigating partner who doesn't smoke, Mads Brügger returns to Africa with his most ambitious documentary project yet. You may recall this previous efforts at starting own blood-diamond...
Friday One Sheet: MIDSOMMAR Has Lost Its Head
I am revisiting Midsommar's marketing excellent campaign again, to attempt to understand what is going on with the latest poster. Is the central figure here bowing their head? Is their 'head' supposed to be the runes marked on the stone?...
Friday One Sheet: Skinny Teaser for BLACK CHRISTMAS
It is a trick of the eyes that this teaser poster for (another) remake of iconic Slasher picture, Black Christmas, looks longer than your usual 24x36". It is all the BLACK, negative space. While this design is not going to...
Friday One Sheet: WONDER WOMAN 1984
Call it the Guardians Of The Galaxy Effect. When Marvel Studios took the chance on adapting 'the oddballs save the universe to the sounds of a rockin' mix tape', with a big budget and a lot of humour, they went...
HONEYLAND Trailer Showcases Impressive Cinematography
Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov's gorgeous documentary Honeyland is equal parts about how shitty humanity can so often be, and yet also so full of grace and perseverence. It is a cry for conservation and humility, a Shakespearean tragedy, and an...
