Probably in part thanks to the Tribeca Film Festival’s new pre-fest review embargo, it’s been extremely difficult thus far to get a sense of which of the festivals many, many titles are actually worth seeking out and seeing. I’m sure the embargo has a purpose, but the fact remains that we’re now five days away from opening night, and we’re starring down a festival devoid of buzz. As someone trying to figure out how to cover the thing, I’m in the odd position of reevaluating givens: I don’t know what to do with the rest of the lineup, but I know Tom Hall’s last blog post makes me think Speed Racer looks fucking awesome.
So spelunking the catalog, all I really have to go on is keywords. And, my my, what keywords do we have for the Encounters selection, The Objective: A horror film. Set in Afghanistan, beginning three days after 9/11. About a Special Ops mission in search of an Al Qaeda nukes stash, gone horribly wrong. Directed by Daniel Myrick, best known as the co-director of The Blair Witch Project. Are our jaws dropping in unison?
It’s the kind of film everyone would be talking about, if only Tribeca would let us review it before it premieres. But, they didn’t put an embargo on reviewing the trailer…
Daniel Stamm’s A Necessary Death is sure to be one of the most talked about films at SXSW this year. At least I hope it is, because I’m dying to have a discussion or two about it. Here’s my endorsement, first, so that I might influence someone to see the film and in turn have someone to chat with about it: Anyone who considers him or herself a fan of non-fiction cinema needs to see A Necessary Death.
I should point out, of course, that this is not exactly a documentary itself. It is a narrative feature structured like a documentary (I hate to call serious faux docs mockumentaries, so I won’t), but it was indeed written and it was indeed cast and it was indeed acted out. But if you love non-fiction and hate fiction, don’t let that keep you from A Necessary Death. An actual documentary couldn’t say as much about the genre as this film does. …Read more
Though it’s long past the point of Cloverfieldbacklash, I was only recently beginning to think the J.J. Abrams-produced monster movie could actually suck. I thought: this really is just going to be like TheBlair Witch Projectmeets Godzilla, isn’t it? This is really not much more than a movie based around an idea. This is just a camcorder-shot sci-fi action movie, and it’s not going to be pulled off well enough to hold my attention all the way through. It didn’t help that the widely read review on AICN makes the movie sound so awesome that it’s writer, Neill Cumpston, sounds like a plant. I’ll admit that I skipped most of the review to avoid spoilers, but Stu’s excerpt at The Reelerwas enough to convince me that NOTHING can be as cool as Cumpston makes it sound. It was just another thing that made me realize that no matter what, I’m going to be disappointed with the reality that will be my experience with the film.
Then I watched this new TV spot that comes to us courtesy of Movieweb (via Cinematical), which shows us that Cloverfield will not just be this hand-held-video perspective of chaos. Well, actually, it will technically just be this hand-held-video perspective of chaos, but it will at least be more expansive than I previously assumed it would be. Check out the cityscape shot from atop the roof, for instance. I didn’t expect to see jets in action. Nor did I think there’d be much action at all, not like those ground troops shooting at the monster. Am I being once again suckered by the hype? Maybe, but I enjoy playing hokey pokey with movie marketing and this time I have my right foot in. Any day now I’ll be back to the part where I take my right foot back out, but it’s very possible that by the movie’s release date, I’ll be at the point of having my whole body in, and shaking it all about.
