Monday, September 8
My first European film festival! I did miss the first half of this eight-day fest, but i'll be attending at least one screening a day for the second half.
I was concerned at first, getting off the train, that i was in the wrong place. The theater is called Zoo Palast, which i took the train to the Zoologischer Station for, and when i emerged from the train station, i saw...an actual zoo. I was VERY CONCERNED for a moment that i was in the wrong place. But i followed my GPS around a building, and found the Zoo Palast theater there, hidden in an alcove, with its back end tucked up against the zoo.
I didn't know what to expect walking in. I know this is a smaller festival, but i still thought there would be directors, producers, actors, and so on walking around, maybe a red carpet. There was no red carpet, and if there were any filmmakers or talent present, i couldn't identify them. But also, i cannot speak German, and i was not getting social with anyone.
I found my way to the theater for my first screening.
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HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKS CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON
Despite the title, this is actually a really cute coming-of-age story. Yes, there are dark moments, but there's plenty of humor, and overall, i thought it was really sweet. I thought it was very well made, and i hope it gets picked up for wide distribution, so maybe we'll see it in theaters next year. I say "maybe" only because it's in French, and it's very difficult for a subtitled film to gain traction in America.
For fans of Let The Right One In and What We Do In The Shadows. Probably more on the WWDITS end. I know that, other than that they both have vampires, those two things seem to have very little to do with each other.
I want to say more, but i don't want to spoil it, because i do want you to watch this movie. I don't know that the whole of it will be everyone's cup of tea, but i do think that it has at least something to offer just about everyone.
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DARK MATCH
I thought this was really bad!
Produced by WWE's Chris Jericho, who also plays the villain, it's a story about an underground wrestling league that gets hired to perform a "Dark Match," ie, a private, non-televised event, at a rich guy's mansion. The two lead actors were decent enough, but the rest of the cast was kind of terrible, and you know what they say about that. If there's one bad performance in a movie, it's a bad actor; if there are no good performances in the movie, it's a bad director.
The movie has several fundamental problems at the script level, i don't think this was ready to go into production yet. A few more rewrites might have helped. The dialog is a ham and cheese sandwich. The villain's motives are unclear and seem to change a couple of times through the movie, but regardless, a number of his decisions don't make sense for any of the evil schemes we're being asked to go along with.
The cinematography has individual moments of inspiration; specifically, there are a number of extreme close-ups in the first act that don't set anything up, they're not showing us props or details that we'll need to remember later, but they do give us a bit of character development, which is nice. But outside of that, it's pretty basic for the most part - except for the actual wrestling scenes.
I don't know any of these actors, other than Jericho, but i feel like they're probably all wrestlers. And i feel like, if you're hiring your cast based more on their wrestling than their acting, that we should get some really well-choreographed and well-shot action scenes out of it. But instead, they film all of the wrestling scenes using Paul Greenglass-style shaky cam, but without the understanding of why it works in a Paul Greenglass movie (so basically, the same as most filmmakers who are not Greenglass, trying to do a Greenglass). I couldn't follow any of the action, i couldn't see what the hell was going on in any of the wrestling scenes. So yeah, if you're going to hire wrestlers to play wrestlers, and have multiple wrestling scenes in your wrestling movie, film it like Jackie Chan: wide, brightly lit shots that let us see where everybody is, let us see the impacts of all the hits, let us see what we came for. Edit to show the heavy hits twice, so the audience feels something.
That's my suggestion, anyway. I don't want to say Jackie's the only one who gets this right, i'm just saying, this movie is not The Bourne Identity, that was the wrong way.
Anyway, that's just, like, my opinion, man.
The trailer for this looked far more unhinged than the movie actually was, but i think this still has the potential to find a cult audience. I wouldn't expect a wide theatrical release, though. And as far as streaming goes...probably not Netflix, maybe Shudder, but most likely Tubi.
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On the way back to the hostel, i found a currywurst stand that was still open, so i got to try that delightful bit of German street food. It was good! Very much what i expected, and i'm pretty happy about it. They did serve it with a roll that might have been toasted? but just felt stale. I could go either way on that one, which isn't a good sign if it was supposed to be toasted.
Just one movie for me tomorrow, A Different Man. This is a new Sebastian Stan-starring movie, where he has a face full of tumors, gets them removed so he can get more acting gigs, and then they make a biopic about him but they cast someone else and he gets jealous. At least, that's what i'm gathering from the trailer. Looks very interesting.
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