Fantasia Film Festival
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Watch: Red Band Trailer for Denmark's 'Klown' Is Very Funny, Very Dirty, Very NSFW
Start your day right, with a little Danish crass next to your coffee. Drafthouse Films opens "Klown" on July 27 (NY, LA, Austin & VOD), but the red band trailer for Mikkel Nøgaard's comedy, hailed by Eric Kohn as "raunchy, fearless and awesome," has arrived. The film is based on a popular Danish TV ...
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Review: Too Meta 'Human Centipede Part 2' Almost Reaches The All-Time Gross-Out Pantheon
Is Tom Six a filmmaker? Is Tom Six a storyteller? No, at this point, you’ll have to conclude he is neither of these things. What he is represents something maybe more honest, more pure: he’s a provocateur. In making “The Human Centipede: First Sequence,” Six took a memorably deranged subject of medi...
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Fantasia '11 Review: 'Kidnapped' Starts Smart, But Ends As A Sleazy & Cheap Exploitation Flick
The single setting thriller is a tough trick to overcome as a director, as it constrains nearly every aspect of a production making it all the more difficult to elevate the film from its static surroundings. Last year saw a spate of single-setting flicks hit theaters, and while Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" and J Blakeson's underrated "The Disappearance Of Alice Creed" showed what inventive filmmaking and a smart screenplay can do in opening up the narrative in compelling ways, the Ryan Reynolds-led "Buried" was an example of what happens with a director can't get past the basic conceit of the picture. Which brings us to "Kidnapped," the first fi...
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Fantasia '11 Review: 'Bangkok Knockout' Delivers Awesome Action In An Otherwise Incompetent Film
In many ways "Bangkok Knockout" is the perfect film for Fantasia (or any other similarly themed genre fest), but let's be clear: the latest from "Ong Bak 2" and "Ong Bak 3" director Panna Rittikrai is terrible in almost every conceivable technical, narrative and aesthetic category. It's atrociously acted, with a derivative, absurd story shot with no real skill except in making sure that when two characters are speaking to each other, they are both in the frame. However, when it's time for the fights -- which are frequent, exciting and amazingly staged, Rittikrai is firmly in his element and the audience is in his hand. "Bangkok Knockout" is p...
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Fantasia '11 Review: 'Blackthorn' Catches Up With A Retirement Ready Butch Cassidy
For the most part -- aside from a few forgettable/unknown titles -- no one has really taken on the legend of Butch Cassidy since Robert Redford and Paul Newman went out guns blazing in George Roy Hill's 1969 instant classic. Though "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid" lives on as a cinematic touchstone and cultural reference point, the legend has largely been kept off the big screens as the boots of Redford and Newman are large to fill indeed. So you have admire the stones of writer Miguel Barros, director Mateo Gil and actor Sam Shepard for breaking the forty year taboo and making what is essentially a sequel (though more like a continuation...
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Fantasia '11 Review: 'Retreat' Piles On The Twists, But Doesn't Deliver The Thrills
Writer/director Carl Tibbetts certainly didn't spare himself any narrative hurdles for his debut feature "Retreat." In fact, one could argue that it's nothing but narrative hurdles. The single setting film tosses together a psychological thriller, marital discord, sexual tension, an airborne virus a...
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Fantasia '11 Review: 'Attack The Block' Is The Real Deal Bruv, Believe
We're just over seven months into 2011, and we've already seen a staggering number of alien-oriented films, and for the most part, they haven't been friendly. In "Battle: Los Angeles" a ragged military crew squared off against the space invaders, while in the upcoming "Cowboys & Aliens" Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford will use old-timey western know-how to fight off the creatures from beyond. But there is another interesting trend developing even among this this little niche of films: kids are frequently the ones being called upon to save the day. In J.J. Abrams' "Super 8" best friends and junior high classmates outwit their parents and the mi...
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Fantasia '11 Review: 'The King Of Devil's Island' A Chilly & Compelling Nordic Drama
Stop if you've heard this before: an overbearing headmaster gets his comeuppance from his students after he pushes them too far, causing a violent uprising and revolt to take place. In literature and in films, variations on this theme have cropped up time and again usually with the same types of characters and signifiers, with the story and pacing playing out to the beat of a very familiar drum. And while on paper, Marius Holst's "The King Of Devil's Island" may seem like a trip down an already well-worn path, the film is a refreshing surprise that offers up a character-driven take on the genre that throws familiar notions of how this kind of...
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Cillian Murphy Thriller ‘Retreat’ Will Make World Premiere At The Fantasia Film Festival
Kevin Smith's 'Red State' Will Open The Festival Before Its August Theatrical ReleaseWell, it's the middle of summer right now in Montreal which means the terraces are filled with folks making the most of the warm weather for their cinq a sept and festival season is in full swing, and one of the big...
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