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(5/5) Magic, pure magic. Even if the story is too slow for your taste, the film is worth watching because the cinematography is amazing, the characters compelling, many of the scene transitions spectacular, the music perfect, and the love and respect of the beauty of small-town Western America and its people is refreshing. A must watch film for lovers of magic realism and fantasy films.

IMDB

The plot itself is nothing new, Hollywood has been skewering itself since its very beginnings. The characters are stereotypes and/or caricatures that have been done before. When it should have been witty, it leans on bodily function jokes. While it is derivative, I laughed my ass off. Over and over again.

I was intrigued about this film because the reviews have run from horrible to brilliant, and any film that generates more press about the use of the word “retard” than the hilarious performance of Tom Cruise during the week before its release is enough to draw me in.

Tropic Thunder is a smart send-up of the war films of the last 30 years wrapped around a spoof of Hollywood and everything that is wrong (and hilarious) about it. The film channels Platoon and Apocalypse Now, yet references smaller films such as Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, dumbed-down comedies like …

Update November, 18/2007

The window to accept submissions for the festival is now closed. The Festival itinerary will be put up by the end of the week.

End of Update

This post contains the list of incoming submissions received so far. The list will be updated with new entries regularly until November 15th which is when we close the submissions.

Good News! PFC on it’s first festival will show “all” entries that are submitted and fall under the requirements and guidelines listed. So there will be no filter this year, to choose and select films for the festival from the entire pool of submissions.

The following is a list of entries that have been received so far. If you have sent in your entry and do not see it in this list, please resend your movie, as we have not received it. This list will be updated every few days. Please remember the …

I am at the Hole in the Head Film Festival, the horror offshoot of the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. I am here because a movie I worked on is premiering here tomorrow night (tonight), but I made my friends drive up a day earlier than expected so I can see some movies, and one film in particular � Hazard. The newest film by Sion Sono, the genius behind Jisatsu saakuru (Suicide Club), one of the most fascinating, if gory J-horror films I have ever loved. But, after seeing the Hazard trailer, I was left wondering why it is playing at this festival. It didn�t look like a horror film. There were no suicides, no children joining cults, none of the trademarks of what I expect of Sonu�s films. I think that the festival organizers invited the film to play because of Sono�s previous work, without realizing that he has …

The reactions of my friends to my love of Indian cinema ranges from befuddlement to humouring me. I have shown parts of Rang de Basanti and Omkara to my friends in the film industry, and while they appreciate the cinematography and many of the technical aspects of these films, they don�t enjoy the entire picture. My more socially conscious friends loved Traffic Signal and Amu, but can�t tolerate masala or much else I have tried to show them. I have a couple of friends who love Devdas as much as I, but I haven�t been able to interest them in much else. I have never seen an Indian film that I can show to all of my friends, especially those who are not filmmakers or cinema fans, that appeal to the average American.

Until today.

Watching Cheeni Kum was supposed to be a timepass on a long holiday weekend. I expected silly …

It started off as a fun project with friends. Two filmmaker friends needed help on a film they were making, and I volunteered. I have assisted them on other film related projects, and we have an interesting groove when we work together, the three of us have complimentary but different skills and tastes, and working with the two of them is always a blast.

I ended up becoming the Production Supervisor on the film, and learning a lot. But, that isn�t what this post is about.

During the course of making this film I became very, very excited because I realized that we were making something very, very good. A funny film, a film that has a broad appeal. A film that works because the actors are all great and the director has an eye for what makes gore funny and can tell a good story.

The excitement grew last …

Sorry about the second review, but I have something to say and Easter got in the way! Movie reviews only, trailer reviews maybe later…

I have been writing about and waiting for the release of Grindhouse for over a year. Richard Rodriguez doing a zombie flick, hell yeah! Great, gory trailers by Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright, and the return of Quentin Tarantino? This is a horror-lover�s dream!!!

The problem with dreams and expectations is that when they are hit in the head with a harsh reality that doesn�t live up to your hopes, disappointment and a margarita are called for.

I grew up watching Grindhouse films. Many childhood Saturday nights were spent with my dad and his friends as they watched these films at the drive-in, drinking beers while us kids played, only occasionally looking at the screen because the swing set at the theater was more interesting. My grandparents lived …

One would think that if you are studio/distributor and you own a Mike Judge movie starring Luke Wilson, you would promote the movie, release it in theaters, and then hold a major advertising campaign when the DVD was released. Especially if his cult film �Office Space�, continues to generate revenue after its 1999 DVD release (it only earned $10 million at the box office).

But, Fox buried Mike Judge�s movie Idiocracy. Only 150 copies of the film were released to theatres last September, and most theaters only played the movie for a week. There was no advertising, and little press. I was out of town during the Los Angeles release, and missed it, even thought I was dying to see it. So, when it was released on video last month, I did something I rarely do and moved this film to the top of my Netflix queue.

I have long …

The basics of writing a movie review. Start with an opinion. Then, move onto a plot synopsis. Write about the actors, and then the technical points. Mention the structure of the film, and then compare the structure to other films. If it struck you, write about the music. Evaluate all the above, and then summarize. Restate opinion.

There are very few people who review movies that stray from these rules, and I am not among them. Except for now. That is because I feel the need to review this film, to talk about it, to share my feelings, but there is no way to do so using the traditional means. So, here are my random thoughts from two viewings Black Friday. I say random, because I am going to list my thoughts and not give a traditional review.

First Viewing

Friday night, 8:00 pm, Naz 8 Artesia. Driving two very excited people to …

I see that oz beat me to the punch with his review! But, this is a movie that needs multiple reviews as I think it will speak to all who see it in some way…

I come from a rich story-telling tradition. My Native American grandmother and aunts used to spend long nights telling stories � creation myths, stories about the animals of the forests and plains, about the sun and the moon, about our family history. My German grandmother would tell fairy tales � not watered-down Disney tales, but the harsh German ones, where bad things happen to children and forests are dangerous places for the curious. Growing up with these traditions, I gravitated to reading mythology in elementary school, Greek, Roman, Norse, Native American, anything I could lay my hands on.

In high school, I discovered Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez and a remarkable book that ends with an entire city …

Sobrevivire (I Will Survive) is a simple movie, with a simple story, about a simple woman, that approaches greatness. And, maybe that is the genius of Spanish filmmakers. While filmmakers from so many other countries are creating bigger and showier movies, and even small independent films aspire to be large with multiple plot lines and convoluted camera shots and tricks, the Spanish churn out small films with interesting characters living everyday lives that leave me laughing and crying - in the case of this movie, both at the same time. Outside of Pedro Almod�var, most film watchers are not aware of Spanish films, and only the truly serious film fans are familiar with Luis Bu�uel or Salvador Dal�. This is a shame, some of the best films I have watched over the course of the last year have been little known comedies from Spain.

This film is the story of Marga, …

It is only recently that I was introduced to Mani Ratnam, and I have fallen in love with his films. Even a film that bored me, like Kannathil Muthamittal, is still beautiful to watch because of his cinematography, his style, how he brings out the large emotions with the smallest of facial and body nuances from his actors.

I grew excited about Guru after watching the previews over the course of the last month. The same stylistic elements that have made him famous were obvious in the previews, and I am no fan of Abishek Bachchan, but the previews looked as if his acting in this film might change my mind. That, and I am a sucker for the small person takes on the world and wins on his own terms type story.

But, in the first fifteen minutes of the film, my thoughts weren’t about the scenery, the actors, the …

I wasn’t going to post on this film, but after Cliff shared the tragedy of taking his family to see Happy Feet, I thought I would review another Hollywood “family” feature, one that is truly a entertaining, family film.

First, forget Leonardo DiCaprio, Forest Whitaker, Will Smith, or any of the other names being mentioned for Best Actor in next year’s Oscar race. The award goes, hands down, to the pigs that played Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web. Especially the one who won “the award”. With one look of his big, black eyes, he made me smile and cry more than any human actor did this entire year.

If you are not familiar with the story of Charlotte’s Web, it is a classic children’s book by E.B. White about a girl who saves the runt of a pig litter, who she names Wilbur, to raise as her own. She is …

I had high hopes for this film. Watching the trailers for months, I was excited by what I saw. The video for Kabul Faizal excited me even more. Then, the latest trailer for Kabul Express, a discussion with the actors about the film, excited me even more.

It is a shame that that excitement didn�t stay with me through the intermission.

It is not a bad movie, in fact it is good. Just not great. And, it should have been great. The elements for greatness are in place. Many great actors. An amazing landscape in a beautiful country. A story that has not yet been told. It is a shame that this movie didn�t live up to its potential.

The story is great, two young journalists wanting to establish themselves travel to post-Taliban Afghanistan to find a story, hopefully by meeting a Taliban warrior for an interview. Along the way they …

Hey guys!!! My schedule has prevented me from posting any one of the number of drafts I would like to post, or from watching any movies on the ever-growing stack, but that doesn’t mean that I am not having fun with movies!

Here is my shameless plug for the 3rd Annual SoCal Independent Film Festival. Due to feedback from interested filmmakers, and because filmmakers have already begun submitting films for the 2007 event, it was decided to open the call for entries early (it was originally scheduled for February 1, 2007).

I have written about the event here on PFC, and this year is already looking to be a more exciting event than last year! Much of the reason is due to the participation and interest of the independent filmmakers who are excited about an event that focuses on independent film, especially in a market like Southern California where there …

There are few things I hate worse than being patronized. I am smart. I am educated. I can understand nuance and gray areas. And, there are few things that bother me more than wasting 90+ minutes of my life watching a movie that patronizes me, that doesn�t think I am intelligent enough or knowledgeable enough to understand basic human emotion or not-so basic human motivations, that I don�t know about history or about the workings of society. I don�t like being preached to, I don’t like when plots are dumbed down at the expense of story in order to drive home a message, and I don�t like when characters are moralistic � working in black and white � when their motivations should be as complex as our daily lives.

Akira Kurosawa was a fan of American film noir movies, and adapted High and Low from an American pulp fiction novel, …

I have been waiting for this release for months. I know the actors. I know the plot. I know the decisions that Almod�var made about the music. I have read everything I can about this film. It is a movie about three generations of women from a small Spanish village in La Mancha and the relationships between these women � relationships shaped by murder, superstition, incest, and La Mancha itself. Most of the time when you are this familiar with a film before entering the theater, you know what to expect � what the relationships between the characters are, what the plot is, what is going to happen. But, what separates Almod�var from other filmmakers is that every scene in this film brings the unexpected, nothing happens as I might have expected, and even though I knew about the murders and that one of the main character is a ghost, …

He has trivialized rape. Made insane people and the abhorrent things that they do appear normal. Turned violence into farce. Exorcised the demons of his Catholic school days. Glorified sadomasochism and sexual perversion. Blurred the lines of sexuality. Made drug usage comedic. Celebrated the strong women who raised him by creating strong female characters in his films. Explored the themes of family and the lengths that mothers and children will go in order to protect each other, and the different types of love and hate that are the foundation of family units. Treated homosexuality and his homosexual characters as characters, neither exploiting nor celebrating them. Made feminist movies. Made international film stars out of his muses and lovers, both male and female. And, made extremely beautiful, watchable films based on some of the most disturbing premises imaginable. And, to celebrate the US release of his new movie “Volver” (Spain’s …

It seems that there is a film festival of some sort happening every week in Miami, this is a city that loves film! Last week was the Italian Film Festival, and as it turns out my hostess in Miami last week is friends with one of the volunteers, who had passes to see Mater Natura and the Mater Natura after party. I was excited to see this movie after reading the blurb on the Web page, especially because since there was a comparison to the movies of Pedro Almodovar. But the biggest social event of the year was held Saturday night in Miami, and by Sunday no one was feeling well enough to see a 9:00 movie, and we decided to see the 7:00 film so it would be an early night.

I didn�t care to see this particular film, but I did want to see a film at the festival …

Unlike Oz, I didn�t come prepared for an interview, so my notes and thoughts are all based on what I typed when I returned home later that night and transcribed in what is turning into a short lunch break, so please forgive the long sentences and repetitions. I also hope that I haven’t completely misrepresented anything Shibani said as everything is coming from memory….

First, a word about Shibani herself. I adore her. She is intelligent, well spoken, well aware of the luck that she has had in her career path, and not at all jaded by her successes. Most of all, her passion for movies is evident when she begins to talk about them. Before anything else, she is a fan, not someone who entered the industry to satisfy her own ego or for the cache that working in the industry carries. She has worked hard and had her first …