Thomas B.
My winner of this year’s NIFFF: God bless America. A man and a girl set out to kill people that embody everything that -according to them- is wrong with the USA. Yes, this movie is no directing masterpiece. Yes, the writing is a tad self-indulgent. Yes, some of the colors will hurt your eyes. But boy is the acting good and the movie fun to watch. This combination of politics, laughs and shock value will trigger some debate. I think this should be mandatory viewing in the USA, just so that people can discuss. Unfortunately it seems it showed up in very few theaters.
Runner-ups
Resolution. A clean-cut, respectable guy decides to make his loser junkie childhood friend kick his drugs habit by handcuffing him to a pipe in a cabin in the woods. Witty dialogue, much laughs and David Lynch-style weirdness ensues. Like God bless America, some self-indulgence, especially from the actors (who are great). But very, very fun, and great management of the switches between funny and scary. Also a must-watch for writers, larpwrights and tabletop game masters who care about what «story» means.
Eddie the sleepwalking cannibal. Apart from the eponymous character, a surprisingly interesting reflection on inspiration and art. Again, nice switches between seriously moving, shockingly violent, and just plain goofy. Plus a great cop character. And there’s not that many Danish leads in North American cinema. Van Gogh meets Fargo = good stuff!
Caveat spectator
Vanishing waves. Scientists try to send brainwaves of a comatose patient into the brain of one of their colleagues. The neuroscience was actually pretty good, especially compared to recent crap treatment like in Prometheus. But why does European scifi have to be slow and contemplative in that long, boring kind of way? To justify it’s really art so it’s OK to watch? And why does it stop at the «nice concept» and not go all the way? Esthetic images and naked people will not cover a paper-thin scenario. Sure, the fight scenes in Inception were annoyingly long and frequent, but at least the stuff in between was deep and interesting. Here it only makes you think they should have done a short instead.
4:44 Last day on Earth. Willem Dafoe + Abel Ferrara + the Apocalypse = win, right? Wrong. From the two main characters who are so bobos to the pedestrian stock footage, this thing is so full of clichés you wonder at what degree it should be understood. Apart from a couple humane and realistic scenes, the story is so bland you start focusing on the Skype and Apple product placement and the looks. A lot of female nakedness, but all you’ll see of Willem Dafoe’s ass will be an unwanted plumber’s (or rather hipster’s) crack during a pretty artificial monologue. Both characters would have been on the GbA heroes’ hit list, especially the so-called progressive who just wants a young hairless body like the average perv. Next time time a film features a couple with an old male artist and a young female artist, I want to see as much wrinkled, sagging male flesh as perky nipples, and then I’ll buy that age doesn’t matter.
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