Fantastic Fest Nuts Up

Greetings and salutations from Dr. Peter Blood. It's been a while since I've covered anything for AICN, so my quill may be a bit frayed. I'm in Austin currently attending Fantastic Fest and based on the first two days, maybe they should rename it Scrotum Fest. The horror and sci-fi genres aren't exactly known for catering to the feminine side (G4 is one of the sponsors this year,) and you'll certainly never see a gaggle of screaming teenage girls and their also screaming moms like some other lame events attract, but Harry & Tim seem to be upping the testosterone ante this year, with films that pile on the male empowerment. We start with our opening night film; Gentlemen Broncos.

Gentlemen Broncos is the latest from director Jared Hess of Napolean Dynamite fame. Now, while I found Dynamite and his later Nacho Libra entertaining, I never felt very connected to them, and I generally thought they had really interesting characters without enough story around them to keep me engaged. A huge help overcoming that obstacle is Michael Angarano (who impressed last in the Forbidden Kingdom, by refusing to be upstaged by Jackie Chan & Jet Li) as our protagonist Benjamin. Benji is a shy introverted home-schooled aspiring science fiction writer, and he's on his way to a small writer's conference featuring one of his favorite writers, Ronald Chevalier (smartly played by Jermaine Clement of "Flight of the Conchords") who seems to be channeling every ego-maniacal, male chauvinist 70's sci-fi writer who never realized they were mostly catering to 14 yr old boys. Throughout the film we get glimpses into Benjamin's story "Yeast Lords" which sets the tone fairly quickly with a scene of a space hero named Bronco awakening on the "Nad-rack" to discover his testicles have been removed so he can be cloned for world domination. The testicular references are numerous. He enters "Yeast Lords" in a competition that's being judged by the idea-sapped Chevalier, who winds up stealing the story changing some of the names (Bronco becomes Brutus) but otherwise blatantly plagiarizing. Benji also meets pretty fellow home-schooler (Halley Feiffer) Tabatha, who very politely walks all over him and treats him like dirt. She and her friend Lonnie (Héctor Jiménez) are also no-budget filmmakers and get Benji involved, even optioning Yeast Lords for a movie adaptation. In some of the truly inspired moments in the film, we see the juxtaposition of the story in Benji's head, the story as plagiarized by Chevalier, and the "film" version being made by Lonnie & Tabatha. In both the original version, and the Chavalier version, Bronco/Brutus is playing by the always fun to watch Sam Rockwell, who continues in his quest to become the greatest character actor of his generation. So as things continue to escalate around him, the question for Benji becomes, will he "be a man," take control of his life and his story and how? To find out, read someone else review, or go see it. This is worth checking out in theaters, and I think Hess is starting to migrate a little more into Wes Anderson territory. His eccentric characters have more purpose than they did in his previous films, and his fantastic cast really shines through.

Day two brings us Zombieland, which pushes the testosterone bar much higher. I actually walked into this film with fairly high expectations because I loved the look of the trailer and just relish the thought of Woody Harrelson kicking zombie ass, but was slightly worried that a studio zombie film would turn up the action and down the gore. That said, it far exceeded those expectations and any reservations I had because this was a studio film were unfounded. Woody provides us with his mantra, which I cribbed for the title of this article as well, "Nut up, or shut up." That line succinctly sums up the attitude of this film as we follow what may be the last four people on earth. Jesse Eisenberg, Harrelson, Emma Stone (with Abigail Breslin in tow) all play loners in a sense, but must keep together to stay alive. Eisenberg's "Columbus" is our gateway into this world, and he proves an able leader, spelling out his rules for survival, and narrating the unfolding events. Now, just for the record, these are your modern "fast" zombies as opposed to the classic Romero shuffling zombies, but that allows the adrenaline to kick in and the action quotient to be amped up in the action scenes. I don't really want to say too much about this one, other than it's easily the best zombie movie since Shaun of the Dead and while the humor in Shaun was the highlight, the action in this one is king. This films takes the bull by the horns, then reaches around and grabs the nads and squeezes. I was Zombieland 2 & 3 to be green-lit immediately because this is a world I want to see more of. I'm also curious to see what 1st time director Ruben Fleischer can bring next time around. Definitely the best of the fest for me so far.

One of the treats of Fantastic Fest has always been the "secret screenings"; films that only the programmers know what they are, so festival goers often have no earthly idea what their in for. The results can be hit or miss, and admittedly one of the secret screenings from 2007 is one of only two FF screenings I've ever had to walk out of. Friday night brought us The Men Who Stare At Goats, which had been off my radar completely until about a month ago when I stumbled across the trailer on-line. The cast immediately caught my eye, starring Ewan McGregor as a reporter in Iraq following Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) who may be a retired psychic soldier coming out of retirement for one more job, or crazy, or both. With Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Robert Patrick and Steven Root along for the ride, I expected something highly entertaining. Somewhat odd was the complete lack of a female lead, which was actually refreshing, as it would be more of a distraction here than anything else. For the first two thirds of the film, I was far from disappointed, loving the switching between Iraq and a history of the "american jedis" told by Clooney and spelled out in a "training manual" created by Bridges. Everything explaining the backstory works flawlessly, but once we've caught up, things slow down a bit. Unfortunately, it's also at this stage that the film switches in overall tone, becoming much more serious. This kills all the momentum built up to that point. Then, the film doesn't really end; the characters just leave, so we're supposed to assume the story is over. It's incredibly frustrating to have no real resolution after such a great build up. Now, there's still time to salvage this, as the release date isn't until earl November, and the film obviously isn't locked, since the print we saw had no credits and lacked color correction in places. The work by Clooney here is outstanding, harkening to his best Coen Brothers and Soderbergh collaborations, so I really hope the editing can pull the third act together.

Finally, completing our testosterone mini-fest, we have Doghouse, another British take on the zombie genre with the twist being that the only women are affected by the virus causing a localized outbreak of zombieism in a rural village. We follow a group of relationship challenged guys out to make their buddy forget his impending divorce. Misogynist violent hilarity ensues. This worked well as a midnight movie after a good day, but don't go in expecting too much. It does, however crank the ballzometer even higher by objectifying and vilifying women completely, making them into aggressive mindless killers, usually dressed in a something highly cleavage enhancing. It's juvenile, but somewhat entertaining watching the man-boys attempts at surviving in this situation, but there's not much new to be seen. You have likely seen some of the actors previously if you watch BBC shows, especially Noel Clarke (Mickey from Doctor Who) playing a character named "Mikey" here obviously wanting to make sure no one misses the point. A bit of a treat for zombie-lovers & gore hounds, but probably worth avoiding for everyone else, it would make a great rental.

That's all for now AICNers, but I'll be back with continuing coverage of the rest of the festival soon. This is Dr Peter Blood signing out and sailing off.