(P)review: The Nature of Existence (Jason Wiener)
Posted by Jason Wiener
Originally posted on Jason Watches Movies:
Cinequest closes on Sunday, March 8 with The Nature of Existence, and so far it’s the movie I’m most looking forward to seeing again. That’s because it’s so far ranging, so ambitious, and so all-encompassing that it’s impossible to digest it all in one screening (for that matter, it contains so many contrary viewpoints it might never be possible to digest). Read more
Tags: closing night, CQ19, DOCUMENTARY, Roger Nygard, THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE.
Review: JOHNNY MAD DOG (Jarrod Whaley)
Posted by Jarrod Whaley
The following review was originally posted at oakstreetfilms.com.
Violent? Yes. Violently beautiful.
Film is an inherently violent medium; it’s a chaotic amalgam of pictures, sounds, and human lives (fictive or no) slapped together in any number of cunning and/or manipulative ways. It slashes the throat of humanity and bleeds its essence upon the carcass of some formerly slain object. Think of its barbaric and/or dehumanizing verbiage: to cut, to shoot, to jump…to expose, to dissolve, to wipe. All of our most hateful and primal urges and compunctions are embedded within our desire to observe the suffering–and even the joys–of others. Our love of film casts the shadows of our darkest natures upon a strip of silver-coated celluloid (or magnetically-charged acetate). America is the historical epicenter of filmmaking as much because of its guns and its genocide as for its more lofty ideals, because those former things are far and away more the impetus for our short-lived cultural primacy than any foolishly impossible political model. Chaos is a mainstream fetish. We’d drink blood if it were inexpensive enough. Yes, even you. And then, tout soudain, Johnny Mad Dog blazes across your cornea like some Olympian iteration of Buñuel’s moonlit razor. You’d be blinded if not for your desperate defiance of your subjugated need to see. Read more
Tags: Cannes, CQ19, DRAMA, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, JOHNNY MAD DOG.
Review: A Heart Too Tender (FilmFan)
Posted by FilmFan
This one cracked me up. I was sorry it was short and not a long. The characters were so juicy. The situation so eerily plausible. Can’t wait to see what this filmmaker does next.
Tags: A HEART TOO TENDER, CQ19, Mark Manos, SHORTS.
Review: Generic Thriller (Cynthia Corral)
Posted by Cynthia Corral
I can’t say that I wasted 90 minutes of my life at the theater this evening, because I did get some good nap time in. But I can’t say that you should go see this film either. At all. Ever. The misleading title probably didn’t help expectations, but not even in the Cinequest film description are you told that the entire film is constantly narrated by strangely boring Steven and takes place solely on the stage of the SJSU theatre. There is no “thriller”, generic or otherwise. There is a strange killer of blondes that runs around pretending to stab and shoot people, but it’s really only funny for a couple minutes – and don’t even let that bit get you excited, it was NOT exciting. This was not even a poorly thought out SNL skit lengthened to a full length feature – it was a long, rambling stream-of-consciousness with no thought provoking ideas or comedic moments, and most especially, it had no Thriller. Read more
Interview: Rhett & Burke Lewis / BILLY WAS A DEAF KID
Posted by Jarrod Whaley
And now (drumroll, please) for the second–and, sadly, final–of my CQ audio interviews; this time you’re in for an easygoing chat with The Brothers Lewis, also on the top floor of the Rep, minus the alarm but plus a noticeably loud “walla walla” track provided by the downstairs-queued attendees of some other film. Listen toward the end for the moment at which Rhett spills water on my shoe. Was he in character? Perhaps. I’m just glad he didn’t spit on me.
The third and final CQ screening of Billy Was a Deaf Kid is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday (i.e. March 5): 2:15 @ the Camera 12.
Listen:
Download:
CQC Interview: Rhett & Burke Lewis (MP3 – 15.4 MB)
(Special thanks are due to Marya Murphy, who digitized and FTP’ed to me my CQ interviews after I left my MD recorder in San Jose by mistake. Thanks [specially], Marya.)
Tags: audio, BILLY WAS A DEAF KID, CQ19, DRAMEDY, Rhett & Burke Lewis.
Interview: Mark Tran / ALL ABOUT DAD
Posted by Jarrod Whaley
Here’s the first of two (the second will be posted in a very short while) audio interviews I managed to squeeze in during my unfortunately limited time at Cinequest; Mark Tran and I discuss his film, All About Dad, on the upper floor of the Rep while some kind of fire alarm or something sounds in the distance. Listen to it right from this page with the handy audio player (batteries included), or download the file and listen at your leisure.
Note that if you prefer reading to listening, this interview will be published textually on my blog sometime very soon.
You can catch All About Dad this Friday night (i.e. March 6): 9:30 @ the Rep.
Listen:
Download:
CQC Interview: Mark Tran (MP3 – 8.54MB)
(Special thanks are due to Marya Murphy, who digitized and FTP’ed to me my CQ interviews after I left my MD recorder in San Jose by mistake. Thanks [specially], Marya.)
Tags: ALL ABOUT DAD, audio, CQ19, DRAMEDY, Mark Tran.
5Q: ROGER NYGARD / THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE
Posted by CQ Central
Roger Nygard
1Q: Tell us a little about the origins of The Nature of Existence, from concept to financing.
The concept for the movie has been gestating since I was seven years old and began to suspect that adults and authority figures were lying to me about some things (e.g., Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, etc.).
Then in college I encountered my first evangelists, called The Destroyers, who came to the University of Minnesota campus each year to get in the students’ faces and yell that they’re going to Hell for listening to rock music and drinking beer. Their approach, that the Truth could be found in a book written in ancient times, was diametrically opposed to the scientific method being taught in school, that the truth has to be approached through verifiable, repeatable experiments. Read more
Tags: closing night, CQ19, DOCUMENTARY, Roger Nygard, THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE.
CQ’s Closing Night: THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE
Posted by CQ Central
From SFGate:
Roger Nygard knows all about belief systems, life philosophies and zealots. After all, he made two documentaries about “Star Trek” fans, “Trekkies” and “Trekkies 2.” Consider him, then, fully prepared to tackle world religion in his globe-trotting documentary, “The Nature of Existence,” which will have its world premiere Sunday on the closing night of the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose.
Tags: closing night, CQ19, DOCUMENTARY, Roger Nygard, THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE.
Review: Lifelines (Cynthia Corral)
Posted by Cynthia Corral
Last night I had the great pleasure of seeing Lifelines, directed by Rob Margolies. I picked this movie because Jane Adams is my Indie Queen and I always love anything she’s in (including 11 episodes of “Frasier”). Lifelines is the story of the Bernstein family, and for the first 6.2 seconds they appear to be the Perfect Family, in the Perfect House, on the Perfect Street. But like the Todd Solondz movies this film is so reminiscent of, things are much different behind closed doors. Daughter Meg sneaks boys into her room to spend the night. Teenage son Michael has a painful stuttering problem. Mother Bernstein, played in the performance of a lifetime by Jane Adams, is a caffeine addict and verbally mistreated by all three of her children. The dysfunction becomes even more apparent when the entire family goes to a family counseling appointment, youngest child arriving in handcuffs after escaping the car and making a run for it.This family meeting has convened so that the parents can announce their impending divorce, which comes as absolutely no surprise to their children. Ah, but the reason for the divorce? Dad has discovered he is gay and is carrying on an affair with mom’s co-worker Mr. Hennessey.
Review: Truffe (Jason Wiener)
Posted by Jason Wiener
Originally posted on Jason Watches Movies:
Truffe is the movie so weird that it knocked The Investigator out of my #1 ranking in Cinequest (so far). A French film from Montreal, shot in black and white (and my only complaint is that many of the subtitles were white on white–very hard to read) it takes place in the near future when global warming has caused a tone of truffles to grow right in the middle of Montreal. This was great for a year, but the glut on the market has caused prices to crash. Charles is by far the best truffle hunter, with a nose of superhuman sensitivity that makes him a local celebrity. It’s so good that he’s attracted the attention of some weird people who run a fur scarf company. Their scarves have a nasty habit of coming to life and biting/choking people, but for some reason they’re also in the truffle business, selling canned Mr Truffle brand truffles in from men with refrigerators strapped to their backs. Yeah…well, they make him an offer and he needs the money, so he goes to work for them. I don’t know if it’s an allegory on selling your individuality to the corporate world, or if it’s just a bunch of weird stuff that happens. A sci-fi horror comedy unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
Truffe has no more showings at Cinequest. Sorry, but it has been released on DVD in Canada (and I already ordered mine from Amazon.ca)
Go here for the CQ page.
Go here to wait for Amazon.ca to have more DVDs in stock (sorry, I think I snagged the last one last night).