The Serendipity of Maps

A while back, the in-house group wrapped the first season of Greasepaint, the DramaSystem series set around a traveling carnival in the dustbowl era, with supernatural doings going on at the margins. When deciding where to set the first episode, I typed “West Texas” into Google Maps and discovered that there is a town called West, Texas. This seemed like a sign and so I went with it.

When Jo-Jo the Cat Boy got arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, the group wound up stuck in West. After several episodes and a deal with the devil later, they decided to go south to the next town, which turned out to be Waco. They left that in haste, pursued by the Klan because they’d taken in a teenage girl who can move things with her mind.

This took them to Abilene, where again they decided they wanted to make tracks—this time after (falsely, as it turns out) deciding that Dixie, murderous ex-wife of the carnival magician, had set the carnival on fire and would soon be back to finish them off. Deciding to head west, they asked how far it was to the state line, and what the nearest decent-sized town on the other side of it might be.

Google Maps supplied the answer once again: Roswell, New Mexico.

The final scene of the season concluded with the carnival rushing out of town, hot on Dixie’s trail, as strange lights flashed in the sky overhead.

With New Opportunities Comes New Etiquette

A powerful quality of social media is its ability to break down barriers between creators and audience, and indeed between colleagues working in the same field. With that, however, come new interactional pitfalls. Here are some tips to keep in mind if you’re contacting a creator you admire—for the sake of example, let’s call him Robin Laws—to ask for help on your cool new project.

The creator you admire gets lots of requests for help. With the sudden uptake of Kickstarter, they’ve multiplied by what feels like tenfold.

When you ask creators for input on your project, and you’re not clearly offering to pay their consulting rates to do so, you’re asking them to work for free. Chances are that they will be unable to do so, even if they want to. Which they don’t, because you’re popping up out of the blue to ask them to do something for free. Any freelancer has to maximize the creative time spend doing work that will help pay that pesky rent. This is as true for fiction projects as game designs. Looking at both of these things is, to be blunt, a task I perform in exchange for money.

When you ask creators to look at your project and promote it, you are asking them to expend a limited resource, the attention of their social media audiences. Is your thing so awesome and different that the creator is doing himself a favor by pointing to it, enhancing his stature as a linker to awesomeness? Unless what you’re doing is genuinely category-busting, well, probably not. If what you’re doing is just the regular cool labor of love, you’re simply asking a favor. And in a favor economy, you’ve got to give in order to receive.

I have so many great folks in my immediate circle of collaborators that pointing to their work, which I’m already to some degree aware of and can confidently tout, already uses up my finite pool of promotional mojo. If we have no prior relationship and I don’t feel that tug of mutual loyalty, I’m going to beg off.

To that end, you will likely get my new boilerplate reply, which goes like this:

Thanks for letting me know about your Kickstarter project. As crowdfunding has taken off, I’ve been getting an increasing number of requests for help in promoting various projects and have been struggling with the best way to handle this.

If I choose to promote a large number of projects, the value of that promotion dilutes. Also, I’m crazy-busy these days and can’t always spare the time to check out every project I’m asked to post about. For these reasons, the approach that feels right to me is to confine my plugs to projects within my immediate circle of colleagues and collaborators. With the ubiquity of crowdfunding at the moment, and the size of that circle, that’s already a lot of plugging.

This is in no way a judgment on the promise of your project, and I wish you every success with it.

Just another nugget of new etiquette for the disintermediation age.

Gaps

New Tales of the Yellow Sign, my anthology of weird tales conjuring Robert W. Chambers’ classic King in Yellow mythos, is in print as of September from Atomic Overmind Press, and in ebook form from vendors including Amazon/Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, Apple iTunes, and Paizo.

This post is second in a series looking at the individual stories.

When trauma compromises your memory, spaces in time become abysses of horror. Experience this through the second-person point of view of “Gaps”’ unnamed narrator, for whom a kidnapping scheme leads to strange vengeance and an even stranger affection. What complicity do you bear if you jump into an awful crime in mid-act, with no memory of the decision that led to it?

Kenneth Hite, in his introduction finds parallels to multiple Chambers tales:

...a long-form, secular variation on the theme Chambers sets down in “In the Court of the Dragon,” invoking in negative space the games of memory in “Repairer of Reputations,” the loss and wonder of “The Demoiselle D’Ys,” and in muted tones the shifts in “The Prophets’ Paradise.”

2012 Toronto International Film Festival Capsule Review Round-Up

Brain activity is slowly returning to normal after the eleven days of relentless movie-absorption that was the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. Judging both by my own picks and the critical responses to the higher-profile flicks that will be rolling out across awards season and the year to come, it was a banner year. Titles generating big buzz included The Master, Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Thank You For Sharing, Looper, and The Place Behind the Pines. Cloud Atlas divided opinion in a way that stokes me to see it.

Here then, for your clipping and saving convenience, is my capsule review round-up of the 45 films I caught at this year’s fest. They’re ranked in rough order of preference—but bear in mind that the rankings within headers are a matter of fine differences, and will likely move about further as these pieces settle in memory. Some have already been revised upwards since my tentative number ratings in the heat of the moment.

Some of these films are shortly headed to a theater near you; most will continue through the festival circuit before going to theatrical, VOD and disc.

 

The Best

The Act of Killing [Denmark, Joshua Oppenheimer & Christine Cynn & Anonymous] Gangsters who acted as death squad leaders during the 1965-66 Indonesian military coup comply enthusiastically with a project to self-document their war crimes on film--complete with drag roles and a musical number. Documentary exploration of an evil that is everything but banal, and still very much in power, drops one's jaw from start to finish.

The Land of Hope [Japan, Sion Sono] After Fukushima repeats itself at another nuke plant, a farm family on the literal edge of the evacuation zone struggles with the aftermath. Sweetly drawn--and therefore, all the more harrowing.

The End of Time [Canada, Peter Mettler] Disorientingly beautiful images of the natural and man made worlds comprise a meditation on accelerated particles, island volcanism and urban decay. Unlike many documentaries, this consciousness-altering essay piece demands to be seen on the big screen.

 

Recommended

Penance [Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa] A cruel promise, extracted by the mother of a murdered child from her four playmates, reverberates in all of their lives fifteen years later. Interlinked tales of fate, betrayal and murder unfold with cryptic power.

The Thieves [South Korea, Choi Dong-hoon] Heisters from Korea and Hong Kong uneasily ally to steal a diamond from a Macao casino. Cracking entertainment presents a fresh take on the genre by focusing on plots and betrayals among the gang--then throws in killer action sequences and Simon Yam, to boot!

Key of Life [Japan, Kenji Uchida] Unemployed actor steals the identity of an amnesiac hitman. Clever, charming comedy of selfhood, isolation and belonging.

Room 237 [US, Rodney Ascher] Five amateur theorists share their varying, obsessive interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Hypnotic exploration of the dissolve point where critique enters the frozen hedge maze of overthinking.

Painless [Spain, Juan Carlos Medina] Surgeon's quest for a bone marrow donor leads him to a strange case from the 30s, when a group of children were institutionalized due to a disorder rendering them immune to pain. Horror-tinged mystery takes the political themes of Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth a step further.

The Deep [Iceland, Baltasar Kormakur] Fisherman defies the odds when his ship goes down in the frigid North Atlantic. Dramatization of unbelievable real incident breaks the structural rules with surprising authority.

Something in the Air [France, Olivier Assayas] High school student navigates the contradictions of art, politics, and love in early the early 70s. Evocative autobiographical drama sticks to matter-of-fact approach, resisting the usual urges to either romanticize the era, or send it up.

Everyday [UK, Michael Winterbottom] A five-year sentence turns a man's (John Simm) relationship with his wife (Shirley Henderson) and four kids into a series of prison visits. The strength of this generous slice-of-life piece lies in the honesty of the script and performances.

Sightseers [UK, Ben Wheatley] Put-upon new couple turn their caravan holiday into a killing spree. Character-driven black comedy plays like early Mike Leigh with grisly murders.

Byzantium [UK, Neil Jordan] Vampires on the run (Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan) take refuge in a seaside resort town. Mood-driven contemporary gothic tips the hat to the Hammer tradition.

Detroit Unleaded [US, Rola Nashef] Young man stuck managing the family gas station/convenience mart falls for gorgeous girl in similar boat at phone store--but they're Arab-American, which is all the complication you need.Vibrant indie comedy buzzes with social observation.

The We and the I [US, Michel Gondry] A crosstown bus ride on the last day of classes takes a group of NYC high schoolers from raucousness to melancholy. Energetic, Altmanesque group portrait with occasional flash-cuts to the director's trademark whimsy.

Dust [Guatemala, Julio Hernandez Cordon] Suicidal busker searches for the remains of his father, disappeared by the death squads, while pursuing a vendetta against the man who denounced him. Strikes an elusive tone mixing quotidian naturalism, incongruous humor, and blunted pathos.

7 Boxes [Paraguay, Juan Carlos Maneglia & Tana Schembori] Delivery kid's assignment to transport the titular containers in his wheelbarrow leads to pursuit, danger and death across a sprawling market. Sharp, fast-paced action thriller from an unexpected quarter.

Mushrooming [Estonia, Toomas Hussar] Resentful parliamentarian's Sunday forage in the woods goes spectacularly awry. Barbed comedy of errors.

Outrage Beyond [Japan, Takeshi Kitano] Oily cop connives to curb a yakuza gang by springing from prison a supposedly dead former nemesis (Beat Takeshi), who is getting too old for this shit. Slow burn, followed by stoic ultraviolence.

Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story [US, Brad Bernstein] Documentary profile of groundbreaking illustrator who was blacklisted as a children's author over his scathing political posters and shocking excursions into erotica. Filmmakers take full advantage of their subject's wit and eloquence as he takes them from a childhood under Nazi occupation to his present state of uncomfortable acclaim.

A Hijacking [Denmark, Tobias Lindholm] When Somali pirates hijack one of his firm's freighters, a CEO disregards his expert's advice to conduct the negotiation himself. Gritty ticktock focuses on authenticity over thrills.

Pieta [South Korea, Kim Ki-duk] Brutal debt collector loses his psychopathic equilibrium when a woman shows up claiming to be the mother who abandoned him at birth. Kim recovers from a dry spell by returning to the ultra-nastiness of the films that first made his name on the festival circuit.

Blondie [Sweden, Jesper Gaslandt] Fraught relations between control freak matriarch and her three daughters come to a head when they return home to help run her 70th birthday bash. Places the expected meltdown at the first act break, then follows the aftermath.

In Another Country [South Korea, Hong Sang-soo] Film student writes three similar-but-different vignettes inspired by a French woman she met in passing at an off-season beach resort. Isabelle Huppert adds left-field star wattage to the auteur's hallmark minimalist comedy of soju-soaked social misadventure.

Fin (The End) [Spain, Jose Torregrossa] A once-tight group of friends reunites at a mountain cottage for the first time in two decades, scarcely suspecting that they're about to number among the last people left on Earth. Although I'm guessing this omits a layer or two from the best-selling novel it adapts, this is still an engaging entry in the quiet apocalypse sub-genre.

Fitzgerald Family Christmas [US, Edward Burns] Large, fractious Irish-American family experiences experiences an uptick in its Yuletide crisis quotient when the father who abandoned them twenty years ago wants to come to the big dinner. Well-written comedy drama delivered by a skilled ensemble.

A Werewolf Boy [South Korea, Jo Sung-hee] Sickly girl and her family take in and tame a feral teen who is more than he seems. Funny, romantic crowdpleaser.

Shanghai [India, Dibakar Banerjee] Official shows more diligence than his bosses expect when they assign him a token enquiry into an assassination attempt on a famous activist. Crackling, vibrant political thriller represents a big step forward for Indian indie cinema.

Motorway [HK, Soi Cheang] Two traffic patrolmen, a young hotshot (Shawn Yue) and a savvy vet counting the days till retirement (Anthony Wong) pursue a cop-killing robber and his ace getaway driver. Leans into its police movie cliches as it reconfigures the car chase set piece for Hong Kong's confined spaces.

The Last Supper [China, Lu Chuan] Shaky memories and revised histories intermingle as the dying first Han emperor recalls the betrayals that allowed his rise from street rat status. Uses the resources of the historical epic to present a fragmented political allegory.

Caught in the Web [China, Chen Kaige] Journalists make a national scandal of a young woman who refuses to give up her bus seat to an elderly man, unaware that she just received a fatal cancer diagnosis. Satirical ensemble drama serves up gloss, social critique and pathos.

Out in the Dark [Israel, Michael Mayer] The security fence between Ramallah and Tel Aviv becomes a barrier in the budding romance between an out Israeli lawyer and a Palestinian student for whom the closet is a matter of life and death. Taut political melodrama.

After the Battle [Egypt, Yousry Nasrallah] Pro-democracy activist involves herself in the family affairs of a disenfranchised tourism worker who disgraced himself by taking part in a horse and camel attack on Tahrir Square protesters. Written and shot concurrently with the events it portrays, this political drama takes the time to round out its characters.

 

Good

Here Comes the Devil [Mexico, Adrian Garcia Bogliano] Strained couple confronts weirdness after their son and daughter disappear overnight on a hill said to be haunted by ancient entities. Replaces the usual religious imagery of the demonic possession flick with domestic and sexual hysteria.

The Color of the Chameleon [Bulgaria, Emil Christov] Oddball loner, fired from job as a student infiltrator, forms his own rogue secret police operation. Absurdist satire of the informant state would be even funnier if it picked up the pace a bit.

 

Okay

Night Across the Street [France/Chile, Raul Ruiz] Aging shipping clerk recalls his childhood and waits to be assassinated. Adaptation of magic realist novel misses the transporting quality of the director's key works.

Tai Chi 0 [China, Stephen Fung] One-horned martial arts prodigy seeks fighting secrets from insular village, placing him in the path of steampunk railway developers. As the numeral in the title implies, this knowing and hyper-stylized fu romp doesn't bother to stand on its own, but instead stops on a series-establishing cliffhanger.

No One Lives [US, Ryuhei Kitamura] Ordinary criminal gang get more than they bargain for when their resident psychokiller waylays a super-psychokiller who has his own kidnap victim stashed in his trunk. Inventive gore thriller features heightened dialogue few of its actors are able to convincingly deliver.

Burn It Up Djassa [Ivory Coast, Lonesome Solo] A young man's plunge into street crime is seen both through the bravado of a neighborhood storyteller and the bitter reality of direct experience. Your basic naturalistic developing world crime drama.

 

Not Quite

Road North [Finland, Mika Kaurismaki] Aging ne'er-do-well imposes a surprise road trip on the tightly-wound concert pianist son he abandoned as an infant. Workmanlike comedy-drama hints only fleetingly at the personal style that first brought the director to prominence.

Thale [Norway, Aleksander Nordaas, 2.5] Guys abating a death scene find a feral woman in a basement lab. Folkloric creature feature invests loads of atmosphere in a rudimentary storyline.

Dreams For Sale [Japan, Miwa Nishikawa, 2.5] Discovering her husband's sad sack appeal to vulnerable women, a wronged wife puts him to work swindling them. Could be quite affecting if trimmed of 30-40 minutes of superfluous sub-plotting.

 

Weak

The Great Kilapy [Angola, Zézé Gamboa] Handsome player's yen for the good life puts him in the crosshairs of the secret police, both as a student in Lisbon and then in his native Angola. Rookie screenwriting mistakes show the failed struggle to fashion a compelling narrative from a colorful true story.

Satellite Boy [Australia, Catriona McKenzie] Young boy and pal go on an unintended walkabout when he tries to retrieve his mom from the city. Tale of truth to aboriginal roots is too sweet-natured to ever let us fear a negative outcome for its kid hero--which is death to compelling narrative.

Dead Europe [Australia, Tony Krawitz] A hallucinatory confrontation with dark family secrets ensues when an Australian photographer ignores his Greek parents' pleas not to visit the old country. Heavy-handed exercise in Polanskian paranoia.

Jennisodes

I do the guest thing (and explain your dreams to you) in this week's exciting episode of Jennisodes.

TIFF Day Eleven (and Out)

Road North [Finland, Mika Kaurismaki, 2.5] Aging ne'er-do-well imposes a surprise road trip on the tightly-wound concert pianist son he abandoned as an infant. Workmanlike comedy-drama hints only fleetingly at the personal style that first brought the director to prominence.

Room 237 [US, Rodney Ascher, 4] Five amateur theorists share their varying, obsessive interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Hypnotic exploration of the dissolve point where critique enters the frozen hedge maze of overthinking.

Dreams For Sale [Japan, Miwa Nishikawa, 2.5] Discovering her husband's sad sack appeal to vulnerable women, a wronged wife puts him to work swindling them. Could be quite affecting if trimmed of 30-40 minutes of superfluous sub-plotting.

In Another Country [South Korea, Hong Sang-soo, 4] Film student writes three similar-but-different vignettes inspired by a French woman she met in passing at an off-season beach resort. Isabelle Huppert adds left-field star wattage to the auteur's hallmark minimalist comedy of soju-soaked social misadventure.

The Deep [Iceland, Baltasar Kormakur, 4] Fisherman defies the odds when his ship goes down in the frigid North Atlantic. Dramatization of unbelievable real incident breaks the structural rules with surprising authority.

TIFF Day Ten

Key of Life [Japan, Kenji Uchida, 4] Unemployed actor steals the identity of an amnesiac hitman. Clever, charming comedy of selfhood, isolation and belonging.

Satellite Boy [Australia, Catriona McKenzie, 2] Young boy and pal go on an unintended walkabout when he tries to retrieve his mom from the city. Tale of truth to aboriginal roots is too sweet-natured to ever let us fear a negative outcome for its kid hero--which is death to compelling narrative.

Painless [Spain, Juan Carlos Medina, 4] Surgeon's quest for a bone marrow donor leads him to a strange case from the 30s, when a group of children were institutionalized due to a disorder rendering them immune to pain. Horror-tinged mystery takes the political themes of Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth a step further.

Shanghai [India, Dibakar Banerjee, 4] Official shows more diligence than his bosses expect when they assign him a token enquiry into an assassination attempt on a famous activist. Crackling, vibrant political thriller represents a big step forward for Indian indie cinema.

Outrage Beyond [Japan, Takeshi Kitano, 4] Oily cop connives to curb a yakuza gang by springing from prison a supposedly dead former nemesis (Beat Takeshi), who is getting too old for this shit. Slow burn, followed by stoic ultraviolence.

TIFF Day Nine

Night Across the Street [France/Chile, Raul Ruiz, 3] Aging shipping clerk recalls his childhood and waits to be assassinated. Adaptation of magic realist novel misses the transporting quality of the director's key works.

Burn It Up Djassa [Ivory Coast, Lonesome Solo, 3] A young man's plunge into street crime is seen both through the bravado of a neighborhood storyteller and the bitter reality of direct experience. Your basic naturalistic developing world crime drama.

It does not need to be said that, among directors with work appearing at this year’s festival, Lonesome Solo hands-down wins the award for best name.

Pieta [South Korea, Kim Ki-duk, 4] Brutal debt collector loses his psychopathic equilibrium when a woman shows up claiming to be the mother who abandoned him at birth. Kim recovers from a dry spell by returning to the ultra-nastiness of the films that first made his name on the festival circuit.

The Thieves [South Korea, Choi Dong-hoon, 4] Heisters from Korea and Hong Kong uneasily ally to steal a diamond from a Macao casino. Cracking entertainment presents a fresh take on the genre by focusing on plots and betrayals among the gang--then throws in killer action sequences and Simon Yam, to boot!

This is now South Korea's top box office grosser.

TIFF Day Eight

I know what you’re thinking. Only three movies today? Is Robin punking out? Know this: the last film of the day is actually a four-and-a-half hour TV miniseries.

Sightseers [UK, Ben Wheatley, 4] Put-upon new couple turn their caravan holiday into a killing spree. Character-driven black comedy plays like early Mike Leigh with grisly murders.

Caught in the Web [China, Chen Kaige, 4] Journalists make a national scandal of a young woman who refuses to give up her bus seat to an elderly man, unaware that she just received a fatal cancer diagnosis. Satirical ensemble drama serves up gloss, social critique and pathos.

Penance [Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 4] A cruel promise, extracted by the mother of a murdered child from her four playmates, reverberates in all of their lives fifteen years later. Interlinked tales of fate, betrayal and murder unfold with cryptic power.

TIFF Day Seven

Day Seven is one-word title day.

Blondie [Sweden, Jesper Gaslandt, 4] Fraught relations between control freak matriarch and her three daughters come to a head when they return home to help run her 70th birthday bash. Places the expected meltdown at the first act break, then follows the aftermath.

Mushrooming [Estonia, Toomas Hussar, 4] Resentful parliamentarian's Sunday forage in the woods goes spectacularly awry. Barbed comedy of errors.

Thale [Norway, Aleksander Nordaas, 3] Guys abating a death scene find a feral woman in a basement lab. Folkloric creature feature invests loads of atmosphere in a rudimentary storyline.

Motorway [HK, Soi Cheang, 4] Two traffic patrolmen, a young hotshot (Shawn Yue) and a savvy vet counting the days till retirement (Anthony Wong) pursue a cop-killing robber and his ace getaway driver. Leans into its police movie cliches as it reconfigures the car chase set piece for Hong Kong's confined spaces.

Sign o' the times: of all the films I've seen so far at this year's festival, this was the first projected on celluloid. They had to stop a couple of times to fix the focus.

TIFF Day Six

So far my schedule has been weighted toward the serious side of world and indie cinema. Today took a swerve into genre territory, with vampires, demons, and a werewolf. Okay, there's a Detroit gas station in here too.

Byzantium [UK, Neil Jordan, 4] Vampires on the run (Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan) take refuge in a seaside resort town. Mood-driven contemporary gothic tips the hat to the Hammer tradition.

Detroit Unleaded [US, Rola Nashef, 4] Young man stuck managing the family gas station/convenience mart falls for gorgeous girl in similar boat at phone store--but they're Arab-American, which is all the complication you need.Vibrant indie comedy buzzes with social observation.

Here Comes the Devil [Mexico, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, 3.5] Strained couple confronts weirdness after their son and daughter disappear overnight on a hill said to be haunted by ancient entities. Replaces the usual religious imagery of the demonic possession flick with domestic and sexual hysteria.

A Werewolf Boy [South Korea, Jo Sung-hee, 4] Sickly girl and her family take in and tame a feral teen who is more than he seems. Funny, romantic crowdpleaser.

TIFF Day Five

Act of Killing [Denmark, Joshua Oppenheimer & Christine Cynn & Anonymous, 5] Gangsters who acted as death squad leaders during the 1965-66 Indonesian military coup comply enthusiastically with a project to self-document their war crimes on film--complete with drag roles and a musical number. Documentary exploration of an evil that is everything but banal, and still very much in power, drops one's jaw from start to finish.

Because the killers are still in command in Indonesia, every local crew member, as a protective measure, is anonymously credited.

Fitzgerald Family Christmas [US, Edward Burns, 4] Large, fractious Irish-American family experiences experiences an uptick in its Yuletide crisis quotient when the father who abandoned them twenty years ago wants to come to the big dinner. Well-written comedy drama delivered by a skilled ensemble.

Fin (The End) [Spain, Jose Torregrossa, 4] A once-tight group of friends reunites at a mountain cottage for the first time in two decades, scarcely suspecting that they're about to number among the last people left on Earth. Although I'm guessing this omits a layer or two from the best-selling novel it adapts, this is still an engaging entry in the quiet apocalypse sub-genre.

A Hijacking [Denmark, Tobias Lindholm, 4] When Somali pirates hijack one of his firm's freighters, a CEO disregards his expert's advice to conduct the negotiation himself. Gritty ticktock focuses on authenticity over thrills.

No One Lives [US, Ryuhei Kitamura, 3.5] Ordinary criminal gang get more than they bargain for when their resident psychokiller waylays a super-psychokiller who has his own kidnap victim stashed in his trunk. Inventive gore thriller features heightened dialogue few of its actors are able to convincingly deliver.

TIFF Day Four

Something in the Air [France, Olivier Assayas, 4] High school student navigates the contradictions of art, politics, and love in the early 70s. Evocative autobiographical drama sticks to matter-of-fact approach, resisting the usual urges to either romanticize the era, or send it up.

The Last Supper [China, Lu Chuan, 4] Shaky memories and revised histories intermingle as the dying first Han emperor recalls the betrayals that allowed his rise from street rat status. Uses the resources of the historical epic to present a fragmented political allegory.

The Land of Hope [Japan, Sion Sono, 5] After Fukushima repeats itself at another nuke plant, a farm family on the literal edge of the evacuation zone struggles with the aftermath. Sweetly drawn--and therefore, all the more harrowing.

7 Boxes [Paraguay, Juan Carlos Maneglia & Tana Schembori, 4] Delivery kid's assignment to transport the titular containers in his wheelbarrow leads to pursuit, danger and death across a sprawling market. Sharp, fast-paced action thriller from an unexpected quarter.

Dust [Guatemala, Julio Hernandez Cordon, 4] Suicidal busker searches for the remains of his father, disappeared by the death squads, while pursuing a vendetta against the man who denounced him. Strikes an elusive tone mixing quotidian naturalism, incongruous humor, and blunted pathos.

Tiff Day Three

Out in the Dark [Israel, Michael Mayer, 4] The security fence between Ramallah and Tel Aviv becomes a barrier in the budding romance between an out Israeli lawyer and a Palestinian student for whom the closet is a matter of life and death. Taut political melodrama.

That Thing I Always Say: in the digital era, out-of-sync subtitles are the new film burning in the gate.

The End of Time [Canada, Peter Mettler, 4] Disorientingly beautiful images of the natural and man made worlds comprise a meditation on accelerated particles, island volcanism
and urban decay. Unlike many documentaries, this consciousness-altering essay piece demands to be seen on the big screen.

The Color of the Chameleon [Bulgaria, Emil Christov, 3.5] Oddball loner, fired from
his job as a student infiltrator, forms his own rogue secret police operation. Absurdist satire of the informant state would be even funnier if it picked up the pace a bit.

Everyday [UK, Michael Winterbottom, 4] A five-year sentence turns a man's (John Simm) relationship with his wife (Shirley Henderson) and four kids into a series of prison visits. The strength of this generous slice-of-life piece lies in the honesty of the script and performances.

The film was shot in segments over the course of five years, so you see the child actors age in the time frame the story covers.

The director, kid actors and Shirley Henderson were present to introduce the screening. She stood on tiptoes to reach the podium mic.

Tai Chi 0 [China, Stephen Fung, 3] One-horned martial arts prodigy seeks fighting secrets from insular village, placing him in the path of steampunk railway developers. As the numeral in the title implies, this knowing and hyper-stylized fu romp doesn't bother to stand on its own, but instead stops on a series-establishing cliffhanger.

With action direction by Sammo Hung, and a healthy dollop of Scott Pilgrim influence.

TIFF Day Two

The Great Kilapy [Angola, Zézé Gamboa, 2] Handsome player's yen for the good life puts him in the crosshairs of the secret police, both as a student in Lisbon and then in his native Angola. Rookie screenwriting mistakes show the failed struggle to fashion a compelling narrative from a colorful true story.

Note to aspiring screenwriters: if your script has more than one instance of friends hugging, cut out all instances of friends hugging.

The We and the I [US, Michel Gondry, 4] A crosstown bus ride on the last day of classes takes a group of NYC high schoolers from raucousness to melancholy. Energetic, Altmanesque group portrait with occasional flash-cuts to the director's trademark whimsy.

Dead Europe [Australia, Tony Krawitz, 2] A hallucinatory confrontation with dark family secrets ensues when an Australian photographer ignores his Greek parents' pleas not to visit the old country. Heavy-handed exercise in Polanskian paranoia.

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Gen Con ‘12

This week’s episode of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff mines topics galore from the wonder that was Gen Con ‘12.

TIFF Day One

That time of year has rolled around again, and it's time for me to attend my 26th go-round of the dazzling, exhausting, overwhelming Toronto International Film Festival. Every year they seem to make it tougher for the diehards: this time they've squished the slots closer together, making it harder than ever to move between venues. And eating between screenings? Forget about it. This will be an experiment in how long one can survive on hardboiled eggs, trail mix, and hoarded Starbucks sandwiches.

Here’s the standard drill, if you’ve forgotten how it works around the Cinema Hut at TIFF time or are joining the festivities for the first time:

I’ll be writing capsule reviews of everything I see, and then gathering them up in order of preference in the festival’s aftermath. Until then, I’ll be giving provisional ratings to the films, which are bound to change as they settle into memory. Ratings range from 0 to 5, with 0 arousing my active ire and 5 ascending to rarefied heights of masterpiece-dom.

Interspersed between the capsules will be expansions on the reviews, stray observations, and whatever logistical complaining I fail to suppress.

If you’ve heard of a release that’s playing TIFF, chances are that it’s because the film will be coming out shortly and is getting a big PR push. I tend to skip films that have distribution in place in favor of those I might never get another shot at. So I’m not the one to ask about the Oscar-bait movies with the big stars in attendance.

Do you want to see these movies right away? Well, these titles are beginning their long journey through the distribution chain. Many will continue to appear on the film festival circuit over the next year or so. The high profile releases I tend not to schedule at the fest may appear in theaters as early as next week. Indies and foreign titles will score theatrical releases over the next year or so, and DVD releases after that. Some may appear only on DVD, or vanish completely.

While a few of last year’s films still await theatrical release, most have made it through the chain. So if you want to enjoy some fine cinema right away, you could do worse than to check out my recommendations from last year.

And now, let's start the capsule reviews rolling, with the two films I caught on opening night:

After the Battle [Egypt, Yousry Nasrallah, 4] Pro-democracy activist involves herself in the family affairs of a disenfranchised tourism worker who disgraced himself by taking part in a horse and camel attack on Tahrir Square protesters. Written and shot concurrently with the events it portrays, this political drama takes the time to round out its characters.

The director was present to introduce the film and movingly call heed to the recent arrest by the Syrian government and documentarian Orwa Nyrabia, who he described as having been accused of crimes against inhumanity.

Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story [US, Brad Bernstein, 4] Documentary profile of groundbreaking illustrator who was blacklisted as a children's author over his scathing political posters and shocking excursions into erotica. Filmmakers take full advantage of their subject's wit and eloquence as he takes them from a childhood under Nazi occupation to his present state of uncomfortable acclaim.

Ungerer was present for the screening and will be signing at the Beguiling on Sat. Attn: local illustrator peeps.

This is the first film I've seen to list Kickstarter in the credits. It sure won't be the last.

Full Bleed

New Tales of the Yellow Sign, my anthology of weird tales conjuring Robert W. Chambers’ classic King in Yellow mythos, is in print as of September from Atomic Overmind Press, and in ebook form from vendors including Amazon/Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, Apple iTunes, and Paizo.

This post is first in a series looking at the individual stories.

In “Repairer of Reputations”, Robert Chambers writes one of the canon’s earliest tales from the point of view of an unreliable narrator. The reading experience trains us to accept the words presented to us by the author—without that trust, we are unmoored, disoriented. What device could be more appropriate to a cycle of stories about a book—a collection of untrustworthy words—that spreads madness and perhaps even reshapes reality itself?

“Full Bleed” plays with both ideas by siting them in the present day, through the action report of an agent determined to stamp out new eruptions of the Yellow Sign in print—in this case, by tracking the activities of an indie comics artist.

In his introduction to New Tales of the Yellow Sign, Kenneth Hite says of “Full Bleed”:

“Full Bleed” riffs off “The Repairer of Reputations,” through a procedural tenor recalling both Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled fictions and the first-person “fantasy of competence” that fearful 21^st-century readers crave from their security romances.

Secret hint: downloading the free sample on the Kindle page and elsewhere gets you all of “Full Bleed,” and Ken’s intro in its entirety.

The Birds: Thread

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