Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex (2016) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2016]

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Film buffs will be elated to see “Creature Designers,” a very technical cogs and gears documentary that spotlights the grueling process of creating creatures for movies. Directors Gilles Penso, and Alexandre Poncet mold a love letter to the classic master creature creators, as well as a very down to business film that shows the technology behind some of the most iconic creatures and monsters of all time. It’s a thrill to see how the directors have such a reverence for these artists, as we get to visit with a ton of unique artists and concept designers that are enthusiastic about their work. Since the beginning of film, special effects and creature have found a wonderful marriage with filmmaking.

That’s thanks in part to Lon Chaney who was able to use his make up kit to build some amazing monsters out of his face and own features. From there it’s been a rising tide of artists and creators that have added to the cinematic experienced and helped advance storytelling as a whole. Both filmmakers visit with iconic masterminds like Rick Baker, Joe Dante, and Guillermo Del Toro, all of whom explore their love for special effects, and convey the process of building creatures for some of their films. What becomes apparent within “Creature Designers” is that the advancement of special effects would lead in to less and less necessity for suits and machines, and more need for computer technology.

This darker period is chronicled in “Creature Designers” where we’re able to view a more vulnerable side of these individuals, all of whom had to adapt to the shift in technology or risk losing their livelihoods. Thankfully, the documentary doesn’t depict the introduction of CGI and motion capture as the bane of the special effects industry. Directors Gilles Penso, and Alexandre Poncet explore some of the amazing advancements made in computer technology, from motion capture, facial recognition, and how they’ve used this kind of programming to bring to life amazing characters like Golum from “Lord of the Rings” and the T-1000 from “Terminator 2.” No stone is left unturned, as every interview is informative, exciting, and filled with amazing anecdotes.

For folks that are seeking a career in the special effects industry, or for films buffs very invested in the special effects element of filmmaking, “Creature Designers” is a wonderful documentary that brings us up close and personal from the fan viewpoint and a technical viewpoint.

Yoani’s Trip (2016)

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Phil Hall

In 2013, a change to Cuban passport laws enabled the controversial blogger Yoani Sánchez to leave her country for a trip abroad – she had previously been rejected 20 times for an exit permit. This documentary by Peppe Siffredi and Raphael Bottino follows Sánchez on a February 2013 trip to Brazil, where she is greeted with a mix of praise and hostility.

While Sánchez’s schedule is packed with media interviews and guest appearances at special events, she is constantly shadowed by angry protestors that call her a traitor to her country and the spirit of the Castro revolution. Sánchez appears to be mostly amused by her detractors – it is never entirely clear who is organizing their efforts – and her presence in Brazil is overwhelmingly greeted with positive feedback from the reporters, government officials and students she encounters.

While the film offers disturbing insight on the extreme measures used the Cuban government to censor and limit Internet access among its people, Sánchez’s power as a writer is presented mostly by reputation than substance. Relatively little of the writing from her famous Generation Y blog is offered to the viewer. And what is presented – a relatively mild and vaguely academic criticism of the Castro regime and an inventory of the problems facing Cubans – seems rather tame by the roughhouse standards of American blogging.

Oddly, at 70 minutes the film feels a bit flabby – some tighter editing would have made it more effective. But as a consideration on the continued lack of free expression in Cuba, this production is a welcome arrival.

Fanarchy (2015)

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Fans get a really bad rap these days and for good reason. The fan community was once derided and ostracized and is now doing the deriding and ostracizing toward anyone that tries to integrate themselves in to a fandom. That said, being a fan or a part of a fan community isn’t always bad, and “Fanarchy” is merely an ode to the fans. Most of all it’s a tribute to how much influence the fan community has had on pop culture at large and how they can use their love for characters and properties to help fuel their lives and inspire hope and strength. No one has been harder on fans than I have this year, but Donna Davies offers up a look at how fans can also do great things and inspire one another to reach for creativity and aspirations.

Davies spans the globe looking at various fans and fan communities that have achieved some remarkable feats. Some of them have become massive pop culture phenomenon, while Davies also sets the light on more personal and touching stories. Some of the more interesting stories involve the career of beloved geek goddess Brea Grant, who is most recognized for her work in shows like “Heroes” and has spent a lot of her acting career producing the kind of work she wants to. There’s also the inspiring story of one of the first fan films ever made for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” which drew the attention of Steven Spielberg. It also became such a fan favorite at festivals that it garnered its own book and is currently being developed in to a movie.

The most inspiring story though is the tale of Maya Glick whose rabid fandom for X-Men character Storm helped her push through some really tough times in her life and helped her grow as a person and find a form of personal victory. It’s also interesting to see how Ms. Glick has absolutely no love for Storm’s depiction in the “X-Men” movies which prompted her to make her own fan film, with a strong and fierce version of her favorite character. In the end “Fanarchy,” is a very breezy and entertaining ode to being fan boy or fan girl. Sure, the fan community has been very dark and volatile over the last few years, Donna Davies does a bang up job of showing how fandom can entertain, benefit pop culture, and benefit the fans personally.

The Babushkas of Chernobyl (2016)

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Phil Hall

In the 30 years since the Chernobyl catastrophe, a 1,000-square-mile Dead Zone surrounding the wrecked nuclear power plant is still one of the most highly radioactive places in the world. And while this section of Ukraine is guarded by the military and off-limits to most civilians, it is still home to roughly 100 elderly women that refused to leave their homes and successfully fought against evacuation from the area.

Filmmakers Holly Morris and Ann Bogart capture an extraordinary portrait of the resilience in the face of calamity. The eponymous babushkas happily go about their lives in their small homes in the woods around Chernobyl: they fish in a stream, collect rain water, grow fruits and vegetables in their gardens and make their own wine. Military scientists bring them bread while recording radioactivity levels as government welfare workers deliver pension payments—four months late, due to Ukraine’s political instability—as well as bags of food. Most of the women appear to be in vibrant physical and emotional health, despite the contamination to the water and soil, although one woman is evacuated after a painful fall left her incapacitated. (She later died in a nursing home.)

The film also presents insights on Chernobyl’s environmental legacy from Mary Mycio, author of Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl, as well as insight into the creation of a grand sarcophagus that will entomb the disabled reactor and prevent further radiation releases. The most unusual part of this film follows the clandestine antics of young rogues that call themselves “Stalkers” and slip into the Dead Zone to visit its abandoned structures and proclaim inanities such as “This is a post-apocalyptic romance” while viewing the ruined landscape.

This astonishing portrait of the three-decade-old residue of Chernobyl is utterly compelling. Even more amazing is the perseverance of the babushkas amid extraordinary circumstances—they are the funniest, brightest and most inspiring women ever captured on film. This production is one of the most fascinating and invigorating non-fiction films of the year.

Tickled (2016)

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

It’s almost like something out of a Creepypasta, a documentary filmmaker who comes across a fetish video of men tickling one an other for sport, learns there is a deeper and more sinister tale behind it. He then risks all to throw down the veil behind a seemingly large web of scandal and dark shadowy figures. Rest assured the unusual and eerie events that occur in Dave Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s “Tickled” are very real and unfold in a bizarre and eerie experience. Much like “Catfish,” this documentary feature explores one facet of a story and completely transforms in to something so much more enigmatic and mysterious.

And even potentially life threatening, once our filmmakers find themselves incapable of turning back from the hole they’ve begun digging in to a darker side of humanity and the internet. “Tickled” follows Dave Farrier as he stumbles upon a seemingly odd fetish video involving young men tickling one another strapped down on to tables. What Dave learns is that there is an actual sport called endurance tickling. Confused and slightly fascinated, Dave makes it a point of contacting the founders of the sport, only to learn that they greet him quite aggressively with homophobic slander and slurs.

Despite the initial correspondence confrontation, Dave continues digging in to the topic of Endurance tickling and falls out of favor with two conductors of the sport. After inviting them to New Zealand for interviews, they greet him with immense anger and aggression prompting a storm of legal threats, potential lawsuits and the promise of his career ending should he pursue the topic further. Shocked at how dark the initial search for a film subject has taken, Dave and Dylan challenge any threats at their professional career and begins to dig ever deeper and more thoroughly.

What’s so compelling about “Tickled” is not the world Dave Farrier uncovers, but the legal threats lobbied against him that most certainly can destroy his career and livelihood if he doesn’t walk on egg shells. The sad fact behind the documentary is the very absolute idea that the law is on the side of the folks that Farrier investigates, no matter how much deception and scandal he unearths. “Tickled” is a fascinating and entertaining documentary that spirals in to a rabbit hole of a shady subculture, online harassment, and the destruction of many lives all of which are met with the clicking of a mouse. There certainly won’t be another documentary like “Tickled” released in 2016.

Now in Theaters in Limited Release.

First Degree (2016)

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Phil Hall

Two-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Roger Weisberg (“Sound and Fury,” “Why Can’t We Be a Family Again?”) helmed this intriguing documentary short on efforts by New York’s notorious Sing Sing Prison to reduce recidivism through higher education.

A primary force in this endeavor is Sean Pica, who first came to Sing Sing as a 16-year-old convict—he earned his Bachelor’s Degree while incarcerated and later returned to run the prison’s program in conjunction with Mercy College. Also interviewed is Jermaine Archer, a former drug dealer and convicted murderer who is banking on his degree to help facilitate a successful reintegration with the outside world. Also included here is graduation ceremony within the prison—and no less a figure than legendary singer/actor Harry Belafonte is the commencement speaker, offering an upbeat pep talk for the unlikely student body.

The film details how the program also provides job-hunting consultation involving work-appropriate clothing, resume writing and interview training. One graduate, Clarence Maclin, benefits from this last boost and is able to gain work as a social worker counseling juvenile offenders. There is also a financial consideration of how the investment in education proves to be more cost-effective: recidivism among graduates of the Sing Sing program is miniscule.

Sadly, “First Degree” has a troubling post-script: funding for this type of program has been shrinking over the years while the U.S. prison population is ballooning. Hopefully, this well-made and moving tribute to the power of education can help change minds and bring more money back to this worthy cause.

Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides (2015)

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Phil Hall

The directors of this documentary short—Lucy Craft, Karen Kasmauski and Kathryn Tolbert—are journalists whose fathers were U.S. service members stationed in post-World War II Japan and whose mothers were among the tens of thousands of so-called “Japanese war brides.”

The three Japanese women profiled here—Hiroko Furukawa, Emiko Fukumoto and Atsuko Onda—frankly acknowledge to their daughters that they did not marry strictly for romantic reasons, but because they were eager to leave the economic chaos of Japan in favor of the chance of a better life across the Pacific. However, their only knowledge of the American way of life came from movies and the mostly positive impressions of the Americans involved in the occupation period.

Although the U.S. military was initially opposed to these marriages—in many states, interracial marriage was illegal—it quickly realized that it was unable to prevent fraternizing between U.S. military men and Japanese women. The military switched gears and worked to educate the Japanese women on what they should expect in their American lives—albeit with lessons on baking cakes and wearing make-up.

But once they arrived in the U.S., the challenges faced by the women in their new country were significant. Their spouses’ families were not entirely pleased with their presence, while the wider society was not eager to embrace the mixed raced marriages. The women also faced numerous problems in assimilating into the behavioral patterns of their adopted homes, especially when it came to raising children—strict Japanese parental expectations were dramatically out of step with the more leisurely American approach to raising children, which created additional stress in their households.

At 26 minutes, the film barely scratches the surface on the lives of the directors’ mothers or the wider social upheaval created by the war brides. (The thoughts of the men that married them are not recorded in this film.) But, nonetheless, it offers an intriguing glimpse into a long-forgotten chapter of post-World War II history.