Blast Beat (2018)
“Blast Beat” doesn’t have much of a premise; it’s merely a slice of life for a black metal band. When a guitarist (Alexandre Dostie) auditions for a black metal band, he has a hard time convincing the lead singer that he can play with and for the band. When she (Corinne Cardinal) decides to try out his vocal abilities, he doesn’t quite seem to be up for the task. “Blast Beat” does have a few funny beats in its four minute run time, including the unusual ability of singers to be able to switch from beautiful opera to loud booming howls for their audience. Pascal Plante’s short is a fascinating and comical look at a skill many underestimate.
Tag Archives: Drama
America the Beautiful (2019) [Slamdance Film Festival 2019]
I expect that James Kaelan and Blessing Yen’s “America the Beautiful” might end up being one of the most polarizing and controversial films of Slamdance 2019. I can also imagine it might draw some jeers from the audience that might draw some preconceived notions from the outset. Even as someone who has been on the opposite side of the whole MAGA wave, I liked the idea of a found footage thriller based around Trump fanaticism. The idea is very good it’s just that the movie itself leaves so much to be desired, mainly because of its habit of being very abrupt and badly paced.
Slamdance Narrative Shorts Block 2 [Slamdance Film Festival 2019]
Akeda (The Binding) (2018)
Dan Bronfeld’s drama is a disturbing but fascinating bit of meta-fiction that examines the real life brutality of war and loss of innocence. Bronfeld stages the film initially like an actual confrontation between American soldiers and an Israeli family. When the surviving son of the family emerges from his spot we learn he’s actually making a film. But is he? As we learn more and more about the filmmakers and their inherent tribalism, what we think we’re seeing doesn’t quite seem as absolute anymore. We’re left to wonder if he’s making a movie, or if he’s merely lying to himself to shield from the horrors of the war and violence that’s unfolding all around him. “Akeda” makes a strong statement about the brutality and sensationalism of war, and it’s a gem of a drama.
Lost Holiday (2018) [Slamdance Film Festival 2019]
I wish I liked “Lost Holiday” a lot more. While I think the premise has a ton of potential to be an off kilter drama mystery, it works a little too much in the bizarre comedy spectrum to really involve the audience. Michael and Thomas Matthews mix a coming of age comedy with a crime mystery, focusing on a gum shoe of a woman who has no idea how to keep herself from falling over, but decides to solve an unusual kidnapping that only sees her descend deeper in to catastrophe.
The Vast of Night (2019) [Slamdance Film Festival 2019]
It’s not often these days I can sit down to watch a film that just transports me in to another place or time. Sometimes the artifice is too apparent, but I tell you “The Vast of Night” transported in me in to another place and time from the moment the movie opened. Andrew Patterson has on his hands a movie that promises to become a genre classic, and I’m glad I was able to watch it during its time at Slamdance. It’s a masterpiece of genre film making and one I was bowled over with until the very end. I am not at all kidding when I say once the film closed, I sat in my seat still and stunned.
Slamdance Narrative Shorts Block 1 [Slamdance Film Festival 2019]
Autumn Waltz (2018)
Ognjen Petkovic’s short thriller is a tense look at a couple trying to escape a war zone and make it out of enemy lines without becoming one of the many victims of the ensuing battles. Set in the 1990’s amidst a landscape of rubble, and torn down deluxe flats, a man and woman attempt to make it outside of Yugoslavia. When they’re faced with a barricade of ruthless armed soldiers, they make up a story that allows them free passage. But as the soldiers interrogate them their reasons for leaving their home land begin to fall apart. At the last minute they’re saved by the most unlikely source and it’s a testament to how the past can affect the present, and vice versa. It’s a well shot and tense short with some fine photography and I quite liked it.
In the Heat of the Night (1967): Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]
Norman Jewison’s “In the Heat of the Night” remains one of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger’s banner dramas, it’s a tense, taut, and engrossing crime thriller that brings to life one of the most compelling on screen heroes I’ve ever seen. Based on John Ball’s series of books about African American gumshoe named Virgil Tibbs, Jewison brings to the screen the first of the books. “Heat,” as written by Stirling Silliphant for the big screen is an imperfect drama with a little bit too much fat to the narrative, but in the end it comes out as a pretty as remarkable drama about the racially turbulent South and a man trying to uncover a crime that reaches far deeper than anyone, even the police chief, realizes.