Fantastic Fest: Day 1 Recap

Fantastic Fest has descended on Austin once more and it’s bigger and badder than ever. The quality of films this year is noticeably improved from the last and the festival has expanded, adding an indie video game showcase called Fantastic Arcade. We’ve been completely entrenched in the festivities but after the madness of last night’s party (video evidence below) we’re taking a breather and letting you in on what we’ve seen and done over the last several days. Stay tuned here for the remainder of the week for reviews and interviews from the fest.

So without further ado, here’s a quick rundown of the films we saw at Fantastic Fest Day One:

Never Let Me Go – This is actually not an official Fantastic Fest selection but they are screening it and doing press  so I’m including it here. Never Let Me Go is the Mark Romanek directed adaptation of the supposedly “unfilmable” novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The plot revolves around a group of children (played as adults by Carey Mulligan, Kiera Knightley, and future spiderman Andrew Garfield) at a special school that harbors a disturbing secret. I won’t go into further detail here but expect a full, slightly more spoilerish review in the coming days. I will, however, say that Romanek has crafted something very special here. Never Let Me Go is the most beautiful and moving film I’ve seen this year and it is something you should seek out if it opens near you. We will have an interview with Romanek later this week.

Let Me In – This is one a lot of film fans were dreading. Let The Right One In is already hailed as a modern masterpiece and the idea of doing an American remake so soon after its release seems like sacrilege. After viewing the film, I can say that they didn’t ruin it but they also didn’t do anything to make its existence necessary.  Let Me In follows the original almost beat for beat and always feels like a shadow of the original. We will have a full review and an interview with Matt Reeves and Kodi Smit-McPhee later this week.

Stone – Stone was an odd choice for a genre film festival. The movie features no “fantastic” elements and is just a low key prison drama/morality tale that will likely be more remembered for Ed Norton’s cornrows than anything else. Despite that, it actually is a somewhat compelling film and a real acting showcase. Norton sometimes seems like he’s trying too hard but Robert De Niro and Milla Jovovich are better than they’ve been in years. I think the last act wavers a bit as it goes into a strangely meditative and religious zone, but still one to check out if you want to see these actors play off each other. We will have an interview with Norton up later this week.

Ong Bak 3 – Anyone who saw Ong Bak 2 knows what they are in for here.  Ong Bak 2 was an incomprehensible and boring mess with one of the strangest endings I’ve ever seen but it was somewhat saved by an amazing climactic fight scene. I was hoping 3 could at the very least offer more in the way of awesome action but unfortunately that’s not the case. Tony Jaa was going through a much publicized mental breakdown during filming (he’s now a monk, I’m not kidding) and Ong Bak 3 mostly feels like it’s comprised of leftover footage from the previous film. In other words, it’s just as incomprehensible but isn’t saved by an amazing fight scene. The few fights in the film seem like total afterthoughts, even though they upped the elephant quotient considerably. The one saving grace of this almost unwatchable movie are several hilariously awful scenes that are perfectly suited for group mockery at drunken movie nights.

Buried – Buried is the Ryan Reynolds in a box movie. It’s not often you see a film as uncompromising and ballsy as this little experiment. I really don’t want to say too much about it as preserving the surprise for yourself is important for films like this. I’ll just say it exceeded my expectations in every way and is in the running for the best film of the festival so far.

And that’s it for day one. I’ll be back later with more recaps as well as full reviews of select films.

P.S. – Chaos Reigns