Genius party indeed. There are seven animated shorts on display here, if you include the brief intro piece. Of the seven, only two were stinkers, and even then, one of those would have been good if I hadn’t bothered reading the subtitles and had just enjoyed the trippy animation. And the other bad one only sucked in a relative sense, because it was surrounded by… well… genius.

Everytime someone tells you something is totally, awesomely, wickedly cool you build up high expectations and then when you see it you’re disappointed so I don’t want to say too much. Just see it if you can.

1 – Intro: good
2 – Shanghai Dragon: good
3 – Deathtic 4: extra super good
4 – Doorbell: kinda boring
5 – Limit Cycle: yeah, more like pretentious party. (Or as one theatre-goer said when the screen faded to black: What?)
6 – Happy Machine: good
7 – Baby Blue: quite nice

Overall I give the experience 4 niqueheads [rating:40]

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Remember that movie “Planet Terror” where Rose McGowan has a machine gun leg and you thought it kinda looked like crap from the trailer but everyone said it was awesome and then you finally rented it (and thought it was bullshit that it didn’t come with Tarantino’s half of Grindhouse) and it turned out your instincts were right and it sucked? And yeah, you GET IT, it’s an homage, it’s a parody, it’s meant to be exploitative and ridiculous in that ’70s kind of way but really, making an homage to bad movies just results in another bad movie and the whole thing just sucked and is further evidence that zombies don’t in fact always make movies better.

“Machine Girl” has a similar premise. A girl’s brother is murdered by ninja-yakuzas so she goes out to get revenge but her arm is chopped off by the bad guys and then good guys put a machine gun in its place and she goes off to get even more righteous revenge.

Probably the main issue with “Planet Terror” is that it isn’t Japanese. “Machine Girl” has no such problem. Ninja-Yakuza? Wicked! An arm turned to tempura? Why not? The showdown taking place at a shinto temple? Yes please! Naturally the protagonist must fight crime in her cute school uniform; I guess all Japanese kids do everything in their school uniforms, although the main antagonist makes sure to wear a pimp coat over his.

Of course it was silly and ridiculous and over-the-top and that’s exactly why it was awesome. This is precisely the type of movie that must be seen at Fantasia. The crowd’s reactions are half the fun. Everyone was howling and laughing at the insanity and it charged up the energy to the point where even the most retarded moments were high-octane hilaritude.

I’m not sure the same enjoyment could be reached if you were sitting at home alone. Isn’t it frustrating when you’re watching something alone and you see something dumb and you want to turn to someone for confirmation that what you saw is stupid? At Fantasia you get that confirmation from the cackles of hundreds of other people.

Therefore, “Machine Girl” gets 3 1/2 niqueheads if you’re seeing it at Fantasia [rating:35]
but only 2 niqueheads if you’re a pathetic loser at home alone. [rating:20]

And “Planet Terror” only gets one niquehead for wasting my time, though I acknowledge it probably would have gotten more if I’d seen it with a crowd.
[rating:10]

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Alrighty, so remember how I was all happy about getting the VIP pass again this year? Turns out that while last year’s passes were good for two people, this year they changed it so they are only good for one person. Not that the pass people thought to mention this! Good thing we randomly ran into another fantasiafreak who informed us of this crucial fact or we would have been even more fucked than we already are.

Because we discovered this information a little late, we had to lineup like chumps and buy tickets with the rest of the pleebs at the last minute, i.e. a couple of hours before the premiere movie. This resulted in two of our choices being sold out, including tonight’s “Truffe”, the Quebecois entry. Yeah, one of us could have gone to the movie with the VIP pass but we don’t play that way. It’s either both of us or none. But it’s no big because since Truffe is homegrown it will no doubt be shown in a theatre near us soon enough. A theatre with comfortable seats no less. Kinda sucks though because they had a red carpet set up so I suspect some of the actors/director were set to attend (a common occurence at Fantasia). It’s probably for the best; I no doubt would have had to be restrained had I seen Roy Dupuis in person. I dare anyone to resist stroking his mullet, or his quiet intensity.

But the bigger bummer is “Accuracy of Death” being sold out. I was really looking forward to that one. But we’ll probably be able to rent it at Boite Noir, or you know, download it. Plus they always add one last movie on the day after the close of the festival where they show one of the sold out movies. It might be “Accuracy of Death” this year.

Ah well, on the bright side the crazy popper kid, Robert Muraine had a cameo on tonight’s ep of SYTYCD (though Nigel continued to asshole it up this season by giving him a hard time. Stupid Nigel).

 

5 out of 5 niqueheads for Robert Muraine. [rating:50] 0 heads for Nigel.

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The day before Fantasia officially opens, there is a special screening of a film reserved for Ubisoft employees. Ubi staff vote on which movie they want to see, from a few options. Well, the ‘tards at Ubi invariably choose the suckiest option and this year was no different.

Batman: Gotham Knight utilizes the same concept as the Animatrix. It is comprised of 6 animated shorts about Batman, taking place between Batman Begins and the upcoming Dark Knight. This is a solid concept but the execution suffers from a distinct lack of Christian Bale.

The first short was actually pretty good. It was told from the point of view of some skater kids and this concept was cute and amusing. The animation was also interesting. But then it all fell apart and as each short went by my head drooped down further and further until I was drooling on Phil’s shirt sleeve.

So all in all: snoozefest. I should have stayed home and watched So You Think You Can Dance.

They did give us free chips and pop though. So there’s that.

 

 

So KingCasey suggested I use a rating system for my reviews.
Here go we: I give Batman: Gotham Suck 1 out of 5 niqueheads
[rating:10]

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