Tag: LA Film Fest 2008

LA Film Fest 2008 Final Thoughts

So the LA Film Fest is over, and it’s time to say a few words. The consensus seems to be that this year’s festival definitely had a smaller crowd than before, maybe due to some economic woes that keep people from spending 12 dollars a ticket every day for two weeks, not to mention paying for some of those ungodly 100 dollar ticket opening and closing night galas. The concept of only being able to see Wanted or Hellboy 2 by paying a huge amount of money so you can get into what is the equivalent of a cocktail party is absurd, and the LA Film Fest’s general lack of organization didn’t help much either. Continue reading LA Film Fest 2008 Final Thoughts

Review: “Ballast” LAFF 08

A majority of films set in the south of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama tend to extol the culture that abounds there as a centerpiece to their stories. Be it colorful, warm characters or the heavy presence of blues, gospel or soul music, more often than not we are swept up in the lively backdrop of celebratory spirit. What a surprise then to find Lance Hammer’s Ballast almost completely bereft of music, save for a single song playing within one of the scenes. Here we are presented with perhaps a tonally-perfect film, not gambling on an audience’s love of familiar territories, but through the cold, silent landscapes of the Mississippi Delta in winter. Yet, it will be familiar to any who have truly lived in these moments, from the long expanse of the highways between neighbors’ homes, to the quiet, still mornings spent alone under a slate gray sky. As powerful as its settings are, Ballast’s strengths go beyond its well-maintained environments to the many broken hearts that inhabit them.
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Review: “X-Cross” LAFF 08

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times; a young pair of Japanese girls head off for a relaxing spa weekend in the woods, get into a fight over boys, become pursued by an angry mob of homicidal local residents along with a revenge-crazed harajuku girl wielding enormous pairs of scissors, and begin to unlock the secret behind the region’s legacy of blood rites and human sacrifice. Wait, what? X-Cross (pronounced Criss-Cross) aka Ekusu Kurosu: Makyà ´ Densetsu aka XX starts off promisingly enough, with at least the threat of seeing something weird enough to qualify as original. Rewinding from the two girls, Aiko and Shiyori, arriving on their getaway weekend, we jump back to the fate of the last girl who made her way to the quaint getaway resort. Tied to an enormous cross beam (one of the film’s many, many references to its title), we witness firsthand the village’s longstanding tradition of female ritual amputation. It doesn’t take long for mild intrigue to become replaced with brazen anarchy, however, something XX has in droves.
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