MMC! is in full Fantasia International Film Festival-mode, powering through titles to the exclusion of all else! (Sorry, pending Criterion Collection title.) There’s plenty of good stuff here for any film fan. Like subterranean industrial dystopias, body horror monsters, and Tool videos? Check out Junk Head! Prefer decrepit production design, quasi-Biblical allusions, and the uncanny dread of early David Lynch? Spend some time with Hotel Poseidon! Enjoy alternate histories, mockumentaries, and Santo films? Watch Opération Luchador! Have an affinity for coming-of-age stories, samurai movies, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time? See MMC!’s favourite of these last ten films I’ve watched: It’s a Summer Film!
- Giving Birth to a Butterfly (Theodore Schaefer, 2021)
- Wild Men (Thomas Daneskov, 2021)
- Hotel Poseidon (Stef Lernous, 2021)
- Return of the Bastard Swordsman (Tony Lu, 1984)
- We’re All Going to World’s Fair (Jane Schoenbrun, 2021)
- Bull (Paul Andrew Williams, 2021)
- King Knight (Richard Bates, Jr., 2021)
- It’s a Summer Film! (Soushi Matsumoto, 2020)
- Junk Head (Takahide Hori, 2021)
- Opération Luchador (Alain Vézina, 2021)
Let’s also give shout out to Fantasia’s Small Guage Trauma 2021 short film block which screens later today and Thursday! Boasting ten stand-out genre shorts from around the world, Small Guage Trauma is worth seeking out for those who want some blood spilled quickly. MMC! was particularly impressed with Jorge Sistos Moreno’s highly atmospheric and wonderfully vengeful The Darkness (2020) and Michiel Blanchart’s supernatural comedy-turned horror film-turned cathartic romance, You’re Dead Helen (2021). Fantasia’s various short film programs are the unsung gems of the Festival, so do yourself a favour and seek out these great offerings. FIFF’s programs in the My First Fantasia section are aimed for young and old alike and are even free to screen! So what’s your excuse now?!?
Make Mine Criterion! 