It doesn’t matter what side of the bed you wake up on when the alarm clock gets you up at 7:60 every morning. In Quentin Dupieux’s Wrong, everything in the main character Dolph Springer’s world is just that, and further a bizzare journey into the absurd. At nearly every corner of this dreamlike film there is a story line and likable characters somewhat reminiscent of the very off-kilter nature of Wristcutters: A Love Story and Dog Tooth topped off with Terry Gilliam’s surreal shooting style and sense of humor. Wrong is more than a bit askew but also funny, easily more accessible than Dupieux’s Rubber and is best described as being an odd delight. There’s an aloofness and complacency to the absurdity that…
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Sweet Trailer…Drafthouse Films’ ‘Graceland’
Ron Morales’ sobering and unflinching kidnapping film Graceland was a big hit at Fantastic Fest last year. After making the rounds at other festivals and winning fans along the way, this fine addition to the Filipino new wave is gearing up for its official theatrical release. The story of a father’s relentless quest to find and rescue his kidnapped daughter feels so scarily real you’d think you were watching the events in real time. Have a look at the newest trailer that was released on iTunes yesterday… Family man Marlon Villar is the longtime chauffeur of Manuel Chango, a notoriously corrupt Filipino politician. One day as he and his daughter accompany his boss’ preteen…
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Off the Shelf…Drafthouse Films’ ‘Trailer War’
From the deepest darkest pit of forgotten film reels comes Drafthouse Films’ latest time capsule feature. Trailer War is simply a collection of off-beat, hokey and trailers for some of the film world’s oddest flicks. Although cast off, they are not trash. After all, films like these are what have influenced scores of filmmakers, most notably Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, for decades. War is a patchwork of advertisements for films the likes of which have seen by only a handful of modern day film audiences or people from the time of the film’s release. But this presentation isn’t just a brainless compilation of trailers lined up end to end for 110 minutes. No, there’s a little more to…
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Off the Shelf…Drafthouse Films’ ‘Miami Connection’
Story has it that one afternoon in 2009, a curator from Austin, TX’s Alamo Drafthouse Cinema stumbled across an eBay listing for a 35mm print of something called “Miami Connection.” The Alamo bought Connection unseen and just as blindly added the print to their film archive. Like opening a time capsule that no one (including the people involved with the film) hoped would ever be found came a film that most likely would be a dud. Well luck favored the Alamo that day as Miami Connection was not a bad investment. Quite the opposite in fact as this deliciously wretched B-Movie has been wonderfully accepted at off-beat festivals and movie houses across…
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Off the Shelf…Drafthouse Films’ ‘The Ambassador’
A surreal and yet gravely realistic fish out of water documentary, The Ambassador offers a look into a part of the world that only a rare but unsavory few can know or comprehend. Posing as a businessman, Brügger attempts to become a foreign diplomat in hopes of exposing the corrupt diamond smuggling and those who live free of moral boundaries in a lawless African state. Yet one thing that needs to be known up front, since it is not explained in the film, is that Mads Brügger is a Danish comedian as well as a filmmaker. That tiny tidbit goes a long way in understanding that there is a hidden hidden agenda behind this entire…
