BIFFF (5-17 April, Brussels)

Hugo Pratt, the comic artist behind Corto Maltese, is the designer of this year’s BIFFF poster, the 30th time Brussels holds its Festival of Fantastic Film.

The 2012 edition will run from 5 April to 17 April or, in movie time, from The Raven starring John Cusack to The Cabin in the Woods, the brainchild of the man who wrote Cloverfield and the man who’s responsible for Buffy.
As always there will be a Vampire’s Ball, so any creatures of the night who’re up for some dance moves should keep the night of 13 April available. Fans of silly glasses should rejoice in the fact that the BIFFF has managed to equip with Masterimage 3D technology: I literally have no clue of what I’ve just written, but I do know there’ll be a gigantic increase in 3D movies. Hmm.

It should be said that the programme of this year’s festival looks quite diverse: even though quite some movies seem to resort to gory gadgets, you won’t have to search too long to find a Korean version of X-men, a dystopian future, some drama, a sci-fi romcom and many other subgenres.
Equally diverse is the origin of the movies, there are quite a few American movies, but other countries thrown in the mix include the Philippines, Norway, Switzerland, Estonia, Japan, Denmark, the UK, South Korea, Germany and Spain. That’s what we call a fortnight-long trip around the world in horror and fantasy.

At this point, I have no clue as to whether I’ll have the chance to see at least one movie (let alone do a full day session like many years ago), but like me, that shouldn’t stop you from checking out the website. Even if you can’t make it, almost every movie contains a trailer and it’s a nice way to find out some interesting releases you may want to get your hands on if they appear on tv, dvd or whatever your desired medium is these days.

Points for the most dystopian trailer go to Carré Blanc (a Belgian-French co-production), the most endearing fantasy film appears to be the Swiss The Sandman, but the prize for best trailer (surely, “teaser” should be more appropriate) has to go to The Butterfly Room, which manages to boast with a cast including Barbara Steele, Heather Langenkamp and Camille Keaton. That alone should make you want to look at this trailer, even if none of these women feature in it.

The return of the screwball

We break off our current silence by linking you to an article in The Independent – yeah, that’s what happened to this blog, it’s become a Twitter account with full sentences.

The screwball is making a comeback. A comedy genre which flourished in Hollywood in the 1930s and early 1940s, and which yielded such classic films as His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby and The Lady Eve as well as such latter-day manifestations as Some Like It Hot (1959), is being dusted down by a new generation of film-makers,

the article boasts and quickly two British movies are mentioned. Which, erm, leads me to wondering: do I know classic British screwballs?

Anyway, the article gives you a short synopsis of what the screwball genre is and a handful of examples, including the famous classic Bringing Up Baby and the often omitted Preston Sturges. Sadly, it then adds that the genre has almost been forgotten, with a couple of exceptions like What’s up, Doc? and Intolerable Cruelty. No mention of Crazy, Stupid, Love – which in the Avenue’s eyes – is in our eyes much more screwball than the Coen effort (which we’d rather stick to the “liquid comedy” of their older movie Crimewave).

Still, any friend of the screwball is a friend of the Avenue, so here’s the link:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/some-still-like-it-hot-fastand-screwball-7573735.html

The Descendants

I will not apologise for the lack of updates… life has been quite busy and boy, does it feel good to open WordPress and write another review. But writing costs time and up to the end of March, time is not exactly on my hands. As of April, I’ll try to maintain the Avenue as planned (updates on every *5th and 0*th of the month), but for the next fortnight it’s best not to expect too much. The Avenue has some subscribers and if you aren’t one, becoming one may be the best option not to miss out on any updates.

Every now and then I have a couple of minutes off and it’s not always spent on the Avenue. After all, as mentioned in an earlier update, I’m labouring on a new book, a novella. Well, a novella and a novel. Why stop at one, eh? My first book was published at the very end of 2008 and elaborate marketing research (read: me going to some bookstores with a couple of questions) told me not have high hopes for my first book, especially as it was a collection of stories (nicknamed the “kiss of death” in the book world because these collections hardly sell). Not only did I sell more than double of the average a Flemish debutant manages to sell (don’t be too enthousiastic: the numbers are disappointingly low), this month – more than 3 years after the initial publishing date, three more copies were sold. Not bad for something released in 2008, eh?

Why bore you with this information? Because sometimes I feel bad I haven’t given my readers a second book. But then you think of people like Alexander Payne, who released Sideways in 2004 and, apart from a couple of shorts, hasn’t directed anything since then. He’s not the only one: more directors don’t seem to mind having a couple of years between their projects. Good news for me, bad news for fans. Payne, who debuted with the excellent Citizen Ruth and then gave us Election and About Schmidt, finally closed the gap after Sideways with The Descendants. Seven years later, chances were high people could only feel disappointed and, by Jove, this happened by the thousands. Had The Descendants been a work by Soderbergh, who releases approximately 90 films a year, no one had bothered this much, but 28 months of waiting doesn’t make it easier to follow up on a generally loved movie.The question hadn’t become “How good is the new Payne movie?”, the question was: “How much does The Descendants disappoint?”

Well, that’s a good question. The film heavily relies on George Clooney and Shailene Woodley (as his oldest and wayward daughter). They are the basis of the film and indeed the family, once the comatose Mrs King is diagnosed as a hopeless case. Suddenly, Clooney’s character Matt King has to pull daughter Alexandra (Woodley) from the expensive school, be a full-time dad to other daughter Scottie (Amara Miller), get to grips with his wife being an adultress (something that Mrs King and Alexandra fought about and which caused Alexandra to be sent to a boarding school as far away as possible) and decide whether to sell a piece of land on an Hawaian island or not. I may have complained about my month at the start of the article, but Mr King is definitely in a worse situation.
The scene where Clooney’s character runs on flipflops through the streets is one you may have seen on film programmes. It’s a scene that didn’t sell the movie to me, I have to confess. However, that’s right after King finds out his wife had been having an affair for months and, as a reaction to that, running down to friends in anger seems like a more logical step. The key here is empathy: you understand the actions of the character and you feel for him. Empathy is a key word for The Descendants: it helps you understand the anger of Matt King and his daughter Alexandra, the despair of the family when everything seems to become worse, the heavy-handed decisions that were begging to be made… if you have a fair share of empathy, you’ll feel along with this movie. Much like About Schmidt and Sideways (and to a lesser extent Payne’s earlier work) relied heavily on feeling along with those characters, but with The Descendants that’s about all there is: if you can’t bother to feel with the King family, there’s hardly anything else in this film. To say The Descendants is a weak movie would be underestimating it: after all, people don’t complain when action movies rely heavily on action scenes, but action movies aren’t often made to be remembered for years to come, something that (Citizen) Ruth and the wine drinkers of Sideways have become. As of such, The Descendants doesn’t offer enough. Nevertheless, a more than average movie. But, for somebody like Payne, is that enough?

6.5

Jane Eyre

Hello, young boys and girls! Did you know your generation now has its own poster girl for literacy? Her name is Mia Wasikowska and she’s appeared in Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre (those are two classics, silly) and glossing over her filmography you’ll find more movies based on short stories and books. (Pretty soon you can also see her in Nick Cave‘s adaptation of Wettest Country by Matt Bondurant. So read more, kids!

And while you’re at it, be sure to have read some Brontë books in your lifespan. You may overlook the penned works of their brother and father, but siblings Charlotte, Emily and Anne concocted some of the best stories in the English literature. The books may have been published more than 160 years ago, but they won’t fade away any time soon. By way of visual proof: in 2011 both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were remade for the cinema. Once again? Yes, once again.

And every time Brontë fans worry not without reason. Most people seemed to have forgotten these books shocked the readers when they were published. Remaking them as a fancy costume drama doesn’t do the sisters the honour they deserve. Jane Eyre was the first to be released. Did it do Charlotte justice?

Hard to say: the internet informed us of a petition to get a “director’s cut” of the film. According to those sources, the intended film should have lasted approximately 150 minutes. Long? Well yeah. However,Jane Eyre does seem a bit condensed. Not that surprising: when attempting to make a film out of a novel, things have to be cut. Is that bad? Not necessarily: some scenes are not needed and can be left out of the film – movies are after all another medium.

But it does get bothersome when certain important plotlines are left out of an adaptation. Bearing in mind it’s a classic, we are probably not shocking you too hard when saying Rochester was still married when he attempted to wed Jane Eyre. A key figure here is Mrs. Poole, the woman who has to make sure the original and mad Mrs Rochester doesn’t leave the attic. In the film version Mrs. Poole is barely mentioned up to that point, making the spectator wonder where this woman suddenly came from. Of course, a director can assume the viewer has probably read the book, but still it’s odd to see a key figure of the narrative suddenly pop up out of nothing.

Having said that, this adaptation is harsher than a lot of glossy versions. Not that it’s a bleak piece, but the notion of Hollywood is far from the rough settings. Another problem with many older adaptations is that the actors often looked too pretty for the roles, a key mistake given that Rochester is often described as far from handsome in the book whereas Jane is mainly a plain-looking girl. Try and link that to a movie that looks like a commercial for beauty creams. At least that’s something that this version got right, a key element that immediately smacks the film into the Top 3 of Charlotte Brontë adaptations.

Overall, this is a decent movie with good leads (Fassbender, this year’s Ryan Gosling, is Rochester.) Some things are unclear if you haven’t read the book, some omissions annoy if you have, but in the end it could have been a lot worse. Given that most adaptations of Brontë novels are labelled as “abysmal’ and “a disgrace to the book”, that’s almost a compliment. Good scenery too. We could almost say we enjoyed this one. Almost. Now stop browsing and read a novel.

7.5/10

Short movie: Helsinki

Today is a day unlike most, it only pops up once every four years and therefore it’s worth a bonus update. As a treat, here’s a 15-minute long short by Caroline de Maeyer. It’s her graduation movie. The main stars are Natali Broods (the woman you see on the still underneath, an actress who already had some cult status in Flanders) and Charlotte Vandemeersch (whose star wasn’t really shining back then but who’s become one of the more famous and prolific actresses in Flanders by now). If you don’t know if you can spare 15 minutes, the link to the trailer can be found underneath the short. Happy viewing!

Helsinki from Caroline de Maeyer on Vimeo.

Or watch the trailer instead. (Mind you, unlike the short, the trailer has no subtitles.)

Soap&Skin – Narrow

No update for the 15th and this update is just over a day late. This week I’m working on my novella, you see. There will be an update for the 25th and a bonus update on that rarest of days, 29 February.

When logging into the Avenue, I noticed the Soap&Skin concert review was this week’s most visited but one. Not without a reason: Anja Plaschg has just released an EP, Narrow (Europe only – the rest of the world will have to wait until March). One of the songs is a cover of “Voyage Voyage”, in a way you instantly decide not leaving home may be the better option.  “Did I just watch a concert or an exorcism?” was the question I asked myself after the concert and that is still a good way to describe Anja in action. (Don’t believe me? Then watch her in action during her cover of a Clint Mansell track.)

The “single” (if that is an appropriate title) of the EP is “Boat Turns Toward The Port”. For days Anja’s cry/chant has been hollering in my head. Much like many of the other tracks of the EP, by the way. If four stars indicate a masterpiece, Narrow deserves at least three. And the missing star is left out because sometimes the tracks seem a bit too arty, too created – but accept my apologies for what’s up next: I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. The world of Soap&Skin isn’t always like the world of us, mere mortals. Opening track “Vater” is an elegy to her deceased father and we don’t know too many that have lines like “I drink thousands of bottle of wine in your honour, but I preferred to be a maggot”. Much like we don’t know too many artists who have chocolate as merchandising, especially this kind: “Black cumin is hiding under a cream of white poppy seeds and white incense, followed by a jelly of dense red wine. In the centre an antique pink beetroot ganache with pig’s blood. The blue flowers (cornflowers) come to rest next to black sesame on a blanket – of dark chocolate, manufactured in the tradition of the American Indians whose cocoa was very carefully processed and not heated.”

Any two-word summary of Soap&Skin should contain the words “extraordinary” and “intense”.

Forward tales to tide
The boat turns toward the port
With fire and mud stained sky
Bright aft time
Bright aft time
My whole burden is laid down
Stay here
Stay here
Stay

Great moments in cinema: Moby Dick 2010

Occasionally, the Avenue treats you to a scene from a movie that is so awful it can only make you laugh. Often those films tend to be from yesteryear, adding to the myth that older films tended to be crappier. This is of course not true and to prove this, here is a scene from 2010. The film is the latest remake of Moby Dick and the first time I watched a clip of this, erm, “film”, I had to be convinced that this wasn’t a parody. This film has genuinely some of the worst effects I’ve seen in a long time and I don’t mean that in any way positive or even endearing. Don’t believe me? Well, here are just 80 seconds of this spectacular. Next time you go to your local dvd store, look at the bargain bin: somewhere near the bottom of the barrel, you’ll surely find a copy if you desire one.

WATCH A CLIP
(embedding wasn’t available)

P.S. Below there’s a trailer. Barry Bostwick is credited as a Golden Globe winner. I don’t recall him being nominated for this movie, though…