NEGATIVE SPACE

Tim League, der Organisator des Fantastic Fest, ist ein kluger Kopf. In jedem Interview, das er gegeben hat, empfahl er eine andere Handvoll Werke seines knapp achtzig Filme schweren Programmes. So bin ich eigentlich auf wahnsinnig viele potenzielle Genreperlen gespannt. Und da die meisten der Kritiker, die vom Fantastic Fest berichten, zu einer eingeschworenen Gruppe gehören, die in den meisten Fällen sowieso keiner Fliege ein Haar krümmen kann, wird es jede Menge reizvolle Empfehlungen hageln. Die Kunst besteht darin, die für einen selbst passenden Filme auszumachen. Meine verlässlichsten Lieblingskritiker aus der Austin-Brut sind James Rocchi, Drew McWeeny, Eric Vespe, Matt Singer, Scott Weinberg und Todd Brown, wobei Karina Longworth wohl auch mal vorbeischauen will, das dann aber nur für zwei Tage als Teil ihrer Hochzeitsreise (Gag?) sein wird. Kritisch werde ich die Texte von Devin Faraci und seiner Alamo Drafthouse-zugehörigen Badass Digest-Crew beäugen, genauso wie der frische Fangoria-Chefkritiker Samuel Zimmerman noch beweisen muss, dass er sich tatsächlich im Genre auskennt. Harry Knowles schreibt wie immer außer Konkurrenz. Und Blogs wie Slashfilm, FirstShowing und Sound on Sight nehme ich nur der Chronistenpflicht wegen auf. Auch bleibt es abzuwarten, was die Austiner Lokalpresse macht und ob gern gelesene Netz-Größen wie Alison Willmore, Jen Yamato oder Katey Rich ihr Stell-dich-ein geben werden.

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Vorfreude-Legende: ♥ = Interessant, ♥♥ = Will ich sehen, ♥♥♥ = Muss ich sehen, ??? = Noch zu wenige Meinungen

Audience Award: A Boy and His Samurai
(Runners-Up: You're Next, Juan of the Dead)

In der 'Next Wave'-Kategorie bekommt der belgische Oscarkandidat "Bullhead", der die Dardennes ausgestochen hat, Best Picture, Best Director & Best Actor. Bester Horrorfilm wird "You're Next", beste Komödie wird "Clown".

Mat Singers fünf Lieblingsfilme: 1. Sleepless Night 2. Clown 3. Headhunters 4. Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within 5. Knuckle

"Haunters" (Min-suk Kim) ♥♥

"However you look at it, HAUNTERS is flat-out unlike anything we've seen before. It may not always make sense, but ultimately Haunters is just plain fantastic." (Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle) "The best superhero movie this year is not CAPTAIN AMERICA or THOR or GREEN LATERN or X-MEN: FIRST CLASS; it features no costumes, no secret origins and amazingly, no exposition. This film confrontation between a man who can’t stop killing and a man who refuses to die is funny, heart-breaking, action-packed and more satisfying than any super-hero movie released this year." (Michael Ryan, SoundonSight)

"Clown: The Movie" (Mikkel Nørgaard) ♥♥

"Something is Raunchy in the state of Denmark. CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM meets THE HANGOVER with BORAT's (lack of) taste. Reader, I howled." (James Rocchi, MSN Movies) "Fans of sex comedy, take note: this is your new Holy Grail. Hilarity from Denmark. And it's based on a TV show! Must watch it all. It has a CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM crossed with Farrelly Brothers vibe. And it sounds like the stars are loosely playing themselves, CURB-style." (Matt Singer, IFC) "Wow, Danish comedy CLOWN is fucking great. I wonder if it could be released in the US because the best joke might be actually illegal to show in theaters." (Devin Faraci, Badass Digest)

"Juan of the Dead" (Alejandro Brugués) ♥♥

"JUAN OF THE DEAD is a great debut film. Zombies are well and good, but it's the great, iconic characters that make it work." (Eric Vespe, Aintitcool) "And then on top of that, yes, it's a very fun zombie film. Brugues has a real feel for how to put together a gag or an image, and the film has several striking moments of imagination, including one reference to Fulci's ZOMBIE which made me applaud." (Drew McWeeny, HitFix)

"Borderline" (Alexandre Coffre) ♥♥

"The film’s hilarious from beginning to end, and the crowd I saw the film with laughed uproariously throughout. Francois Damiens is remarkably funny here, and I couldn’t help but notice the dude’s passing resemblance to Will Ferrell. I’d highly recommend that you take it. Borderline is, thus far, the best thing I’ve seen at Fantastic Fest 2011." (Scott Wampler, Collider) "A BREAKING BAD for suburban Paris, BORDERLINE is a black comedy: Not pitch-black, but that odd, understated bubbly, slate gray that is the trademark of contemporary French farce." (Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle)

"Headhunters" (Morten Tyldum) ♥♥

"HEADHUNTERS is all over the place. In a really good way." (Devin Faraci, Badass Digest) "Norwegian flick HEADHUNTERS proved to be a great audience movie. It's a fantastic cat and mouse funny suspense flick." (Eric Vespe, Aintitcool) "Took me a bit to get into the rhythm and tone of HEADHUNTERS, but came out really enjoying it. Good, grisly fun." (Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria) "It's a wry Coen Bros-style bad plans gone terribly wrong film from Sweden. Great. Smart. Worthwhile." (Drew McWeeny, HitFix) "HEADHUNTERS is a very crafty Norwegian art heist chase thriller from Norway." (Scott Weinberg, Fear.net) "HEADHUNTERS was fucking riveting. Excellent tension, thrills & awesomery." (Harry Knowles, Aintitcool) "Morten Tyldum's movie HEADHUNTERS is a member of a very particular sub-genre of film that I love, movies where someone makes a plan to screw someone else, and that plan goes very, very, very wrong." (Drew McWeeny, HitFix)

"A Boy and His Samurai" (Yoshihiro Nakamura) ♥½

"A time-displaced Ronin becomes a domestic warrior & pastry chef to aid a single mother & her son. Or, my dream film." (James Rocchi, MSN Movies) "A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI is just simply wonderful." (Devin Faraci, Badass Digest) "There's a reason this won the Audience Award here at Fantastic Fest tonight. For now, I'll just say that if you have any chance to see A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI, take it. You can thank me later." (Drew McWeeny, HitFix) "So A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI is now easily the best film I have seen in 2011." (Harry Knowles, Aintitcool)

"Beyond the Black Rainbow" (Panos Cosmatos) ♥♥½

"Nothing is what it appears to be, and the less you know going in, the more likely you are to have your mind blown out of the back of your head by what transpires onscreen." (Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle) "With his ambitious first feature, writer-director Panos Cosmatos emerges as a bold new visionary in science-fiction filmmaking." (James Marsh, Twitch Film) "While many claim Cosmatos exhibits a Kubrikian influence, Rainbow is best described as follows: a Richard Stanley piece on acid, with a dash of THX 1138, echoes of Solaris, the iconography of Luis Buñuel and Kenneth Anger – the music of John Carpenter, the provocative visions of Dario Argento and David Cronenberg, and a narrative structure reminiscent of David Lynch and Ken Russell." (Ricky, SoundonSight) "BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW is filled with eye-popping visual delights that would make the late Italian cinematic maestro Mario Bava proud, with a riot of colors that imbue meaning to entire sequences simply by changing from red to blue. It's a heady, healthy trip into the unknown." (Peter Martin, Movies.com)

"Human Centipede II" (Tom Six) ♥½

"If CENTIPEDE 2 wasn't incredibly revolting, you could call it a very dark comedy. It's definitely a satire of fanboy culture." (Matt Singer, IFC) "An audience member required medical attention due to HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2. The festival is off to a great start!" (Tim League, Fantastic Fest) "Not sure HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 was as gross as we all expected, but it's outlandish, purposefully obscene & in direct dialogue with audiences." (Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria) "I don't think HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 always works, but it's brutally over the top and has stuff to say about fandom." (Devin Faraci, Badass Digest) "With no point, no soul, and no reason to care, it ends up as just another splatter flick that desperately wants widespread notoriety for its freakish disgustingness." (Scott Weinberg, Fear.net) "There's nothing subtle about what Six is doing in this one, and when he wraps it up with not just one but two of the cheapest of cheap cop-out endings in a row, it's sort of unforgivable." (Drew McWeeny, HitFix) "It’s so indulgently perverse, and so viscerally disturbing to watch — not to mention a painfully vain exercise in self-worship — that the lesson is incredibly hard-won." (Jen Yamato, Movieline) "A smug fuck-you to HUMAN CENTIPEDE fans, it’s perhaps the sequel we deserve. But that doesn’t mean this dumb, blunt follow-up—both more unspeakably grotesque and less scary than the first film—is worth sitting through." (Karina Longworth, L.A. Weekly)

"Sleepless Night" (Frédéric Jardin) ♥½

"SLEEPLESS NIGHT was terrific. Great, exciting, perfectly paced single location French action film." (Devin Faraci, Badass Digest) "A near-perfect French action film with style and guts. " (James Rocchi, MSN Movies) "SLEEPLESS NIGHT is a polished French actioner with solid fight seqs & a good story. Great intensity but could lose few mins." (Ryland Aldrich, Twitch Film) "SLEEPLESS NIGHT is excellent stuff! Kitchen fight feels legendary." (Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria) "Was very pleased with the exhausting French action thriller SLEEPLESS NIGHT. Smartly written, juicily intense." (Scott Weinberg, Fear.net) "SLEEPLESS NIGHT owes much to the style and pacing of Michael Mann - but without Mann’s slickness -, from the blown heist and violence in HEAT to the jammed club settings and deep cover police in MIAMI VICE." (Joe Gross, Austin360) "if the Oscars added a category for Best Use of Kitchen Drawers, SLEEPLESS NIGHT would be a shoo-in. Come to think of it, if they added a Best Action Movie category it would be a shoo-in for that one too." (Matt Singer, IFC)