Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival 2013 (BIFFF13)

From April 2nd to 13th 2013 will take place in Brussels the 31st edition of the BIFFF. JoRafCinema will join the event from the 2nd to the 6th.

Ted (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Seth MacFarlane
	Actors: Mark Wahlberg (Boogey Nights, Planet of the Apes), Mila Kunis (Black Swan), Seth MacFarlane (Family guy TV-series, Tooth Fairy), Giovanni Ribisi (Avatar, Friends TV-series), Sam Jones (Flash Gordon)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 31.01.2013, Air France in-flight entertainment system
Synopsis: The Teddy bear of a young boy magically turns to life. Now that he is 35 (Wahlberg) and living with his girlfriend (Kunis), his drug-addict and pervert bear is still his best friend.
Review: I was not really attracted by this movie, so a long flight was a good opportunity to watch it, even if in poor quality. It turns out that the original concept and the comedy moments are often good, sometimes very good when the live bear concept and the refenrences to the 80's are pushed to their extreme. The character of the bear and his interaction with the world are very well thought and done, partly thanks to seamless special effects. Unfortunately to make a full movie some romance and drama were added, and I find that this was done poorly.
Rating: 5 /10

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1989
	Director: Steven Spielberg (E.T., Jaws)
	Actors:  Harrison Ford (Star Wars 4-6, Blade Runner), Sean Connery (Highlander, The Hunt for Red October), Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies (The Lord of the Rings 1-3, Sliders TV-series), Denholm Elliott (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 15.01.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: This time Indiana Jones (Ford) will be sent on an adventure to both discover a sacred artifact (The Holy Graal) and rescue his father (Connery) at the same time
Review: The best in this movie is the relationship between Indiana Jones and his father Henry, a very serious man that has let him discover life alone, and to whom he has barely spoken in twenty years. The search for the Holy Graal is what could bring them closer. The episode shows similarities with the first one in the religious background for the quest (Graal vs. Arch of Alliance), the enemies (Nazis), the locations (North-East Africa) and part of the cast (Elliot and Rhys-Davies). What makes it original and complementary to the others is once again the father-son relationship played beautifully by Ford and especially the regretted Sean Connery, wonderful in seriousness and humour at the same time. We see the father discover how his adventurous son lives, and the son understand and embrace the father's quest. The rest of the movie is filled with car, motorbike, planes and Zeppelin, horse and tanks chases, fistfights... Everything to make a good adventure movie like Spielberg knew how to do. Image quality is equal or maybe a little lower compared to the two oter movies.
Rating: 8 /10

Mientras duermes (2011)

	Also Known As: Sleep Tight (USA), Malveillance (F)
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Jaume Balagueró (The Nameless, Fragile, REC)
	Actors: Luis Tosar (Miami Vice), Marta Etura, Alberto San Juan
	Country: E
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 14.01.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: César (Tosar) is the caretaker of a random city appartment building in Spain. Having access to all apartments and knowing details of the life of their renters creates for him a special relationship with them, especially with the young and beautiful Clara (Etura).
Review: I thougt this movie has been done before, the plot is so obvious. Actually not much happems in the movie, it is all about the tension and the great acting of Luis Tosar making the viewer feel sick, and he is very good at it! But in the same you feel empathy about this poor lonesome man.Actually I found loneliness to be an important topic in the movie. The way of filming by Balaguero (known to be talented since The Nameless) is also very good, showing close up views of the characters, in particular the disturbing face of Cesar, and slowly establishing this character. We almost never get out of the building, and the atmosphere sometimes reminds of Rear Window from Hitchcock. I wouldn'd be surprised if an american remake was done shortly.
Rating: 8 /10

Tropic Thunder (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Ben Stiller (Zoolander)
	Actors: Ben Stiller (Meet the Parents), Jack Black (Nacho Libre, Be Kind Rewind, King Kong), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man 1-3), Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, War
	Conditions of visioning: 13.01.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Three famous actors and a rap singer are shooting a movie about a Vietman veteran war hero. But their conflicting egos hinder the progression of the movie, and the director under pressure has to take drastic measures.
Review: Although drected by Ben Stiller, I found that the movie had a lot of Jack Black humor in it, that is jokes that are supposed to be funny by lasting 30 seconds instead of 5. This kind of humor made me stop watching Nacho Libre after half an hour. Too bad, because the idea was good to group those three comedians in this movie, and Downey Jr. is playing quite well. Some misunderstandings and jokes are well written, and the idea to start with fake movie trailers from the three main actors is excellent, but in overall I found the movie quite annoying and boring. Note that there are plenty of cameos (Christopher Walken, Christine Taylor, Tobey McGuire) and secondary roles (Matthew McConaughey as good as usual, and a special mention to Tom Cruise that plays an incredibly irritating fat bald producer, far from his usual super-spy role).
Rating: 4 /10

Death proof (2007)

	Also Known As: Todischer
	Year of first release: 2007
	Director: Quentin Tarantino
	Actors: Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 01.01.2013, DVD
Synopsis: Two separate sets of voluptuous women are stalked at different times by a scarred stuntman who uses his "death proof" cars to execute his murderous plans.
Review: The action movie that all the fans of ZZtop ever dreamt! Girls, cars, rock'n'roll. As usual with Tarantino, the music and dialogues are great. Most of the scenes are around a table in bars. The highlight of the movie is the car chase, maybe the most spectacular ever. So, this good action movie could seem to be for men, but the emancipation of women is one big topic, even if it appears like in Russ Meyer's movie Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Rating: 7/10

The Hunger games (2012)

	Also Known As: Die Tribute von Panem
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Gary Ross (Pleasantville)
	Actors: Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth (The Expendables 2), Woody Harrelson (EdTV, Zombieland), Josh Hutcherson (Detention, Voyage to the Center of the Earth)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 01.01.2013, DVD
Synopsis: Katniss Everdeen voluntarily takes her younger sister's place in the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death in which two teenagers from each of the twelve Districts of Panem are chosen at random to compete.
Review: The screenplay is co-written by the author of the novel, Suzanne Collins. Nevertheless, the interest of the book being both the local stories (mockingjay, etc) and the relationships of Katniss with Gale, Cinna, Peeta and Rue are mentioned but not very present in the movie. The movie would have deserved 3-4 hours, like other fantasy book adaptations. It is a pity, because the cast was good (at least Jennifer Lawrence was completely in her role) and the book is also very good.  The potential big scenes like the Girl on fire with Katniss's dress, the evening with Rue or the final fight, are not written nor filmed to be big scenes.
Rating: 3/10

Sucker Punch (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Zack Snyder
	Actors: Emily Browning, Gerard Plunkett, Scott Glenn
	Country: USA, CDN
	Genre: Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 01.01.2013, DVD
Synopsis: A young girl (Baby Doll) is locked away in a mental asylum by her abusive stepfather where she will undergo a lobotomy in five days' time. She plans to escape the asylum. She and four other female inmates follow the plan. In each act of collecting an item, they dive in their imagination.
Review: The story is quite basic, but the inscenery is well thought, by the use of different environments, via textures, colours, design (computer game / reality), clothes, music. It is well entertaining and could be a good start for the director. There is no complex actor's play. It feels like having computer game characters being more living.
Rating: 6 /10

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1984
	Director: Steven Spielberg (Jaws, E.T.)
	Actors: Harrison Ford (Star Wars 4-6, Blade Runner), Kate Capshaw (Black Rain), Jonathan Ke Quan (The Goonies, Encino Man)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 11.01.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Indiana Jones (Ford) crash-lands in India while accompanied by his side-kick (Ke Quan) and a singer (Capshaw) he just met. The spiritual guide of a small village will see this arrival as a sign from their God, and Indiana will be embarqued in a new adventure
Review: I was positively surprised by this episode that I remembered poorer than the two others from the same period. It is actually pretty good and offers a nice contrast compared to the first one. Spielberg was clever enough to deliver something surprising for a sequel. First, in this movie Indiana doesn't choose his quest, but it is imposed to him. Then, only the first sequence in Hong-Kong shows him in his usual conflict with other explorers, as to mark the transition with the first movie. After that he is on his own. The side-kick is also something new, and the religion background (not Christian) is a nice change. I also appreciated the several disgusting and horrific scenes (monkey brain for dessert, insects, death by burning, heart ripped out of a chest!), which makes this movie less suited for children. It seems to me that Spielberg was at the top of his art at this period, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom his one of his best pieces (with E.T., Jaws, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan). In particular I noticed many shots that clearly defined his filmmaking and that are now classical, like the camera travelling back from a close-up on a face and lettig characters entering in the frame from the sides, for a kiss for example. The typical apparitions by Indiana Jones when you don't see his face, or only see his back, are also fantastic. The roller-coaster ride in the mine is also impressive in quality and fun and creativity. Spielberg doesn't let you the time to question the credibility of the scene, not like what was recently done in Journey to the Center of the Earth. The image and sound quality for this movie is the same as for the first one: simply excellent.
Rating: 8 /10

La polizia chiede aiuto (1974)

	Also Known As: La Lame infernale (France), What have they done to your Daughters (USA), The Coed murders (USA), Der Tod trägt schwarzes Leder (Germany)
	Year of first release: 1974
	Director: Massimo Dallamano (What have you done to Solange?, cinematographer on A fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More)
	Actors: Giovanna Ralli, Claudio Cassinelli (The Mountain of the Cannibal God), Mario Adorf (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage)
	Country: I
	Genre: Polar, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 11.01.2013, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: The apparent suicide of a teenager girl turns out to be murder, and the police continuously fails in finding the leather-clothed killer riding a motorbike.
Review: The topics of teenage girls and their troubled lives seems dear to Dallamano, as they are already tackled in his movie of 1970 What have you done to Solange? which is very similar to this one. A difference is that here the killer has a distinctive look (leather, motorbike, helmet, preferred weapon) which brings the movie closer to being a Giallo like Dario Argento was doing them. There is no restrain in the description of the habits of the teenagers, which makes the movie sometimes quite brutal. The way the police investigation is done and the conclusions they draw are sometimes ridiculous, but on the other hand the apparitions of the killer are full of tension, and the 15-minute chase car vs. motorbike after one hour of movie is very well done (except for the continuous siren sound which is annoying). The independant editor of this DVD edition The Ecstasy of Film made quite a good job: film transfer, new cover, booklet, rare interviews. But the image compression is sometime pretty bad, defects of the film visible (vertical stripes), and the sound is too weak and muffled. A Blu-ray edition would have been welcome for this classic Giallo.
Rating: 6 /10