The Master Cleanse (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Bobby Miller
	Actors: Anna Friel, Kyle Gallner, Johnny Galecki (The Big Bang Theory TV-series, In Time), Oliver Platt (2012)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 04.06.2017, Cine Santander Cultural, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: After loosing his fiancee and job, Paul (Galecki) doesn't feel too well in his life. He hears about a cleansing program to which he subscribes and where he meets Maggie (Friel). On the first day of the retreat the true meaning of the cleanse becomes more clear.
Review: I was curious to see Johnny Galecki (Leonard from The Big Bang Theory) in a different role, as it must be difficult for him to get out of his well-established image which surely brings him tons of money year after year but may not fulfill him completely, and that will not last forever. He already had a small role in the SF movie In Time but this time he is the lead. At the beginning he is the shy guy that we recognize, but he then takes confidence and manages to fully express himself. I like in particular one of the early scenes in which he us closes his eyes for a minute to think about his pain, and expressed it perfectly when he re-opens them. This movie feels like a kind of exorcism for him. Beyond the main actor, I was surprised by the story which I hadn't read anything about. The Fantasy element is small but well used, as should be done in such movies, to help develop the Drama (in that case the meeting of two people feeling bad) and not be the center of the story (that's a different kind of movie). A movie I could recommend to anybody in fact, there is some romance for girls, it is not violent so younger people can watch it, and it leaves you with some things to think about in your life for the philosophical ones looking for the meaning in a movie.
Rating: 7 /10

I Married a Strange Person! (1997)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1997
	Director: Bill Plympton (Space Mutants, The Tune)
	Actors (voices): Charis Michelsen, Tom Larson, Richard Spore
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation
	Conditions of visioning: 04.06.2017, Cinemateca Capitólio Petrobras, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: In a newlywed couple the man develops the ability to change the shape of anything to its will. This causes trouble in his marriage and attracts a TV Network corporation.
Review: I had forgotten how crazy and creative was this animated movie by Bill Plympton, released after his first full-length feature The Tune (maybe my favorite of him) and before Mutant Aliens which made him known to me in 2001. The man was and still is the only person in the world to release 80-minute movies in which he has drawn everything. He wishes to remain independent and has turned down big contracts from Disney many times! I Married a Strange Person! looks a bit like a patchwork of scenes he has drawn as short stories before and sometimes forcibly included into the main storyline, but it is so well done and all of them are so funny that it doesn't disturb. Bill Plympton has this incredible talent for caricaturing a simple gesture, and he doesn't need many pencil strikes for that. In fact it is amazing that the audience manages to follow the story in spite of all those distractions. One of the reason I see it as a patchwork is that the quality of the drawing varies, for example the two singing scenes are much more crudely drawn than the others. Present at the FANTASPOA 2017 Festival to introduce his latest movie Revengeance, he told us that this was his craziest movie to date and I can't argue with that, it does go in all directions and mixes many genres and tons of sexual allusions. He also said that he was inspired by Japanese Anime in which anything could happen. Finally he clarified a bit the message behind the main story: the man changing things to his will is in fact an allegory to a cartoon animator that also has the God-like power to bring to life anything he can think about. So is this somehow an autobiographical movie?...
Rating: 8 /10

Split (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Choi Koo-hee
	Actors: Yoo Ji-tae, Lee Jung-hyun, David Lee
	Country: ROK
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 24.04.2017, Teatro nuovo, FEFF2017, Korean with English subtitle
Synopsis: Chul-jong (Yoo) is a legendary bowler in Korea until a car accident ended his career. Since then he is just a junk. Hee-jin (Lee) owns a classical bowling alley but is covered by debts. They decide to play for money and this becomes promising only Chul-jong convinces a young autist named Young Hoon (David Lee) to play with him.
Review: At the beginning, I thought I would not be captivated by the bowling, but Split deals more with the relation of the autist kid with the ex-professional bowler. About respect to the autist, about self-confidence, about trust, about understanding the other in order to make the best out of the team. And this was for me really interesting and well transmitted by the director. The conflict on paying back the debt seems to me only secondary in the movie. A bit as Dustin Hoffman is coached by Tom Cruise in Rainman, here Yoo is coaching David Lee. And alike Chul-jong tries at the beginning just to abuse of his competences and discovers in Young Hoon a person only when he notices that he has been a fan of him. It does not speak for Chul-jong but at least it plays the role of the main turn in the movie. The mentor role is Young Hoon while the rookie/hero is Chul-jong who learns from Young Hoon. Then the rhythm of the movie is kept quite well via the periodic encounter with the bad guys, alternating with bursts of team building. In these bursts, the communication flow is quite interesting. Hee-jin encourages Chul-jong to more tolerance toward Young Hoon. Chul-jong connects actions of Young Hoon with his own experience and shares these findings with Hee-jin. And only this way, as a team, they manage to get the best of Young Hoon and of themselves. Really a good lesson of communication.  The acting is fair. And is excellent for the role played by David Lee.
Rating: 7 /10

Hardware (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Richard Stanley
	Actors: Dylan McDermott (In the Line of Fire, Olympus has Fallen), Stacey Travis, John Lynch
	Country: USA, GB
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 03.06.2017, Cinemateca Capitólio Petrobras, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: In an ultra-polluted future, Mo (McDermott) roams the desert searching for mechanical parts to sell. He returns to the city with a robotic skull that he offers to his girlfriend (Travis).
Review: This is the kind of movie of which I have always seen the cover in old video-clubs but never rented it even during the Horror days of my youth. I was expecting a cheap Terminator rip-off but it is nothing like that. First it doesn't look cheap, in fact almost less cheap that The Terminator. And then it is not a story of war between men and machines, but an anticipation of the future of our world in which food will be scarce and pollution omnipresent to the point that people stay locked at home and the government implements sterility programs to avoid the most irradiated ones to have children. We do spend more than half the movie following people and what they do in their daily life in this horrible world: scavenger like Mo, artist like Jill or tech expert. This peculiar character that is Richard Stanley (see picture below taken at Fantaspoa) wrote the story as a teenager, and it took some years for the Studios to see something in it and desperately look for the writer who was at that time fighting Russians in Afghanistan! He thus came back to the USA to direct his first film. The story is quite visionary: insecurity in the cities, deserted rural lands, video calls a-la-Skype, connected homes, and pollution everywhere to the point of affecting the continuation of our species. He imagined this pollution as radiations which were the big scare in the 80's because he couldn't imagine the chemical and biological waste now polluting our food and water, but he was close enough. Putting aside the dialogs and actors that I found rather poor, remains a Monster movie (I haven't talked about the robot yet but it is well done) in an enclosed space, quite slow to my taste but that concludes with 15 minutes of more colorful dreamy sequences (2001 influence?) that send the movie in another dimension. An interesting experience but better watched in good conditions like I did in order to stand the lengths. A poor copy with screeching sound would make you give up easily.
Rating: 4 /10 The one and only Richard Stanley.

Don't Kill it (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Mike Mendez (The Convent, Big Ass Spider)
	Actors: Dolph Lundgren (The Punisher, Universal Soldier, Rocky IV), Kristina Klebe (Rob Zombie's Halloween), Elissa Dowling
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 03.06.2017, Cinemateca Capitólio Petrobras, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: Jebediah Woodley (Lundgren) arrives in a small town after multiple homicides occur. When he announces to the Police that he is a Demon hunter they throw him in jail, but the FBI agent on the scene (Klebe) will soon have to release him.
Review: According to his own words, Mike Mendez is fortunate or unfortunate to be comfortable with small budgets. I remember his previous movies The Convent and Big Ass Spider! and I could recognize the same familiar style in this one. Introducing his movie at the FANTASPOA 2017 Festival (see picture below), he further shared with us that he had only 12 days to prepare and 17 to shoot it in Minnesota instead of Alaska where it would have had a visual look more like 30 Days of Night (and its sequel Dark Days). He didn't seem to mind so much and was just happy to shoot plenty of fun killings on-screen; he also said that his favorite director is Sam Raimi (the Evil Dead saga), no surprise there. Don't Kill it is a humble B-movie that is a lot of fun to watch, if you keep in mind the limited budget. The plot is great: a demon that jumps to the body of the who killed the previous host, so how do you kill it? The bad-ass Dolph Lundgren is perfectly at ease in this role that shows him more verbose and funny than in his 80's productions like The Punisher. Ron Perlman (Hellboy) was the first choice the the main character, that would have been something as well. The editing is sometimes weird (Mendez did it alone at home!), the reaction times of the good guys super slow and the behavior of the characters don't make sense when 30 people die in front of them, but put all that aside and enjoy the ride, head explosions, demons and a solid Dolph Lundgren in the middle of all that.
Rating: 6 /10 Mike Mendez (left) answering questions from the audience.

Camera Obscura (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Aaron B. Koontz
	Actors: Christopher Denham (Argo, Shutter Island), Nadja Bobyleva, Catherine Curtin
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Horror, Black Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 03.06.2017, Cine Santander Cultural, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: Returning from conflict where he was photographer, Jack (Denham) suffers from PTSD (Post-Traumatic Syndrom Disorder). Eighteen months later he starts taking pictures again with a camera his fiancee (Bobyleva) offered him, but the developed photos show something unexpected.
Review: The only thing I can criticize about this movie is that I have the feeling that this story has already been told. Cameras revealing hidden details are common in the Genre, from the classics Blow-up, Profondo Rosso and Blow Out to The Omen. And in Camera Obscura it is not details but rather the heart of the story. It is the first full-length feature directed by Aaron B. Koontz which before that produced a movie that I liked among others: Starry Eyes. The story is told in a way to continuously pick our interest, until things turn bad (of course they do) and the actions of the main character are shown with the slightest touches of Black Humour which I appreciated a lot whenever they came. A very well done horrific thriller.
Rating: 7 /10

Prevenge (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Alice Lowe
	Actors: Alice Lowe (Hot Fuzz, Sightseers), Gemma Whelan, Kate Dickie (Prometheus, The Witch), Tom Davis
	Country: GB
	Genre: Thriller, Black Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 03.06.2017, Cine Santander Cultural, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: Pregnant Ruth (Lowe) is not an innocent future mom. She starts killing people following the commands of her unborn daughter, apparently in relation to some drama in her past.
Review: Alice Lowe has written the story and is both directing and lead actress in this movie, and she does both very well, especially when she executes her victims with a form of Black Humor. But besides that Prevenge doesn't really bring anything new to the genre, neither in the story nor in the form. It is nice to follow this woman talking to her belly, the murders are funny and bloody enough ans the whole thing is well shot, but that's all I will remember.
Rating: 5 /10

Dave made a Maze (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Bill Watterson
	Actors: Kirsten Vangsness, John Hennigan, Stephanie Allynne
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 02.06.2017, Cinemateca Capitólio Petrobras, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: During a week-end when his girlfriend (Allynne) is away from home, Dave (Vangsness) tries to complete his to-do list but ends up building a cardboard labyrinth in the living-room. When she comes back he says he is lost in it. More fiends are invited to go search for him in the maze that is bigger than it looks from the outside.
Review: One of the best movies presented at the Fantaspoa 2017 Festival, for its originality and creativity. What an idea to have an adult guy build a maze and roam it with his friend using his imagination! Well it is not told like that but reasoning doesn't help appreciating the movie, you have to watch it. Creativity for the great sets built all of cardboard boxes, 3000 square meters of it according to the director, who also told us that principal photography took only 20 days (plus some time much later on for animated scenes) and they had a very restricted space to work so that sets were only existing for between 3 and 24 hours. The maze and the adventure our characters live in it are filled with other super creative elements that I cannot reveal to keep the surprise intact. And when you think the movie runs out of ideas, a semi-pretentious scene (words of the director) efficiently leads to the conclusion. Finally, through the question "Why did Dave build a maze?" asked by a director filming a documentary within the movie (funny how young directors like to film what they know best, which is... filming, as I already felt with actresses in Always Shine), we get to understand the point of this movie led by a 30 years-old still under the care of his parents and who has the feeling of never accomplishing anything. I had a really good time watching Dave made a Maze. The movie will be released on Home entertainment supports in August.
Rating: 8 /10 Director Bill Watterson (center) discussing the Festival program with JoRafCinema (credit: FANTASPOA).

Revengeance (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Jim Lujan, Bill Plympton (Space Mutants, The Tune)
	Actors (voices): Robert Lujan, Charley Rossman, Jim Lujan
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation
	Conditions of visioning: 02.06.2017, Cine Santander Cultural, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: A biker/wrestler that became corrupt politician, a teenage girl mastering archery, bounty hunters, dead parents and a desert sect... Revengeance is in the air.
Review: What a pleasure to watch a new movie drawn by Bill Plympton after ten years without for me (since Space Mutants in 2001 and Hair High in 2004 even). Introducing the movie at the Fantaspoa 2017 Festival (see photo below), he told us he had fully enjoyed the pleasure of drawing all day since his partner on this project Jim Lujan took care of all the rest: story, dialogs, production and 80% of the voices. Plympton usually does everything alone to stay independent, but that means more work and things to think about. This revenge story a-la-Kill Bill is peppered by characters all as unique as the next, and Plympton likes to compare his bad guy with Donald Trump. The faces and expressions of those characters are caricatured in the traditional Plympton style but with a different "coup de crayon" that still makes the look of this movie unique. The sets, landscapes and points of view are always as original with distorted perspectives like a Fish-eye lens would give. And the dialogs are also great of simplicity: "Why are you doing that? - Revengeance! - I'm pretty sure it's not a word". I have to see more of Jim Lujan with whom Plympton fell in love, and in any case if you like his previous works, Revengeance is for you.
Rating: 8 /10

Replace (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first relese: 2017
	Director: Norbert Keil
	Actors: Rebecca Forsythe, Lucie Aron, Barbara Crampton
	Country: D, CDN
	Genre: Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 01.06.2017, Cinemateca Capitólio Petrobras, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: Kira Mabon (Forsythe) feels a bit lost in her own appartment. She meets her neighbour Sophia (Aron) who convinces her to go see a doctor about a skin dryness that creeps up her hand.
Review: The director Norbert Kiel couldn't make the trip to present his movie at the Fantaspoa 2017 Festival, but the writer/producer Richard Stanley (director of the 1990 Hardware honored at the Festival) did. He told us that 99% of the screenplays he writes never get shot (I think 90-95% may be more realistic), that he wrote this one for David Cronenberg (the 80's Horror classics Scanners, The Fly and Videodrome and more recently A History of Violence) thus the setting in Toronto, but that it ended up being shot mostly in Munich, Germany (the indoors scenes I guess because I recognized only one set outside). Other anecdotes: he wrote under a female alias to sell it more easily (you barely see one guy thus the girls-movie tag attached) and included an intense sex scene that ended up being edited out. He revealed that it is nowadays quasi-impossible to show a sex scene in a movie while they are everywhere on TV (see Game of Thrones for example), go figure. Finally he confessed the influences of the director: Dario Argento for the visuals and John Carpenter and Claudio Simonetti (from Goblin) for the soundtrack, which indeed reminds of the work of those composers. Now about the movie experience itself: I liked the story of body in decomposition and what it forces the main character to do. The final revelation is also well-placed and I liked the ending. What I didn't like is how the main character keeps everything to herself and reacts in a way that I rarely understood. Those many scenes of watching her wandering around and not understanding why spoiled a bit the movie for me, but it still is a nice little creepy flick.
Rating: 5 /10