What I Saw at Fantastic Fest At Home

I would have loved nothing more than to travel to Austin, Texas to be part of Fantastic Fest as it unfolded September 22nd to September 29th. Sadly, I was not able to be there in person. Instead, I settled for covering Fantastic Fest At Home which offered selections from the Festival that were made available online. This included features and shorts, documentaries and a wild selection of new release movies that fit the uniquely avant garde reputation of Fantastic Fest. I've already had the chance to write about a pair of documentaries that I adored at Fantastic Fest, you can find my reviews of the wild A Life on the Farm and Lynch/Oz linked here. And I could not resist writing about the bizarre experience of the horror film All Jacked Up and Full of Worms, a full length review you can read linked here. 

But sadly, I can't write full length reviews of everything I saw at Fantastic Fest at Home so here are several capsule reviews of movies I saw at Fantastic Fest. Two of these I was lucky enough to interview the director of the movie and you can find those interviews on my brand new Sean at the Movies YouTube Channel linked here. Like, subscribe, share and all that YouTube stuff. 

Give Me Pity 2022 

Directed by Amanda Kramer 

Written by Amanda Kramer

Starring Sophie Von Haselberg

Release Date Unknown 

Played at Fantastic Fest 

Give Me Pity is a strange and bold movie that captures both the bizarre nostalgia of 70s and early 80s variety shows centered on celebrities and a fever dream of horrific proportion. Bette Midler's incredibly talented daughter, Sophie Van Haselberg as superstar Sissy St. Clair. There is no narrative per se in Give Me Pity, rather the film begins with Sissy St. Clair performing a lavish opening number for her very first variety special. 

Director Amanda Kramer never breaks the spell of this gauzy nostalgia. Instead, she introduces visual elements, dreamscapes and nightmare imagery that can lead you to your own conclusion about what you are watching. For me, I settled on the idea of Hell and how this character, Sissy St. Clair's version of Hell was being forced to perform in this variety show for eternity as her mind slowly begins to crack and madness begins to set in. Again, that's just my interpretation based on a surface level observation. I'm not writing a full length review of Give Me Pity only because I need to see it again to ponder the many, many layers of Meta and Irony and deeper meanings behind the many songs and skits in the movie. 

Sophie Van Haselberg is a revelation. She's incredible in this movie. I kept wondering why she looked so familiar and when I saw that she's Bette Midler's daughter, it clicked, I've seen her mom perform on shows not unlike the variety special in Give Me Pity. I can recall Bette Midler wearing similar costumes and crooning in the same way Sissy does in this movie. That's not to say that Van Haselberg is in her mother's shadow but rather that being Bette Midler's daughter adds a delightful layer of meta-commentary that requires another viewing to fully unpack. Give Me Pity is a must see when it becomes available. 

Give Me an A 

Directed by Anthology 

Written by Anthology 

Starring Virginia Madsen, Alyssa Milano, Milana Vayntrub, Rachel Torres, Regina Ting Chen 

Release Date Unknown 

Premiered at Fantastic Fest 

Wow! I really should leave the review as that one word, Wow! Give Me an A is the most in your face and pointed horror satire I've ever seen. Nakedly political, the anthology of short films from female directors with female stars makes serious points about the debate over abortion or, more specifically, about how the abortion debate is really about women's bodily autonomy. While the extreme voices would like to say this is about 'killing babies' or other such nonsense, the reality of the debate is about whether or not women get to make decisions regarding their own body. 

It's more than merely whether to carry a child to term. This debate in full affects whether women should be able to make any number of decisions about how they use their body. It's also about the rippling effect of these nakedly political decisions, masquerading as moralism, and the ways in which women's behavior are under attack, largely by a group of men whose oppressive conservatism, brought to its most powerful affect would prevent women from making decisions about their private lives, their healthcare, and other important aspects of THEIR life. 

Give Me An A uses a series of fiery and supremely intelligent short films to make these points dramatically, horrifically, through science fiction, and through a scathing satire that demonstrates both humor and a stinging rebuke of those who would stand in the way of women making their own decision about their bodies. This is one of the most exhilarating and exciting anthologies to come around in some time and a rare one that uses the form to make a trenchant and fearlessly political point. 

Find my complete article at Geeks.Media 

Documentary Review Lynch/Oz

Lynch/Oz (2022) 

Directed by Alexandre O. Phillippe 

Written by Documentary

Starring Amy Nicholson, Karyn Kusama, John Waters, Justin Benson 

Release Date Unknown

Currently Showing at Fantastic Fest 

I love a good niche documentary and topics don't get much more niche than the cross-section between the work of director David Lynch and the movie The Wizard of Oz. Director Alexandre O. Phillippe gathered together fellow filmmakers and critics and pondered the surprising number of ways in which David Lynch used The Wizard of Oz as a reference or a template within the stories he was telling. Whether it was something as crazed and exciting as Wild at Heart or something as somber and meditative as The Straight Story, visual or dialogue references to Dorothy, Toto, The Wicked Witch and, of course, The Wizard, can be found in the work of David Lynch. 

The brilliant critic Amy Nicholson delivers the first essay on the Lynch/Oz crossover, from the perspective of a historian and critic. Nicholson, a vibrant speaker and insightful podcaster is a terrific mind for a work that requires a strong voice and rigorous attention to detail. Nicholson notes a choice made in The Wizard of Oz to evoke the sound of the wind via chorus rather than a wind sound effect came back around when Lynch used a similar trick in, of all movies, Eraserhead. The specificity of this observation and Nicholson's poetic lyricism is lovely and thoughtful all at once. 

As much as I love what Nicholson brings to Lynch/Oz, the two best segments involve directors offering insights into a directors perspective on using homage and incorporating influence into their work. The witty and ingenious John Waters puts his typically acerbic wit on hold to gush about his directorial contemporary, Lynch and how he himself often referred to The Wizard of Oz both consciously and unconsciously. It's Waters who points out how a character acting as a gatekeeper to the goal of a protagonist relates to the gates of Oz and the goal of reaching the Wizard only to find just a man. 

Find my full length review of Lynch/Oz at Geeks.Media. 

Documentary Review A Life on the Farm

A Life on the Farm (2022) 

Directed by Oscar Harding

Written by Documentary 

Starring Oscar Harding, Charles Carson, Karen Kilgariff 

Release Date Fantastic Fest 

Featured at the Found Footage Festival 

Life on the Farm is a fascinatingly bizarre and brilliant documentary. I was not prepared for Life on the Farm. I thought what I was getting would be quirky and funny, and it is. But it is soooo much more than that. Life on the Farm is macabre, mysterious, charming and bizarre. It's a surprisingly emotional experience as well. I assumed that the film's subject, Charles Carson, was just going to be some easy to poke fun at bad filmmaker. Instead, Charles Carson is this genuine, sweet, odd individual who wins you over with his enthusiasm for all aspects of life and death. 

Life on the Farm is the brainchild of director Oscar Harding who turned a vague memory from his childhood into a lifelong search and obsession that culminates in the creation of this documentary. When Oscar was a kid growing up in the English countryside, Charles Carson was a kindly, somewhat addled neighbor who made sure drop something off with Oscar's family every Christmas. That something was Charles' annual VHS Christmas Card. Charles was a camcorder enthusiast whose life was dedicated to capturing life on the farm, in all of its forms. 

Each video started the same way with Charles addressing the camera with his name and the name of his farm, Coombes End Farm, said without a pause, charmingly and incomprehensibly together as CoomesonFahm. The videos have stuck with Oscar Harding for more than 30 years not because they were a secret work of genius, though they kind of are. No, his memory was solidified while watching the VHS with his dad and his dad suddenly clicking the tape off and getting rid of it. Why had his father done this? What could the kindly Charles Carson have had in the video for Oscar's dad to have reacted so suddenly and decisively. 

Meanwhile, somewhere around the globe while Oscar was puzzling over this childhood memory, VHS and found footage collectors were sitting on a goldmine. Through fate or chance, some of Charles' incredibly strange and unique home movies had gone around the globe and wound up part of found footage and found VHS festivals. The Charles Carson tapes were a pre-internet sensation but with no YouTube to save it for posterity, the tapes went into storage and were often forgotten, returning to the status of found footage to one day be rediscovered. 

Incredibly, just as Oscar Harding's Aunt recovered one of Charles' tapes, YouTubers had found one as well and were sharing it, though it wasn't quite as viral right away. The online fandom was small but growing and since Oscar's tape was different from the one that had gone around the globe, the confluence of Charles Carson content was about to reach a boiling point that would create this documentary, Life on the Farm, and a demand for Charles content among small enclaves of found footage devotees that is almost unrivaled. 

Click here for my complete review of A Life on the Farm