EMAV Film Review: Brandon Christensen’s 'Z' Offers Suburban Suspense

Las Vegas-based filmmaker Brandon Christensen’s first feature, 2017’s “Still/Born,” was about a mother dealing with a malevolent entity out to get her newborn child. At first glance, it seems like Christensen has just moved on to the next creepy-kid age bracket with his new feature, “Z,” but “Z” effectively shifts focus from its familiar initial set-up to a deeper examination of generational guilt. The theme from “Still/Born” that “Z” most strongly picks up on is the challenge and strain of motherhood, and Christensen dedicates the movie to his wife Alissa, the mother of his children.

Keegan Connor Tracy is excellent as Elizabeth Parsons, the mother whose life is thrown into chaos when her eight-year-old son Josh (Jett Klyne) starts playing with an imaginary friend he calls Z. As the movie begins, Josh is a happy, energetic kid who carpools to school with his best friend and loves his parents. But once Z shows up, Josh becomes sullen, withdrawn and prone to angry outbursts. He attributes all of his bad behavior to Z, and soon escalates from name-calling to shocking acts of violence. Elizabeth becomes convinced that Z is an actual sinister presence in their home, and not just a product of Josh’s overactive imagination.

Keegan Connor Tracy is 'Elizabeth Parsons' in "Z".

That’s all pretty standard horror-movie stuff, although Christensen (who co-wrote the screenplay with frequent collaborator Colin Minihan) executes it effectively, and Klyne gives Josh the right amount of unsettling emotional distance. The movie really belongs to Tracy, a veteran TV actor who rarely gets to play leading roles. Even in the more predictable early part of the movie, Tracy makes Elizabeth’s parental distress feel urgent and real, especially as she’s largely dismissed and patronized by her husband Kevin (Sean Rogerson), in another echo of “Still/Born.”

Tracy really gets to shine in the film’s final third, when the focus of the danger shifts from Josh to Elizabeth, and Christensen deviates from the creepy-kid horror formula. Another veteran character actor, Stephen McHattie, makes the most of his handful of scenes as a therapist who treats Josh but also knows more about Elizabeth’s past than he lets on. Some of the twists and turns of the plot don’t make a ton of sense, but they all have a strong thematic resonance.

Jett Klyne in "Z".

Shooting, as he did with “Still/Born,” in his native Canada, Christensen captures the bland menace of seemingly placid suburbia, where the wholesome nuclear family hides dark secrets. Christensen mostly makes impressive use of his limited resources, although there are a few unconvincing special-effects sequences, and Z himself is scarier as an unseen presence than in the few brief glimpses of him onscreen. As he did on “Still/Born,” Christensen proves that he can generate suspense and dread in a handful of locations (mostly deceptively cozy family houses).

Between “Still/Born” and “Z” (which made the rounds of horror film festivals, including Sin City Horror Fest, last year), Christensen has established himself as a rising indie-horror star, and specific moments in “Z” recall the early work of new horror auteurs like Ari Aster (“Hereditary”) and Mike Flanagan (“Oculus”). “Z” is a step up from “Still/Born,” technically and artistically, and there’s every reason to think that Christensen will continue to develop as a filmmaker with future work. He’s kept Vegas as his home base even as his career has taken off; maybe next time he’ll get to direct a feature film here, too.

Z is available May 7 on Shudder.

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EMAV Film Review: The Dam Short Film Festival displays a diversity of work

The 16th Annual Dam Short Film Festival. Photo by Tsvetelina Stefanova. 2020.

There were quite a few administrative changes behind the scenes before this year’s Dam Short Film Festival, but the result for film-goers was entirely seamless, reflected mainly in the more organized process for getting in and out of Boulder City’s historic Boulder Theatre (especially during the most crowded screenings). But little changes are important, and the leadership team at DSFF (including newly promoted executive director Tsvetelina Stefanova and returning co-founder Lee Lanier) proved that they’ve effectively positioned the still-growing festival (the largest in Nevada) for a strong future.

Logistics aside, this year’s 16th annual DSFF was also another wonderful showcase for the art of the short film, with many of the festival’s signature programs, including two separate spotlights on Nevada films. The winner of the festival’s Railroad Pass Best Nevada Filmmaker award was the documentary “Rainshadow,” Kari Barber’s film about a struggling Reno charter high school that focuses on art education. Although a little long at 37 minutes, “Rainshadow” is a good example of the kind of heartstring-tugging film that the DSFF audience (heavily skewed toward seniors) likes to award. It can be sentimental at times, but it also tells an important story with social relevance, and showcases the personalities of its subjects as much as the social commentary.

“Rainshadow” was part of the Nevada documentary program that opened the festival, and there was a separate program for Nevada narrative films that, as usual, proved to be one of the most popular. Brothers Mike and Jerry Thompson, longtime Vegas film fixtures, had three films in the festival, and their best was the offbeat supernatural comedy “Ghosts Don’t Cry” in the Nevada narrative program. The Thompsons’ amusing micro-short “A Cactus Story” played in one of the packed comedy programs, and their somewhat muddled horror-comedy short “Six Geese a Slaying” (part of the forthcoming “12 Deaths of Christmas” anthology that played in rough form at Sin City Horror Fest last year) played in the Underground program.

"Rainshadow"

There were other strong Nevada films outside the Nevada blocks, including Roberto Raad’s manic comedy “Alternative Therapy,” about a psychologist who gets a little too chummy with his patients, which played in the more adult-oriented of the two comedy programs (it also played at 2019’s Las Vegas Film Festival). Music videos from local artists Sabriel (“Dishes”) and Sonia Barcelona (“Violent Water”) played in the music video program, both demonstrating creative visions from the filmmakers in bringing the music to life. Megan Roe’s take on “Dishes” is a colorful explosion of stop-motion animation surrounding the singer, and Danny Chandia’s gorgeous clip for “Violent Water” pays tribute to the work of silent-movie master Georges Méliès, using minimal resources to create an immersive underwater wonderland (it deservedly won the award for Best Music Video).

“Maradona’s Legs”

Stefanova has talked a lot recently about how DSFF programs to the tastes of its audience, and some programs lean too heavily toward treacly, heavy-handed moral lessons. Those kinds of heartwarming stories can be told well, though, as I was reminded during one international-film program mostly filled with clumsy, didactic stories highlighting social injustice. Amid these was Firas Khoury’s “Maradona’s Legs,” a sweet story about two Palestinian brothers in 1990 trying to find one last sticker to complete their book of World Cup soccer players. In grounding the story in specific details (the sibling relationship, soccer fandom) and leaving the larger political landscape as background detail, Khoury creates an affecting story that reaches the audience much more directly than a manipulative lecture.

"Boo"

Programming this festival requires a delicate balance, and Stefanova, Lanier and the other staffers do a great job of providing diverse content for a diverse crowd. The Underground program, designed to showcase films too daring for the rest of the festival, featured Aiden Brezonick’s hilariously perverse “Jeff Drives You,” which ends up involving a man having sex with a self-aware self-driving car, along with the arch social commentary of Ilja Rautsi’s “Helsinki Mansplaining Massacre,” among other transgressive fare. The horror program, which has been uneven in past years, was spectacular from start to finish, with highlights ranging from the clever twist of Rakefet Abergel’s “Boo” (which had also played at Sin City Horror Fest), to Sarah Gurfield’s strangely romantic horror-comedy “Boy Eats Girl: A Zombie Love Story,” to the gross-out comedy of David Bornstein’s “Unholy ’Mole.”

"Demand Curve"

The festival also made room for a retrospective on the work of renowned experimental art-music collective The Residents, featuring band “associate” Homer Flynn (band members are all anonymous, and Flynn slipped up a few times in the Q&A, referring to “we” instead of “they”). More than anything else, the Residents program proved that DSFF organizers are still willing to occasionally confound the audience. They balanced that by doubling down on comedy, expanding it into two blocks, since comedy is always DSFF’s most successful program. At least this year’s audience award winner for comedy, Austin and Meredith Bragg’s “Demand Curve,” about an economics professor schooling his own kidnappers, was smart and creative, instead of lowbrow and obvious, as the comedy winners often are. As the festival programs to the audience, maybe the audience’s taste is improving a little.

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EMAV Film Review: Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival bears witness to history

Moment from 'Live to Bear Witness' by filmmaker and LVJFF festival director Joshua Abbey.

Although education has always been a big part of the mission of the Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival, in recent years the event has increased its focus on informative documentary content, in some cases at the expense of art. The lineup for this year’s 19th edition included only one narrative feature film (Isaac Cherem’s “Leona,” from Mexico) along with a program of documentaries highlighting important people and events from Jewish culture and history. Those documentaries were generally enlightening, with varying levels of cinematic quality, and they serve the festival’s mission of community outreach, even if they aren’t always fascinating films.

Israeli director Dani Menkin came to the festival with two documentaries, and his film “Picture of His Life,” about wildlife photographer Amos Nachoum, was the most visually striking documentary film in the festival, following Nachoum in his efforts to capture a photograph of a polar bear swimming in the wild, the culmination of his long career getting close to dangerous animals in order to preserve gorgeous images of them. Fittingly for a movie about an artist with an impeccable visual sense, “Picture of His Life” is full of striking images of the natural world, and Menkin and co-director Yonatan Nir keep all of their interview subjects (aside from Nachoum and the people with him on his expedition) offscreen, pairing their voices with more of the film’s stunning imagery.

It was interesting to learn about the lives of foreign correspondent Ruth Gruber (in “Ahead of Time”) and civil rights leader Rabbi Joachim Prinz (in “I Shall Not Be Silent”), but those documentaries were both the standard talking-heads-and-archival-footage productions that are often only slightly more engaging than reading a Wikipedia entry (and both have been available for several years already). Looking backward was more successful in the screening of landmark Jewish LGBT documentary “Trembling Before G-d,” which played at the very first Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival in 2001. Director Sandi DuBowski returned to the festival after visiting for the original screening, offering an update on his film’s subjects and a preview of his upcoming new documentary “Rabbi” (about an Israeli drag queen/rabbi). “Trembling” is still powerful and stirring, even with all the progress that has been made toward tolerance within the Orthodox Jewish community since it was first released.

Forbidden romantic relationships in the Jewish faith were also the subject of “Leona,” which played in a lavish luxury theater at Maya Cinemas in North Las Vegas, a new venue for the festival this year (screenings were also held at the Adelson Educational Campus, the Windmill Library, Brenden Theaters at the Palms and the Century South Point). Isaac Cherem’s film focuses on the close-knit Mexico City community of Syrian Jews, who live an insular existence, refusing to allow anyone into their faith via conversion, and shunning anyone from the community who marries outside the very specific faith (even to Jews from other sects). Co-writer Naian González Norvind plays Ariela, a young woman who’s already testing the conservative community’s boundaries with her career as an artist, and becomes further alienated from her family and friends when she starts dating a non-Jewish man.

A lot of “Leona”’s plot beats are familiar from other star-crossed-lovers stories, but Cherem and Norvind add extra dimensions by depicting the movie’s unique cultural context, and Norvind’s lead performance is sensitive and layered. Rather than demonizing everything about Ariela’s community and idealizing her relationship with Ivan (Christian Vazquez), the movie portrays both with complexity, ending on an ambiguous note that doesn’t provide easy answers. It’s the kind of challenging artistic production that LVJFF should program more of, and it’s just as educational as the blander documentaries on the festival bill (especially thanks to the post-screening context provided by local Rabbi Felipe Goodman, a Mexico City native).

The festival always draws heavily from the Vegas Jewish community for support, and the closing world premiere screening of locally produced documentary shorts “A Promise to Our Fathers” and “Live to Bear Witness” brought out that community in full force, completely filling the large auditorium at the Adelson Educational Campus. Produced by Vegas media veteran Gene Greenberg, “A Promise to Our Fathers” tells the story of Greenberg’s parents, Holocaust survivors who emigrated from Poland to the United States, as well as the father of Greenberg’s childhood friend Larry Pollard, a World War II veteran who’s involved in education about the Holocaust. It’s a slickly produced tribute to both men’s families, with affecting firsthand accounts of how wartime experiences shaped Greenberg’s and Pollard’s parents, and in turn shaped the two men themselves.

LVJFF director Joshua Abbey directed “Live to Bear Witness” himself, and like his documentary from last year’s festival, “Balabustas” (about influential local Jewish women), it’s more valuable as community-building than as cinema. It’s a little more polished than Abbey’s previous film, and it takes on a heavier subject, with local Holocaust survivors asking questions of local high school and college students, gauging the younger generation’s knowledge and reactions. Both “A Promise to Our Fathers” and “Live to Bear Witness” will be valuable classroom tools, and if LVJFF is going to be primarily devoted to education, these projects show the festival accomplishing that agenda effectively.

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EMAV Review: 'Valiant' puts Vegas Born hockey in the spotlight

The feel-good story of the Vegas Golden Knights’ remarkable first season in the National Hockey League meets the feel-good story of Las Vegas’ resilience following the 1 October shooting in Cruz Angeles’ slick documentary “Valiant.” With so much inspirational material, it’s tough for Angeles to go wrong, and “Valiant” is a watchable, well-crafted film that will appeal to Golden Knights fans who want to relive or memorialize the team’s improbable rise to stardom. But it’s never really more than a souvenir, and the central relationship between the team’s success and the city’s response to the tragic shooting gets only a superficial treatment.

Angeles has worked on various TV documentaries, and he previously directed “Fernando Nation,” an episode of ESPN’s acclaimed “30 for 30” documentary series, about LA Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela. The best “30 for 30” episodes use little-known sports stories to illuminate larger themes, highlighting the connection between sports and society. Lesser episodes simply recount well-documented phenomena, and that’s largely what “Valiant” does, relying on a combination of talking-head interviews (mainly with Golden Knights players and support personnel) and game-play footage. Even the behind-the-scenes moments, captured over the course of the team’s founding and first season, feel carefully stage-managed to portray the team in the best possible light.

That’s not surprising for a movie co-produced by NHL Original Productions, and it’s likely that “Valiant” DVDs will be on sale at Golden Knights games, following the film’s premiere during a pre-game event at T-Mobile Arena in November. Within that context, the movie captures the excitement of the team’s inaugural season, from the eagerness of locals to embrace professional hockey to the early skepticism to the shock and delight as the Golden Knights rack up wins and make their way to the Stanley Cup Finals.

After starting with the team’s genesis and owner Bill Foley’s tenacity in bringing hockey to Vegas, the movie introduces the most well-known players (including Marc-Andre Fleury, Deryk Engelland and William Karlsson) and shows how the team was built from a collection of underdogs, both on and off the ice. Just as the team is getting ready for its first regular-season home game in October 2017, the city is shaken by the shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country-music festival, and Angeles effectively conveys the horror of that night, including some disturbing first-hand footage. It’s a somewhat jarring shift for the movie, but the immediate aftermath of the shooting provides “Valiant” with its strongest cinematic moments, especially a sequence as Angeles cuts between various silent, somber reactions from his interview subjects and the 58 seconds of silence observed at the first Golden Knights game after the shooting.

Powerful visual moments like that are few and far between, though, and the movie quickly returns to its booster-ish tone as it celebrates the Golden Knights’ community efforts and showcases a handful of 1 October survivors and family members who made a connection to the team. As the shooting recedes into the past and the Golden Knights gain momentum on the ice, “Valiant” turns into a series of game recaps, the kind of thing that might air on ESPN before the start of a new season, to make sure fans are caught up on the team’s history. Those games are still exciting and invigorating for Golden Knights fans, but the movie doesn’t have any new insights about game play or community support during that period.

Angeles throws in interviews with rapper Lil Jon and Vegas icon Wayne Newton along with the more obvious contributors, but “Valiant” doesn’t get into the quirkiness of local fan culture or anything beyond the official narrative. There’s no appearance from, say, beloved canine fan Bark-Andre Furry, and even the Golden Knights’ oddball mascot Chance barely shows up. “Valiant” never feels like a heartfelt tribute from someone who knows the city, although its intentions are noble. If it rarely transcends its status as a corporate promotional product, at least it treats a delicate subject with respect.

“Valiant” is available December 3 on VOD and DVD.

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EMAV Review: Las Vegas Queer Arts Film Festival

Cast members of “A Night at Switch n’ Play”

For its second year, the Las Vegas Queer Arts Film Festival moved to a new venue and expanded its schedule, and after hosting sold-out screenings at Eclipse Theaters last year, the festival had somewhat sparser turnout at the Regal Colonnade. That doesn’t necessarily indicate reduced interest, though, since attendance was spread out over more programs in much larger auditoriums. The important thing is that festival organizers, led by founder and director Kris Manzano, remain committed to showcasing diverse offerings from LGBTQ filmmakers, and this year’s programming demonstrated an impressive range of styles, genres and perspectives.

This year’s festival added two feature films, the documentaries “Unsettled” and “A Night at Switch n’ Play,” to the lineup, along with eight blocks of short films, including one dedicated to locals. Both features have been making the rounds at film festivals, and both highlight underrepresented communities, with minimal cinematic flair.

“Unsettled,” from director Tom Shepard, is more successful as a movie, taking a contentious social issue (the settling of refugees in the U.S.) and finding a personal angle to approach it with. Rather than filling his movie with policy experts and onscreen statistics, Shepard focuses on the lives of four LGBTQ refugees attempting to obtain legal residency in the U.S., and their individual stories are much more engaging and immediate than a strident political argument. Shepard doesn’t hold back on depicting their struggles, but he also finds welcome moments of hope, leaving the audience energized rather than demoralized.

Still from "Unselttled."

“A Night at Switch n’ Play” is more basic, functioning as little more than a promotional video for Brooklyn-based queer performance troupe Switch n’ Play, whose members combine elements of drag and burlesque for provocative, often outrageous production numbers. Director Cody Stickels follows a repetitive formula, introducing the members one at a time with talking-head interviews and performance footage, taking a linear path through one of the group’s live shows. The performers are charismatic and thoughtful, and the stage performances themselves are creative and bold, but the movie doesn’t quite share that boundary-pushing spirit.

Among the short films, my favorite was the surreal, haunting Dutch film “Dante vs. Mohammed Ali,” a strange story seemingly set in some sort of remote alternate time, where two teenage boys are forced into a boxing match on a floating river barge. Despite being ordered to fight, the two boys fall in love, preferring caresses to punches. Director Marc Wagenaar tells the story with an ethereal style that relies on emotion over logic, and even though the rules of this isolated town are never clear, the bond between the two boys transcends whatever repressive community surrounds them.

Still from “Dante vs. Mohammed Ali.”

I also enjoyed Rachel Dax’s “Time & Again,” a sweet drama about two elderly women reuniting decades after their young romance was cut short by family and societal pressures; David Quantic’s cheeky documentary “Porn Yesterday,” featuring funny reminiscences mostly from gay men about their furtive first discoveries of pornography; and Jake Shannon’s comedy “Sammy the Salmon,” a goofy Australian movie in which a talking salmon helps a neurotic gay man come out of the closet. Manzano and his team did a fantastic job of finding a wide variety of shorts under the general heading of LGBTQ cinema, including numerous international films.

Closer to home, the locals program included only four shorts, but it was a promising start, and the documentaries “I Exist” (about local teenage transgender activist Kristina Hernandez, from UNLV alums Alyson Arsen and Jemsen Yumico Bollozos) and “Private Life: Kyle Ross” (about adult film star Kyle Ross, from filmmaker Heidi Moore) both convey their subjects’ passions and personalities effectively. As the festival increases its local presence, more filmmakers in town should take notice, giving the programmers more homegrown options to choose from. Those programmers are providing a valuable platform that deserves to make a broader impact.

#EatMoreArt #vegasfilm #VegasIsVegasArts

EMAV Review: Sin City Horror Fest 2019

"Z" - A film by Brandon Christensen

The first two years of Sin City Horror Fest featured some entertaining, creative and gruesome indie horror movies, often playing to very small crowds. This year’s third edition likewise showcased the range of artistic expression in the horror genre, including work from a number of local filmmakers. But the local film community seems to have finally discovered how great this festival is, and attendance this year was consistently strong, with multiple sold-out screenings (I had to sit on the stairs during one shorts block, because all the seats were taken), even when the festival upgraded to a larger auditorium at the Brenden Theatres at the Palms halfway through. The programming reflected the level of interest, especially the dozens of short films that made up the bulk of this year’s slate.

It was a little disappointing that the festival didn’t program more features, but it was also exciting that two of the four feature-length films on the schedule were from Las Vegas-based filmmakers. Brandon Christensen’s “Z” was the centerpiece screening on Saturday night, demonstrating that Christensen deserves his place as a rising star in the indie horror scene. Like Christensen’s first feature, “Still/Born” (which played at SCHF in 2017), “Z” was shot in the filmmaker’s native Canada, and it features some recognizable character actors, including star Keegan Connor Tracy, a TV veteran whose credits include “The Magicians,” “Once Upon a Time” and “Battlestar Galactica.”

Tracy plays stressed-out mother Beth, whose young son (Jett Klyne) becomes disturbingly obsessed with an imaginary friend he calls Z. The movie begins like a familiar (but well-crafted) evil-kid story, one of the most durable horror-movie plots. But it takes a turn as Beth learns more about Z’s origins, and the story’s focus shifts from the terrors of motherhood to a deadly generational legacy. Tracy brings genuine emotion to her role, and Canadian icon Stephen McHattie makes the most of his small role as Beth’s therapist. It’s no surprise that “Z” is already set for release on a major streaming service early next year.

"The Head" from filmmaker Michael Keene.

Michael Keene’s “The Head,” the festival’s other local feature, could not be further from the audience-friendly polish of “Z,” and that too demonstrates the range available to horror filmmakers. Shot entirely on actual VHS, “The Head” is a tribute to micro-budget shot-on-video horror movies of the ’80s, a niche product so narrow that Keene is possibly the only filmmaker emulating it. But he does so effectively, mixing humor and depravity in the story of a lonely loser (Dani Richmond) who bonds with a bloodthirsty disembodied head (played, of course, by the head from a female mannequin).

Keene’s first film, “Fatal Future,” was a feature-length pastiche of the work of Vegas-based cult bad-movie auteur Neil Breen, and both movies prove that Keene is very good at meticulously re-creating something that most movie-goers would consider very bad. (Disclosure: I participated in a live taping of the Piecing It Together podcast about “The Head” following the screening.)

A moment from "High Desert Hell."

Festival co-founder Drew Marvick presented a work-in-progress screening of the horror anthology “The 12 Deaths of Christmas,” a collection of horror shorts by local filmmakers inspired by “The 12 Days of Christmas.” The presentation was missing two of the installments, as well as the wraparound segment set to be directed by Marvick himself, so it’s not fair to judge it as a finished product. But the individual pieces, from filmmakers including Mike and Jerry Thompson, Heather Aradas and fellow SCHF co-founder Mike Lenzini, were clever and entertaining, some taking the concept more literally than others. Marvick has potential distribution lined up and expects the movie to be widely available by Christmas, and it could easily find an audience within the surprisingly robust holiday-horror sub-genre.

Among the other short films, local filmmakers Samantha Rodriguez and Sean Singer made an impressive showing with their film “Cult Friends,” a funny take on the horror device of the ritual sacrifice, with an appealing lead performance from Tom Peck. I also liked the shorts “Grave Expectations” (a macabre take on a Jane Austen-style romance), “Nepenthes” (featuring a woman lured by a deadly plant), “Zebra” (a comedic reversal of expectations about two blood-spattered old ladies), “High Desert Hell” (a slow-burn, sunlit slasher) and “Piggy” (featuring the revenge of a tormented overweight teen), which was effective even though it accidentally played without subtitles for its Spanish-language dialogue.

A scene from “Never Hike Alone.”

Those shorts are all very different, and with its higher profile, SCHF has the chance to give the horror genre the deserved respect it doesn’t always garner. Hardcore horror geeks can come for things like the viral “Friday the 13th” fan film “Never Hike Alone” (a competent but unmemorable effort), but there’s something here for every kind of cinephile, from the arty and obscure to the slick and crowd-pleasing. It’s encouraging that more people are taking notice.

#EatMoreArt #vegasfilm #VegasIsVegasArts

Underground Arts: Review Show - Four Las Vegas Short Films

A New Show for the Las Vegas "Underground" Arts Scene!

The best show for the Las Vegas "Underground" Arts Scene! Jeremy & Olivia review shows that are hard to find, but tons of fun! Check out their new episode featuring films by Roberto Raad, Byerfilms, & Bob Gratrix! And don't forget to subscribe and get them to 100 subscribers!

UndergroundArtsLV

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EMAV Review - The Amazing Johnathan: One Vegas icon, two documentaries

"The Amazing Johnathan Documentary" - a film by Ben Berman.

When longtime Las Vegas comedy magician The Amazing Johnathan announced in 2014 that he had been diagnosed with a severe heart condition (cardiomyopathy) and had been given only a year to live, he did it in the most dramatic fashion, onstage in front of a crowd of Vegas media and industry professionals. So it’s no surprise that Johnathan’s diagnosis and seemingly miraculous perseverance (nearly five years later, he’s still alive and performing) attracted the attention of multiple filmmakers eager to document his story.

Two separate films about Johnathan’s health and his return to the stage in 2017 are now competing for attention online, and while they have plenty of overlap in terms of subject matter, they take very different approaches to depicting Johnathan’s life. Ben Berman’s “The Amazing Johnathan Documentary” has gotten the most attention of the two, starting with its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January (where it was known as “Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary”). Berman has greater resources and higher artistic ambitions than comedian (and frequent Vegas performer) Steve Byrne, whose “Always Amazing” played at much less prestigious film festivals before being made available on YouTube in June.

Both films are imperfect documents of Johnathan’s health struggles and his return to performing, and the ideal film about this complicated man would probably take an approach somewhere in between these two. Berman frames his movie as a sort of meta-narrative with surprises and revelations that recall music documentaries like “Searching for Sugar Man” and “A Band Called Death,” as well as David Farrier’s twist-filled investigative documentary “Tickled.” Byrne takes a much more conventional approach with “Always Amazing,” using talking-head interviews, archival clips and some candid footage to construct his story.

Berman seems to have spent more time with Johnathan, and his film is more intimate, delving more deeply into the performer’s heavy drug use and the day-to-day management of his health issues, which largely falls to his wife Anastasia Synn. Berman’s film spends less time on laying out Johnathan’s history and more time on the present-day challenges of staying healthy and preparing for a new tour after several years out of the spotlight. Byrne gives a broader overview of Johnathan’s career, and “Always Amazing” is more effective at showing casual viewers why Johnathan matters, and how his combination of edgy jokes, prop comedy and magic tricks made him a unique presence on TV in the ’80s and ’90s.

"Always Amazing" - a film by Steve Byrne.

Both filmmakers take frustrating detours as their movies go on, and Berman’s film eventually becomes completely consumed with its shift in direction, away from telling Johnathan’s story and into telling the story of its own creation. Once Berman discovers that Johnathan has allowed other filmmakers and camera crews (including Byrne, whose name is ominously bleeped out as if he’s some kind of government agent) to follow him, he starts mistrusting everything that Johnathan says, up to and including his dire medical diagnosis.

While Johnathan is clearly being a bit underhanded and opportunistic in agreeing to multiple film projects, he’s not nearly as duplicitous as Berman briefly makes him out to be. Berman makes his movie all about himself, even changing the focus of his interviews with industry figures, asking them for their opinions on the multiple documentary crews rather than for their recollections of working with Johnathan. If Berman had made the kind of bombshell discovery that Farrier did in “Tickled,” say, then his histrionics would be justified. But instead he just succeeds at turning a movie about a dying man into a movie about an insecure filmmaker.

Byrne goes astray in a less extreme way, devoting large sections of “Always Amazing” to Johnathan’s longtime assistant and protégé Joel Ozborn, who’s obviously an important figure in Johnathan’s life but doesn’t quite warrant the amount of screen time he gets over Johnathan’s family members and other performers. Perhaps Byrne had more access to Ozborn than to anyone else in Johnathan’s life (including Johnathan himself), but the focus on Ozborn’s time with Johnathan (and their reunion for Johnathan’s comeback tour) overshadows the movie’s more pressing concerns.

Both movies eventually set themselves right, and Berman demonstrates a strong personal bond with Johnathan that allows for an emotionally affecting conclusion. Seeing this frail, terminally ill man defiantly take the stage to perform the goofy jokes and tricks that have been his life’s work is inspiring, and both movies emphasize the accomplishment of Johnathan’s return to live performance. On their own, the films are each flawed and messy, indicative of debut filmmakers whose reach exceeds their grasp. Taken together, they paint a full portrait of a Vegas icon who’s still defying medical (and show business) odds.

“Always Amazing” is available on the All Things Comedy YouTube channel

“The Amazing Johnathan Documentary” premieres August 16 on Hulu.

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Don't miss the Awesome Movie Year podcast!

With hosts, film-critic Josh Bell and comedian/film-maker Jason Harris

www.awesomemovieyear.com

As a movie critic, I’m always disappointed to hear people claim that the current year has been bad for movies, or that no good movies have been made since or before a particular time. There are great movies made every year, in all different genres and styles, and celebrating those movies is what the podcast Awesome Movie Year is all about. My co-host Jason Harris and I take on a different year in each season of the podcast, breaking down the movies in a variety of categories, from awards (Best Picture, Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Cannes Palme d’Or) to pop-culture impact (box-office champion, future cult classic, biggest flop) to our personal picks and more. In our first season, we’re looking back at the movies of 1994, and future seasons will jump around throughout movie history.

Jason and I have been friends for almost 25 years, and we’ve always talked about movies together. Jason is a filmmaker, a journalist and a stand-up comedian who’s written, produced and directed numerous short films and video projects. I’ve been a film critic since 2002, first at Las Vegas Weekly and now at a variety of outlets online, as well as on local TV and radio. Our producer David Rosen is the creator of the excellent movie podcast Piecing It Together, which takes new movies and analyzes their influences.

When Jason and I were in high school, we wrote a screenplay for a sequel to the 1992 softcore bikini epic Miracle Beach, because a movie producer that Jason knew owned the rights and said he’d read our script. That movie was never made, but two decades later, we have a podcast.

Check out awesomemovieyear.com for the latest episodes, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast outlet.

#EatMoreArt #vegasfilm #VegasIsVegasArts #awesomemovieyear

EMAV Review: Las Vegas Film Festival reflects a strong audience amid a struggling identity

A moment from Benjamin Berman’s “Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary”

Although its position as the premier film festival in town has been secure for a number of years, the Las Vegas Film Festival still seems like it’s struggling to find an identity, and this year’s event was at times frustrating, even while it highlighted a number of strong selections and provided plenty of support to the local filmmaking community. Although the festival was spread out over eight days, there were only two or three events on most days, and the schedule was split between the Brenden Theatres at the Palms (where the festival had been held for the last couple of years) and Downtown’s Inspire Theater (where the festival was located before its move to the Palms). Along with some delays and technical difficulties, that gave the event a bit of a disjointed feel, although turnout at most of the screenings I attended was strong.

“The Farewell.”

There were only four narrative features (including the last-minute addition of local feature “Death to False Hipsters”) on the schedule, and the best I saw was the Sundance sensation “The Farewell,” which opens in limited release in July (and will probably be in Vegas theaters sometime after that). Inspired by writer-director Lulu Wang’s real-life experiences, the movie stars Awkwafina as Billi, an aimless aspiring writer in New York City who travels back to China with her family when her grandmother is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. The family, however, has decided to keep that news a secret from Billi’s grandmother, and so they’ve concocted a quickie wedding for Billi’s cousin as an excuse for the far-flung family members to visit.

Wang explores the cultural gap with sensitivity and humor, and she makes a connection between the Chinese tradition that seems so horrifying to Billi and the other ways that family members, in any culture, lie to each other with what they think are good intentions. Awkwafina, who gave scene-stealing comedic performances in “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Ocean’s 8,” demonstrates impressive range as Billi, who’s quick-witted and sarcastic but also often lonely and insecure. The movie is a warm and nuanced portrayal of family bonds that transcend generational and national barriers.

“Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary”

Among the seven documentary features, I caught two with local connections, both about the struggles of prominent Las Vegans. Benjamin Berman’s “Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary” starts as a portrait of the veteran comic magician before detouring into a somewhat solipsistic examination of the difficulties of documentary filmmaking. Berman’s ruminations on his own filmmaking process are not as insightful as he makes them out to be, but the movie always comes back to the prickly, uncompromising Johnathan, who’s been living with a degenerative heart condition for years now, far beyond how long doctors predicted he’d last.

Local filmmaker Robin Greenspun’s latest documentary “The Zen Speaker: Breaking the Silence” showcases Vegas-based political fundraiser and business consultant Amy Ayoub, who recounts her harrowing years as a survivor of sex trafficking and abuse, and how she turned those horrific experiences into motivation for activism and empowerment. Like Greenspun’s previous documentaries (including “Semicolon; The Adventures of Ostomy Girl”), “Zen Speaker” is more of an educational tool than a cinematic achievement, but it’s hard not to be moved by Ayoub’s remarkable life story.

"Razzle My Berries"

The three shorts programs included several well-made local shorts that have been making their way through the festival circuit around town, including Heather Aradas’ “Razzle My Berries,” Anais Thomassian’s “Hello Darling” and Conor Hooper’s “Tricks,” as well as a couple of strong new shorts from locals, Adam Zielinski’s “Custody” and Jerry and Mike Thompson’s “A Cactus Story.” Writer and actor Lundon Boyd is fascinating in “Custody” as an Alex Jones-like conspiracy theorist whose personal life collides with his blustery online personality. And “Cactus” is a simple, sweet and whimsical musing from the always entertaining Thompson brothers.

“The Katy Universe”

I also enjoyed the mockumentary short “Getting in a Van Again,” about a band recording with an absurd “emotional engineer,” and the clever short “The Katy Universe,” which combines existential crises about both the nature of reality and mundane regrets in life. Despite some technical snafus, the shorts programs were effectively curated, and it was disappointing that the festival didn’t bring the same sense of discovery and care to the small slate of features (which were largely drawn from favorites at recent major film festivals). With its extensive sponsorship (including the return of Zappos this year), its connection to the beloved former CineVegas festival and its experienced programmers and organizers, LVFF should be the cornerstone of the local film-fest calendar, but this year’s event proved that there are still some bumps along the way to getting there.

#EatMoreArt #vegasfilm EatMoreArtVegas.com

EMAV Review: The 5th Nevada Women's Film Festival fosters enthusiastic audience

Scene from 'Silver Girls.'

In just five years, the Nevada Women’s Film Festival has gone from a small gathering put on by a few dedicated organizers to one of the major events on the Las Vegas film festival calendar. This year’s festival at Downtown’s Eclipse Theaters had strong attendance at every screening I went to, including a few with audience members sitting on the floor or standing in the corridor because every seat was filled. And more importantly, festival organizers (led by founder and executive director Nikki Corda) helped foster a sense of community, drawing a large number of filmmakers for a relatively small festival, including Vanguard Award recipients Jordana Spiro and Angelica Nwandu, whose film “Night Comes On” was a winner at Sundance last year.

Moment from 'Night Comes On.'

“Night Comes On” is a sensitive coming-of-age drama about a teenager just released from juvenile detention, reconnecting with her younger sister and coming to terms with her troubled family history, including a violent father who was responsible for her mother’s death. Stars Dominique Fishback and newcomer Tatum Marilyn Hall both do great work, and the screenplay by Spiro and Nwandu tackles weighty concerns without being heavy-handed or manipulative. Although there were technical difficulties that marred the screening, that didn’t dampen the audience enthusiasm for the hour-plus of conversation with the filmmakers afterward.

Vanguard Award recipients Angelica Nwandu and Jordana Spiro with Danette Tull (NWFFest Board and NV Film Office) and NWFFest founding Executive Director, Nikki Corda.

That level of enthusiasm and engagement was present throughout the festival, from post-screening Q&A sessions to the Friday-night welcome reception to conversations in the hallways. NWFFest showcased a number of local filmmakers, and I especially enjoyed Nevada-based short films “Silver Girls” (from Reno), “Hello Darling” and “Razzle My Berries,” the first two of which previously played at Boulder City’s Dam Short Film Festival in February. Directed by Mike Breen, “Silver Girls” is a sweet but incisive portrayal of the way that longtime friends can grow into very different people without even realizing it. Former “Absinthe” star Anais Thomassian’s “Hello Darling” is a surreal, funny and sometimes disturbing character study about a woman driven over the edge by inane social niceties.

'Hello Darling'

Heather Aradas’ “Razzle My Berries” is the perfect kind of film for NWFFest, taking on absurd beauty standards for women within the framework of a chipper horror-comedy. Aradas explores the dark depths of a 1950s-era beauty salon with some top-notch costumes, production design and makeup effects, along with very good performances from her entire ensemble. It’s a very promising, accomplished piece from a filmmaker who’s been steadily making her mark on the local scene.

'Razzle My Berries'

Among the non-local shorts, Kelly Wittenberg’s essay film “Representative,” about her complicated relationship with her late father, effectively weaves together stock and archival footage with narration to create an insightful collage of memories and impressions. Comedy “Mr. Right Now” is a frank, entertaining look at female sexual desire in middle age, with a warm and funny lead performance from writer Jody Booth. And “A Little Bit Pregnant” starts as an uncomfortable comedy about friends reconnecting before evolving into a more serious examination of pressures women face in long-term relationships.

'Mr. Right Now'

On the feature side, Kathryn L. Bucher’s “The Summerlands” was a wonderful surprise, the kind of under-the-radar gem that film festivals exist to support and discover. Its combination of naturalistic drama and educational documentary seems awkward at first, but Bucher manages to successfully weave together the disparate elements. She combines a road trip story about two half sisters reconnecting with a school project shot by one of the characters, examining California history via various historical landmarks. The narrative sections are shot in familiar digital video, while the documentary is on gorgeous Super 8 film, and together they add up to a touching story about family history and connections, and the struggles of coming of age as both a teenager and an adult. Hopefully other film festivals and some indie distributors will take notice.

'The Summerlands'

Even if they don’t, NWFFest will continue providing a platform for filmmakers like Bucher to tell their stories onscreen, and to come together to support each other in those efforts. That’s the most important thing any film festival can offer.

#EatMoreArt #vegasfilm #Bell #dtlv #eclipsetheatre #NWFFest #vegasculture

5th Annual Nevada Women's Film Festival at Eclipse Theatres

Join us for the 5th annual Nevada Women's Film Festival, March 21-25, 2019!

The festivities kick-off Thursday evening with Nevada Woman of Achievement recipient, the multi-talented international star, Susan Anton! Morning Blend’s JJ Snyder will sit down with Susan for an intriguing conversation about her incredible career appearing in hundreds of film, television and stage productions. Susan speaks truth to power. A reception that evening is sponsored by UNLV's Boyd School of Law.

The programming lineup this year includes 45 diverse films from ten countries, ranging from comedy, drama, doc, animation, experimental and horror. Local filmmakers, including UNLV & NSC students, will be highlighted. A Filmmakers’ Welcome Reception Friday evening will introduce our visitors to our creative local community.

The Vanguard Award this year goes to featured guest filmmakers, Jordana Spiro & Angelica Nwandu. On Saturday there will be a screening of their critically acclaimed project, Night Comes On, followed by a conversation with these pioneering filmmakers and Q&A session, hosted by Danette Tull.

Also on Saturday is a panel event: Sages of a New Age: How Social Media and Film Intersect. In this new age of technology, film is ever evolving. Social media plays a role in filmmaking in a way we have never seen before.  A team of distinguished panelists including female filmmakers, film festival directors, film distributors and communication experts discuss the way social media and film intersect.  Moderator, Dr. Heather Addison, Chair of UNLV’s Department of Film, will lead the discussion.

NWFFest concludes on Sunday with the 5th Annual Femmy Awards, a ceremony honoring the most outstanding filmmakers. Awards will include the Spirit of Activism, Best Female Protagonist, Best Animation, Best Nevada Filmmaker, Outstanding LGBTQ-themed, as well as student filmmaker, fiction and documentary awards.

Please view programming info here, schedule of events here and ticketing info here.

A PDF of the complete program is here.

Press inquiries here.

#EatMoreArt #vegasculture #nvwffest #vegasfilm EatMoreArtVegas.com

EMAV Review: 15th Annual Dam Short Film Festival was an impressive event

Pictured: 'Tricks'

The 15th annual Dam Short Film Festival was the Boulder City institution’s first without co-founder Lee Lanier, but the leadership team of John LaBonney and Tsvetelina Stefanova pulled off an impressive event without him, drawing in record attendance and proving that DSFF remains the most enjoyable and exciting festival in the Las Vegas area. I made it to nearly all of the programs during the four-day festival, and many were nearly sold out, especially the two Nevada programs and the always popular comedy block. Even the late-night Underground program, featuring movies too risqué for the daytime Boulder City general audience, had a long line of people waiting to be admitted before doors opened.

'The Traffic Separating Device'

There were memorable films in almost every block that I saw, and as LaBonney had touted before the festival began, the selection of documentaries this year was especially strong. I saw some affecting documentaries on serious subjects, but my favorite was the goofy lark “The Traffic Separating Device,” about a street in Stockholm where a metal ramp meant to prevent cars from traveling on a bus-only route causes entertaining havoc. It’s really just 15 minutes of hapless drivers getting flat tires or other damage from the ramp because they failed to read street signs, but director Johan Palmgren turns it into a very funny meditation on municipal improvement.

'Quiet Sundays'

There was also a lot of humor in John Morgan and Rob Hampton’s “Super 8 Daze,” about the directors’ own efforts as kids in the 1970s to replicate Hollywood blockbusters with their Super 8 home-movie cameras. That combination of humor and heart also showed up in Chris Riess and Amy Hill’s “Hula Girl,” about the woman who, with her husband, initially introduced the hula hoop to America (and got no credit for it), as well as in Katie Kemmerer’s “Quiet Sundays” (winner of the award for best student film), about NFL fans in the U.K. Kemmerer does a great job of making NFL fandom seem like something fresh and new, via profiles of some very endearing fans who love a sport that is about as popular in their country as, say, curling is in the U.S.

'Sweetheart Dancers'

The winner for the best Nevada film was another documentary, Ben-Alex Dupris’ “Sweetheart Dancers,” a profile of a gay Native American couple fighting to be accepted into a competition for traditional tribal “sweetheart” dances. It’s a heartwarming and well-crafted piece, one of several standouts among the Nevada films (disclosure: a short that I co-wrote was also featured in the Nevada program).

Other local highlights included the offbeat comedy “Hello Darling,” from former “Absinthe” star Anais Thomassian, and “Tricks,” from UNLV alum Conor Hooper. Thomassian builds an absurdist story around a slightly unhinged character and a variety of oddball situations, recalling the anarchic vibe of her former stage show. And Hooper (along with writer RaQuel Harwick) takes an overly familiar student-film premise and turns it on its head in a clever way.

'Hello Darling'

The comedy program is always a hot ticket, but there was appealing comedy sprinkled throughout the festival, and in the main program, I preferred the dry humor of the brief sketch “Message Erased” (about a woman going through an entire emotional journey while attempting to leave a voicemail message) over some of the broader, more crowd-pleasing offerings. In other programs, the dark comedy “Forget About It” was a particular standout, with its cynical, violent (but sort of sweet) take on a woman’s response to her partner’s admission of cheating.

'Forget About It'

“Five Star Fouad,” starring Dominic West (one of a handful of celebrities who popped up in shorts over the course of the four days), also puts a sunny, upbeat comedic take on a violent subject, with West as a bank robber taking a ride share for his getaway. And the highlight of the Underground program was the surprisingly sensitive BDSM-themed comedy “Platypus,” which had its world premiere at last year’s Nevada Women’s Film Festival.

This was the second year that DSFF featured an official music video program, curated by Stefanova herself (who’s also a member of local band Same Sex Mary), which has been a welcome addition (and showcased work from a number of local musicians). With LaBonney and Stefanova in charge and putting their own stamp on the festival, along with a dedicated crew of support staff and volunteers who return year after year, DSFF is well-positioned to head into its next chapter.

#EatMoreArt #vegasfilm #DamShortFilmFestival #BoulderCity #Review #film #Bell

EMAV Film: Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival is a welcome showcase of Jewish culture

Still from 'Working Woman'

As the longest-running film festival in Nevada, the Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival has years of history and a vibrant, supportive community to draw on, which allowed festival founder and director Joshua Abbey to make every screening at this year’s festival free to attend. Although the festival program has slimmed down in recent years (this year’s schedule had only eight feature films, spread out over nearly three weeks), Abbey still has impeccable taste, and he’s developed an impressive ability to program challenging and innovative films that also cater to the interests of the festival’s sponsors.

At LVJFF, that means there will always be movies about the Holocaust, and this year was no exception. But documentary “Who Will Write Our History,” which has been collecting accolades at multiple film festivals over the last few months, has more to offer than some of the drily educational documentaries that LVJFF has programmed in the past. Not that it isn’t educational, but it’s more than just a collection of talking heads and archival footage, and it focuses on an aspect of Holocaust history that hasn’t already been picked over in dozens of other movies.

Namely, that’s the preservation project led by Emanuel Ringelblum in the Warsaw Ghetto, documenting everyday lives of Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation. Director Roberta Grossman mingles the traditional scholar interviews with narration taken directly from eyewitness accounts and re-enactments of the events they describe. Those re-enactments can be a little stiff, but they give the story greater urgency, and enlisting a couple of talented, well-known actors (Adrien Brody and Joan Allen) as the main narrators lends a bit of sophistication to the presentation.

Of the eight features in this year’s festival, seven were documentaries, and providing a bit of information about a lesser-known part of Jewish culture or history is a reliable way for the festival to entice patrons. That was the function of the amusing (but frustratingly superficial) documentary “Shalom Bollywood,” about Jewish performers in the early days of India’s film industry, but I preferred the more oblique approach of opening-night film “The Museum,” an impressionistic portrait of the Israel Museum directed by Ran Tal. Tal strings together vignettes about various exhibits and employees at the massive history and art museum in Jerusalem, turning what could have been a bland promotional video into a lyrical meditation on Israeli and Jewish identity.

Director Alan Berliner also takes an impressionistic approach to his 2012 documentary “First Cousin Once Removed,” which showed at a program sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association of Southern Nevada. A record of the declining years in the life of Berliner’s cousin, renowned poet Edwin Honig, “First Cousin” is an often heartbreaking chronicle of Alzheimer’s, but Berliner’s use of non-linear editing and elliptical meditations built around Honig’s own decaying recollections ensure that the movie is a personal artistic statement rather than a tearjerking public service announcement.

Moment from 'The Museum'

The only narrative film in this year’s festival, the Israeli sexual harassment drama “Working Woman,” occasionally comes close to public service announcement territory, and the trajectory of its main character, a wife and mother heading back to work to support her family while her husband opens a restaurant, is fairly predictable as soon as she starts working for an overly familiar older man. Even if the progression from inappropriate comments to full-on sexual assault is easy to see coming, director Michal Aviad handles the subject with sensitivity and takes the time to build fully realized lead characters (including the harasser himself), and star Liron Ben-Shlush makes for a sympathetic, assertive protagonist.

'Working Woman'

The festival closed with the hourlong documentary “Balabustas,” directed by Abbey himself, which is set to be available soon for free on YouTube. The collection of interviews with various influential Jewish women in Las Vegas is more valuable as local history than as cinema, chronicling the growth of the city alongside the growth of its (initially tiny) Jewish community. Originally shot in 2005, the interviews themselves are fairly rudimentary, interspersed with some vintage photos, and there isn’t much connecting material to unite the film as a whole. Still, the packed screening was a rallying point for the local Jewish community, and after 18 years, the festival itself serves the same purpose, providing a welcome showcase of Jewish culture for anyone interested in exploring it.

#Bell #film #vegasfilm #EatMoreArt #vegasculture #Review

Medusa Underground Film Festival off to a great start for women in film

'Daughters of Northern Darkness'

Launching a new film festival is never easy, and local filmmaker Heidi Moore took on the task of putting together the female-focused Medusa Underground Film Festival almost entirely on her own, willing it into existence based on her own taste in movies and her connections among female experimental filmmakers. That meant that the first-ever event catered to a niche audience, but it also made Medusa into something genuinely unique, a glimpse into the kind of strange, bold and often off-putting movies that don’t usually get programmed at film festivals. In that way, it had a lot in common with the late, lamented (at least by the small number of people who attended it) PollyGrind festival, which was a similarly strange and sometimes inaccessible collection of films reflecting the unique tastes of its creator, Chad Clinton Freeman (who’s since left town).

Over the course of three days, Medusa showcased dozens of short films and one feature, Dylan Mars Greenberg’s ReAgitator: Revenge of the Parody (Greenberg also gave a short musical performance on the festival’s first night at Backstage Bar & Billiards). The idiosyncratic selections included some fairly straightforward genre fare, but also made room for many, many films that were more or less unclassifiable, from a movie produced by Pornhub to a music video for a death metal cover of Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.” Plenty of the movies were baffling or unpleasant or both, but even the worst offerings were interesting and memorable, worth slogging through for their sheer oddness and audacity.

'Parlour Tricks'

Some of my favorite films at the festival were built around goofy jokes, like the TV-commercial parody Daughters of Northern Darkness, an ad for a “black metal Barbie” that amusingly skewers the stereotypes of the Scandinavian heavy metal genre in the context of an ad for fashion dolls. That’s pretty much the definition of limited appeal, but it made me smile, as did the Australian short The Apocalypse Will Be Automated, in which a group of friends are thwarted in their efforts to flee from zombies by their uncooperative self-driving car. I also enjoyed the wry humor of the stylish Parlour Tricks, a black and white short that starts out as a typical ghost story (complete with séance and ouija board), only to turn absurd when the medium accidentally conjures up the spirit of a dog. Those horror and sci-fi pieces played alongside abstract oddities like Eileen O’Meara’s Panic Attack!, an amusing animated ode to anxiety, which was darkly funny without any genre elements at all.

'The Apocalypse Will Be Automated'

A lot of the heavier, more serious films just came off as obtuse, but the films that sustained a tone of dread could be very unsettling. My favorite among those was Nicole Goode’s Supine, about a lonely taxidermist who picks up a hitchhiker. Goode builds a tender dynamic between her lead characters, which makes the eventual deadly outcome all the more horrifying (if also kind of sweet). Liz Tabish’s To See You, a pastiche of paranoid 1970s thrillers, also succeeds at building emotional tension that pays off with a horrific climax.

'Supine'

The Study room at the Artisan (where the films showed on Saturday and Sunday) looked full with only 15 or so people in the audience, and some screenings had decidedly lower attendance. But any audience at all for an event like this is promising, and among the people who attended, there was a strong sense of solidarity and community, especially for the filmmakers sharing their work in an environment full of supportive women. The important thing is for Medusa and Moore to build on that, to invite more creators to share the kind of weird, alienating, distinctive visions that can only be appreciated at a festival like this. In that sense, Medusa is off to a great start.

'Panic Attack!'

#Bell #film #vegasfilm #Review #vegasculture #EatMoreArt

MUFF: Medusa Underground Film Festival

Celebrating the art of the female filmmaker, the “Medusa Underground Film Festival” will honor legendary cult cinema actress (more than 250 film credits), writer, producer, and director of the 2016 feature Model Hunger... Ms. Debbie Rochon as part of the inaugural film festival! MUFF will showcase two features, and over 50 short films selected from 11 countries that honor the vision of underground filmmaking art NOW January 11th to 13th 2019!

The first annual “Medusa Underground Film Festival” brings together more than 50 short films to showcase women who are changing the filmmaking landscape around the world! Taking place at the Artisan Hotel Boutique (Artisanhotel.com) in Las Vegas, NV, the “Medusa Underground Film Festival” will feature such events as a huge filmmakers panels, Q&A, workshops, a “Lifetime Achievement” Award, a variety of after parties, networking, an awards ceremony, two feature films, and multiple blocks of short films showcasing the different sides of underground filmmaking.

1/11-13/2019

ARTISAN HOTEL BOUTIQUE

1501 W Sahara Ave, Las Vegas, NV, 89102

TICKETS ****** The “Medusa Underground Film Festival” is excited to add another evening to the incredible festivities with a special “Opening Night” charity party happening at the Backstage Bar & Billiards (Backstagebarlv.com) on Friday, January 11th. Kicking off at 8 PM, with all donations from the opening night event going to the charity Street Teens (Streetteens.org). This opening night party will feature vendors, networking, and more! The “Medusa Underground Film Festival” is proud to announce that the incredible, Los Angeles based, non-profit organization “Women in Media” will be hosting a special networking brunch on Sunday, January 13th at the Thunderbird Boutique Hotel (Thunderbirdhotellasvegas.com). Tickets are $20.00 and include a buffet style meal. “Women in Media” is an advocate for gender balance in the film and entertainment industry; find out more at WomenNmedia.com. “I am beyond excited to have Women in Media hosting our brunch. They have great networking opportunities that every woman in this industry needs to be a part of.” MUFF Festival Founder and Director Heidi Moore The “Medusa Underground Film Festival” will be honoring legendary cult actress and filmmaker Debbie Rochon during the festival ceremonies. Creating a memorable career in drama, science fiction, comedy, cult, horror, and underground cinema for over 35 years, Rochon has been a driving force and a role model for women in the genre. With over 250 credits total, Rochon has shown an underground spirit and drive that has matched her with creators like Lloyd Kaufman, James Gunn, John Russo, Gunnar Hansen, Ron Bonk, James Balsamo, Brian K. Williams, Ryan M. Andrews, Gregory Lamberson, and more. Debbie Rochon will be honored during the weekend with her appearance TBA. “I have been a fan of Debbie Rochon ever since I saw her in Terror Firmer. Her film Model Hunger really spoke to me, and I feel her contribution to the art of underground film has been an inspiration to so many.” - MUFF Festival Founder and Director Heidi Moore

Email Jay Kay to request interviews with Heidi Moore or for any questions at medusauff@gmail.com.

#film #vegasfilm #EatMoreArt #LasVegasArtsandCulture #vegasculture