While most of our weekends and our vacation days were spent focused on the triplex, we still found some time to enjoy ourselves. We never went far, but we still spent time with our friends. I experienced my first Indian wedding, which was an experience I will not forget. And of course, there was Fantasia!

I failed to update the look of my website, which is something I hope to remedy in 2012. (yeah, we heard that before Mike…) I only wrote about thirty posts, which is too low to my taste. The bulk of my posts were regarding Fantasia, and I am quite proud of what I wrote. There is a review for every film I saw this year, including all the short films! I plan on doing this every year when my favorite festival arrives in town.

So overall, the focus of 2011 was on our triplex. I have many plans for next year, so I hope it will be much more diversified.

To everybody who reads this, happy new year. I wish you the best for 2012!!

Me and Shalini (Dharti’s cousin), with Dharti in the back

About three years ago, I wrote a post on how I was thinking about buying an iPhone. Back then, it was the coolest phone around, and oh-so-powerful! It led to me buying a Macbook Pro (MBP), and slowly becoming a Macdict. Fast forward a few years and the times have changed. I still use my MBP, but I have installed Windows 7 and use that as my primary operating system. I have also changed phones. I could have gotten the iPhone 4, but instead, I took the different route and chose the underdog phone OS.

Now many of you are probably wondering how I could possible leave Apple. I have many friends who think Apple are gods and they never do anything wrong. While I will not criticize Apple’s hardware, I have a lot of problems with other aspects of the House that Jobs built.

1) Mac OS
I went from Windows XP to Mac Leopard. It was refreshing! There was so much eye candy going on that you really get sucked into the gloss of the operating system. Unfortunately, once you get used to the eye candy, you start seeing a lot of the problems that come with it. Little things like how there is no real “maximize” button. You can’t Cut & Paste files unless you drag with a mouse. It might not sound like much, but these are features I use all the time. Worse is when you look online, mac purists will try to convince you that it is normal that it works this way.

I don’t like being blocked in by an operating system. While I have never bothered to update my Mac OS to a new version, I never saw a real reason to do it. Looking at the biggest points for OS Lion, I am even happier that I am back in Windows. Apple is making their desktop OS look more and more like a tablet. I am a programmer and a designer.. I don’t want my operating system to be dumbed down for end-users. Again, I have not tried OS Lion, but that is my general opinion of the direction Apple is heading.

I do not regret at all my decision to purchase Windows 7 and install it on my MBP. It feels like a real OS, is as beautiful (or even prettier) than Mac Leopard, and it has never crashed on me. Also, it runs all my games, something the Mac is getting better at, but still lacking.

2) iPhone OS
This is a more difficult category to complain about. The iPhone is a great piece of hardware that is accentuated by the massive amounts of apps. I was never a huge fan of the phone’s operating system, and it led me to jailbreak it as soon as I could. If you give me a device with some power, I will want to use it in whatever way I wish. When the iPhone 3gs was announced, they started removing some functionality with the older phones. I am now stuck at version 4.3, which is missing many features (multitasking, voice dialing, WALLPAPERS, etc) because my 3g phone is too slow. By jailbreaking the phone, I got all these features to work. It drives me mad that it seems that Apple refuses to help older users, and instead irritate them to the point where they need to buy the newest iPhone to get all the services. For Apple, this has worked to their advantage, as they make bags of money, but for the end user, it is frustrating. I thought really hard about buying the iPhone 4, but in the end, I wanted to try something else, and I looked elsewhere.

I still find Apple makes great hardware. The iPhone 4 is still the sexiest smart phone out there, but I do not enjoy their software. I still have my Mac partition on my laptop, and while I will have to boot into it to get stuff off my iPhone, I don’t plan on visiting it afterwards. I would like to buy a tablet one day, and currently the most interesting product is the iPad 2, but other competitors are coming out with great solutions as well. I don’t regret my decisions to purchase Mac products, and I might purchase from them again, but they no longer stand on the top pedestal in my books.

The first short I saw was probably also my favourite. It takes place around a campfire where the camp counselor is singing a spooky tale to the kids. One child in particular is not comfortable with the song, which provokes the counselor into embarrassing him in front of the others. As the song progresses, the killer from the song shows up for real and murders the only adult. The young rejected boy gains courage, fights the murdered and saves the day… or does he?

What makes this short so wonderful is that most of it is in song. They sing around the campfire, but when the killer arrives, his score and voice sounds right out of a death metal album. When our hero confronts him, he sings to a catchy tune, where his camping buddies sing along and clap their hands to the beat. It wasn’t long before everybody in the audience was clapping along as well. It was great fun from start to finish.

We, Time machines

What happens if you can manipulate time? If you are a guy, you use it to meet women repeatedly to know them and then bring them to bed. What happens when you try this on a lady who can also manipulate time? Your tricks won’t work here! When the man in question discovers a time-travelling woman, they decide to spend their lives together. Things start our wonderfully, but like most relationships, they realize it will get stagnant and won’t always be great. Since they can travel back and forth, they live out their time together until they get bored, and then simply return back to the point before they meet. It is as if nothing happened, but they will still remember everything. Pretty nifty concept for a clever short film.

Myshoes

This one is a bit hard to explain. It starts with a woman waking up in a car with a guy driving really fast. He tells her not to worry and that he [somebody else] will not bother her anymore. Is he the good guy, or did he just kidnap her? We get glimpses of the other man, and we see her text somebody at certain points, but since the movie is not played out linearly, it is a little hard to follow. By the time the credits roll, you think you understand, but you’re not exactly sure. Overall, an interesting experiment.

Abandoned

In this steampunk-ish short, we follow a man who is alone in what seems like an apocalyptic Earth. He is trying to find other humans while escaping scavenging aliens and destructive robots. We don’t get a long explanation on why the world is now like this, but there is a voice over that gives us the necessary information we need to know. Aliens have invaded and humans have created robots to fight back, only that the robots now kill everything, including the humans. It isn’t much information, and it feels more like a trailer than a short movie. That’s not exactly a bad thing though! I found the concept really interesting, and I would definitely like to see a longer fleshed out film on the subject.

Night Fishing

I was wary when I first heard about this short due to the fact it is a half hour long (and it played before a 2.5 hour long movie!). Besides the fact that the director is none other than Chan-wook Park, the other big selling point of this “short movie” is that it was completely filmed with an iPhone! I found myself at first more interested in the limitations of the video format, but soon forgot that it was filmed off an cell phone and found myself entranced in the movie. I don’t really want to give much away, because it gets really interesting, but I will say that it teaches you about some of the culture of South Korea. It was a bit long at times, but in the end was an enjoyable film.

The Dungeon Master

The last short I saw was another that I would love to see made into a full film. It involves two men who decide to play a game of Dungeons & Dragons. They haven’t played in ages, but they know a guy who knows the rules inside and out. The game night arrives and they create their characters. While their Dungeon Master (DM) is taking it seriously, the players are having a lot of trouble getting into character and to compensate, they start making fun of the game and their host. The DM has a few tricks in his sleeves though and he guarantees they will play a game that they will never forget.

This is probably the movie that hits closest to home. As a geek/nerd, I have (and still) play Dungeons & Dragons now and then with my friends. It is a really fun game, but it is one that is easy to poke fun at. I can understand how some people can look at some players and think that they are simply weird and confusing. That said, the DM in this short was not your usual host, and he brought them to a new level of game play. I don’t want to say too much, but I would LOVE to see this get turned into a full length feature film!

The Fantasia festival would not be complete without the annual DJXL5 Zapping party! Every festival, DJXL5 throws us a Zappin party with some funny shorts and cartoons, but this year he added a second show based purely around Mexican cinema. He did something similar last year using Indian cinema as a backdrop. Since my knowledge of Mexican cinema is quite limited, I let myself get pulled into DJ XL5’s grasp as he showed us the best and worse of Mexican film.

While at most Zappin parties, you’ll spend the entire time laughing, these cultural parties have some serious mixed in with the fun. For the Mexican party, there was about 95% funny, and 5% serious films (particularly from the last ten years). As much as I appreciate seeing a good diversity of cinematic Mexican culture, my favourite parts were when we indulged in the campy, funny, and weird. Probably the main staple of Mexican cinema are the luchadores, aka masked wrestlers, which is also a synonym for pure fun. In the center of the luchadores stands El Santo, the greatest masked wrestler that lived. He has starred in 52 movies, most which have him fighting the supernatural. Think about that for a second; Masked wrestlers vs the supernatural. Pure genius! We were also treated to some old school horror films, some that actually looked pretty good, and others that were too campy to be taken seriously.

In all it lasted a few hours and we were treated to live events in addition to the video. It started with a bang when a real mariachi band played a few songs to get us in the mood. We got to see many people in awesome wrestling masks, and learned many new things on Mexican wrestling. All in all, it was a great cultural event that gave us a glimpse of the creative side of Mexico. While I am biased, I did prefer last year’s Bollywood party over this one, but overall, this was an excellent way to end the festival!

If there was any movie I was really hyped in seeing, it was this one. I didn’t know what to think of the movie in itself, but I really wanted to go because Guillermo del Toro was supposed to be in attendance! I am a big fan of his, so I really wanted to be there for the Q&A. Unfortunately, the movie sold out almost immediately, but I managed to score a ticket from a friend two days before the viewing. As estatic as I was, it was only mere hours until they announced that del Toro could no longer attend as he had hurt his back. Saddened by this fact, I went to see the movie regardless, and I am quite happy that I did.

The movie is actually a remake of a 1973 TV-film of the same name. While I have not seen the original, the plot is very similar to what I saw. This new film’s main character is a small girl who is sent to live with her father in an old mansion he is renovating. In exploring the house, she discovers a hidden room with a bolted fireplace. She hears whispers behind the grill calling out to her; asking her to free them. Obviously having never seen a horror film before, she complies and unknowingly lets loose a group of tiny goblin creatures. These creatures have one goal and that is to bring her into the grate, for in order to keep their ranks, they need the soul of a new person. As she starts to realize that these creatures and voices are evil, she is tries to tell her father and his girlfriend, but is unable to convince them that she is not simply making it up. As days progress, the goblins get more aggressive in trying to achieve their goal. Will she be able to convince the others about the truth and walk out unscathed?

This is a beautiful movie. While del Toro did not direct, you can see his touch everywhere. From the creatures to some of the areas, you can see influences from his prior films such as Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy 2. Although the creatures were well animated, I would have liked to have seen less of them and let my imagination fill in the blanks. Originally, del Toro and the director Troy Nixey wanted a PG-13 rating to allow a larger audience to see the movie, but the ratings board landed them a R for “pervasive scariness”. While I can understand the R rating for the film (especially the opening scene, which is just twisted), I can see that overall the movie was intended for a younger audience. I might not have been extremely spooked throughout the movie, but if I was a younger teenager with a vivid imagination, I would have trouble sleeping at night. In that aspect, the film succeeds immensely. As an adult who is used to more shocking movies at Fantasia, I wasn’t terrified, but I definitely liked my time spent in the dark.

If you were to ask me what was my favourite movie from prior Fantasia festivals, the first movie to come to mind would be Survive Style 5+. Those who know me, know of my love for the film. When I read that one of the shorts of Quirky Guys and Gals was directed by the same director, I knew I had to see it.

Quirky Guys and Gals is composed of four short movies consisting of some quirky stories about quirky guys and quirky girls. (say that five times fast). The first revolves around a three-girl cheering squad who help people to do menial tasks by cheering. There are plenty of stupid moments across the board and unrealistic scenarios that keep it fun. The second involved a boy dressing up like a girl to become friends with a girl he likes. Cute story, but it felt rough around some edges. The third involves a man from the electrical company apologizing to a woman who felt she got bad service on the phone. Probably my least favourite of the bunch, but not that bad. The fourth, and my most anticipated, was the short directed by Gen Sekiguchi. It involves a woman letting out-of-work businessmen stay at her house during the day so that their wives won’t realize they lost their job. She used to collect and take care of stray cats, and since she promised her husband that she wouldn’t do that anymore, she replaced the cats with the business men. It is the quirkiest of the bunch and the main actress’ cheerfulness is infective.

Overall, it was worth the price of the admission, but some shorts were much better than the others. I think I over hyped myself too much for Gen Sekiguchi’s piece, as it did not live up to the ideas I had in my head. Still, his is among the better shorts of the film. If you like quirky Japanese cinema, this is a movie you should really check out.

One benefit of Fantasia is that it has introduced to me a plethora of new directors and actors that I wouldn’t normally know about. When I discover a director I like, I try to see their new movies when they are shown. Now, I have not seen any of Sion Sono’s movies prior to Coldfish, but my friend is a huge fan. Last year we were treated to Sono’s four hour opus, Love Exposure, which my friend constantly raves about. I have not seen it, but I can guarantee you that I will be watching it soon after having finished my meal of Coldfish.

Coldfish is not an easy movie to describe. It has to do with a tropical fish store owner who involuntarily becomes the accomplice of another fish store owner, who we discover is also a serial murderer. It is based off a true story, which is horrifying to realize, although it accounts for just a small percentage of the film’s insanity. I don’t want to give too much away since it takes you on loops and turns, resulting in a crazy ride from start to finish. I can’t even place the movie in a certain category. Some parts are dramatic, others hilarious, and others shocking. It is a potluck of many genres traced over a 2.5 hour period. While the ending is nowhere close to traditional cinema, you will be grinning from ear to ear.

I didn’t know what to expect with Coldfish, but I walked out pleasantly surprised. I have a few Sion Sono films that I need to watch now and I am hoping they will be showing more of his films at next year’s iteration of Fantasia. While I doubt Coldfish will show in normal theaters here, if you do get a chance to watch it, don’t hesitate to buy your ticket!

From the moment I saw the trailer for Redline, I knew I had to see it. I find most animé films feel similar, so when I see something look completely different, I jump on the occasion to watch it. The last movie to get my attention this way was Mind Games, and it remains one of my favourite Fantasia movies to date. The booming soundtrack works with the crisp animation to suck you into the world and enjoy it from start to end.

There isn’t much of a story in Redline. The main character JP gets his chance to compete in Redline; the most anticipated galactic race that occurs every five years and only the best can enter. While there isn’t much plot going on, there are so many details in the world which enhance your experience. The race is taking place on Roboworld, which the king is against since it might show footage of some military experiments they are doing. A rebel group on Roboworld is trying to get to the bottom of these experiments. JP has some background with another racer. Frisbee, JP’s mechanic, has gotten involved with the mafia in fixing races. The Redline news channels shows off information on all the racers, each more interesting than the last. The list goes on. By the time the movie is over, you really want it to become a tv series where you can learn more about the other racers and the preliminary races they did be invited to the Redline.

I probably rambled on more than I should, but I had a lot of fun watching Redline. The pumping soundtrack and beautiful visuals made it a treat to be seen on the big screen. I heard that there is a chance that it might show up in theaters, and if it does, I am seeing it again. If you enjoy animé or just want to see a great movie about an intergalactic race, you need to check out Redline. I know it will stay on my mind for a while to come.

Bangkok Knockout

As with Redline, when I saw the trailer for Bangkok Knockout, I had to see it. I’ve seen many martial arts films across the festivals, but one thing I know about Thai fighters is that they take crazy risks. They usually do their own stunts, and they often look like they really hurt. So when the trailer had me wincing in pain at some of the stunts, it was automatically on my list.

The story is pretty simple. An American man is holding a competition where the best stunts team in Thailand gets to win a trip to Hollywood for the filming of a movie. When Pom and his crew win, they are ecstatic, so they go out and celebrate, only to find themselves in a room in an abandoned compound. Turns out there is no Hollywood projection, but a live-action high stakes gambling production where people bet on who survives. Our stunt team must battle other martial artists to win the game.

I didn’t watch Bangkok Knockout for the story. I came for the moments where the crowd screamed in pleasure over fight scenes that look like they really hurt. I was not disappointed. There are so many moments where you wince in pain after a hit, or are amazed by a move that seems unbelievable. I don’t know if the members were on strings for some stunts, but they never felt fake. The fight choreography is insane throughout the movie. If you like martial arts and bone crushing hits, then you need to see Bangkok Knockout. It is a blast.

I have a lot of fun at movies that don’t take itself seriously. I enjoy it even more when it feels like a Power Rangers episode for adults. Karate-Robo Zarborgar is exactly that kind of movie. It has a heavy dose of huge evil robots fighting our hero and his motorcycle/karate robot partner. While there is a lot of CGI throughout the film, there are many “man in suit” moments that made me laugh in glee.

The movie is divided into two parts. They are split by a time lapse of 25 years where a completely different actor plays the main character. I want to describe the story, but it is so oddball that it is best enjoyed without spoilers. That said, you can’t take it seriously as it does not make much sense and little is explained in detail. Regardless of the lack of information, you can understand the story and the ending is satisfying.

While these types of movies are not for every one, those who are young at heart and enjoy seeing karate motorcycle robots will have a blast here. If you liked Yatterman from a few years back, you know what to expect. There are a lot of great moments and you can’t help but leave the theater smiling. Karate-Robo Zarborgar GO!

The FP

This was probably my most anticipated movie of the festival. How can you not be intrigued by a movie which feels like Mad Max meets Dance Dance Revolution? This low budget indie film is about a town which is falling apart. Two gangs are competing to take control over the city, each with their own goals. The only way to prove your mettle here is to compete in a Beat Beat competition and see who has the better feet.

The FP feels like a short movie stretched to full length. While there isn’t much going on, it never feels too long and it keeps you entertained all the way through. It borrows ideas from many other films, and mashes it all up into its own style. The characters are full of life and explode with every scene they are on. They have their own language which is probably the most entertaining aspect of the film. Art Hsu and Lee Valmassy, who play the “best friend/sidekick” and “bad guy” respectively, are a blast and really give the crowd a reason to cheer. The music, which is inspired by your typical Dance Dance Revolution soundtrack, works well across the film and gives it the proper beat to keep you moving. By the end, your brain is speaking their language and you’re cheering for JTRO to win the girl and save the park.

I really enjoyed The FP and I hope they get a lot of success with its upcoming theatrical release. If you get a chance to catch it at a local cinema, grab your friends and go check it out. It is a lot of fun!