Movie Reviews
2008 Austin Underground Film Festival: Shorts Review (Part Two)
This is the second half of my reviews of the short films that played at the third Austin Underground Film Festival.
2008 Austin Underground Film Festival: Shorts Review (Part One)
The third Austin Underground Film Festival was a truly epic short-film event. It all took place in one night (Dec. 19), but it included enough short films for almost a week.
The Vampire’s Tomb
The Vampire’s Tomb is another Ed Wood style pastiche by Andre Perkowski, a project in proper Wood fashion that was filmed several years ago, but only recently assembled.
2008 Movie of the Year: Altamont Now
Nothing compares to the sheer anarchic joy of Altamont Now. In his ambitious debut fictional feature, Joshua Brown combines all the elements of classic underground films in an effort that transcends them at the same time.
Brave New York / Sway
Brink DVD has just released a compilation of Richard Sandler’s films. While the disc is called Brave New York / Sway after the two main films included in the package, there’s actually three films here with the third one called Subway to the Former East Village.
Saila
Julia Ostertag shot her feature Saila in an abandoned, demolished and culturally forgotten industrial wasteland in East Berlin. The debris-strewn and crumbling structures in which the action of the film takes place looks as big as a city in and of itself, which I don’t know if this is a creative use of camera framing or reality.
Red Door
David Pike’s unsettling short flim, Red Door, has a modern, slick look, but with a completely charming anachronistic bent.
SMS Sugar Man
Aryan Kaganof’s SMS Sugar Man has either the dubious or celebratory distinction — depending on your point of view of these kinds of things — of being the first feature film shot entirely on a cell phone, specifically the Sony Ericsson W900i.
