I have been forgoing sleep and watching as many movies as possible for BIFF 2016. I’m shooting for 15 movies without losing my day job in the process.
Midnight Passion 2
The second night of the Midnight Passion series centered around suspense. Going into the evening, I had a few small notions on each movie. I had virtually zero hope for The Blair Witch, a little bit of intrigue for Transpecos, and I was really looking forward to Headshot. My expectations were completely misplaced for two movies and underestimated for the third.
The Blair Witch was the first movie of the evening and it was the only one that I had no real desire to see. If it were the last movie of the evening, I would have left before it even began. I’m not a fan of the handycam style and the original was credited with popularizing the style. I don’t want to say that I blame The Blair Witch Project for everything that is wrong with horror movies in the 2000’s, but I probably do.
Once I got past the shooting style, the movie was much better than I had expected. It does a lot of retread from the original, but I think there is enough of a new storyline to keep the viewer from feeling like it’s a shot-for-shot remake. Most of the horror centers around annoying jump-scares, but there are definite moments where fear shines through. It’s still not my favorite genre, but I’m glad that I saw it in the theater.
Transpecos was the biggest surprise of the evening. I was curious about the movie, but the description didn’t raise a lot of interest. Reviews were pretty good, but I rarely seem to agree with the big names in the industry. As of right now, though, Transpecos has been my favorite movie of the festival.
The movie focuses on three border patrol agents in Texas and one car that ruins everything. It was a pretty extreme flip from shaky hand-cams to the gorgeous landscape shots of the desert. It’s hard to describe just how lonely and empty that stretch of the US really is, but this movie did a great job conveying that feeling. Another big obstacle is the current political nature of immigration in the United States. I felt like the director did a pretty phenomenal job of navigating that minefield. It’s hard to discuss this one without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that I highly recommend seeing this while you have the chance.
Headshot fell quite a bit short of what I was hoping for in this martial arts-heavy movie for Indonesian directing team the Mo Brothers. The main character wakes up in a hospital bed and doesn’t remember anything about his life. He immediately takes the name “Ishmael” based on the narrator from Moby Dick. The name itself is a bit on the nose, but it just seems completely misplaced when there is no real Captain Ahab or Moby Dick in the story. It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s almost as if the screenwriters liked the name and just contrived a reason for him to adopt it. They even double down on the name by continuing to bring it up as if it represented some sort of inner turmoil on his personal character. There is a chance that Ishmael has some sort of cultural double meaning in Indonesia, but if it does, it was completely lost on me.
I was not naive enough to believe that the movie was going to have a deep storyline, but I did think the fight choreography would be pretty great. It was not. For me, a good martial arts movie needs to either be very realistic or very artistic. I don’t mind suspending a little bit of disbelief, but the choreography just wasn’t up to the standards that I have grown used to over the years. The special effects and movie makeup were even subpar, in my opinion.
Headshot probably had the highest level of expectation for me so maybe it is only fitting that it happened to be the one to fall short. The Blair Witch has one more showing on Wednesday at 5pm. The last viewing of Transpecos is Tuesday at 7pm and Headshot has had it’s final viewing for BIFF 2016.
