Fest Additions

At the three Midnight Madness films I attended over the weekend, the head programmer really hyped the movie SPL which will be showing on Friday night. Everytime he mentioned the director’s name or some of the cast members, there was enthusiastic applause from the audience. I guess they’re all famous Hong Kong martial arts guys. Mike was already planning on attending, so I caved into the hype and bought an additional ticket for this one. To round out the schedule, we also slotted in Citizen Dog the next afternoon before our screening of Harsh times. So my updated weekend schedule is:

Friday, September 17

• 4:00 pm – Kinetta

  In the off-season after all the tourists have left for home, there is a sudden spate of murders. An unnamed plain-clothes cop (Kostas Xikominos) with a pathological weakness for luxury cars and naughty Russian women investigates the killings. He enlists the help of a photo-store clerk and a young hotel maid, both with their own quirks. This strange threesome re-enacts the crimes in an attempt to solve them, but also come to delight in their dramatic rituals of dress-up.

• 11:59 pm – SPL

  A brooding and nihilistic action thriller, good and evil collide in a bone-shattering smack-down that proves Hong Kong’s continued domination in the realm of cinema combat … Detective Chan relentlessly pursues crime boss Po, but eventually gives up in frustration and looks toward retirement. His replacement, Ma, is a principled, committed cop who is skilled in martial arts and has a reputation for violence. The newcomer introduces tension into the established ranks of the battle-scarred precinct. The death of a cop who was planted undercover in Po’s gang further disrupts the balance of truth and justice.

Saturday, September 18

• 12:45 pm – Citizen Dog

  Follow the life of Pod as he moves to Bangkok from the country. Pod’s new life starts with getting a job, losing a finger and dreaming about a girl. A movie where nothing is impossible, and just because you get killed by raining red helmets doesn’t mean you have to stop driving your motorcycle taxi. In the middle of all this crazy stuff Pod has to watch out so he doesn’t grow a tail like his grandma warned him about. Jin, the girl that Pod loves, on the other hand is in love with a guy she calls Peter since that’s the only foregin name she knows and dreams about one day understanding the book she found that is written in a diffrent language.

• 6:00 pm – Harsh Times

  The story follows Mike Alvarez, unemployed and looking for a job, and Jim David who has just been accepted by the DEA to do his share of the dirty work in Columbia. A pair of hell-raising beer-drinking screw-ups with time on their hands, they spend a few days riding around Los Angeles, causing trouble and leaving havoc in their wake – until it all catches up to them and the good times turn harsh.

  Names: Christian Bales, Freddy Rodriguez, written and directed by David Ayer