Our day started with Modern Love is Automatic [IMDB][MFF], directed by Zach Clark, starring Melodie Sisk (as Lorraine) and Maggie Ross (as Adrian).

Modern Love is Automatic was a dark and dry comedy-drama about nurse Lorraine who, bored with with her environment and the people in her life, detached herself emotionally and socially from everything. Controlling every detail in her life it doesn’t seem surprising when she finds interest in a dominatrix magazine. When she finds her boyfriend cheating she decides to look for a new roommate and becomes a dominatrix at night. She finds aspiring fashion model Adrian, whose emotionality and bubbliness very much is Lorraine’s total opposite. But just as opposites attract, they very slowly develop a friendship in the background of their individual lives and Adrian’s boyfriend Mitch who is uncontrollably obsessed with Lorraine.

Zach Clark, Maggie Ross, Melodie Sisk, Daryl Pittman

This movie was easily one of my favorites this year. I not only loved the great performances, cool sets, colors and costumes, but also the pace and quiet as well as Melodie Sisk’s facial expressions that said more than could ever be said with words. Modern Love feels like a nice companion to my other favorites from the last two festival years when I saw Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland and Mary Bronstein’s Yeast. In these movies I was able to identify with the characters and their paralyzed social lives and relationships to an unusual extent. What can I say, I loved everything about Modern Love is Automatic. Even the bursts of doom metal worked really well in there. Definitely a movie I would like to see again sometime, and one I can highly recommend.

David Redmon

Our second screening this Friday was Invisible Girlfriend [IMDB][MFF], directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, with and about Charles Fihoil, a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic who lives in Monroe, Louisiana with his parents and children. He is in love with his invisible girlfriend, the spirit of Joan of Arc, and decides that DeeDee, his pen pal and New Orleans bartender, might be Joan of Arc in the flesh. The filmmaker follows him on a 400-mile bicycle journey to find DeeDee.

This was a wonderful documentary about a man who may be a bit crazy, but also very intelligent, insightful and caring. During his journey through rural Louisiana, which lasted about 12 days, he met several generous, kind and very down-to-earth people who gave him a ride or shared food and stories with him. I found it interesting how this journey was accompanied by a number of moments of death and decay that foreshadowed what he would find at his destination. Beautiful, sometimes funny, but also very sad, this film managed to create a non-judgmental portrait of Charles Fihoil and the people he met on his way. I really liked this film. I was also very impressed by some of the music choices.

Another documentary we saw this Friday was Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, directed by Jessica Oreck. This film portrayed a part of Japanese culture I was completely unfamiliar with before: Japan’s love and fascination with insects that is inherent in the whole society and all generations from young to old age. Insects are collected like trading cards or comic books, are part of quite a significantly sized industry of collectors and breeders. Insects appear in shape of dolls, toys, video games, candy, but also inspire art and literature, dating back to the beginning of Japan’s history.

Jessica Oreck and Sean Williams

Beetle Queen was partially in English, partially Japanese with English subtitles and filled with a great amount of insight, history and poetry about an ancient and still mysterious culture that may mostly be known to the Western world for their car and electronic brands, fashion and pop culture, their tv-shows or cuisine. I can highly recommended it to anyone who is interested in learning more about Japan from a slightly different angle. The cinematography comes from Sean Williams who also shot Frownland and Yeast I mentioned above. I would love to see it again and follow the history and poetry in more depth than I was able to comprehend upon my first viewing.

I have to admit: A few days ago, if someone had told me to watch a romantic musical, I probably would have would have smiled and dismissed it without giving it a chance. The musical genre was not one I was particularly interested in before. The few musicals I have ever seen were entertaining to a degree, but they didn’t manage to grab me. Why? I’m not sure… perhaps it’s something I wasn’t properly introduced to growing up in Germany. About every movie made in Germany of the 50s and 60s was incredibly silly and featured a lot of bad German Schlager music. Television was practically non-existent, and eventually the popularity died off and no musical films were produced anymore for a very long time. I can’t really think of any musical film produced in Germany since the days of the economic boom.

In the mid to late 80s (stage) musicals became very popular with Cats. Many others including Starlight Express, Phantom of the Opera followed later, and they are still popular in Germany, but as far as I know, there haven’t been any movies to speak of. Every time I saw a movie with dancing and singing people they appeared very foreign to me. Something I couldn’t connect to.

Perhaps the setting and background were too artificial…perhaps the music was too methodical or constructed…perhaps I was thrown out of the story every time one of the actors starts to sing instead of keeping his character. How believable is the evil villain, mad professor or action hero who suddenly begins to dance and sing?

John Waters and Jed Dietz

Being a romantic musical I never would have volunteered to pick Love Songs [IMDB][MFF] if it hadn’t been the John Waters pick this year. The annual “John Waters Pick” has been one of our traditions since we started attending the film festival. His movie selections did never disappoint in the past few years. Most of his selections, including Story of Women, Dog Days or Head-On offered an extraordinarily realistic view on love, people and the complexity of their emotional, social, sexual, human interactions…reflecting what life is really like, challenging what most movies try to suggest as reality.

Love Songs was directed by Christophe Honoré and stars Chiara Mastroianni, Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier and Clotilde Hesme. It’s a romantic musical, yes…but one I actually enjoyed very much! It felt very current and natural, the songs and music were beautiful and were very elegantly woven into the story. So fluent, it almost felt as if these moments could have happened in real life… although I have never seen someone walking down the street singing, have I?

Everybody looked great, very natural and likable, the story was beautiful, so was the atmosphere and mood. I still find myself surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. Another contemporary musical film I saw a while ago (Sweeney Todd) left me with the same impression I had of other musicals before, not so Love Songs. Perhaps it worked so well because it was in French and playing in Paris? I don’t know, but I really enjoyed its pace and rhythm. I think I might have to correct some of my views I used to have about musicals. Perhaps there is more out there I would enjoy if I gave it a try.

After Love Songs we had our first break of the day and we used the opportunity to celebrate our 5th filmfest membership anniversary with a pitcher of sangria. I should have eaten something first, because the wine quickly made me feel a little fuzzy-headed.

Of course this didn’t help when we entered our fifth and last screening of the day: Seventh Moon [IMDB][MFF] directed by Eduardo Sánchez, starring Amy Smart, Dennis Chan and Tim Chiou. The story takes place in China where Melissa and Yul enjoy their honeymoon. Their visit coincides with the sacred Seventh Moon festival, celebrating the full moon of the seventh lunar month, which, according to a Chinese myth, is a time when the dead are free to walk the earth. The couple, drunk after celebrating, start a late night cab-drive to Yul’s grandmother’s house in the countryside. This trip will of course end somewhere lost in the middle of nowhere where the horror is about to take place.

Directed by Eduardo Sánchez who with Daniel Myrick also wrote and directed the Blair Witch Project, Seventh Moon felt a lot like Blair Witch Project including its shaky camera work. Even without sangria I got motion sick when I watched the Blair Witch on the big screen. The same happened Friday night during the Seventh Moon. I survived about three quarter of the movie, but I had to close my eyes because I felt increasingly dizzy. A few minutes before the movie was over I had to leave the theater to breathe some fresh air and get stable ground under my feet which made me feel better. Unfortunately I missed the ending of the movie and the Q and A afterward, but my stomach wasn’t ready for it. Next time I should probably take some pills for motion sickness before I watch another shaky movie.

The following list is in order from my top pick down for Friday, May 8:

1. Modern Love is Automatic
2. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
3. Invisible Girlfriend
4. Love Songs
5. Seventh Moon

PS: Sorry about the bad quality of these photos. My camera didn’t take the low-light too well. I hope I got all the names right. Please correct me if I made a mistake.

Der Phantastische Film was a film series of bizarre, utopian, horror, vampire, sci-fi, fantasy or other films that fit into this genre. Classics in black and white, or films from the 60s, 70s or 80s, a huge variety found a place there. I discovered films like Zardoz with Sean Connery, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, the Vincent Price classics, the original version of The Fly, the original pre-Carpenter version of The Thing from Another World, Planet of the Apes or This Island Earth. Every film opened with a trailer that for quite some time scared me under the blanket.

Not knowing anything about this trailer I had no hope I would ever find it again, but YouTube once again did not disappoint. Even today, after all these years, I find it quite bizzare. Not exactly shocking or horrifying, but very dark-psychedelic. It shares a visual look of other illustrations and animations of the era. It reminds a little of The Yellow Submarine. And indeed, interestingly, this trailer was created by the same illustrator who also created the The Yellow Submarine: Heinz Edelmann.

Heinz Edelmann was a graphic designer who worked as illustrator for a magazine twen for more than ten years. His portfolio also includes a lot of book covers for the Klett publishing company. Klett was the prominent publisher of schoolbooks and other specialized print products. I would have never even thought of linking The Yellow Submarine with the schoolbooks we had at that time, but I remember so many illustrations sharing a common beautiful, simple and somewhat innocent look & feel, including a traffic-teaching-kit I played with in Kindergarten age, some brochures of the German Railways, packaging, schoolbook covers & illustrations and more. I had no idea that a single artist was responsible for all this. Amazing how influential Heinz Edelmann was for shaping a whole generation’s childhood and yet remain so quiet and anonymous. I wonder if there is a way to get my hands on the old books of that era or a collection of his works.

Below is a small and probably incomplete list of films presented as part of the fantastic film series. This series started in the 70s, and there must have been more movies in the period between 1975 and 1982. There have been quite a few good (and also bad) movies that once influenced and shook my childhood…Maybe it’s time for a video-night one day.

• Tarantula (1955)
• The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
• Crack in the World (1965)
• X (1963)
• THX 1138 (1971)
• The Andromeda Strain (1971)
• Soylent Green (1973)
• Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
• Student von Prag, Der (1913)
• Village of the Damned (1960)
• The Thing from Another World (1951)
• This Island Earth (1955)
• The Time Machine (1960)
• Phase IV (1974)
• Belle et la bête, La (1946)
• Izbavitelj (1976)
• The Premature Burial (1962)
• The Raven (1963)
• The Birds (1963)
• What’s the Matter with Helen? (1971)
• Locataire, Le (1976)
• Nella stretta morsa del ragno (1971)
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
• Time After Time (1979)
• The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
• The Night Walker (1964)
• Planet of the Apes (1968)
• Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
• Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
• The War of the Worlds (1953)
• Zardoz (1974)
• Without Warning (1980)
• House of Wax (1953)
• Them! (1954)
• Doctor X (1932)
• House of the Long Shadows (1983)
• Au rendez-vous de la mort joyeuse (1973)
• The Devil Rides Out (1968)
• Chamber of Horrors (1966)
• Tre volti della paura, I (1963)
• Elixiere des Teufels, Die (1976)
• Bay Coven (1987) (TV)
• Horror Express (1973)

Impressed by the small successes of a local, low-budget filmmaker, four struggling actors decide to head for a cabin in the woods and write their masterpiece — with juicy roles for themselves, of course. Standing in their way? Shortages of just a few things: talent, motivation, energy, and inspiration. Oh, and a surplus of two — hormones and alcohol — as multiple romantic entanglements and a fridge full of beer take the friends further and further away from a completed screenplay.

Jay and Mark Duplass’ prior feature The Puffy Chair established them as filmmakers interested in genre-defying, big-hearted storytelling that manages to put believable, earnest romance on the screen in ways American films so rarely do. Baghead continues that trend, taking us on an unpredictable ride that touches down in drama, romance, dark comedy, and thriller without committing to any one — and yet still feels confident and centered throughout.

Anchored by strong performances — including Greta Gerwig (who also appears in three other films in MFF ’08) as Michelle — it’s a strong film from a team clearly committed to telling the stories they want to tell in the way they want to tell them. For all its genre-hopping, Baghead (which premiered at Sundance and thrilled hometown crowds at SXSW 2008) operates as both a fun popcorn movie and a winning ode to celluloid dreams. (Eric Allen Hatch)

About Greta Gerwig:
Greta Gerwig is an actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director based in New York City. She starred in MFF 2007′s Hannah Takes the Stairs. With Joe Swanberg, she co-stars in and co-directed Nights and Weekends; she co-stars in Yeast; and she stars in the short film Quick Feet, Soft Hands — all of which are also playing MFF 2008. She is currently at work on a script with Alison Bagnall (co-screenwriter on Buffalo ’66). (from the filmfest-guide)

The following is another video-clip by the Creative Alliance with a few shots from the festival Friday. Check out our bikes at 0:11-0:15!

In 1972, a flamboyant producer’s Hollywood party takes a strange turn when an uninvited guest comes for more than sex and drugs. Consider your mind blown! (from the filmfest-guide)

It was quite a shock to switch from the serious, moving, quiet and gentle narrative shorts program to something like Far Out. Bold, bright, sexy, stoned, funny, stupid, hilarious, bloody and tarantinoesque. I think that says it all. It was so bad it became really great because of it. This was far out, man, so far out! :-) [imdb

There's a Werewolf in my Attic

Sasha and Billie just moved into a great house right next to their favorite coffee shops and thrift stores. They soon realize why the rent is so cheap -- when a malnourished and feisty werewolf is found living in the woodwork. (from the filmfest-guide)

This was another stupid, but very funny short that made me laugh. It deserves extra kudos for the creature! I enjoyed this film.

The Animals All Are Gathering

When a father goes snooping with his camcorder during a family picnic, he captures an awkward and disturbing moment. (from the filmfest-guide)

How I loved the humor of this only 4 minute short film. Just brilliant! One of my favorite shorts this year.

Attackazoids!

When colossal war machines launch a merciless invasion, one woman struggles to survive in a world that isn't what it appears to be. This science-fiction nightmare combines live action, stop-motion animation, and sound design to create a haunting vision of an alien invasion. (from the filmfest-guide)

I enjoyed this film and thought it was very well done. I don't know if the filmmaker intended to hint at the WWII era, but the song reminded me of a nazi-anthem. But maybe I'm reading too much into this. [imdb]

Fantaisie In Bubblewrap

An animation/live-action hybrid in which the audience is offered a glimpse into the lives of a society of vocal bubblewrap. (from the filmfest-guide)

Does a sheet of bubblewrap have the potential to make you cry? You bet it does! This was so sad, so cruel… and so funny, so simple and clever, just fantastic! I loved this 5-minute piece, another of my short favorites this year!

Asclepius Fandango

To quote Voltaire, “doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.” This stream-of-conscious cartoon takes comedy writing to new levels, and animation to new lows. (from the filmfest-guide)

This cartoon took about everything to new lows. Phew… hm… to be honest, there wasn’t anything I enjoyed or understood about this short film. I neither got the comedy/humor in it nor any other message it might have tried to bring across. Perhaps it required a certain mindset, relationship or involvement, but I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Karaoke Show

At the age of 14, Karl Tebbe badly wanted to be able to dance like Michael Jackson — but you either have rhythm in your blood, or you don’t. Now, 22 years later, stop-motion animation has allowed him to finally fulfill his lifelong dream. A mix between sauna and disco. (from the filmfest-guide)

Wow… I never thought I would be thrilled and intrigued about watching a naked man dance and “sing” in front of me and man sleeping on a couch. But Karaoke Show was so fascinating, mesmerizing, unreal, and at the same time so incredibly funny and cool/hot. His performance, his face, the music, this voice… the funny voice reminded me of the adult voices in the Peanuts, and even the sleeping man on the couch amused me. Everything was great. Bravo–what a wonderful film! Were we the only ones who liked it so much? The audience was rather quiet, and I am surprised that this film was accepted to the film festival despite its nudity. I’m very thankful I had the opportunity to watch this film and very curious what Karl Tebbe might create next. Another very favorite short-film this year. [imdb]

The Rambler

A stranger takes to the lonely highway with his guitar and traveling sack. Every rambler’s got a story; this one’s pretty strange. (from the filmfest-guide)

The Rambler was quite a strange trip, which in its peak moment it briefly reached the edge of tastelessness, but dosed very well without becoming a pure gore and vomit fest. This film reminded me a little of the earlier work of David Lynch including Eraserhead or The Grandmother. Not sure if Calvin Reeder was really inspired by Lynch, but I enjoyed it. [imdb]

The History of America

Centuries of campfire stories have spun America’s history into a fanciful tale filled with myths and half-truths. MK12′s History of America is here to set the record straight. Set against the warm sin of Las Vegas and the cold vacuum of space, this is the true story behind the story — one which chronicles the epic struggle between the Astronauts and the Cowboys as they fight for life, liberty, and justice for all. (from the filmfest-guide)

This really was quite a weird film… Cowboys versus Astronauts? Although this idea seems so absurd I really enjoyed the plot for about half the length of the film. It opened with very beautifully designed opening credits [extra kudos for the graphic designer], started in the dawn of cowboy-kind and jumped into the space of astronauts, which reminded me of the jump from prehistoric to present day in Kubrick’s 2001. At least until I realized that both astronauts and cowboys actually share the same space in time.

The film was executed very well, but eventually it started to feel too long and uninteresting, as if somebody too much fell in love with the beauty and technique and lost the focus on the story. If History of America was edited down to perhaps 15 minutes and if the stoned narrator was removed [I thought he was quite unnecessary], then it could have been a really good piece. [imdb]

With Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, Alexander Granach

Born in Germany in 1889, Friederich Wilhelm Murnau studied art history at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, joined the great Max Reinhardt’s theater school, and learned film by making propaganda films for Germany in WW I. His first great work was Nosferatu, an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which he made in 1922. Shortly after, the young film industry in California hired him, first at Fox and then at Paramount, where he won great acclaim (his Sunrise was nominated for several Academy Awards) before he was killed in a car accident in 1931. He stands alongside D. W. Griffith as one of the giants of the silent era. Banned in Sweden until 1972, Nosferatu tells a classic vampire tale. A young real estate agent, Hetter, is sent by his strange boss, Knock, to the Land of the Phantoms to close a deal with the mysterious Count Orlok. Along the way, Hetter is warned about the Count — normal drivers won’t even take him all the way to the castle — but he continues undeterred. Through breathtakingly bold cinematic techniques and a legendary performance by Max Schreck as Count Orlok, F. W. Murnau delivers a seminal piece of filmmaking. (from the filmfest-guide)

Another annual festival tradition is the screening of a silent movie accompanied with live music performed by the Alloy Orchestra. This year we got to see a very special jewel with 1922’s Nosferatu. Everybody is familiar with the famous Dracula story Bram Stoker published in 1897, but not many might be familiar with the story behind Nosferatu, which is as fascinating as the film itself.

When Murnau’s studio was unable to obtain the rights to the story he decided to still create the film he envisioned, but make slight changes to the story, names and titles. So, for example Count Dracula became Count Orlok, and the title Dracula became Nosferatu. Bram Stoker’s wife who was still alive sued Nosferatu’s film company and won. Nosferatu became the first and only film of the Prana-Film company which had to declare bankruptcy and was ordered to destroy all existing prints of Nosferatu. Luckily, a few copies had already been distributed, so it managed to survive throughout the decades. It is said that today the only complete, original copy is owned by a Max Schreck collector named Jens Geutebrück in Germany.

Nosferatu was indeed banned in Sweden until 1972 due to excessive horror, and it is still banned in Finland today. As another interesting bit of trivia: After 85 years, all of the exteriors are still intact in the German cities Wismar and Lübeck. I might have to go and visit one day.

Nosferatu is without doubt one of the greatest and most important movies of the silent era and I’m very glad and lucky I have seen it on the big screen with the wonderful live score performed by the Alloy Orchestra. It’s my favorite of all the festival’s silent films of the past few years. Next I would love to see Metropolis or Man with a Movie Camera with live music — maybe during next year’s festival?

With Mike Brune, Anna Chlumsky, Katie Bowlett

Website at www.bloodcar.com

In a future world not far removed from our own, gas prices have rocketed to $40 a gallon, converting any guy who can afford to fill his tank into an automatic stud. Yet eco-minded elementary teacher Archie Andrews’ has the purest intentions in his obsessive quest for an alternative fuel source — a quest that has him making bulk wheatgrass purchases at a health-food stand run by the bookishly cute Lorraine (My Girl’s Anna Chlumsky), who thinks Archie’s a dreamboat. An accident in Archie’s makeshift lab reveals that his experimental motors hunger not for wheatgrass, but for human blood — a discovery that lands Archie in the sack with the vampishly attractive woman who runs the meat stand across from Lorraine. But sex and bloodlust are a volatile mix, and drive the once-vegan Archie to murderous lengths he never would’ve dreamed possible. (from the filmfest-guide)

What a wonderful way to conclude a wonderful festival-Saturday! There is not much to analyze about Blood Car. It simply was completely well-done, great all around, hilarious, a silly and fun movie with a lot of blood, horror, humor and satire. I loved the actors and characters, and everything just worked perfectly together. Finally, a bloodthirsty horror-film I could totally enjoy! Really funny, and so sad at the same time considering today’s society already is one of murdering, blood driven cars. This film has cult-potential!