Jason goes to Indiefest--Day 3

So I missed the first two days of Indie fest. First time that has happened since I started going in 2002. But I had a good excuse, since I was on a business trip to Switzerland. It takes a certain kind of crazy to get off a 12 hour flight and go directly to the movies. Not home, not to see my girlfriend (whom I love and have already apologized to) but to the movies. Because I am that kind of crazy.

Anyway, I feel like I should eventually apologize to the filmmakers whose films I am unable to see this year. But first, I'll see as much as I possibly can, by coming straight from the airport to the Roxie.

First up was A FIELD IN ENGLAND by Indiefest regular and rising star of British cinema Ben Wheatley (DOWN TERRACE, KILL LIST, SIGHTSEERS) This time he's gone black and white for a period piece set in the 17th century during the English Civil War. A small band of deserters--self-professed cowards--decide to quit the war and go work out their differences in an ale house. Something I wholeheartedly agree with, but something that never comes to fruition as they're captured by an alchemist who is sure that they know the location of a buried treasure in the field. Weird, bloody, bizarre, and featuring period music. And that's before they find the magic mushrooms. Weird stuff, but a lot of fun, even if I was a bit too jet-lagged to fully appreciate it (I admit I struggled with wakefulness.)

Next up was SEE YOU NEXT TUESDAY (if you don't get the joke, think C. U. Next Tuesday.) Mona's life...sucks. She's got some mental issues fucking crazy. And very pregnant. Like about-to-pop pregnant. But she's not quite sure exactly when her due date is. She hasn't been to a doctor in a couple of months. And she does drink sometimes. Meanwhile her co-workers are cruel, nasty bitches (there's a definite streak of racism as she's the only white checkout girl in the grocery store.) Her mom is a recovering junkie who can barely take care of herself. In fact, Mona is very proud of her ability to take care of herself without her junkie mom's help--thing is, she really can't. She lives in a pigsty, her doorman is a pervert who just sits in the alcove jacking off in the middle of the night. She gets evicted and moves in with her estranged sister, who is in her own barely functional lesbian relationship. Basically everyone in the movie is over-the-top horribly broken. And yet it's all somehow presented in a way that makes you sympathize with her at the same time as you recoil in horror. Oh yeah, and it's funny. In a sick, twisted, maybe-it-wasn't-supposed-to-be-funny way, but I laughed. 

And finally, we ended the night OBJECTS ATTACK, a true underground lo-def (shot on super-8) oddity. Lovey (so named because it's better to be a lovee than a lover) has a boyfriend she loves. But when she stops off at a hypnotist show suddenly her life becomes chaos. Money disappears from her purse. A driver-less car follows her. And inanimate objects attack her (a wrench, power cords, etc.) And that's before she runs afoul of The Kid--a genius/bookie/martial arts master trapped in the body of a pre-teen girl. Oh yeah, and she deals with a guy who is infatuated with her and a new guy who will either sweep her off her feet or kill her. Clearly she's having a resistential crisis, and hopefully Dr. Hirschfelder at The Institute for Controlled Psychomotor Phenomena can help her.

And that's how I started my Indiefest 2014 experience.

Total Running Time: 255 minutes
My Total Minutes: 349,840