More From Fantasia ...

Just fired up the website for the first time today and had a very odd moment reading myself quoted in someone else's post on my own site so I figured why not blow my own horn a bit while also plugging the Fantasia lineup. Here are links to all the guide entries I was responsible for this year:

A Bittersweet Life, Art of The Devil 2, Aziris Nuna, Bad Blood (Coisa Ruim), Death Trance, The Echo (Sigaw), Evil Aliens, Exodus, The Great Yokai War, Isolation, Junk (Zhest), The Maid, Necromancer, Re-Cycle, SARS Wars, Scared, Shadowboxing, Shinobi, Sukeban Boy, Tape Number 31

Now, I should point out that there's a pretty significant difference between writing a program guide and writing a full fledged review, so don't go looking for a whole load of depth, but I'm pretty pleased with all of these. I didn't actually program all of the titles I wrote up - and, conversely there are some titles that I DID program that other people wrote up - but there's a great range of stuff in there.

My big recommendation for something you may not otherwise be familiar with? Go see Bad Blood ... we've written about it some here under the Portugese title of Coisa Ruim and I adore this film. Very smart slow burner of a film much more about ideas and atmosphere than jolting you out of your seat, though it does some of that as well. Very well written script, a fantastic cast and very well shot. A horror film from Portugal is a bit of a sleeper in with all the Asian stuff, but take a chance on it ...

A couple other fun notes I don't see on the website anywhere that I assume (and hope) are still on: look for a reel of director Wisit Sasanatieng's commercial work to screen before Citizen Dog. It's fantastic stuff that looks just like Wisit's features and he even sent subtitled versions so you can understand what's going on. Also look for the first of Cesar Velasco Broca's Jaime De Funes short films - starring Nacho Vigalondo - to roll in front of Evil Aliens.