British filmmaker Bart Layton came across a story that appeared more fiction than truth. A 23-year-old French-Algerian man had stolen the identity of a missing Texan boy, some three-and-a-half years after his disappearance. A master con-man, Frédéric Bourdin was in need of a new identity, being wanted by Interpol for his crimes and finding himself […]
2012
Cinema Fearité presents Saturday the 14th (Dir. Howard R. Cohen 1981)
In the late nineties, Wes Craven’s Scream franchise had become so popular that it inspired its own comic horror send-up, the aptly title Scary Movie, that has spawned just as many sequels as its muse (so far, three). While no one will ever be able to accuse Scary Movie of being overly original, even the […]
Cinema Fearité presents Uncle Sam (Dir. William Lustig 1996)
Holiday themed films have been all the rage, beginning back in the late seventies with Halloween and continuing through the modern era with Valentine. When it comes to the Fourth of July, the choices slim out a little bit; of course, Jaws takes place on the holiday, and there’s the obviously named Independence Day. But […]
LA Film Fest Review: Bestiaire (Dir. Denis Côté 2012 Canada, France)
Denis Côté, DP Vincent Biron, and producer Sylvain Corbeil have created a singular (beast of a) movie with Bestiaire. Offered the chance to shoot at a rather tired safari park in rural Quebec, Côté decided to make an experiment, to find new ways of making images of animals. First of all, however, he gives […]
LA Film Fest Review: Neighboring Sounds (O soma ao redor) (Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho 2012 Brazil)
The sounds are heard around a burgeoning middle-class street in Brazil’s Recife, half of which used to be owned by silver-bearded patriarch Francisco, but which is now mostly tower blocks. First-time feature director Kleber Mendonça Filho reworks some of his shorts material to lay out a mosaic of life on this particular, present-day street, both […]