The Spike and Mike Sick and Twisted Animation Festival grew out of an animation festival run by Craig ‘Spike’ Decker and Mike Gribble, which started in California in 1977.  The “twisted” side started in 1990 with a screening of the adult content animations in the Wheeler Auditorium at UC Berkeley, and grew from there to such an extent that by the start of the new millennium, the original festival was phased out entirely.  In the early days, Spike and Mike – sometimes along with their Scottie dog – would act as “ring-masters” for the show, and would also tour with the films round rep cinemas.

Many notable animators shown at these events would go on to greater fame, notably Bill Plympton and Mike Judge, as well as Trey Parker + Matt Stone. Although Mike died of cancer in 1994, Spike continued with the festival, which lives on to this day [though according to the website, the latest version “contains less monocle-spinning gross-out gags than S&T, and rather focuses on the flat-out best and funniest animated shorts that the world has to offer.”

To some extent, the purpose of the event has been removed, as the Internet now makes it a lot easier for aspiring animators to get their work out there. But below, you’ll see reviews of the four festivals we attended in Arizona, from 1998-2004.

1998

This American Ambassador is writing to inform her European and American fans of Trash City that there is life outside of the pub and strip clubs. That out there you will find what you are looking for. That there is meaning to our dull and dreary existences. And we can find this in trying to put reason or rhyme behind what I just witnessed tonight.

Anyone with a penchant for the sick and twisted, the rude and the offensive will certainly have their needs satisfied after witnessing the Animation Festival I just attended in the small dreary little college town of Tempe Arizona, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Cardinals, the Rattlers and the Coyotes.. And now the dwelling for the next 10 days of Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Animation Festival..

Let’s start with the announcement.. “Anyone who is offended by sick, twisted, rude and offensive material can just get the fuck out and we will be happy to give you a refund”

In the meanwhile, let’s take a peek at what we saw tonight, that might have been misconstrued as such by some — or should I say most? I have never laughed so hard in my life. 24 short cartoons were shown depicting everything from “A to Zits” including such delights as: bestiality, pedophilia, gaseous bodily functions, oral sex, religious offenses. and full penetration (shown for the first time here) along with a South Park episode on the big screen that will stay in my mind forever.

All the cartoons were 5 minutes or less with a 15 minute intermission And although there were a couple of shorts that were extraordinarily offensive (and I mean “gagging to death”), they were mostly very funny and entertaining and I recommend Spike and Mike to anyone who is not:

• a.) squeamish
• b.) religious
• c.) easily offended
• d.) dead
• e.) legless

Following are short synopses of the cartoons shown on this tour:

• “Use Instructions” Does anyone like butts? Asses? Backsides? Anus(es)? (Or is it “Ani” ?), and all manner of things that emerge from them? This is the ultimate butt selective video I have ever seen.. Every imaginable type of ass in all manner of conceivable situations…
• “Jurassic Fart” No description necessary. The sound effects will keep me up for weeks.. It was great.
• “Dirdy Birdy” Ah… the adventures of Dirdy Birdy and Fergurina the Cat in a tree.. This one is excellent.
• “Illusions of Life” Very strange look at the life of a man who totally hates his mother.. Interesting if nothing else.
• “Finger Food” The phrase “Calgon, take me away” will take on a totally different meaning after viewing this one…as well as ever eating at a fast food restaurant ever again… Let’s say zits and french fries in one breath and leave the rest to your imagination…
• “Smoking” Their version of an anti smoking ad and pretty effective if not completely gruesome… also very good
• “Barflies” I thoroughly enjoyed this one.. but I am a Claymation fan from way back in the Davey and Goliath days.. so it may not count, but these barflies were funny as shit and very many of us can completely relate to the antics of two drunk-out- of-their-skins assholes who will do anything for a laugh…
• “Booby Trap” Set in a strip club, it is a complete parody of the general Japan anime genre including the wonderful way the Japanese make us talk in their cartoons and thankfully including a cat fight between a stripper and…I dare not say WHAT she is fighting because it is too gross. But it is worth the watch..
• “Big Top Asshole” No description necessary, except that it is full of gore and I loved the Lion Tamer getting stuck in the Lion’s cage with catnip in the seat of his pants.. hehehehe
• “Little Rude Riding Hood” Yes, the old story with a new twist. No, she won’t swallow and you’ll find out why they call her “red”. Really great and disgusting all in one.
• “Ah L’Amour” This is an excellent pencil drawing animation that is very graphic in it’s depiction of what women want from men. The phrase “I have Money” will take on new meanings… I want this T-Shirt!
• “Hut Sluts” Summer and Tiffany are two California babes with partying in mind and they get it worse than they ever imagined. “yes, I got this tattoo in prison”. I will say no more…except maybe “blueballs” and I loved the fact that the asshole wore a condom (just to promote safe sex).
• “Fast Driver” “Drive, Fast Racer, drive Fast Racer, Drive” This was my favorite I think. Based on a parody of the cartoon “Speed Racer” (I used to love to watch Speed Racer when I was a kid and had the theme song memorized) This cartoon depicted him as a total queer with an even queerer family (or friends.. whatever they were) and the portrayal was excellent in its severe overplaying of the emotions and action typical in anime.
• “Home, Honey, I’m High” Yep, just what you think it is. Donna Reed’s family hooked on drugs. It was great.
• “Sea Slugs” What do you do with a drunken sailor slug? Send him out to sea.. Then watch what happens… Very short, very funny
• “Yes Timmy, There is a Santa Claus” Although my daughter was extremely offended by this piece, it shows how sick and twisted I am cause I was rolling in the aisles laughing at the irony of it all… Poor Timmy… Talk about melancholy and tortured…
• “Baby’s New Formula” This one has everything.. Cats, babies, blowjobs, alien faces, drama. Don’t miss it.
• “HornDog” Anyone who owns a dog understands the dilemma surrounding a dog that is *coming* of age…
• “Sloaches FunHouse” This has to be in my opinion, the sickest, most offensive, incredibly gross piece of claymation I have ever witnessed in my entire life. It was crowned “The Sickest Film Ever Made” and I have to quietly agree with it. It contained almost every possible offensive bodily function you could ever imagine a clay figure doing. Even I was grossed out completely. And that, my friends, is a difficult task.
• “Devil Went Down to Georgia” Action created by the same geniuses (geniiii??) who did “Nightmare Before Christmas” This short was great including performances by Les Claypool and the music of Charlie Daniels. Very reminiscent of “Nightmare” and very entertaining.
• “Lloyd’s LunchBox” This has to be the alltime disgusting animation. Several shorts showing Lloyd doing gross things to himself that I can’t even describe without gagging. The Zit was the worst… or maybe it was the nose pick… I can’t decide, but believe me, it was gross beyond description and definitely worth watching on an empty stomach.
• “No Neck Joe” Just listening to the audience screaming at the top of their lungs “NO NECK JOE” at the beginning of each nailbiting episode of No Neck Joe was worth the time spent trying to figure out why he has no fucking neck in the first place.
• “Spirit of Christmas” The never-meant-to-be-seen episode of South Park, that spawned this killer animated series. Yes, folks, it’s Jesus vs. Santa Claus in a knock-out, drag-out wrestling match to determine who is the true mascot of Christmas. It was great and the fact that it was completely uncensored had me roaring listening to a bunch of primary school children using language that would make a truck driver blush.

I had to get the T-Shirt and bought a couple of the videos they had on sale. Discussed animation politics with the Em-Cee who politely told me that Wallace and Gromit were very big in England and did I know that? (no-duh) But all in all a worthwhile effort and one of the most memorable times I have had in a long time, with the exclusion of the time I almost forgot to “mind the bottle” in London. But that is another story…

[Chris Fata]

2000

Yes, they’re back, bearing another selection of definitely Disney-free dubiety, both old favourites and new candidates — these reprobates screened South Park and Beavis + Butthead well before the mainstream took them on board. The styles on offer are wide and varied, from computer animation to stick figures and Claymation, and the results are equally diverse. Highlights included Die Hard in Under Two Minutes (80 seconds, to be precise), a super-condensation of Bruce’s best from Konstantin Bronzit, and Bowlin’ Fer Souls by Supergenius, an express elevator to hell. The Squirm-Inducing Oscar was tied between Horned Grandma – pretty much what it sounds like – and Tongue Twister, whose moral is best summarised as “don’t lick lamp-posts”.

Most of the films were by unknowns, though Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken weighed in with some (rather disappointing) No Neck Joe ultra-shorts. More satisfactory was Bill Plympton’s Surprise Cinema, a fine showcase for a variety of cruel pranks. Similarly vicious was Billy’s Balloon, an official selection from Cannes last year, whose sparse animation was countered by the inventive psychopathy of the titular inflatable. Overall, there were more hits than misses, and with the longest film coming in at a mere six minutes, you were never far away from something amusing or memorable. Perhaps less ‘sick’ than I anticipated, yet there’s no denying that ‘twisted’ is a highly applicable word.

2002

Spike and Mike return, with another selection of outrageous animation – except, it seems a little tame this year, with few real “Ewwwwww!” moments for the crowd to savour (though discovering why old ladies drive so slowly, will take quite some getting over…). As ever, the range and style on view was unsurpassed. And, as usual, the quality too varied hugely. Especially lame were heavy.com’s Behind the Music That Sucks – oh, my, slagging off Eminem and Britney Spears, how dangerous – which should have been retitled, “Behind the Animation That Sucks”. At the other end, Spumco’s Fuck Her Gently was lushly animated, and S&M regular Bill Plympton’s Eat was his usual elegant yet weird self, but lacked a decent punch-line. At the opposite end, technically, were Don Hertzfeldt’s A Bitter Tale and Rejected, getting a well-deserved repeat runout. Little more than stick-figures, they still raise fabulous observations on love, life and advertising – the line “My anus is bleeding!” has now entered the TC vocabulary. Also worthy of praise: Timmy’s Lessons in Nature from Mark Simon & T.J, and Radar Films’ When Chickens Attack, the shortest film on the program. But as this show proves, animation is truly a medium where size doesn’t matter – not when you have imagination.

Rating: C

2004

TC’s fourth return to the world of S&M, and as ever, it runs the total range from the sublime to the ridiculous (in both good and bad ways), mixing new entries with old “favourites”. Quotes used advisedly: let’s be honest, it’s time for No Neck Joe and Hut Sluts to retire gracefully. While at the crap end of the spectrum, Sickcom proved it is possible for a 3-minute short to over-stay its welcome, Mama, I’m a Thug managed to be even less amusing, and Ninjews took the one joke of its title and stretched it thinly across a lengthy sequence of poor-quality claymation.

Fortunately, among general mediocrity, a few gems stood out – that’s why we keep going. Here are the TC medal-winners among the new entries (Billy’s Balloon remains a favourite otherwise), and a few other worthy contenders.

• Tip of the TC hat: Cane Toad, Peepshow, Stubble Trouble.
• Bronze. Big Abandoned Refrigerator Adventure. Two evil dolls go on a crime spree before meeting their nemesis in the shape of the titular appliance. Imagine Bride of Chucky: The Wonder Years.
• Silver. Happy Tree Friends. A merchandising juggernaut now available at Hot Topic (the screaming pinata particularly appeals…), the shorts depict cute, furry critters meeting death in a variety of brutal ways. Heh-heh.
• Gold. Here Comes Dr. Tran. A fabulous satire on cinematic consumerism, transforming an unwitting Vietnamese kid into the ultimate action hero (right); the 3D sequence alone is worth the admission price. I liked this so much, Dr. Tran now graces my desktop. What higher praise is possible?

Rating: A-E+
Feb 2004

In which we finally found the
answer to the question,
“What Is The Matrix?”

“Who cares?”

Saw six of the top ten grossing movies in 2003 – as is traditional, the success of most of the rest left me shaking my head at the interests and desires of the average American cinema-goer: Bruce Almighty, Chicago, Bad Boys II, though I might catch Elf eventually. At least Bruce and Elf were original ideas, something hugely lacking this year. If we look at the top twenty films, three-quarters were sequels, remakes or adaptations. Perhaps we should let Return of the King off with a caution, even if it falls into two of those categories. 😉

Perhaps the biggest news was the way the Matrix franchise crashed and burned, from a position at the start of the year as the most-bankable thing in Hollywood. Truth be told, Revolutions isn’t that bad, but was largely scorched by the huge disappointment which was Reloaded. Despite the success of Lord of the Rings, studios might well go back to making most movies one at a time, then waiting to see whether the audience actually wants more.

There were several other cases this year where the audience stayed away: the Charlie’s Angels, Tomb Raider (left) and Fast and the Furious sequels all underperformed. But X2, Spy Kids 3-D and Scary Movie 3 did well, so sadly, we can’t proclaim the quick cash-in dead. Save X2, it was a poor year for comic-book movies: Daredevil disappointed, The Hulk collapsed after a strong opening, while LXG ranks amongst the year’s top turkeys. 2004 brings Spiderman 2, which looks a good bet, but the prospects for Hellboy are much less certain.

Outside of Hollywood, the usually-reliable Phoenix Film Festival, which produced two top ten entries in 2002, didn’t manage anything of especial note – we hope for a return to form in 2004. The main source of interest this year was Korea: while Guns & Talks was the best, My Wife is Gangster and Attack the Gas Station! are also worth watching, and animated feature Wonderful Days currently lurks in the unwatched pile. Hong Kong had a bit of a return to form, Infernal Affairs just beating Double Vision in our view, and making a worthy Oscar contender.

Here’s our top ten choices for 2003:

#10 – Infernal Affairs. The most solidly-acted movie to come out of Hong Kong in a while, thanks to Andy Lau, Anthony Wong and Tony Leung. A lot of effort is put into building tension, and it really pays off with the end result likely to leave you with a good working knowledge about the edge of your seat.

#9 – Pirates of the Caribbean. Bloated, excessive, mammoth. In other words, a perfect popcorn vehicle, whose appeal rests largely on Johnny Depp’s wonderful performance (he can collect the TC 2004 Best Actor, should he ever be in Arizona). He resurrected the previously-dead swashbuckler genre single-handed.

#8 – Synthetic Truth. Okay, I’m (heavily) biased. And Lord of the Rings it isn’t. But for $3,000, you won’t see a better hundred minutes of cinema this year – despite my performance! An early prediction: the 2018 Oscar for Best Director goes to… Zachary Yoshioka.

#7 – The Princess Blade. Possessing swordfights almost the equal of Kill Bill, courtesy of Donnie Yen’s fight choreography, this also had an excellent scenario, its futuristic setting contrasting nicely with the samurai characters. Undeniably Japanese in style, yet easily accessible to a Western audience.

#6 – Guns & Talks. Okay, this was technically released in November 2002, but is simply too good to leave off. Never has the life of a hitman been so appealing – assassins are people too, y’know. An inferior Hollywood remake is probably inevitable.

#5 – Kill Bill, Volume One. If you’d told me a Quentin Tarantino film would be in my Top 10, I’d have laughed. But this one fully deserved it, even if, in truth, it was only half a movie, with the most arterial mayhem seen on screen for a long time. Roll on Volume 2!

#4 – The Returner. Proof that the best wine comes in old bottles, this offered some lovely twists on The Terminator and The Fifth Element, with better characters than either. Add plenty of style, and a great villain too; the end product was simply highly entertaining.

#3 – The Animatrix. 2003 will not go down as a banner year for the Wachowskis; they should probably have stopped with Animatrix, which had far more depth and imagination than Reloaded and Revolutions combined. Beautifully animated, with every part leaving you wanting more, unlike the live-action films.

#2 – Finding Nemo. Walt who? If there was any doubt over who’s the #1 American animation studio, this dispels it, thanks largely to Ellen De Generes giving the best female performance of the year as Dory, the short-memoried fish with a heart of gold. Perfect animation, great characters, wonderful writing.

#1 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll sit with jaw agape. Countless man-years and $300m in the making, with every minute and penny fully justified by this climax to the trilogy. This raises the technical bar for every other movie, while not forgetting that it’s the people (and elves, dwarves and hobbits) that count.

What are we looking forward to in 2004? Nothing pre-dominates in the way that Matrix and LotR did for 2003. Looks like more sequels are in order, but some might actually be worth our time. In no particular order: Kill Bill, Vol. 2, The Chronicles of Riddick, Van Helsing, Alien vs. Predator, Resident Evil 2, Ultraviolet (about vamps, but nothing to do with the C4 series), Constantine, The Day After Tomorrow, Blade: Trinity and The Incredibles. Some of these will suck. 🙂 And speaking of “suck”, file under “wild horses”: Shrek 2 and Scooby-Doo 2…

1. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
2. Finding Nemo
3. The Animatrix
4. The Returner
5. Kill Bill, Volume One
6. Guns & Talks
7. The Princess Blade
8. Synthetic Truth
9. Pirates of the Caribbean
10. Infernal Affairs

Dir: Penelope Spheeris
While not quite the worst film ever made, Thunder and Mud represents probably the hugest gulf in quality for consecutive movies from the same director. Spheeris’ previous work was The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: The Metal Years, a film which rivals Spinal Tap for dumb rock excess, yet surpasses it simply by being a documentary. And she’d follow up Thunder with Wayne’s World, which grossed over $120m in the US alone.

Covering somewhat similar territory to both neighbours, Thunder still stands alone as the only movie ever to combine heavy metal with mud wrestling. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before? Er, because half a millisecond’s thought would have shown the huge potential for disaster perhaps? It’s certainly safe to say that it’s a match-up which will never be seen again. Anyone even considering the idea should simply watch this film, and they’ll drop the idea with the speed of a well-bribed cricketer.

Your hosts for the evening are Sam Mann, Tawn Mastry and Jessica Hahn. The first looks like a washed-up, has-been musician (and as a presenter, often seems to be channelling Ozzy Ozbourne), the second is a local DJ of minor LA renown, while you’re probably going, “I know that name” about the third. And you’d be right. Hahn was the woman who slept with TV-angelist Jim Bakker and brought down his PTL ministry (mind you, if you’ve seen his wife, Tammy-Faye, you can hardly blame the guy). Hahn got over the trauma by getting implants and posing for Playboy. Twice. How this qualifies her as a host is never quite made clear.

If the presenters are inept, talentless buffoons, they seem like icons of professionalism beside the musicians. The running theme throughout the presentation was desperate attempts to prove how macho these guys all are, despite mostly looking like badly made-up drag queens. Rejecting all claims to the contrary, it seems that “glam” probably does stand for “Gay LA Metal” – perhaps the most telling scene cut between the mud-wrestlers in their dressing room, and the bands in theirs. Hard to say who was applying more make-up or had bigger hair.

The format is simple. Each band of the five on display is “championed” by a mud-wrestler; a band plays, two girls battle, winner continues on. Now, I could go on about the unfairness of this – the champion might have to win just one bout, over an opponent who had already fought three times previously – but this is mud-wrestling, not professional boxing. [Though in terms of credibility, they’re about equal.] Matters are not helped much by a ‘commentator’ whose vocabulary appears to be at about the level of a particularly unchallenging Dr. Seuss book.

I do have to say, however, that the mud wrestlers are easily the most convincing performers: the bands all mime, and the hosts have the comedic timing of a pack of permanent markers. We can’t really blame Spheeris, who has said she’s not at ease with comedy (and a cameo appearance by her confirms this); it’s more that the lines are simply not funny. We thus lay the blame mostly at the door of writer Wally Anne Wharton [yes, that’s her name] who also makes an appearance as the ‘manager’ of the wrestlers. Their federation initials are M.U.F.F. Oh, hold my aching sides, I fear they may split…

With about 20 minutes of mud-wrestling, and perhaps the same of ‘performances’, this leaves around 50 minutes to be filled with totally dire comic skits. This includes protests by a group of fundamentalist Christians from the group U.P.T.I.G.H.T, attempts by a trio of skanks to whine their way in for free, sexual harassment for comedic effect, and – worst of all – monologues by ‘Barbi the Bimbo’, who spouts such drivel as, “I must be telepathetic”. Half right, Barbi, half right… If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was played by Linnea Quigley, but none of the names in the end credits rang any immediate bells, and there’s absolutely no way I’m going back to check.

The sole moment of wit in the whole thing is after one wrestler quits after having her top accidentally torn off. We’ll take at least four sets of quotes in that sentence as read, shall we? One of the replacement wrestlers is Big Bad Mama, who must be 200 pounds at least. Fighting for She-Rok, the all-female band (who are, sadly, just as shallow and cliched as their male brethren), Mama wins, in a moment of cheering defiance to the relentless parade of moronic stereotypes inflicted on us over the past 90 minutes. And that was just the audience – though did we spot Dennis Quaid, looking rather shamefaced? As a final highlight, they wheeled out Bill Gazzara, veteran Sunset Strip promoter of everyone from The Doors to Van Halen. He was looking even more near death than usual (he’d eventually peg it a couple of years later), which made his lecherous comments about the girls even creepier.

Where are they now? A little detective work (okay, 5 minutes on a search engine) revealed the following:

• Grave Danger: God knows. Type in “grave danger heavy metal” into Google, and you get articles on the perils of depleted uranium ammunition.
• Nuclear Assault: Drifted apart around 1993, but like so many 80’s bands, came back for a reunion tour in 2002, and released a concert recording, Alive Again this year. Official site.
• Tuff: Ditto. Lead singer Stevie Rachelle is also in a parody band called Cheeseheads With Attitude, who sing songs about Wisconsin, as well as a tribute band called Motley Priest. Official site.
• She-Rok: Despite “winning”, they apparently vanished without a trace, leaving only a photo (right). Google mostly points to porn sites, suggesting “she rok” is something rude in Dutch. Remember that for your next Amsterdam trip.
• Young Gunns: Changed their name to Wildside, released CDs in ’92 and ’95. Rumour has singer Drew Hannah running a porn company, while guitarist Benny Rhynedance played a pirate at Treasure Island in Las Vegas for a bit.

But wait! There’s more! A January 2006 email from Heather Harris sheds some light on She-Rok.

“The photo you offer to illustrate the band She Rok actually depicts Jessica Hahn, co-MC to the film with musician Sam Mann. She had topical frisson at the time due to her defection from the evangelical ranks, courtesy of her involvement with a well-known, adulterous minister.

Although many of the bands in the movie are deservedly forgotten, She Rok should not be lumped in with them. They were the best of the all-female metal bands of the era, courtesy of better instrumentalists than many signed female metal acts such as Vixen or Girlschool. Guitarist Geri Etinger can be viewed in the film peeling out her trade Van Halen-worthy technique, and 2 other members had musical notoriety outside the band’s ranks as well.

Singer Emi Canyn became one of Motley Crue’s Nasty Habits, the backup singers who exuded their own personalities despite the cliches of the Metal era, and She Rok bassist Mary Kay was co-founder of Detroit’s legendary proto-punk band The Dogs. She’s still onstage playing with Kanary, a band with Precious Metal’s Leslie Knauer, and remains as pretty today as my photos of the filming below indicate. The film was silly fun, and is quite representative of the 1980’s hair metal daze in Los Angeles. Perhaps this info and my photos will make viewing this curio more fun to your readers.”

The non-musicians involved with Thunder & Mud seem deeply embarrassed, save for Quaisha, the girl who had her top torn off, who still seems be working happily in the field fourteen years later. Mastry, last heard of as a DJ in Minneapolis, says simply, “I sucked”, while Spheeris, in an Onion interview described it as, “A flaming piece of crap”. She also doesn’t believe she ever got paid for it – somehow, a more fitting epitaph for this monument to 80’s metal is hard to imagine. Some things about that decade truly are best left forgotten…

[Another reader writes: “I don’t know who wrote the review of the Penelope Spheeris project, Thunder And Mud, but I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. I remember some funny sequences in the video, and your reviewer helped remind me of some others. By the way, Sam Mann (left) is alive and well in Hollywood, CA, splitting his time between his band ‘RAM’ and DJing at a Mexican bikini bar in downtown Los Angeles called Alameda Strip.”]

AMC Arizona Center, April 11th-13th, 2003

It seems that the Arizona Center and the Arizona Film Festival are going in opposite directions. While the latter goes from strength to strength, the entire second floor of the Center has now been cleared of retail, to make way for an upcoming change into office space – yeah, like that’s something which downtown Phoenix desperately lacks. [Readers outside Arizona, please ladle sarcasm onto that phrase with a bucket] It’s probably significant that the last time we were at the Center was…hey, for last year’s film festival. A change of venue might be required soon, given the mausoleum-like atmosphere generated by most of the place.

Or maybe the air of gloom and doom was caused by the films – for no readily apparent reason, this year’s selections seemed largely downbeat and depressing. Not that this was in any way a reflection on their quality – in only one case did we feel like we wasted our time, even if we frequently came out with a strong desire to slit our wrists.

This time round, we really don’t expect the TC Awards to match up with the festival ones. We only saw three of the ten films in competition, because most of the others just didn’t appeal. Here are a sample of the program descriptions that sank our interest, and sent us scurrying off to other movies:

* The Journey: “Eric Saperston set out in a VW bus with a couple of friends, on an odyssey that would take them across America, and into their own and each other’s souls”.
*Melvin Goes to Dinner: “A casual dinner…turns into an all-night confessional where secrets, skeletons and existential beliefs get passed around the table.”
*Shelter Dogs: [Documentary] “If you have a soul of any kind, bring tissue to this movie.”
*Totally Blonde: “In this comedic relationship film, Meg Peters can’t seem to find Mr. Right. That is, until she gets a bottle of blonde hair dye…”

I find it sad to see indie films getting inspiration from Reese Witherspoon studio pics. Maybe it’s just us. Going by the descriptions, entries also subscribed to the view that talk was cheap. While true (thus a significant saving on a low budget), it’s a philosophy uncomfortably close to that of daytime soap-opera. Resorting to talking heads is a disappointingly safe approach, when film-makers could use their independence to explore bleeding-edge cinema.

On the plus side, there was an greatly-increased quota of films from outside America. Although the official entries were all from the US or Canada, there were also movies from Spain, Australia, the UK, Japan, the Czech Republic, Mexico and China, giving a welcome global flavour. Unfortunately, the attendance at the ones we saw was disappointing, perhaps partly due to the brief coverage in the festival literature. The opposite was true of the short film programs: the two we checked out were both standing-room only, with people sitting on the floor for one of them.

Celebs in attendance included James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross) and Edward Burns, director and star of Confidence, which opened the festival. John Waters was also in attendance to perform his one-man show, The World is Trash – nice title – and going by the queues waiting to get into that, it was a popular attraction. Brian O’Halloran also made a return appearance, to present the awards ceremony and present a late-night screening of Clerks. Our son saw Lindsey Crouse at Paradise Valley Mall over the weekend, but don’t think she was actually in attendance at the event. 🙂

Despite the disappointing selection of films in competition, the renegades outside made up for it, and The Hard Word is certainly an early contender for a top 10 slot come the year end. While the event may be getting bigger, kudos are still in order for the friendly, informal atmosphere, and nothing happened this year to change its position as our favourite film festival, even putting home-town bias aside – though I admit having such a fine event 30 minutes drive away is not exactly a deterrent! The queue begins here for Phoenix 2004…

Visit the Phoenix Film Festival website.

Festival Reviews

• Confidence
• The Happy Couple
• The Hard Word
• The Movie Hero
• Seafood
• Streeters
• The Sum of One

TC Awards

• Best Film: The Hard Word
• Best Actor: Kelly Harms, The Happy Couple
• Best Actress: Maya Zapata, Streeters
• Best Director: Zhu Wen, Seafood
• Best Supp. Actor: Peter Stormare, The Movie Hero
• Best Supp. Actress: Rachel Griffiths, The Hard Word
• Best Script: Scott Roberts, The Hard Word

Official Festival Awards

• Best Short Film:
• Best Feature Film: Melvin Goes to Dinner
• Best Director: John Carlos Frey, The Gatekeeper
• Best Screenplay: Chris Philpott, The Happy Couple
• Best Ensemble: Melvin Goes to Dinner
• Arizona Filmmaker Award: Wayne Dickmann, The Sum of One
• [Our reaction: You have got to be kidding…]
• Audience Ballot Award: The Gatekeeper
• Best Student Short

The bigger they come, the harder they fail…

The last palindromic year for over a century is in the books, and it only remains for me to chuck my two cents in and announce the TC top ten. Hollywood executives are holding their breath – will Snow Dogs make the cut? I think it’s safe to say the answer is not quite going to shake the foundations of the studio system.

I saw seven of the year’s top ten grossing movies, down one from 2001 – the missed ones were Star Wars II (which I still might catch up with now it’s playing at the IMAX), My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Goldmember. Last year, two of the top ten made this list, this year’s it’s just one – slightly less than one, actually, for reasons which I’ll get into shortly, and making this more of a Top 9.9 than a Top 10, I suppose. The #1 at the box-office, Spiderman, cracked $400m in the US alone, marking Sam Raimi’s arrival in the super-mainstream. With him and Peter Jackson helming 2002 box-office behemoths, any bets on which former ‘video nasty’ director will be next? Dario Argento? Jorg Buttgereit? Guess we can rule out Lucio Fulci, at least…

It was, it seemed, a disappointing year, particularly for action movies. The more a film was anticipated, the less it actually seemed to deliver; two of the best trailers of the year, XXX and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, turned out to be leaden lumps of tedium with few redeeming features. Things didn’t get better with the new 007 flick, the third consecutive disappointing entry in that series, and even The Two Towers failed to live up to the standards of its predecessor.

Fortunately, peeping under the wire were a couple of pleasant surprises, not least the arrival of Jason Statham as a legitimate British action here in The Transporter. However, to avoid disappointment, I am consciously trying not to get over-excited for any of 2003’s releases, most notably Terminator 3 and The Matrix Reloaded. I figure if I expect less of them, it reduces the chance of unpleasant surprises.

A couple of words to Disney: you suck. You lobby to get the copyright law changed to protect Mickey, while shamelessly raping the public domain for the likes of Treasure Planet, and even pillage your own back catalog, whoring any beloved cartoon you can into straight-to-video sequels. Then, when you get your hands on the best animated film of the year (Spirited Away), you hide it in 151 theatres nationwide, with hardly any publicity – compare TP, which opened in over 3,200 with a marketing blitz, and still tanked.

And while we’re at it, can someone please give Christopher Walken some money? That way, we wouldn’t have to suffer the trauma of seeing one of the finest actors of our generation in stuff like Kangaroo Jack and The Country Bears Movie. Walken wins the Klaus Kinski “Fuck the script, send me the check” Memorial Award for 2002.

#10 – Equilbrium. Sliding in so low under the wire, I’d not even heard of it until the day we saw it, Christian Bale delivers a great performance in a setting that combines the best of Orwell, Huxley and Bradbury.

#9 – Signs. Would have been several notches higher, if not for an ending that would have got a failing grade in your Primary 3 English class. That this disastrous finale doesn’t flush the movie out of here entirely speaks volumes for the quality of the rest of it.

#8 – Jane White is Sick and Twisted. As previously, 2003 had its share of festival hits that, sadly, in all probability we’ll never see again. This maniacal riff on pop culture took homage to undreamt-of depths, in a wild ride through the TV landscape which is the third millenium. A career programming reality shows for the FOX network beckons those responsible.

#7 – Blade II. The year’s most unexpectedly-decent sequel was Del Toro’s gory-as-hell take on what is possibly the coolest comic character to hit the screen thus far. Face-splitting, autopsies, and more exploding vamps than you can shake an ultraviolet hand-grenade at, plus Donnie Yen (right) and Wesley himself. Woo-hoo!

#6 – Sum of all Fears. Never having read the book, I had no idea what to expect here, and the Ben Affleck/Harrison Ford thing passed me over entirely. What the makers delivered was the tensest movie of the year; once Baltimore was sacrificed, you got the feeling anything could happen, at any time.

#5 – Minority Report. It’d been a long while since Spielberg had made anything in the pure entertainment line, which is where his fame began, but this delivers the goods. Chalk up another Dick adaptation which bears little resemblance to the book but is still great on its own terms.

#4 – Spirited Away. Hayao Miyazaki is another film-maker who returned to form in 2002. After a few mediocre entries, he got back to what he does best: imaginative story-telling. He creates a wonderful parallel world of amazing characters and visual style.

#3 – Dead Dogs Lie. The best film of 2002 which you won’t have heard of (except here) sends three hitmen on a road trip. Less plot- than incident-driven, it had the sharpest dialogue of the year; here’s hoping someone picks it up for distribution soon. Or else we might have to. 🙂

#2 – The Ring. Just another crappy Hollywood rema…No, hang on, what’s this? It kicks the original’s turgid butt in just about every way, keeping the good and cranking the Creep Factor up to 11. Our son came home from seeing it and started asking if we had any covered wells on the property…

#1 – Nine Queens. Proving that there’s life in David Mamet’s style yet…if not perhaps in David Mamet… A script to treasure, unfolding with precise grace right up until the end. Bordering on a shaggy-dog story, I almost don’t want to see it again, in case it proves less fabulous second time around.