Cinequest is San Jose’s preeminent film festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In this daily film journal, I’ll be trying to spotlight films you might otherwise miss and let you know when you’ll be able to catch them again.

 Beast Of Cardo (Bestia de Cardo)

Directed, Written by, and Starring Virginia Sanchez Navarro
Tue, Mar 3 6:00 PM, Sat, Mar 7 4:30 PM
Buy tickets here

Let me confess. I’m not drawn to movies that are wildly open to interpretation. I have enough vagueries in my regular life to figure out, and the therapeutic or instructional exercise in films that seem to make a virtue of being ungrounded, while not exactly lost on me, are not as welcome as simpler escapism.  Beast of Cardo mostly escapes this criticism, but does fall solidly into the drawer in scenes and themes that bookend an otherwise fairly interesting slice of life tale. How much is metaphor, how much is imagined, or is it all actually  meant to be rationalized in a semi-magical and mythological sense of world?
The film opens with two somewhat unbalancing aspects. First a narrative tale of the city of Cardo, a seemingly unfinished story of a city plunged into darkness and the ruling families that continue to rule based on their recollections of the city when it had light. And second, a brief vision of players, perhaps fleshy marionettes or victims of some loose bondage, suspended on ropes. With little but asides that later might be interpreted as connected, these are not commented on again by the filmmaker until the end of the film, bookending it, and then only one actually makes mute comment.

So almost at once the story begins and shifts to a fairly straightforward tale of a daughter,Moira, previously shamed by rumors of promiscuity, returning to a well-to-do family desperately trying to regain their prestige after another shameful event. Much of the film is discussions of the difficulty, necessity, or even desirability of mending relationships or simply escaping the situation altogether.  Moira and the local dressmaker Hermes (again, the mythological reference is a bit blunt) form a loose friendship, and even execute a blood ritual spell to cause Cardo to be eliminated so they both can be free.

I will say that many of the images crafted in the film are intriguing to watch, and the narrative although repetitive didn’t actually drag. Moira takes very little action to either counter or affect people’s opinion of her, and the idea that she and Hermes need to turn to the supernatural to escape Cardo never really held much weight for me.

Did the spell take, was it successful, are the lighting shifts intended to be representative of supernatural events or just bad wiring in the Dominican Republic? Is this a literal viewing of what happened, or somehow a glimpse into Moira’s eventual disposing of her connections to Cardo and physical escape.

I really don’t know. The answer is either ethereal or blunt, depending on your interpretation of metaphor or perhaps a truly disturbing potential ramification of their actions. You can have it both ways I suppose, but like Moira and Hermes I just want to escape Cardo.

This week and next we’ll take daily looks at Cinequest movie offerings that still offer opportunities for you to catch at the festival.  Subscribe now so you won’t miss any!

Ric Bretschneider
February 25th, 2015

Cinequest is San Jose’s preeminent film festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In this daily film journal, I’ll be trying to spotlight films you might otherwise miss and let you know when you’ll be able to catch them again.

 Booze Boys and Brownies

Directed, Produced, Written and Starring Veronica Mannion
Wed, Feb 25 7:00 PM, Thu, Mar 5 1:45 PM, Fri, Mar 6 9:30 PM
Buy tickets here

When you think about it, the movie musical is a very strange animal. Like any other film, the story is likely humming along with dialog, action, exposition, and the occasional kiss or explosion. Then, exactly as it doesn’t happen in real life, someone bursts into song.

Well, maybe not your real life, happens all the time for me. But I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the average bear.

Movie musical songs typically express a pivotal point in the plot; the awakening of feelings, dealing with stressful or happy situations, a convergence of character plotlines, any of these and more being the things that capture us and get us involved in the story.

Whether meant to be actual songs or fantastic insights into characters’ otherwise unspoken truths, the musical uniquely involves us in the character’s motivations and reactions unlike any common voice over or narration.

Veronica Mannion has provided us with a very modern look at the musical form in Booze Boys and Brownies. Her semi-autobiographical tale of a young woman trying to “find it all” in today’s Los Angeles is frank, charming, rough, and quirky. Fans of independent film will be lulled into what is a fairly compelling set of circumstances and clever dialog and visuals, and the odd lifestyle in which Vivian finds herself at the beginning of the film. She will discuss, text, argue and ponder what it is she wants from life, career, and men at length. It’s a very indy feeling movie.

And then someone will burst into song.

To be fair, after one viewing, I can’t recall any of the tunes or specific lyrics. Perhaps that will change when I watch it again, but it’s not as damning as it sounds. They’re charming at the time, but simple and workable. It’s the spontaneity in which a brief performance punctuates the current situation that make this unorthodox aspect really work. The heart of the film never really feels like a musical, but all of a sudden there is it again, jumping out at you.

It really should be noted that Bay Area native Veronica Mannion is doing all the heavy lifting here. Producer, director, writer and co-composer of the music, plus she turns in a terrific performance as her alter-ego Vivian Lynn. Vivian is a recently established Angelino trying to garner fame and fortune, or at least a toe-hold for same, by preparing and performing in a one-woman show. Along the way, she has encounters with past and present romances, a grounding gal-pal in Amber (Ariel Hart), and the occasional song about it all. It’s core musical comedy and it works, freshly and completely.

Thanks for inviting us along Vivian.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at another Cinequest movie musical offering, and then you can break into discussion groups and compare and contrast.  Don’t worry, this won’t be on the final exam.

Ric Bretschneider
February 24th, 2015

Fanboy Planet started our third year of San Jose film festival Cinequest’s 25th year with our traditional podcast. It’s still available here for your listening pleasure. Cinequest is a wonderful two weeks of films that you otherwise might not be exposed to, smaller production houses, new ideas that aren’t “saleable in Hollywood.”  You know, the stuff we all claim to want to see more of, claim to love, brag about discovering before it made it big.

Last year I went nearly every day, seeing a couple of films each trip downtown, and basically had a blast.

Typically the Fanboy Planet staff coverage of Cinequest is a few articles and recorded interviews with the Cinequest guests and filmmakers.  We do a lot of that, and it’s great stuff. I made a lot of friends, got into some really interesting conversations, and we produced a lot of coverage of the festival.

But this year I decided I wanted to do a bit more, to challenge myself to journal every film I see this year.

Normally this would be something that would go right to the main Fanboy Planet website. But unfortunately it’s still a bit of work to get something written, uploaded, fit in images, proof, and generally make it worthy of being up and live on the site. And I needed to be able to do the writing and production quickly to stay true to my goal. I want to try to cover films that, if you live in the Bay Area, you’ll have a chance to see as well at the festival. Click on the poster for more information and how to buy tickets.

So I decided that this would be a two-phase production.  Quick postings to my WordPress blog, where I can get things written and readable. Then later pushing the same text and images, perhaps after Editor in Chief Derek McCaw has had time to proof, to the Fanboy Planet site.

So you’ll be seeing this logo around because that’s the branding I’ve made for the Fanboy Planet series of articles. And it couldn’t hurt the site for you to go and check out the other great stuff we do there. I expect there’s something for everyone.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy reading It’s an experiment, but it’s a hopeful one and doubly so in that I hope you enjoy the ride.

Fair Warning: Tomorrow, Tuesday February 24th at 7pm, the festival opens with the feel-good documentary of the year: Batkid Begins.  We’ve been covering this on Fanboy Planet since early last year, and it gets our highest recommendation.  Click here to read Derek McCaw’s review from July of last year.

Ric Bretschneider
February 23rd, 2015