{"id":29311,"date":"2011-11-07T14:51:48","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T22:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=29311"},"modified":"2011-11-07T14:51:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T22:51:48","slug":"afi-festival-day-one-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/afi-festival-day-one-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"AFI Festival: Day One (Friday)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A<\/span> few capsule reviews from the first day at the AFI Film Festival. Saw a couple of great things, a couple of not-great things, managed to eat dinner in the middle of it all, and made it through the midnight movie no worse for wear. So great to be festivalling again. So great.<\/p>\n

Extraterrestrial<\/h4>\n

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I’m a big fan of Nacho Vigalondo’s time travel film Timecrimes<\/em>, so when I saw his new alien invasion film was coming to AFI Fest, it was an immediate must on my schedule. I’m not as big on alien invasion films as I am on time travel films, but that’s okay, because this is far from your typical alien invasion film, focusing on a quartet of characters left behind the evacuation when an alien ship appears. Their biggest fears, though, are the secrets they’re keeping from each other and the theories they hatch about each other. Great script and performances to match from the young cast make this a hugely fun time from start to finish. Full review on Row Three<\/a>. Reaction: LOVED<\/b><\/p>\n

This is Not a Film<\/h4>\n

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This is not a film because Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been placed under house arrest and banned from filmmaking for 20 years by the Iranian government, because his films are seen as subversive and politically dangerous. This is not a film also because what he’s doing instead of making a film is having a friend record him telling his next screenplay, and a description of a screenplay is not a film. But this is a very real, very heartbreaking, very frustrating, and surprisingly very funny documentary about a man denied the ability to do what he does. It’s fantastic, and the knowledge that Panahi’s appeal was denied in the middle of October only makes it more poignant. Full review on Row Three<\/a>.Reaction: LOVED<\/b><\/p>\n

Faust<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I quite liked Alexander Sukorov’s one-shot odyssey through Russian history in Russian Ark<\/em>, but this film is nothing like that. It does have the framework of the Faust<\/em> story, but a whole lot of the film is taken up by angsty philosophy (“where does the soul reside”) that might’ve intrigued me a little more if I knew more German and Russian philosophy, and a bunch of random running around as the devil and Faust hang out, crash parties full of women, wander through a city and the woods, etc. There’s some pretty cool imagery here and there, and after Faust actually signs his soul away, the rest of the film is good. But everything up to that (which is a LONG TIME) is really dull. Really. Reaction: MEH<\/b><\/p>\n

Beyond the Black Rainbow<\/h4>\n

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I had no expectations at all of this, other than a recommendation from one friend who likes weird genre stuff and random Internet reviews that hated it. The trailer’s pretty trippy, so I was expecting that. Turns out there is a sci-fi story of sorts involving a happiness clinic, a girl held there against her will, a creepy psychologist-type guy, a bunch of androids or something, and…other stuff. The best part is the almost fully abstract flashback that sort of (but not really) explains the girl’s background; the parts that try to be story-led are just kind of off putting. Reaction: MEH<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few capsule reviews from the first day at the AFI Film Festival. Saw a couple of great things, a couple of not-great things, managed to eat dinner in the middle of it all, and made it through the midnight movie no worse for wear. So great to be festivalling again. So great. Extraterrestrial I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[2312,2401,2371,2355,2366,2381,2387,2402,2349],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Extraterrestrial1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29308,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/scorecard-november-2011\/","url_meta":{"origin":29311,"position":0},"title":"Scorecard: November 2011","author":"Jandy","date":"December 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"[At the end of every month I post a rundown of the movies I saw that month, tallying them according to how much I did or didn't like them. You can always see my recent watches here and my ongoing list of bests for the whole year here.] Even though\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/le-cercle-rouge.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8100,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/afi-fest-2010-a-biased-preview\/","url_meta":{"origin":29311,"position":1},"title":"AFI Fest 2010: A Biased Preview","author":"Jandy","date":"October 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"*slow connection warning - many videos embedded* Festival season for 2010 is starting to wind down now, but there's at least one more big one in Los Angeles - the American Film Market and its less-industry-insidery sister the AFI Film Festival. I find myself more drawn to the mind-set of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AFI-blackswan.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":29519,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/afi-fest-2011-day-six-wednesday\/","url_meta":{"origin":29311,"position":2},"title":"AFI Fest 2011: Day Six (Wednesday)","author":"Jandy","date":"December 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"After a day of disappointing features on Monday and a day of mostly shorts on Tuesday (albeit very excellent shorts), I was ready for some features to blow me away, and that's exactly what happened on Wednesday. These were two of my most highly-anticipated films of the festival, and they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/WeNeedtoTalkAboutKevin01.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":28936,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/heading-to-the-afi-film-festival-2011\/","url_meta":{"origin":29311,"position":3},"title":"Heading to the AFI Film Festival 2011","author":"Jandy","date":"November 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my three big festivals of the year starts today (for me; the opening night premiere was J. Edgar last night, but I didn't go to that), and there are a boat-load of fantastic films at AFI Fest 2001 Presented by Audi. Thanks to Audi's sponsorship (among others), tickets\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Melancholia04.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":29522,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/afi-fest-2011-day-seven-thursday\/","url_meta":{"origin":29311,"position":4},"title":"AFI Fest 2011: Day Seven (Thursday)","author":"Jandy","date":"December 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"And this completes the festival for another year. All told, I saw 21 features and about the same number of shorts, which is probably my highest festival total ever. A few of them will likely be on my best-of year lists, a few are hovering way down at the bottom\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/TheKidWithaBike03.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":29339,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/afi-film-festival-day-three-sunday\/","url_meta":{"origin":29311,"position":5},"title":"AFI Film Festival: Day Three (Sunday)","author":"Jandy","date":"November 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I am determined to get all these AFI films capsuled up, even if we are getting further and further away from the festival itself. Sunday would've been another five-film day like Saturday, except that I knew the Melancholia screening was going to be packed and decided to get in line\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Melancholia04.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}