New Web Site

Howdy folks!

This will be the last blog of the night, I'm working on building a Sweeet Talks website so hopefully it will be up by next weekend... I'm tweeking things to make all the pages work correctly... And once the website is up that would be the main place for people to check out all things Sweeet Talks.

night night

Sweeet

Mon Ami

How far will you go for your best friend?

As I watched the midnight showing of this hilarious buddy horror/comedy at Cinequest 2013 all I could think about is, "Would I do this for any of my friends?" Mon Ami is the touching tale of two bff's Teddy and Cal, who are lifetime employees at Hal's Hardware Store... They're not too fond of their jobs, but when Hal, the store owner decides to retire and hand the store over to his sons instead of our heroes. Teddy and Cal devise a plan to kidnap Hal's daughter and try to ransom her out for money, too bad they're a couple of idiots and everything that could go wrong does!

This was a well acted comedy with great pacing and direction. To me this is like a mixture of Clerks,Shaun of the Dead, and Funny Games (somewhat).  The movie was pretty low budget ($10,000) but that didn't matter because it still looked great. It shows what you can create with a good script and a well rounded cast. This is another movie I would love to see again and bring friends to.

Check out the trailer here:


Check out the Mon Ami website

5/5.

Sweeet

An Inaccurate Memoir

This picture alone made me want to watch this movie.

An Inaccurate Memoir is a tale about a group of Chinese bandits trying to survive during the Japanese Occupation of China. Gao is the main protagonist who tricks the bandits into letting him join them by getting himself kidnapped and tries to gain their trust so they can help him assassinate the Emperor's brother.

The story is pretty easy to follow and has a few surprises in it. The characters are all pretty likable and the romantic story line doesn't seem too forced. One of my favorite scenes is what the picture above is taken from, the gang attempts to rob a bank and get held up inside after a shootout with the cops. How they get out of the bank is pretty hilarious.

The movie is in Chinese with English subtitles, I don't think all of the translation came out correctly because a couple times during the movie someone would shout "Punch your face!" and sometimes they would get hit with the butt end of a rifle. I think I set myself up for a more action oriented flick judging by the photo, so if you're expecting Hard Boiled, this isn't the movie for you.

I wish the trailer had subtitles, but check it out for yourself if you like Chinese cinema you should check this out.
4/5

Sweeet

Aftermath (2013) Review

I had to use this poster because it's so bad ass!

So Aftermath was the second movie I saw at Cinequest, but it was the first movie I saw there that I freaking loved.

Aftermath is a film that is written and directed by Thomas Farone and he brought a great crime thriller  that had a unique style to it. The film stars Anthony Michael Hall as the protagonist Tom Fiorini who runs a construction company in New York. Chris Penn (In his final role) plays an ex-con who works for Tom but is fired after a spat with Tom's foreman. When the foreman comes up missing Tom begins to overreact and tries to arm himself and hires Tony Danza to flex some muscles.

The movie is laid out into 4 chapters and has some great edits and cuts to have it set up like a comic book. Director Thomas Farone said in a Q&A after the movie that he edited the film like that to give it a sense of heightened reality since some of the scenes and characters are a little off and over the top.

The acting in Aftermath was pretty top notch and had great performances from Chris Penn, Anthony Michael Hall, Frank Whaley, Tony Danza and Leo Burmester who played the town Sheriff that did extra work on the side. This movie as a whole would put a smile on Tarantino and the Cohen Brothers faces.

No full release date is available yet, but I can't wait for a distribution company to pick this up for theatrical release or home release... when I find out this movie will be a day one buy for me so I can show all of my buddies. I give it a 5/5.

For more information and to see the trailer, check out their facebook page.

Sweeet

Cinequest 2013

This year, through my awesome buddy Matt Reed, I acquired a VIP pass to Cinequest 23 which is San Jose's film festival that ran from February 26 - March 10. The VIP pass gave Matt and I access to all of the films, events and parties/soirees.

Every year Cinequest gives out their Maverick Spirit Award, and this years honorees were Salman Rushdie, Chef Dominique Crenn and Han Solo himself Harrison Ford! I wasn't able to make the events but I did give my pass to my mother so she could go swoon over Indiana Jones for a couple hours.

In total I saw 10 films and 8 out of those 10 I really enjoyed, 1 I thought looked amazing but I wasn't too intrigued with the story and 1 that I absolutely was not a fan of. Sony held a screening of Taxi Driver in their new fancy 4k projectors and it was awesome to see it on the big screen. Over at the California Theater they had a silent cinema presentation of Buster Keaton's Cops (1922) and Harold Lloyd's Safety Last (1923). It was a good experience to see the silent movies how they were shown back in the 20's and there was a man dressed to the nines playing on a Wherlitzer Organ. I'll have a couple of reviews on here after I'm done writing this blog.

I ran into some interesting characters at the soirees, there was one guy who started a company to rival Netflix and his main seller was that he offered adult videos with his streaming service. There were these 2 guys who seemed always dressed in white suits and looked like they were having parties of their own, turned out they were the writer directors of the hilarious buddy comedy Mon Ami (check out the review soon). People were there to sell their movies which was cool and it was interesting to have the chance to talk to some of them, but whenever another film maker or important looking person walked by they seemed to turn around and ignore you.

In closing I really enjoyed my first real experience at a small film festival and I want to check out more soon. I just have to plan ahead and get more time off, or just finally make a freaking movie.

For more information on Cinequest, click here.

Until Next Time!
Sweeet