Fest Finale

Saw my last movie last night - Princess. A touching tale about a priest who takes his 5 year-old neice under his wing after her porn star mother dies. Becoming enraged by the abuse of the child, and the world her mother lived in, he decides to take down the production company that is responsible for the films... violently. Oh... and it's animated.

A film with sex, porn, abuse, violent killings, explosions, swearing, and a morality play... needless to say it's had some controversy. To be honest though, it wasn't as twisted as I had hoped. There were definitely scenes that made the audience gasp/cringe, and I can see where the controversy is from... there are some very interesting takes on things. Overall, a decent film. Not great... but worth my time.

So... how do I rank the fest against previous years? Not bad. Not nearly as good as last year for me, where I saw films like Dear Wendy, Jesus is Magic, Banlieu 13, Souvenir of Canada, Bam Bam and Celeste, SPL, We Feed The World and even some great short films. That said, this year had its winners - Pan's Labyrinth, The Bothersome Man, Shortbus, and Renaissance stand out. For Your Consideration, Fido and Princess came close to that top tier. Red Road and Bugmaster had promise, but need some editing... and The Last Winter being the worst of the bunch is actually a pretty good thing considering some of the stinkers that are apparently out there. Seeing as I didn't get 4 of my first choice films, I'd say I made out pretty well.

We now return you to our regularly schedule poker blatherings.