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FantAsia 3: unexpected surprises
Jul. 10th, 2008 12:10 pmMy eyes fluttered open, and I tumbled out of bed to grab the continental breakfast I missed the other day (damn those were some tasty croissants), showered and packed up. We checked out of the hotel, and returned the bikes, and met up with some friends of SilentQ's for brunch at Eggspectations. The restaurant was in what looked like a remodeled factory, and had a slight steampunk feel to it. Good food too, though the staff had an aversion to calling their brown toast "wheat". Forest and I raced out to see our morning movie...
The Substitute - This was a Finnish film, and in style it most closely resembled a Hollywood production. It was a pretty solid sci-fi story about an alien learning about empathy from humans by impersonating a teacher. Naturally, the alien knows nothing about empathy and is horribly mean to the students. Some good acting among the kids, but story really rushes at the end. If they fixed that, it would have been a great movie. It was probably the worst film we saw, but it still had a lot of nice moments in it.
We had just enough time to scarf down some noodles, before our last film of the festival:
Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge - It's safe to say none of us knew what to expect from this movie, and our expectations were pretty off. The others might have grasped it quicker, but I was confused about the movie until they broke into the J-pop song, and then I realized "Ah, this is a manga film!" The movie seemed to be too many different things, but realizing the style of the film helped put things into place. It was very cute and heartwarming, a surprising end to the festival that brought us Art of the Devil 3 (Thai torture "goodness").
And that was that! We traveled home under beautifully sunset skies and buggy country roads. We breezed through Customs, and boggled at the crazy gas prices. We all took turns talking to Cris and SilentQ to help keep them away, and somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, came home to rest. My coda to the trip is this. ALWAYS take a day off when you return from a big weekend trip to ease back into the work week. Seriously, you guys. The trip itself was incredibly fun, with new experiences and a LOT of films to add to my viewing queue. Some of which I'll likely share with the rest of your in the coming months.
The Substitute - This was a Finnish film, and in style it most closely resembled a Hollywood production. It was a pretty solid sci-fi story about an alien learning about empathy from humans by impersonating a teacher. Naturally, the alien knows nothing about empathy and is horribly mean to the students. Some good acting among the kids, but story really rushes at the end. If they fixed that, it would have been a great movie. It was probably the worst film we saw, but it still had a lot of nice moments in it.
We had just enough time to scarf down some noodles, before our last film of the festival:
Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge - It's safe to say none of us knew what to expect from this movie, and our expectations were pretty off. The others might have grasped it quicker, but I was confused about the movie until they broke into the J-pop song, and then I realized "Ah, this is a manga film!" The movie seemed to be too many different things, but realizing the style of the film helped put things into place. It was very cute and heartwarming, a surprising end to the festival that brought us Art of the Devil 3 (Thai torture "goodness").
And that was that! We traveled home under beautifully sunset skies and buggy country roads. We breezed through Customs, and boggled at the crazy gas prices. We all took turns talking to Cris and SilentQ to help keep them away, and somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, came home to rest. My coda to the trip is this. ALWAYS take a day off when you return from a big weekend trip to ease back into the work week. Seriously, you guys. The trip itself was incredibly fun, with new experiences and a LOT of films to add to my viewing queue. Some of which I'll likely share with the rest of your in the coming months.
