Coda’s ongoing coverage of the 2024 Phoenix Film Festival & International Horror Sci-Fi Film Festival. I'll be using these posts to recap the films I've experienced as part of these festivals.
DEMON MINERAL – Directed by Hadley Austin
This is a portrait and exploration of life in Navajo Nation and its radioactive
desert among the over 500 abandoned uranium mines contaminating the country’s
largest Native American Reservation.
Although its style often
makes this documentary a little narratively disjointed, it manages to remain
gripping throughout. It quickly and constantly switches between cinematic
techniques and methods. At times, we’re watching crisp black and white
cinematography, shot super wide to capture the immensity of the landscape. Then,
we’re cutting to archival footage from decades ago. Later, we’re watching CSPAN
footage from Congressional hearings on the matter.
While this technique
will sometimes get the story’s timeline a little confused, I didn’t find it to
take away from the film’s overall success as a method of activism. The audience
is subconsciously free to pick and choose which styles activate that little
part of your brain that says: “This is wrong. I should do something.” In that,
the film is abundantly successful.
DEMON MINERAL plays
again on Sunday, April 14th at 2:05 PM
ET TU – Directed
by Max Tzannes
A dark comedy thriller
set on a local production of Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar. The theater’s local
cast is driving its director mad.
I had a blast with this
film. I always respond to a flick that just seems like it was a lot of fun to
make. Seasoned veteran, Lou Diamond Phillips plays Brent, the play’s director
and he was chewing up this set like he was starved. It’s so much fun to watch someone
with his experience and résumé just go for it fearlessly and endlessly. His
multiple monologues are better performed than written. He selflessly breathed
life into the script and I’m always grateful for performances like this one. This
is not to say that it was a bad script, mind you. It just needed to be carried through
a few of it’s rough patches.
That being said, this
film is at its absolute best when it begins to lose itself in its own chaos. It
turns out to be far gorier and bloodier than you likely are expecting from its
first act. There are a few moments where I questioned the character’s
motivations, but when it picks up, you can’t help but get swept away in its
madness.
Most films like this
would have strived to have the story somehow mirror the play in the production.
This story is roughly Shakespeare-esque enough and I’m glad that it never seemed
too concerned with cleverness. It’s more fun because of this.
ET TU plays again on Sunday,
April 14th at 2:20 PM
MYSTERIOUS WAYS –
Directed by Tyler Eaton
A pair of sibling youth
group pastors attempt to save their church with a Halloween night interpretive
dance and play. Unwittingly, the dance summons a demon that possesses the
pastor’s daughter and threatens to usher in an early apocalypse.
As a former youth group
member myself, I can attest: This film completely nails it. I really felt it when
the hip-hop dancing pastor’s daughter scoffs at two of the others, “You guys
are literally, so homeschooled…” This film flaunts its goofiness like so much
praise dance outfit flair and I appreciate it for this. It doesn’t work every
moment, but there are plenty of moments that redeem any insufficiency.
I also found it funny
that for a film that constantly makes fun of ‘youth group’ culture, it more or
less perpetuates a Christian ideology. If I were a youth pastor, I’d show this
to my group.
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