Kontroll: A great one to start with. Gotta love a film directed by a guy named Nimrod Antal. He’s from Cali but lives and works in Hungary.
It’s about ticket takers, or controllers of the Budapest subway system. Everyone hates them and when passengers aren’t running from, arguing with or fighting them then the other control teams are. Literally never seeing the sun, Bulcsu, played by Sandor Csanyi, (say 3 times fast) decides to never leave the underground. He sleeps on empty platforms and eats from vending machines when he’s not working.
Theres a mysterious killer pushing people in front of trains, rivalries with other controllers, and a love story to boot. A metaphor about growing up maybe? Anyway . . . funny, sad, and grim all at the same time. Excellent film.
13 Tzameti: Another good Euro fiick about a poor roofer, Sebastien, who overhears a client talking about a letter coming with an opportunity to get rich.
When the client dies, Sebastien takes the letter and pretending to be the other guy, follows the instructions to a farm house where he finds out that to get the money he has to outlast other players in a winner take all game of russian roulette. A tense white-knuckle good film.
Now on a lighter note, Beerfest: I didn’t like these guys’ other 2 films, Supertroopers and Club Dread, but Beerfest was very funny.
It’s about an underground worldwide beer drinking contest. 2 brothers start an American team but get humiliated, so the only way to compete is to bet their Grandfathers secret beer recipe that he stole from his brother, the German captain. If you’re in the mood for silly fun, you could do worse.
Hopefully something will come to the theater soon that I’m interested in. The Simpsons or Sunshine. Till next time.
