Coda

Tuesday, April 1

2025 PFF & IHSFF Festival Recap – Monday, March 31st

Coda’s ongoing coverage of the 2025 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.

By Emery Snyder - @leeroy711

THE STAMP THEIF – Directed by Dan Sturman

THE STAMP THEIF is a documentary that tells the story of a group of Americans pretending to make a film (ARGO style) in order to gain access to a Polish apartment building that they suspect has a buried valuable stamp collection, stolen from Holocaust victims.

It's apparent early on that this film, although a documentary, was written and composed by someone who’s worked extensively in fiction. It plays out like a heist film or a spy novel. I actually found it fascinating at how the plot to an actual heist so closely resembles the making of a Hollywood film.

I was also struck that this story gives us an entirely different look at Poland than what we saw in Jesse Eisenberg’s A REAL PAIN last year. The community showcased in that fictional film was far more welcoming to outsiders. In this film, we see how the country has been affected by the global rise in this new brand of populism.

With this in mind however, I found the overall arch of the film to be one of hope. In spite of the region’s growing ideas of nativism and antisemitism, it was encouraging to find so many people ready and willing to do the right thing and to honor history’s ugly truths. There was real value in this discovery.

CHAIN REACTIONS – Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe

Documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe intervies Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King and Karyn Kusama about the cultural, societal and personal impacts of Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE.

It’s difficult to review Philippe’s films. I’ve seen all of them and thoroughly enjoyed every one of them. But I don’t know that there is a whole lot of his actual direction that I’m responding to. The entire premise is typically to have a handful of filmmakers or critics that most of us cinephiles adore sit down and discuss an amazing film or filmmaker. Then, overlay clips from a bunch of our favorite cinematic moments and call it done. It’s a formula that works for me and tons of my community. It makes me wish I was sitting in the room with them, deeply diving into the entries of this medium that we all celebrate.

The ingredients of the recipe are simple, and they make a fulfilling experience. But how much of Philippe’s creativity is actually imposed onto celluloid? I don’t know. I guess I don’t really care either. But the thought that we may have not ever seen one of Takashi Miike’s films if the screening to Chaplin’s CITY LIGHTS hadn’t been sold out is certainly a haunting and chaotic allegory to the world created by Tobe Hooper in 1975.

Monday, March 31

2025 PFF & IHSFF Festival Recap – Sunday, March 30th

By Emery Snyder - @leeroy711

THE PROSPECT – Directed by Dana Donnelly & Robert Schultz

Jerry Vanetti is a high school senior who has just been rejected by every college he’s applied to. In his desperation to escape his fate, working at his father’s jazz themed smoothie bar, he hatches a plan to fake an elite baseball career to draw in an athletic scholarship, in spite of the fact that he’s never played the sport.

For everything good that I’ll say about this low budget comedic gem, I have to point out that there was an issue with the audio synch. I suspect that a lot of the scenes had to have their dialog recorded in post (ADR). This wasn’t as much of a distraction as it is in other films with the same issue, but it was certainly noticeable.

That being said, I really liked this script. This is one of those ‘joke-a-minute’ quick-witted, dialogue driven high-school comedies with equal parts raunch and absurdism. Kind of “Juno-Style” heightened reality. I was worried that some of their joke wells would run dry from over drawing but the writer seems to have a firm grasp on how to toe that line.

THE PROSPECT, although imperfect showcases talented screenwriting and acting on all parts. I hope to see this group of filmmakers in the future.

THE LOW END THEORY – Directed by Francisco Ordonez

A vet struggling with PTSD works as a money launderer to finance her aspirations of producing hip-hop beats. In desperation to help her girlfriend, she steals from her boss, setting in motion a series of tragic events that she fears will follow her forever.

Although this film has some disjointed pacing issues, I thought the plot overall was well composed and written. I think, especially the first act or so could have used one or two more drafts. It’s difficult to keep the audience engaged for that duration with that amount of meandering and foreshadowing. The concept and complexity of the story ultimately pays off, but I just need a bit more on the front end to feel like it was a complete success.

I appreciated the look of this film quite a bit. The cinematography by Gemma Doll-Grossman made great use of the negative space when it was needed. A lot of the film was shot like a music video, shot on location, with close ups and lens flares. It made me think that we need a Los Angeles Neorealism movement. That city has a lot to offer, and it struck me that some of the location-establishing shots and sequences made me think of De Sica.

This film isn’t entirely successful unfortunately. But I champion its elements and moments that work. Our main character, Raquel is played beautifully by Sofia Yepes and the world-building staged around her was very convincing. But a film of only 100 minutes of runtime shouldn’t feel longer. One more pass and a little trim could have polished this gem.

SHEEPDOG – Directed by Steven Grayhm

A combat veteran is court ordered into treatment to confront the demons of his trauma when an ex-con shows up on his doorstep. Together they work to pull their lives back together.

First, I did not intend on double-featuring ‘vets with PTSD’ movies at the festival but that’s what happened. This film however, is all about the process and the therapy required by those effected by the savageries of combat. And how this country has severely failed in holding up our end of this agreement. In fact, weaving in and out of this film’s more “tragedy-porn” aspects are essentially an advocation and advertisement for the VA. This is an especially crucial point made amid drastic cuts to those services by the country’s new administration. Specific programs and treatments like ones illustrated in this film are currently being threatened and reprehensibly treated as “waste & fraud.”

I used the term, “tragedy-porn” earlier and I’d like to make it clear that this is not a stark criticism on my part. I like a film that makes the audience well up with emotion. This medium is nothing if it’s not emotionally manipulative. That’s like… the whole thing… I used the phrase because I found it apt for the events portrayed. Be forewarned. It’s a rough watch that should thump you in the throat.

The technical aspects of the film are all on par with this type of drama. Beautiful Eastern Seaboard landscapes, cut by industry and the generational poverty that is inherent in this country. A soft, appropriate and melancholic score by Gary Rugala and Rycky Ruke queues every moment. And the performances, specifically by the experience Vondie Curtis-Hall have flashes of brilliance that you’d like to seal in a bottle.

I think it was a bit too tempting for the screenwriter however to make a sort of ‘kitchen-sink’ trauma bullet list unfortunately. The moral of the story was to show the importance and value of the therapeutic processes. The origins of the suffering were sufficient to show their own effects. But there was one aspect (that I won’t specify) that I felt was a bit pigeon-holed into the script and left underexplored and almost abandoned.

Ultimately, this will likely be a lot of folks’ favorite film of the festival. I certainly appreciate it for what it is how effective it is. I just think a bit more laser focus on what was trying to be conveyed would have improved it.

Sunday, March 30

2025 PFF & IHSFF Festival Recap – Saturday, March 29th

By Emery Snyder - @leeroy711

STATE OF EMERGENCY (Výjimecný stav) – Directed by Jan Hrebejk

This is a Czech comedy that tells the story of Czech news radio correspondent, Karel (Ondřej Vetchý) in the Middle East who hastily returns to Prague for a personal errand, just as revolution breaks out. He’s left to continue his updates of the war torn and bloody revolution within the confines of his kitchen, as though he were still on assignment.

The Czech have a long tradition of making light of dark geopolitical issues and histories. The films of the Czech New Wave movement had a beautiful tradition of this. Ján Kadár’s THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET uses buffoonery and oafness to tell a story about Fascist Slovakia taking over Jewish shops for “Aryan controllers.” Juraj Herz’s THE CREMATOR uses absurdism and dark comedy similarly. And my favorite, Jirí Menzel’s CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS takes place amid the backdrop of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia but focuses on the personal tragedy of one young man’s desperation to just get laid.

The similarities between those films and this new entry might be a bit of a stretch. But I found at least a bit of spiritual commonalities while I was in the screening. This film however, is content to focus is mocking gaze at the new era of media sensationalism, fake news and our new obsession with giving equal weight to completely unqualified opinions (see Joe Rogan.)

As a farcical comedy, this film works perfectly. I found the plot to remind me, more than once at some of Hollywood’s “sex comedies” of Wilder or Hawks even. Almost Shakespearean in its nonsensical miscues and misunderstandings.

Ultimately, this just turns out to be a thoroughly enjoyable romp. Great comedic performances all around and the plot moves forward at a clip that keeps the audience fully engaged.

STATE OF EMERGENCY plays again on Sunday, March 30^th at 1:40 PM

BLACK THETA – Directed by Tim Connolly

A survivor of a home invasion is haunted (and possibly hunted) by the murderous cult that failed to kill him the first time.

Another slasher flick that cold opens with its characters giving bad takes on trivial cinematic opinions. This one involves the remakes of the FRIDAY THE 13^th franchise. I don’t mind this at all. It succeeds in engaging its target audience and this film will spend the rest of its runtime showing an ability to keep this up.

This is obviously a film shot on a restricted budget with a cast and crew of limited experience. And it ends up serving as a great example of how a firm grasp on the vernacular of the genre can make up for these otherwise limiting factors.

Every performance here is full of intent. Choices were made and deliberately written into the personalities of even the most inconsequential characters. This is what I like to refer to as the economy of storytelling. The filmmaker respects the time of his audience enough to not waste it with meaningless placeholders of eventual knife fodder for the killers. I have tons of appreciation for this type of attention and hope it translates into a future trajectory for this filmmaker.

It's fun and well composed and this is obviously not by accident.