There are worlds that man should fear to tread. Worlds that man should never see. But in spite of these warnings, several years ago I found myself trapped in a horrifying otherworldly dimension; the women’s restroom at Target in Downtown Minneapolis.

Unlike most Targets the Target in Downtown Minneapolis is two stories tall, making it a bit of an engineering marvel for those of us used to the standard storefront footprint. Now the store really is no different then any other, merely cut in half and stacked on top of one another. But there is something about it that draws people to it. I will say this though; the specially designed escalator for the shopping carts is pretty darn impressive.

But as much as I would like to keep the focus on the physical structure of a big box retailer in a blatant attempt at diverting attention from my terrible decision making skills and inability to pay attention to my surroundings. You see, I left my companion with the simple plan of meeting up a few minutes later in the toy aisle, yet due to my inattentiveness I would not be seen or heard from for over a half hour.

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Every so often I run across a film that is garnering very little buzz, but looks like it has enormous potential. So, in an effort to help bring these smaller, obscure films a bit more buzz I plan on posting the occasional plug for the film. My inaugural pick is an upcoming animated horror film that looks absolutely amazing. Animated entirely in gorgeous black and white, the film is actually six animated shorts from the likes of Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard Maguire. I’d say more but I think the trailer speaks for itself.

Fears of the Dark opens at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema on November 14.

Fears of the Dark Official Site.

I’ve never really given much thought about what I would consider the perfect crime. I’m not exactly ambitious so it probably wouldn’t extend much further then trying to purchase comics for my collection without Anna’s knowledge. She watches the movies and the Wii games like a hawk after all, so if I want to buy something perfectly crappy without having to listen to her grumble to me about it comics are really my only legitimate avenue of deception. Hey, I already feel guilty about buying Spider-Man comics, I don’t need her adding to my own self-imposed lecture.

Now sure, I found the whole Brand New Day storyline interesting at first, as writing out Mary Jane was the kind of huge shakeup that might recover the comic from the truly terrible Civil War storylines I had previously suffered through. But the whole concept has quickly stagnated, resulting in what now appears as nothing more then a blatant attempt at erasing everything J Michael Straczynski had written over the length of his tenure.

Now I know JMS wasn’t exactly popular with the Marvel fanboys. I mean really, attempting to add more depth to a character that was over 40 years old was simply unacceptable. Marvel and its fans simply would rather have numerous Spider-Man books that follow a basic plot by numbers arc rather then suffer through something that might actually result in a new experience for both the character and the reader.

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While I was only able to make it up for the Friday night opening, judging solely by that the film festival was a huge success. The venue they were using seats ~80 people and it was a standing room only crowd. Several filmmakers were in attendance and Anna struck up a mutual admiration society for rats with Pericles Lewnes, the director of LOOP and a Troma alumni. It was quite the sight.

I also recieved word from Bill Elverman (director of The Wintress) that Saturday was well attended as well and by the time he left on Sunday afternoon it looked like a similar sized crowd was seeing films that day too. Congratulations to Rick Vaicius for putting together such a great film festival. Everything ran smoothly, and film fans had the pleasure of watching a lot of great films they would otherwise struggle to even know about. Hopefully this is the first of many such events, as I know Anna and I are both excited at the thought of making another trip down to Pepin, WI next fall. Hopefully even more people will make that trip in the future.

Due to the overwhelming response by filmmakers wanting me to review their films I am running a bit behind on posting them. I have three more to post and I still have a few more interviews to post as well over the next few weeks. I’m going to do my best to spread them out so I don’t fall even further behind. While the constant feeling of being behind schedule is frustrating, it is absurdly fun as well.

Hopefully veryone has enjoyed the reviews so far and I look forward to doing it again next year.

I have struggled with trying to come up with a suitable intro for this review. With its mix of sex and artistic flare it is a tough nut to pin down, and not typically the sort of thing I can readily compare to my everyday life. You see Marta’s Sex Tape is a very unique viewing experience, one that I wouldn’t not normally sit down to watch. Yet I am quite sure that is why I enjoyed it.

Marta (Pilar Padilla) is deep in debt and unsure how to drag herself out of this mess. Her friends can’t afford to buy any more of her paintings and she can’t get a job, so she decides to take a very unusual approach and make her very own sex tape in the hopes of selling it to a local pornographer. But unfortunately for Marta the tape is far too artsy, and while sex sells, there just isn’t any money in art.

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Anna tends to head home to Brainerd, MN about once a month to visit her family. While I enjoy visiting her family, my job doesn’t afford the me the luxury of weekends off so I rarely can adjust my schedule to make these trips. And while I miss spending time with her on these weekends, I am afforded one small luxury. I get to watch movies for this site that she has absolutely no interest in.

Now, over the years we have both forced the other to watch movies that we knew the other didn’t want to watch. But in fairness to both of us, typically these are films that we were passionate about and simply wanted to share something we loved with the other person. Unfortunately, both of us have wildly different tastes. She is fiercely pretentious and very selective in what she will spend her time on. I am more of a buffet styled viewer, slopping anything and everything on the Netfix queue in the hopes I find a gem within the mountain of crap. She became a fan of Bill Murray after watching Lost in Translation, and refuses to watch any of his films previous to it. I am a fan of all Bill Murray films except Lost in Translation, because it sucks. She is a fan of Lars von Trier films like Dogville and Dancer in the Dark. I may have called her stupid for liking those movies. And so on and so forth.

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