MIFF - Jack's Wife (1973)
From the moment they first shuffled across the grainy screen of Night of the Living Dead, zombies became synonymous with George Romero. Since he injected new monstrosity into a feared favourite, the excitement surrounding his zombie films is so frenzied that it's easy to forget he made anything else.
The Dark Knight
Chances are you've already decided if you're interested in seeing The Dark Knight, so I'll keep this short.
This is pure pop-mythology. That doesn't mean it's lightweight - masks and costumes mean it's bigger, even deeper, than real life, and it earns every heavy second of its epic running time. It's almost awkward at first, but these jitters are exactly the point.
Heavy Metal Parking Lot
In 1986, before headbangers were (ironically) hip, when camera crews were still a novelty worth cavorting drunkenly before, a dude from D.C. borrowed some gear from the local TV station where he worked and went down to the sports arena before the big Judas Priest show. The rest is heavy metal history.
MIFF - Artist Docos
The popularity of the music documentary section of MIFF may lead many - like your idiot housemate - to assume that this is all the doco program has to offer. Not so! If he proves difficult to convince, take him to see these; if he refuses, get a new housemate.
Surely there is nothing less foreboding than the saccharin pop of ‘80s sweetheart, Tiffany.
MIFF First in Line
And finally, without rhyme or reason, a wildly non-exhaustive list of some films that made our cinematic spider-sense tingle on first flip through the program.
The eternally-underrated Terrence Davies' first film in eight years, Of Time and The City, is described as "both a love song and a eulogy" to his birthplace of Liverpool.
MIFF Trash Horror
Film festivals occasionally throw a few obscure horror gems into their programs to up their cool quotient, but MIFF takes it a step further this year by gleefully embracing the long, trashy and often bizarre history that spawned the contemporary genre.
1968's Spider Baby is one of the most hilarious and fundamentally doomed cult film productions of all time, thus a hands-down festival highlight.
MIFF Random Play
With seventeen days of films on offer, some of your choices will come down to guesswork - even if you fine-tooth through the program with IMDB bookmarks and a magnifying glass. We roll the dice with some random, synopsis-selected, will-they-or-won't-they picks.
Why not embrace the proud ThreeThousand tradition of choosing a flick based solely on its title? This year it's debut feature with French New Wave tendencies The Pleasure of Being Robbed.
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