As with all film festivals, it's impossible to see everything. These are the films from the Raindance programme we've had our eyes on but haven't been able to catch yet.




What it is about growing up in New Zealand that inspires this sort of off-the-wall gross-out comedy it's hard to say, but it's the genre that gave Peter Jackson his start and sails again this year with Black Sheep. In Hollywood the phrase gross-out comedy is almost certain to ensure the film you're about to see will be ninety minutes of your life you'll never get back, but the Kiwis seem to know how to do it properly.

Hence our excitement for this stuntman comedy, which, from its trailer, looks as outrageous as anything that's hailed from not-Australia. About one young man's quest to become the world's greatest stuntman, in spite of his inability to do stunts that don't end in limb loss, The Devil Dared Me To is pitched, rather brilliantly, as the nearly semi-true story of New Zealand's most dangerous stuntman.

The buzz surrounding this one is strong to boot; could this be the sports-related comedy Taladega Nights so craved to be?




Whether or not Michael Madsen is tabloid-level important, this would-be documentary posits a scenario in which the prolific B-movie star gets his own back on gossip rags that are hounding him by sending a trio of filmmakers out to document the life of one of the paparazzi chasing him.

Its title may imply hints of John Malkovich, but this seems more in league with Spinal Tap than Spike Jonze, and that Madsen can play with him image like this - and invite along sister Virginia and actors Daryl Hannah, David Carradine and Harry Dean Stanton - makes us instantly attracted to it.




"I was the only kid in the audience who didn't understand why Dorothy would ever want to go home to that awful black and white farm, when she could live with winged monkeys and magic shoes and gay lions..."

Welcome to the world of cult filmmaker John Waters. This Filthy World spends 90 minutes in his company, as he monologues on stage in New York City, and we're fairly certain to expect to be entertained and offended in equal measure.