Blu-ray Review: ivansxtc (2000)

September 28, 2020

Written by DanXIII

Daniel XIII; the result of an arcane ritual involving a King Diamond album, a box of Count Chocula, and a copy of Swank magazine, is a screenwriter, director, producer, actor, artist, and reviewer of fright flicks…Who hates ya baby?

ivansxtc begins the only place it could; the end. You see star Hollywood agent Ivan Beckham (30 Days of Night‘s Danny Huston) has died of lung cancer, which shocks his co-workers who would have bet that his demise would have been from the absolutely bonkers amount of drugs n’ booze he quaffed on the regular.

Speaking of that wild life, we see Ivan’s last days laid bare via flashback ya dig… and what days they were; full of high-stakes Peter Weller-focused wheelin’ and dealin’, static from his girlfriend Charlotte (Lisa Enos), family and client drama… and of course plenty of full on illicit substance fueled hanky-panky!

A raw as hell blend of Hollywood excess and  Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illyich, ivansxtc posses an almost documentary feel, and that brings us closer to the titular character’s swirling insanity than we may be comfortable with.

Shot on digital video by Bernard Rose (most famous for fright fans from his 1992 cinematic adaptation of Clive Barker’s Candyman), the camera is continuously in the face of it’s subjects, the dialog presented is pure improvised realism, and the performances are charged (to say the least)… all of which swirls and bubbles into a heady concoction revealing a stark portrait of a dark world most of us will never know (and perhaps even want to know).

The world of ivansxtc doesn’t end with the feature, as Arrow Video and MVD Entertainment’s Blu-ray release of the film has plenty of bonus material on hand as well!

First up we get a brand new “making of” documentary courtesy of co-star/co-writer (along with Rose)/producer Enos), followed by a Q&A sesh with Rose, Enos, Huston, Weller, and actor Adam Krentzman.

Next we get archival interviews with Rose and Enos, party sequence outtakes, and the film’s theatrical trailer.

Finally we get a brand-new audio commentary with Enos and filmmaker/film fest curator Richard Wolstencroft that takes us through the film’s production and the restoration of twenty minutes of footage for this release.

ivansxtc is dark, full of black humor, and a truly nerve-jangling journey into the rusty interior of tinsel-town glamor and should definitely not be missed!

 

 

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