Movieforum

2011-09-17T21:12:00.000-04:00

EXTRATERRESTRIAL

(Contemporary World Cinema)

(Spain, 2011, 90 minutes)

Directed by: Nacho Vigalondo

Cast: Julian Villagran, Michelle Jenner, Raul Cimas, Carlos Areces, Miguel Noguera

It’s taken too-long time for Nacho Vigalondo to follow up his witty, Mobius loop of a sci-fi thriller “Timecrimes”, and the result is, as expected, a delightful surprise. While still a genre film (ostensibly), “Extraterrestrial” is a quieter, character-driven romp with a deliciously cruel heart that spins a fable of just how far a man will go to compete for a woman’s love, even if there’s a massive alien invasion on the horizon.

One sunny morning Julio (Villagrán) wakes up beside beautiful Julia (Jenner) in her apartment, hungover, and unsure of how and when they met, but definitely certain that they’ve engaged in a passionate one-night stand. As Julia rushes Julio on his way, fearful of her boyfriend’s sudden arrival, they both realize the neighbourhood is unusually…quiet. Overhead, in the distance, they can make out the shape of what can only be a massive alien mothership. With no functioning media to consult, they aim a camcorder at the craft and monitor is vigilantly, but the only thing they can be sure of is that an overnight mass exodus has left them possibly the only two people left in Madrid.

But not in the building: Julia’s obsessive creep of a neighbor, Angel (Areces) explains what’s been going on, and reveals he’s all-too-aware of their forbidden dalliance. And then Julia’s boyfriend Carlos (Cimas) shows up alive decked out as a would-be Mad Max, prompting an even bigger fear than total species annihilation: will the conniving blabbermouth Angel tip off Carlos that his girlfriend and Julio have been naughty? What if they were to convince Carlos that Angel is one of the alien invaders?

Almost entirely devoid of special effects, save for the odd cutaway to a news image, “Extraterrestrial” is mostly apartment-bound for much of its running time. For some this might echo Shyamalan’s straight-faced “Signs”, but I couldn’t help but think of it as a comedic version of Geoff Murphy’s New Zealand cult film “The Quiet Earth”, which was also something of an end-of-the-world romantic triangle (with a far less photogenic cast).

Still, the ship is an ominous presence, and much like the giant spacecraft that was suspended silently over Johannesburg in “District 9”, one expects that something could emerge from it at any moment. Carlos makes regular daring visits outside for supplies and fuel, which Vigalondo punctuates with mournful image of vacated streets, a glimpse of strangers, and the occasional unexplained explosion in the distance.

Vigalondo never loses sight of his charming tale’s true purpose: that Julio and Julia juggle truth and fiction in an attempt to preserve what could be their only night together, against the backdrop of what could mankind’s last day left—a wonderful metaphor, really, and I’m amazed that no one else had thought of it earlier. Let’s hope “Extraterrestrial” gets a proper North American release before someone shelves it for an Ashton Kutcher remake… although at the post-screening Q&A Vigalondo jokingly promised “Extraterrestrial 2: Now With Extraterrestrials!"

©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "Paul Williams: Still Alive"

2011-09-16T21:51:00.000-04:00

Paul Williams: Still Alive
(Real To Reel)
(USA, 2011, 87 minutes)
Directed by: Stephen Kessler
Cast: Paul Williams, Stephen Kessler, Robert Blake, John Travolta, Barbra Streisand
I honestly can't remember a time during my childhood in which the distinctive stature and voice of Paul Williams wasn't a presence in my parents' living room: Karen Carpenter and Three Dog Night performing his songs on the tinny AM radio, and on the tube, appearances (often as himself) on The Brady Bunch, The Love Boat, The Odd Couple, The Muppet Show (and Movie), every conceivable talk/quiz show “Match Game”, “Hollywood Squares" mostly), and even “Battle For The Planet Of The Apes” (I was a pre-pubescent “Apes” maniac bordering on the pathological, so his appearance as peacenik orangutan Virgil was probably what converted me). In my teens, I discovered of the forbidden thrill of Danny Peary’s “Cult Movies” in which Brian DePalma's “The Phantom Of The Paradise” received very high praise indeed , and as the fates validated my obsession but offering a well-timed late night TV broadcast.
Then, Williams seemed to just...vanish. I mean, I didn’t notice, really--I grew into a teenage filmmaker and cineaste, most network television bored me, and I could barely get to the communal television set in my university residence to catch a late night Letterman broadcast or SCTV rerun, never mind to keep up on the state of the pop culture nation (which was changing radically, thanks to the 30 megaton blast of a little thing called MTV).
Only once, a few years back, when I happened upon a broadcast of “Stone Cold Dead”--one of the odder Canadian Tax Shelter exploitation gems, in which Williams plays a sniper targeting prostitutes (really) pursued by Richard Crenna--did I briefly wonder where it was he’d vanished to. As with most celebs from my childhood, I’d hoped he'd retired on his money and accolades and was doing well. Or well-enough for a two-night run at one of the better border casinos. Did he fade from the spotlight, or was he unceremoniously drop-kicked to the margins?
Director Stephen Kessler had a similar impromptu moment, and a Wiki search lead him to pursue a documentary on his childhood idol. The successful commercial director bankrolled a trip to Los Angeles to meet Williams and was promptly rejected.
Tracking him down to a restaurant, Williams allows him in and they bond over, of all things, a mutual love of calamari. Soon, Kessler realizes he's not dealing with persona he once idolized on television.
Kessler now steps in front of the camera and becomes a comical presence, initially, constantly bemoaned and badgered by Williams who is clearly irritated with Kessler's probing questions and unintended disrespect for his privacy.
Kessler accompanies Williams from one-off lounge gigs to celebrity golf tournaments to a Philippines stadium tour — necessitating a six-hour bus ride through an Al-Quada occupied jungle when the client won't pay for a plane. Over time, Williams grows comfortable with Kessler's camera and becomes relaxed and accommodating. Fueled by drugs and an inflated ego, Williams blames only himself for his downward spiral.
While his Oscars and Emmys sit on a shelf next to a dust-covered DVD remote in his modest home, Williams reveals at the film's conclusion a cold storage shed filled with memorabilia from virtually every aspect of his once-meteoric career. From it, Kessler assembles a series of flashbacks both warmly nostalgic and blistering candid, esp. the week Williams hosted The Mike Douglas Show and offered near-daily meltdowns.
After the screening I happened upon him getting into his limo just outside of the AMC Theatre and darted over to congratulate. He graciously gave me a few moments of his time, and his first question was “did you like the new song at the end?” (McCartney was equally giddy with the need for affirmation of his new material in “The Love We Make”). Truth is, I barely heard it, but I'm guessing that once others experience this wonderful, inspirational film it'll soon be hard to avoid him again...
©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "Neil Young: Journeys"

2011-09-15T21:43:00.001-04:00

NEIL YOUNG JOURNEYS
(Mavericks)
(USA, 2001, 87 minutes)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Neil Young, Bob Young

Well, it's a short journey, literally speaking (approx. 140 km north east from Toronto, or two hours) but metaphorically, a cyclical one: in "Neil Young: Journeys", the indefatigable (33 solo albums in 29 years), unstoppable (even an aneurism couldn't defeat him), and ageless (at 65 he's eligible for Canadian retirement benefits) icon/iconoclast returns to Toronto's Massey Hall--the site of his 1971 Journey Through the Past Solo Tour-- for a low-key concert to promote his then-new album, Le Noise, produced by Daniel Lanois. Re-teaming with director Jonathon Demme, Young takes us on a candid, off-the-cuff afternoon ride along the 401 (following his brother Bob), inter-cut with performance footage of the two-night event.

For devotees, it's a chance to hear some familiar autographical yarns spun again as Young tours around Omemee, a community in the Kwartha Lakes where he was raised from the age of four (having been born in Toronto). From behind the wheel of his vintage Crown Victoria and sporting a Manitoba Moose cap, Young shows off his parent’s home, his uncle’s yard, and the public school named in honour of his father, writer Scott Young. Happening upon yet another development site, Young laments that “It's all gone, but still in my head". On a lighter note, he cranks up the stereo and confesses that he listens to most new music on the "these daysî and that the tinny car radio is the ultimate test of a song's quality and longevity.

Onstage at Toronto's Massey Hall, Young shares the floor with a large wooden statue of a Native American and hobbles with measured enthusiasm between sets to one of two pianos, an organ, and a variety of acoustic and electric guitars. The set list primarily focuses on his newest material but he works in a few solo signatures like “After The Gold Rush”, “Down By The River”, and “Ohio” (movingly punctuated by the projected names and pictures of the four who were shot dead at Kent State University on May 4, 1970).

"Journeys" marks Young’s third documentary collaboration with Jonathon Demme (they first met when Young wrote a song for Demme’s 1993 drama Philadelphia), following Neil Young: Heart of Gold, recorded in Nashville only a year after brain surgery, and Neil Young Trunk Show, which documented a Pennsylvania performance of his long-awaited Chrome Dreams II. Young’s evasive filmmaking alter ego, Bernard Shakey, is nowhere to be found and cited only in the name of his production company.

Considering that Young spends most of the film seated, the film is inventively shot by DOP Declan Quinn who harnesses six HD cameras and five ìiconî cameras (each about the size of a cigarette package) for just about every conceivable angle. But sonically, it’s a revelation, and something of a pioneering effort being the first film to be recorded at 96 kHz, offering twice the amount of sound data (as most films are apparently recorded at 48).

Three Neil Young docs in under a single decade might be a bit much for the unenlightened, but for committed fans it makes for some Le Grand Noise, indeedÖ

©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "Sarah Palin: You Betcha!""

2011-09-14T21:46:00.000-04:00

Sarah Palin: You Betcha!
(Real To Reel)
(United Kingdom, 2011, 90 minutes)
Directed by: Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill
Cast: Nick Broomfield

The shtick is familiar by now: the shambling about like a clueless tourist who just got off the boat, sporting an Ignatious P. Reilly hunting cap, toting his Nagra and shotgun mike, and disarming his aggressors with the effortless charm of a doting uncle while in pursuit of an unattainable subject—Nick Broomfield is at again and this time, he’s dogging, unsuccessfully, everyone’s favorite Republican nut-job. And by that, I mean Sarah Palin…really; the field is getting sort of crowded at the time of this writing…

Defeated as a Vice Presidential candidate after having resigned as the Governor of Alaska, Palin manages to retain her fan base with her “tell-all” book Going Rogue: An American Life. It’s at a signing in Houston where Broomfield first requests an interview (recording the moment with a hidden camera) and it’s her patented enthusiastic response that gives the film its title. Of course, we know from Broomfield’s “Tracking Down Maggie” how this is going to go…
When repeated promises for an interview are broken and his calls go unreturned, Broomfield (and longtime filmmaking partner Joan Churchill) heads directly for Palin’s former frozen fiefdom: Wasilla, Alaska. Population: six thousand. Chief industries: crystal meth, and churches. Seventy-six of them. And no strip clubs.

Getting right to it, Broomfield’s first encounter is with Palin’s parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, and for the most part, the project starts off promisingly. They share photographs, archival video, and childhood trinkets and welcome the filmmaker like a long, lost relative. The respect seems mutual, even if they don’t agree politically.

But when Broomfield starts sniffing around her former mayoral office and asking some pointed questions about Sarah’s political qualifications and financial savvy (not to mention a healthy list of scandals), it doesn’t take long for word to get around and the Heath’s participation starts to wane as they become suspicious of the once-charming Brit’s true intentions.

The local testimony amassed from former colleagues, employees, campaign advisers, teachers, law enforcement, and even a priest (!)—Many of them afraid to talk on camera else risk ostracism and even violence--is hardly flattering to no one’s surprise. “Thrown Under The Bus” is uttered so often it could be the film’s alternate subtitle…

What emerges is troubling history of a vapid, vindictive aging Prom Queen who remembers everyone who ever enacted a perceived slight--a sociopathic, anti-intellectual opportunist who could manufacture a charming smile and folksy one-liner while planning your eminent, merciless destruction.

And a dangerous one, too: Reverend Howard Bess, still a courageous Wasilla resident even though his book, “Pastor, I Am Gay”, was banned by Mayor Palin from the local libraries, is deeply troubled by her devotion to the extreme Assembly Of God and feels she honestly believes she’s been anointed by The Creator. Clearly not the kind of person you’d want with their finger on the button (I’ll admit, for a moment here I was no longer chuckling and became genuinely worried that in a few short years I could be living next to a female Greg Stillson from Stephen King’s “The Dead Zone”).

There’s humorous footage of her stints as beauty pageant contestant, local news anchor, and something vaguely resembling an exorcism during an Assembly Of God service, but those are easy bits (but not unwelcome, mind you). Much more worrying is the damage she can cause to those suckers that voted for her in the first place: when she left office as mayor, she stuck Wasilla with a $22M deficit. Then, as governor of Alaska, she slapped a huge tax on oil companies drilling there, even to the protests of fellow Republicans!

Finally, Broomfield is left with little choice but to up the ante and confront her himself, from a crowd of several thousand, mind you. During a post-rally Q&A of “approved” questions only, the director stands up with a megaphone and blasts in her direction: "Do you think your political career is over?" Palin doesn’t miss a beat and after a sip of water, suggests he ask the crowd. Right on cue, the burst into terrifying applause as Broomfield and his crew are hauled off the floor by security (what he doesn’t show is that the cameraman was smashed into the wall).
Broomfield’s kick is that his quixotic quests is an essential part of the narrative, with personalities of the non-present subjects (from Thatcher to Cobain to Tupac) forming from varying points-of-view like a biographical Rashoman. Of course, Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock are enjoying the fruits of Broomfield’s once-daunting and very risky experiment. As Broomfield said in his Q&A, the questions that aren’t answered can be just as revealing…
The film’s financing is just as interesting, and a harbinger of realities to come as there are fewer “small” films being made and even fewer venues to see them: via the fundraising website Kickstarter, Broomfield was able to elicit $30,000 in donations to supplement the UK’s Channel 4 funding).

Recent events have already dated the urgency of the film as much ado about nothing—there’s not a chance in hell she’ll get anywhere near the White House now that she’s officially suspended her campaign—but as a portrait of eccentricity, it’ll surely be as fascinating decades from now as Grey Gardens.

©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "Intruders"

2011-09-14T21:41:00.000-04:00

INTRUDERS
(Special Presentations)
(Spain, 2011,100 minutes)
Directed by: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Cast: Clive Owen, Carice Van Houten, Daniel Brühl, Pilar López de Ayala, Ella Purnell

Spanish thriller director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has such a knack for crafting shocks and extended scenes of knuckle-whitening dread that his work should be mentioned in the same breath as that of Guillermo Del Toro or Jaume Balagueró—if only he was more prolific. With only three feature films to his credit in a decade (a real shame, considering the number of genre hacks who crank out a “Resident Evil” or “Final Destination sequel every other year like it’s the law), each successive release has become something of an event to this viewer, who was dazzled by his inventive debut feature “Intacto” (not inaccurately labeled as the Spanish “Unbreakable”).

His “28 Weeks Later” was that rare sequel that eclipsed the original (which was pretty damned fine)—there are terror sequences in that unexpected gem that I rank amongst the finest work crafted by Carpenter, Romero, and yes, even Hitchcock.

So I was very excited having read he had a new horror effort ready for release and that it would receive an esteemed “Special Presentations” slot here at TIFF. I wish I could say I liked it more—overall it’s a solid, classy endeavour (that should earn only a PG-rating in Ontario), but I felt it hinged too much on a predictable plot revelation and visually didn’t offer much that Bernard Rose didn’t attempt with his debut dark fantasy “Paperhouse” and Clive Barker adaptation “Candyman”, to which “Intruders” owes a lot.
Fresnadillo spins twin story arcs: the first, set in an unidentified, Spanish-speaking country, where a single mother (Pilar Lopez de Ayala) comforts her son, Juan, at bed time not to be afraid of the local legend “Hollowface”, who is said to steal the faces of children because he doesn’t have one of his own.
Elsewhere, in what is presumably England, Meanwhile, another child, Mia (Ella Purnell) unearths a wooden box from her yard, and inside finds yellowing pages on which an unfinished story is hand-written. The story of Hollowface. She decides to continue writing it as part of a school assignment.
Immediately, the monster becomes a phantom presence in both of their lives. Juan’s nightmares worsen, so his mother takes him to a local priest, whose mentor scoffs “that boy needs a psychiatrist, not an exorcist”. Mia’s father John (Clive Owen) takes her to a psychiatrist, but the caseworkers are more concerned about his increasingly agitated and violent state.
There are some chilling sequences—the creature’s first pursuit of Juan across the rain-slicked scaffolding of his mother’s tenement, Owen’s security camera encounter that forecasts the twist a little too early, a mock-exorcism to placate Juan’s mother, and Hollowface itself is a creepy image--a hooded reaper gene-spliced with Venom that should make for a very cool action figure from McFarlane Toys.
But then it flips for a direction I feared was coming and found unnecessary—not the “it’s all a dream” ending from “Invaders From Mars”, but still a too-often used rug pull in horror films these days that can smack of a cop-out to a cynical infusion of psychological “depth”, as if good, honest scares aren’t enough.
In the hands of directors like Fresnadillo, they most certainly are. Maybe after a few more movies he will have developed the confidence to match his eye. I just hope I don’t have to wait another ten years.
©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "Into The Abyss"

2011-09-14T21:38:00.000-04:00

INTO THE ABYSS
(Mavericks)
(USA, 2011, 87 minutes)
Directed by: Werner Herzog

In October 2001, Sandra Stotler was murdered in her home in the small town of Conroe, Texas, for the senseless reason that there was a red Camaro in her garage that the killers wanted very badly.

After leaving the premises to dump her body, her killers returned to take the automobile and found the gate locked. They happened upon two young men in the woods (one of them was Stotler’s son Adam), murdered them for the remote control to the gate, and went on a joyride in the Camaro before being captured by police after a shoot-out in a mall parking lot. Jason Burkett received a life sentence and Michael Perry was sentenced to death.

“Into The Abyss”, as one would assume from the not-terribly subtle Nietzchian reference, aspires to more than a rote procedural intended to push one’s buttons and manufacture outrage (although given the circumstances of the crime, a dearth of outrage shouldn’t be a problem to any sane viewer). That’s because it’s yet another compelling, poignant, and patently unique study from TIFF’s favorite versatile stalwart, Werner Herzog, who brings it town on day one only a year after his stunning “Cave Of Forgotten Dreams” (in 3D!).

Herzog interviews Perry, then twenty-eight, from behind the plexiglass partition at the Texas prison where he will be put to death by lethal injection just a week later. Curiously relaxed, well-spoken amidst a hearty twang, and flashing a toothy grin that makes him look at least a decade younger, Perry expresses little in the way of regret but professes his belief in Christ and is convinced paradise awaits.

Burkett is a bit more solemn and carries the weight of his crimes (Perry was the first to confess). His father is a career criminal serving a 40-year sentence of his own in the same prison. Burkett Sr. testified at his own son’s trial, pleading for understanding and blaming his own parental neglect and poor example. It worked: Burkett got off with a life sentence. I’ll come back to him later.

Of course, equal screen time is given to the victims’ surviving family members: one has to admire the composure of Lisa Stotler-Balloun, whose mother and brother were so cruelly murdered. “My world was ripped out from beneath”, she states with clarity that doesn’t dilute the ferocity of her wounds. “Our lives are empty.”

There are other memorable personalities along the way, among them the prison chaplain who revels in the memory of having saved a squirrel’s life and how his favorite golf course is proof of the divine, a local dirt bag who knew the convicts and boasts of reporting to work despite having been stabbed with a screwdriver.

The most affecting subject for this viewer was a former guard who assisted in the execution of over 120 inmates, who eventually had enough and quit, but is still clearly haunted by what he has done. “No one has the right to take another life”.

And for flat-out bonkers weird the third act is completely stolen by one Melyssa Thompson-Burkett – do note the last name—who married Burkett in prison even though she knew he was a convicted murderer, and via some unexplained cloak-and-dagger and smuggling from within the corrupt system, holds up an ultrasound image of their then-unborn child. Artificial insemination? She’s not talking…

As with his other documentaries, the ever-venerable director assays the roles of observer and empathetic listener, his (much-parodied) serene Bavarian intonations being his signature tool in getting his subjects to reveal much—perhaps too much—and despite his prodigious skills as a filmmaker, never resorts to creative editing, gimmicky juxtaposition, or voice-over editorializing to make a political point. Quite remarkable when one considers that the longest time he spent with any of his onscreen subjects was just under an hour.

Which is not to be misread as a cop-out: Herzog was very clear in an interview that he didn’t intend “Into The Abyss” to be an “issue” film, arguing “pro” or “con” on the subject of capital punishment. He disagrees with the practice (“respectfully” he qualifies, ever polite), and only ever states onscreen, once, his firm belief “that human beings should not be executed.”
Herzog has announced he will expand the film for its TV broadcast later next year, which he promises to be more “coherent”. Some have already criticized that it looks like any average episode of A&E filler they’re so wrong), but the point here is that…well, here is no point. Some things, esp. human behavior, are just too complex and utterly baffling, leaving wounds and questions that impossible to resolve.

© 2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "The Incident"

2011-09-13T21:54:00.000-04:00

THE INCIDENT
(Midnight Madness)
(France, 2011, 85 minutes)
Directed by: Alexandre Courtes
Cast: Rupert Evans, Kenny Doughty, Joseph Kennedy, Dave Legeno, Marcus Garvey, Richard Brake

Not likely to end up on CAMH’s recommended viewing list, “The Incident” is basically
“Assault on Precinct 13” with crazy people. Toss in a little “Straw Dogs” and whatever one has retained from “Lord of the Flies” in Grade 8 and you have a mélange that’s not exactly nouvelle cuisine but it still goes down mighty fine as a midnight snack, especially when one has been pretending to understand Godard and von Trier all week (do forgive my admittedly awkward food metaphor--it’s just that the protagonist is a cook, so…)

Set in the US during the 80s (I think the Reagan era is the new “period” horror film setting of choice—cell phones came along and made it a helluva lot more difficult to isolate a cast from hordes of whatever), “”The Incident” is, amazingly, not an American film, but rather the Belgian-shot, French-produced feature debut of big-time music video auteur Alexandre Courtes, who has produced memorable clips for U2 and The White Stripes. It’ll come as no surprise then to learn that the film looks fantastic—all gleaming surfaces and inky shadows and that muted teal hue that signifies doom these days. But Russell Mulcahy made great music videos too, and really, have you ever been able to sit through anything he’s made other than “Highlander”, and maybe “Razorback”? It’s a huge leap to pad out 90 minutes when you’re used to filling just 5—but Courtes works from a script by S. Craig Zahler (an American western novelist of some acclaim—who knew?) and JÈrÙme Fanstenthat takes all the right strategic moves from the Carpenter handbook (although Cortes speaks most fondly of Sam Peckinpah) and the film flies by with a giddy, let’s-piss-everyone-off-vibe…

Exploring the thin line that separates our civilized selves from our inner cavemen (or Minutemen gun nut)—again (and it’s definitely a thin RED line in this film, if you get my drift)—three musician friends are forced to survive by-any-means-and-with-whatever- tools-necessary when the power goes out at the Washington State maximum security asylum where they work as cooks between their very-few gigs. And there’s no Nurse Ratchett to save them…
George (Evans), Max (Doughty) and Ricky (Kennedy) are initially trapped in the secured kitchen after the blackout, and place a lot of faith in the thick, slotted window where they ordinarily dispatch meals to the inmates, most of whom are at best catatonic save for one Harry Green (Brake), who seems to daily will the protective glass to break with his hungry, perverted stare. Eventually, the inmates shatter the window with a prison table, and the band mates must flee, along with head guard J.B. (Legeno) into the unlocked corridors to get to a phone, a generator, an exit door…alive…
While horror buffs might not know the leads or the director, Midnight Madness veterans will give props to the superb editing from “Baxter”, who gave Bustillo and Maury’s À l’intérieur, and Alexandre Aja’s Haute Tension their unique, pulse-pounding vibes…
The hospital’s labyrinthine interior provides the appropriate visual metaphor and opportunities abound for hulking psychopaths to emerge out of the dark, usually toting a new horrible makeshift weapon or the corpse of another poor bastard who didn’t make it (and usually not…intact…), lit and framed for maximum dread by DOP Laurent Tangy,
There’s been much quibbling about the film’s downturn from its character-driven and deliberately-paced first act to its outrageously violent and relentlessly grim second (I’ll avoid the controversial third act twist, other than to say I’m more fine with this one than what I was asked to swallow by Aja’s debut). The lack of backstory, “arcs”, and all that Syd Field stuff works just fine in films of this type, where the viewer is placed, real-time and firmly, in the gore-soaked shoes of the protagonists to experience their own sense of the universe gone mad.
Besides, when was the last time you read that a film was so violent it made not one but TWO viewers faint? This one did—and two Midnight Madness goers, no less…
IFC Midnight has purchased distribution rights to “The Incident” and plans to release it to theatres next year.
©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "A Dangerous Method"

2011-09-12T21:34:00.000-04:00

A DANGEROUS METHOD
(Gala Presentations)
(Germany/Canada, 2011, 93 minutes)
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Sarah Gadon, Vincent Cassel

Hard to believe these days when seemingly every other person on television is in analysis and/or trying to shake off some trauma (real-or-imagined) to justify their dumb-ass behaviour (to the likes of so-called “Doctors” Phil and Drew) that once, not all that long ago, the very concept of psychoanalysis was not only laughed but downright vilified...

At first blush this austere costume drama might seem an odd fit in the filmography of the man who conceived of Brundlefly and The New Flesh, but the consistent thread of virtually all of Cronenberg's films (with the possible exception of "Fast Company" and "Eastern Promises") is the disconnect between the mind and body. Freudian imagery abounds in his work--"Shivers" oral parasites? Marilyn Chambers' armpit stinger? Woods' stomach fissure?

In Vienna, just before the advent of the WW1, novice psychiatrist Carl Jung (Fassbender), runs a clinic and practices the methods of his mentor, the already-notorious and controversial Sigmund Freud (Mortensen), while developing his own theories based on the study of his own psychologically troubled patients.
When a young Russian woman Sabina Spielrein (Knightly) is brought in as a patient, her unique sexual obsessions strike a chord and unleash Jung's own buried desires. As he uses "the talking cure" to help her explore and purge the dark incidents of her past with her sadistic father, Jung's desire for her intensifies and they form a relationship of forbidden indulgences. Jung starts to challenge the limitations of his mentor's theories and visits him to offer his own thoughts on human desire, based upon his experiences with Sabina, who is fast becoming a skilled and sensitive analyst in her own right...
Screenwriter Christopher Hampton adapted the film from his own play The Talking Cure, (based on John Kerr’s A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein) and was originally intended as a vehicle for Julia Roberts. Thankfully revised, under Cronenberg's direction, it offers little by the way of sentimentality and noble statements.

Despite the heady subject matter, there’s still fun to be had here, as Jung and Sabine eventually get around to covert romps to get their respective inner freaks on. Vincent Cassell enlivens up much of the period brow-furrowing and hand-wringing as the boozing, hedonistic psychoanalyst Otto Gross, who encourages his patients to celebrate rather than repress their sexual instincts. And Mortenson, in a brave bit of casting (his third collaboration with the director) brings some wry wit as a more robust and hedonistic Freud than the frail figure we've seen in photos.

Fassbender, seemingly everywhere these days, masterfully embodies a man of an almost Vulcanesque decorum that gets chipped away as he finds a willing outlet in Sabina.

I wasn't so sold on Knightly as Sabina initially--I found her initial scenes hammy and too-"methody", but as her character gains composure under Jung's therapy she becomes more bearable and convincing...

Cronenberg has flippantly referred to the film as "an intellectual menage a trois", but really, how unique a subject is it? Wasn't “Dead Ringers” the tale of two doctors who spar for the affections of a kinky female patient?)

©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "Comic-Con Episode IV – A Fan’s Hope""

2011-09-12T21:29:00.003-04:00

Comic-Con Episode IV – A Fan’s Hope

(Real To Reel)

(USA, 2011, 90 minutes)

Directed by: Morgan Spurlock

Cast: Holly Conrad, Eric Hensen, Skip Harvey, Chuck Rozanski, James Darling, Se Young Kang, Stan Lee, Joss Whedon

From the what-took-them-so-long-department, someone has finally made a documentary on the annual fanboy bacchanal known as the San Diego Comic Con. With testimonials from geeks-made-good like Joss Whedon (an executive producer), Harry Knowles (ditto), directors like Eli Roth and Guillermo Del Toro, Kevin Smith (of course), Matt Groening, and comic book pros like Todd McFarlane and Mark Millar, director Morgan Spurlock dials down his usual provocateur stance (and never appears on camera for a change) for what is essentially a puff piece, but still compelling, charming viewing whether you're a fan of this stuff or not (I most certainly am--long before it became fashionable to do so, and I'm only more than a bit miffed that I was somehow overlooked to participate)...

Spurlock was inspired to make the film when he attended his first Comic Con in 2009 to recruit fans for a 20th anniversary special on "The Simpsons". Shot the following year, Spurlock smartly give the film something of a narrative structure by focusing on five simultaneous scenarios: Holly Conrad, a designer of those often costumes you often see on the cosplayers, Eric Henson, an aspiring comic book artist, Skip Harvey, another would-be Neal Adams, convention veteran/comics dealer Chuck Rozanski of Mile High Comics, and endearing young couple James Darling and Se Young Kang, who become engaged during a Kevin Smith seminar. Intercut are testimonials from genre luminaries and plenty of shots of voluptuous fan-girls.

I found Rozanski's thread the most interesting, in that he represents the perverse dilemma of how hard it is to sell comics books at what is still, officially, a comic book convention. As he tries to sell some rare, vintage Marvel comics, he's repeatedly screwed by no-show collectors and has to keep slashing prices to generate booth traffic. He provides us with some history: The first con was held in 1970 in a hotel and drew a few hundred collectors. Within the past decade and with the advent of the web, genre became mainstream and the original intention expanded to encompass anime, videogames and for the most part, has become entirely dominated by Hollywood blockbusters. Hundreds of thousands of fans now attend , along with agents and celebrities hawking their upcoming projects.

And it's nice to learn that the uber-ambitious and talented Conrad ends up getting a job on the Mass Effect 2 feature film--the ultimate f*ck to those who no doubt tsk-tsk'd from the sidelines telling her it was all a waste of time...

Once the stuff of condescending local news hits, comic cons are no longer representative of a subculture but what is now the culture. Where once my public school teacher tore comics from my hand and pitched them in the trash, high school libraries now stock graphic novels. Comic-Con Episode IV – A Fan’s Hope is hardly illuminating or confrontational, but should give some comfort to long-suffering, self-proclaimed nerds that they were right all the time...

TIFF Review 2011: "Drive"

2011-09-11T21:21:00.001-04:00

DRIVE

(Special Presentations)

(USA, 2011, 100 minutes)

Written by: Hossein Amini, based on the novel by James Sallis

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks

The influence of Michael Mann’s now-iconic Reagan-era thrillers "Thief" and "Manhunter" are evident from the fuel-injected get-go in Nicolas Winding Frefn's pulse-pounding ode "Drive", from the day-glo title font and throbbing synth soundtrack to the main character's MTV-issue scorpion jacket. But it’s much more than a fanboy's nostalgic clone—(it equally acknowledges Walter Hill's 1977 classic "The Driver" in title and theme--a nameless getaway driver burning rubber through a curiously underpopulated Los Angeles--as well as the existential French thrillers of Jean-Pierre Melville that were as much about redemption as they were about gunplay)--"Drive" has a distinctive look and vibe of its own, and hopefully will become a standard by which all subsequent crime melodramas are measured.

The Driver (Gosling) is officially employed as a Hollywood stunt driver but when we first meet him, he's engaged in his "other" trade: a getaway driver for hire. His terms of employment are simple: he works anonymously, never for the same client twice, and allows them only five minutes to carry out their (illegal) business. He confidently, expertly evades the police during a dizzying night time pursuit through the streets of Los Angeles, dropping off his thieving temp employers and their loot before vanishing into the exiting crowd at the Staples Centre.

The Driver home base is the auto repair shop run by Shannon (Cranston), who also sets up his young partner with wheelman jobs. Shannon longs to go legit, though, and use the youngster's talent to conquer the racing circuit. Borrowing $300,000 from mobster Bernie Rose (Brooks), he buys a stock car. Bernie is impressed with the Driver's skills and agrees to further back the venture, with only one wrinkle: Bernie's partner is the surly Nino (Perlman), who once ordered Shannon's pelvis broken when he found out he was overcharged.

The Driver lives in a run-down tenement and becomes friends with neighbour Irene (Mulligan), and her son Benicio. Irene's husband Standard (Isaac) is released from prison but he still owes "protection money" to a ruthless gangster. To settle his outstanding account, Standard agrees to rob a pawn shop. The Driver agrees to help Standard if it means Irene and Benicio will be free of any threats, but the heist goes horribly wrong, with Standard shot dead. The Driver learns from Cook's moll Blanche (Hendricks) that the plan was to double cross Standard and take the money, before assassins attack and she, too, is killed.

The Driver confronts Cook at his strip club and finds out that Nino and Bernie were behind the heist, and that the money lifted from the pawn shop is in fact that of the East Coast mafia. Bernie kills Cook and Standard, and orders Nino to take care of The Driver...

My introduction to the considerable skills of Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn was his notorious "Bronson" (I've yet to catch up his "Pusher" trilogy or acclaimed Viking adventure "Valhalla Rising"), the searing, hyper-stylized faux-biopic of one of the U.K.'s most colourful criminals. Originally announced as a vehicle for Hugh Jackman and director Neil Marshall, Sallis' lean/mean novella found its worthy visionary when star Gosling had the good taste to offer it to Frefn himself.

I thought Gosling might be too mild-mannered to play a character who is basically an unhinged, anti-social misfit, but his easy-going demeanor and boyish smile work nicely to make his fits of ferocious, merciless violence all the more shocking.

Albert Brooks is a revelation as Bernie, transforming his usual persona of a defeated, world-weary schlub into an equally-weary sociopath. His key scene with Cranston is one of the year's most powerful screen moments--portraying Bernie as a ruthless killer, but not one without regret and some fatigue with the path he has chosen.

Carey Mulligan, whose character was Latino in the book, works well against type as the diminutive, exhausted Irene. The always-reliable Perlman exudes his usual slow-burn menace as foul-mouthed Nino. And Cranston, who is proving himself to be one of current cinema's most versatile character actors, embodies Shannon's broken spirit with a grand loping gait that never plays as excessively theatrical, actor-ly indulgence.

While not particularly action-heavy for a crime yarn, "Drive"s violence is an extreme counterpoint to the main character's serene countenance and the calming, ambient soundtrack–the aforementioned elevator assault, and the gruesome fate of Christina Hendricks (in little more than an extended cameo as a second gun during the pawn shop heist).

And despite the title, there's not a lot of driving, either, but the handful of sequences that do showcase the character doing his thing are spectacularly staged and shot (by DOP Newton Thomas Sigel) and edited (by Mat Newman ) and will leave even the most cynical action devotee breathless--they've got that strap-you-to-the-car-hood/analog vibe that fueled "Bullitt", "The French Connection", and the original "Mad Max".

"Drive" speeds into first-run release a mere week after its TIFF premiere--don't miss it, as it's sure to polarize critics and viewers and demands big-screen viewing...

©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "The Love We Make"

2011-09-10T21:57:00.001-04:00

THE LOVE WE MAKE
(Mavericks)
(USA, 2011, 94 minutes)
Directed by: Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan
Cast: Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Bill Clinton, James Taylor, Billy Joel
Timely released to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the devastating events of 9/11, Sir Paul McCartney's new documentary--a TIFF World Premiere--chronicles the ennui and angst of the fallout of that turbulent day, albeit—as some wags have accused--from the perspective of a reasonably insulated, well-to-do celebrity who nonetheless rose to the calling to do his part with equal parts selflessness and canny self-promotion (still steaming from having bought a first-run ticket for “Give My Regards To Broad Street”, are we?).
On the morning of September 11, 2001, before American Airlines Flight 11 hit the World Trade Centre’s North Tower, Paul McCartney was sitting on New York's JFK tarmac waiting to return to England. Once the flight was delayed and he found himself stranded, he wondered what he could do to help lift the spirits of New Yorkers and America-as-a-whole. As a former Beatle and one of the most beloved celebrities of this or any other century, the answer, of course, lied in what he did best: make music. With a little help from his friends (couldn’t resist)...
The first thing McCartney did was enlist the services of master documentarian and long-time friend Albert Maysles (who, with his late brother David, photographed The Fab Four's first arrival in New York City in 1964 to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in their infamous short What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A.) to chronicle the events of next several manic weeks. In a time a few years before the advent of 720p cell phone video, Maysles had little choice but to use the unwieldy and comparatively expensive 16mm film format to capture McCartney's grandiose plans for The Concert For New York City on the fly...
While obviously aware of the camera's presence, McCartney comes off as an unpretentious, gracious, and even humble presence (esp. when he confesses that he sent his children to public school so that they wouldn't become "snobs"). Just shy of 60, he was still full of youthful energy and enthusiasm (he repeatedly, and endearingly, hard-sells his new 9/11 anthem "Freedom" to anyone within earshot, as if he'd conceived of the next "Let It Be"). Bolting around Manhattan through a manic schedule of interviews and promo events, McCartney seems relaxed and confident while cavorting along the sidewalk of New York, engaging fans who seem genuinely bewitched and startled by their encounter with a genuine Beatle, after all...
There’s a bit of rehearsal footage with his new touring band, then, we’re backstage at Madison Square Garden, where McCartney trades corny quips with fellow celebrities who have clearly caught his infectious ebullient bug. Among heavy-hitters like Bill Clinton, Ozzy Osbourne (their first meeting, amazingly), Eric Clapton, Jim Carrey, Harrison Ford, a young Stella McCartney (yet to take the fashion world by storm) is most excited about meeting Jon Bon Jovi. Sadly, no other Beatles appear (George was sick and in the UK), but Ringo’s son Zak Starkey fills in for The Who’s Keith Moon.
There are some key clips from the benefit, most memorably, Elton John’s performance of “Your Song” to the families of lost police and firemen, and McCartney’s own “Yesterday” (one of the few songs he performs in the film in its entirety).
Strangely, Maysles devotes only a minimum of screen time to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (in a performance of “Miss You”), considering their collective achievement of the timeless documentary classic "Gimmee Shelter").
The doc's most revealing sequence comes in the very last scene, where McCartney squashes any suspicion that this has all been an exercise in opportunistic image building. Outside a firehouse, he tells a small audience of firefighters that he was born at the end of the war (World War II), and that his own father was a volunteer firefighter who also inspired him, and many others still rebuilding their lives out of the rubble, with the unifying power of music. Upon witnessing the bravery and sacrifice of New York’s finest that morning, there was no doubt about what he should do…
With a decade having past, Maysles, co-director Bradley Kaplan, and editor passage Ian Markiewicz were able to infuse their account with some perspective and a refreshing lack of political melodrama that made so much of the initial artistic responses to the day either shrill and overwrought or too-timid and guarded.
This hopeless Beatlemaniac was sad to learn that Sir Paul couldn’t be at the public screening in person (although the now 69-year old, newly remarried McCartney did prepare a warm video introduction) but was equally thrilled to be in the presence of 82-year old Maysles, along with Kaplan and Markiewicz, for a spirited post-screening discussion.
©2011 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF Review 2011: "God Bless America"

2011-09-10T09:17:00.003-04:00

GOD BLESS AMERICA

(Midnight Madness)

(USA, 2011, 99 minutes)

Directed by: Bobcat Goldthwait

Cast: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr, Larry Miller, Geoff Peirson, Melinda Page Hamilton

For all of the (just) praise awarded to the works of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, as well as the once-great The Simpsons, Bobcat Goldthwait deserves to be mentioned alongside the names of America’s most fearless and incendiary contemporary satirists—if only more people saw his films. From his debut “Shakes The Clown”, Bobcat never seemed to be able to break the festival circuit (blink and you might have caught “Sleeping Dogs Lie” in first run), or worst, the direct-to-video market (as befell his truly demented “World’s Greatest Dad” starring Robin Williams, with a cover that looks like it’s awaiting an additional Photoshop cut-and-past of Martin Short).

It’s unlikely that “God Bless America” will prove to be his breakthrough (if Robin Williams couldn’t do it, what chance does Bill Murray’s brother have?), which finds Goldthwait at his angriest yet with a tale of a bloody road trip for a 45-year old middle-aged loser and his teenage sidekick.

Anonymous salary-man Frank (Murray) can no longer tolerate the brain-softening climate of vanity and vapidity in which he ekes out a tolerable existence. His ex-wife hates him and seems intent on turning their daughter against him. Whining neighbours and their even whinier kid, office small talk and corporate speak, right wing blowhards, left wing political correctness, and television’s endless marathons of reality shows. He’s fired over a complaint to HR: the flowers he sent to a female coworker have brought him up on charges of sexual harassment.

Then, he’s diagnosed with a brain tumour...

With so little time left, will he be forced to spend it in a milieu where the highest priority on everyone’s minds seems to be another mindless singing competition, the excruciating “American Superstarz”? With nothing to lose, he purchases a handgun and hops in his car to drive to the studio in Los Angeles.

Along the way, he meets high school misfit Roxy (Barr), who shares an equal contempt for her classmates and so-called “authority figures”. He teaches her how to fire a gun, and she provides him with practice targets. First up, the impossibly horrible brat who stars in a “Gossip Girl”esque TV reality series…

Perhaps an easy target (has anyone made a “pro” reality-TV feature to date?), but at least Goldthwait pulls no punches in letting the schlockmeisters who have hijacked the airwaves get their justs. The film premiered on the eve of the tenth anniversary of September 11 and offers a scathing vision of his home country…

Murray, who starred with Goldthwait in “One Crazy Summer” and “Shakes The Clown”, is a familiar “oh that guy!” face from television, and might best be known to current audiences as Freddy Rumsen on “Mad Men” (he’s also in another much-anticipated TIFF entry “The Artist”). He’s well cast and is often faced with the thankless task of spewing some lengthy diatribes about society, celebrity, etc., but he’s makes for an endearing, passionate, and of course, pathologically dangerous schlubb.

Tara Lynn Barr, in her film debut, is a cross between Molly Ringwalk and Bonnie Parker (right down to the wardrobe that riffs on Dunaway’s iconic fashions) and manages to tread the line between precocious and downright terrifying winningly, even if a foul-mouthed, violent teenage girl isn’t quite as outrageous as Goldthwait had intended given recent screen offerings…

“God Bless America” was produced by Richard Kelly’s “Darko Entertainment” but no release date was set at the time of this writing.

AMENDED: Mark Cuban’s Magnet Releasing has acquired distribution rights and it will be available via video on demand and theatrical release in 2012.

TIFF 2011 Review: "Martha Marcy May Marlene"

2011-09-09T16:51:00.000-04:00

MARY MARCY-MAY MARLENE

(Special Presentations)

(USA, 2010, 103 minutes)

Directed by: Sean Burkin

Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Christopher Abbott, Hugh Dancy, Julia Garner, John Hawkes, Louisa Krause, Sarah Paulson

This unnerving, at times frustrating, but consistently mesmerizing psychological drama/character study comes to TIFF’s “Special Presentations” with a high pedigree—it won Best Director at Sundance and its leading lady has been eliciting quite the coronation. The AM press screening I attended was curiously under populated considering it was Day One and the film’s almost universal critical hosannas since it debuted out of competition at Cannes—maybe I was the only guy in a name tag who didn’t go to Utah this year?

The film works its weirdly bewitching, ambient pull from its opening shots in a remote farmhouse, offering little by way of crops and livestock outside but inside, a group of a half dozen young women sleep on squalid mattresses. They awake to prepare meals for an equal number of young men, who then eat alone by lamplight. After they clear out, the women are allowed to do the same…in silence. The next morning, one of the women slips out and breaks into a mad dash into the woods. She’s soon pursued by one of the men (Abbott), who tracks her down at a diner in town. We learn her name is Mary. In the safety of public view, she refuses his plea to return to the farm and he relents. For now. Mary then calls her sister for help, and confesses in a panic that she doesn’t even know where she is.

Mary moves in with Lucy (Paulson) and her smug husband Ted (Dancy) who clearly isn’t too pleased with the arrangement. Their parents gone, Lucy is Mary’s only family and friend beyond the cult she’s just fled. She’s been missing for two years, but is reluctant to speak of her experiences. In harrowing flashbacks, we see how a small group of men and women have fallen under spell of charismatic Patrick (Hawkes), who basically runs a sex cult in the Catskills for young men to prey on even younger woman under the auspices of starting an agricultural commune where the women do all of the work—one, a new recruit, is barely into her teens. While not terribly explicit visually, you’ll have a hard time holding back your gag reflex when the criminally young girl, clad only in a robe and captive in an attic, awaits the arrival of Patrick for her “initiation”.

The flashback structure works to disorient and simulate something of Mary’s fractured mental state. They aren’t always chronological, which makes one sequence doubly-frightening, when we think some of the cult members are coming to the house to take Mary back until we learn it’s in fact another similar lake house that they intended to rob when Mary was still a member.

Throughout I had this nagging feeling--who is that actress? I didn’t even make the association of her last name—it wasn’t until I downloaded the press notes that I had my “a-ha” moment. Elizabeth Olsen is the sister of wonder-twins Mary-Kate and Ashley, but in this astonishingly raw and brave debut, she severs any connection with their insipid franchise.

John Hawkes, now an ever-reliable ego-free character actor on par with Walken, contributes only a few memorable scenes as Patrick, the charismatic guru. Hawkes' song to Mary (he christens her "Marcy May") manages to communicate his charismatic pull on his followers (incidentally, the "Marlene" of the title is the generic name female followers are required to use when answering the phone).

The ending will surely polarize--ala "The Sopranos"--I'm still not sure if I felt satisfied or totally hosed. Suffice to say that it concludes with the suggestion that Martha's fears might lie ahead of her--for life. As the credits roll, we recognize that Martha’s true ordeal may still be ahead of her. What is real and what is her own manufactured threat? We'll never know, nor will she...

AMENDED JANUARY 2012: “Mary Marcy May Marlene” will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray in February and will contain Durkin’s short, “Mary Last Seen”, from which the film was expanded.

TIFF 2010 Review: "Tabloid"

2010-09-24T17:43:00.002-04:00

(Reel To Real)

(USA, 2010, 87 minutes)

Directed by: Errol Morris

Cast: Joyce McKinney, Keith May, Kirk Anderson

Following the grim, all-too-timely subjects of Errol Morris’ last two back-to-back documentaries The Fog Of War and Standard Operating Procedure, the simply-titled Tabloid is every bit as frothy and ultimately throwaway as the term would promise.

Still, even Morris working in “fun” mode remains an inventive and poignant chronicler of the eccentricities, foibles, and flaws that make us delightfully, and wickedly, human—while I often found myself asking “where does he FIND these people?” I couldn’t help but regard him as the modern-day equivalent of Charles Darwin in the Galapagos Islands—constantly unearthing a new species. His subjects are complex, contradictory, frustrating, whether a criminal on death row (who actually sued Morris after his film set him free), an execution technologist (and Holocaust denier), or the architect of the Vietnam War (and automotive CEO)—if you subscribe to the old adage that “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”, then in theory, Tabloid would be about MENSA members.

Well, not exactly…

One would assume that a blonde, voluptuous former Miss Wyoming back in 1977 could have any man she desired, and as it would have it, that man was Kirk Anderson, who also happened to be a member of The Church Of Latter Day Saints (they’d met when she attended Brigham Young University). When he was sent to England as a missionary, McKinney assumed it was a grand scheme on the church’s part to separate them, so, logically, she procured the services of an ex-mercenary, who just happened to have his own plane, to fly her and her friend Keith May to the UK, disguises and weaponry in tow.

May was rather easily able to locate her objet d’amour in the town of Surrey, where Anderson claimed McKinney kidnapped him at gunpoint and held him hostage in a remote farmhouse in Devon, where he was either chained or roped to a bed (his story changes) and forced to have sex.

The Fleet Street tabloids got wind of this and, of course, had a field day—the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the advent of The Sex Pistols and now this? Reporters from rival hepatitis-yellow dishrags The Mirror and The Express were sent to the U.S. to find dirt on McKinney and didn’t have to look to hard—she’d been involved in nude modeling and possibly prostitution and pornographic film production. While awaiting trial for “The Case Of The Manacled Mormon”, McKinney and May fled the country while on bail, disguised as members of a deaf-and-dumb acting troupe. The courts didn’t pursue extradition because, well, at the time there really wasn’t a law against the rape of a male.

She and May would return to England to grant interviews to the papers, disguised as East-Indians in costumes and unconvincing grease paint right out of “Team America: World Police” (of course, Morris has photos to prove it), but enough to convince England’s customs officials at the time, who would’ve found a suitcase of clippings on the case had they also bothered to inspect her luggage.

Considering Anderson now-and-then was/is a diminutive schlub only slightly less masculine than Julia Sweeney in “It’s Pat!”, why a strapping, corn-fed, blowsy babe like McKinney would travel the big pond to secure his sexual services remains a mystery. This is a woman, after all, who claims to have an IQ of 168…

Thankfully, for Morris and especially us, McKinney is alive and well and only too willing to recount her version of the tale in the first person. Recorded in three sittings, she ebulliently and breathlessly revisits 1977. Did she really rape Kirk, as the tabloids alleged? Molesting a male, according to her typically trenchant flair for simile, would "be like squeezing a marshmallow into a parking meter".

To my question “where does he find these people?”: Morris apparently came across a story, quite accidentally, in The Boston Globe about a woman who had her dog cloned, and who was also a former beauty queen. He decided to investigate, and hit the proverbial jackpot.

McKinney would continue to stalk Anderson well into the 80s, at his workplace at Salt Lake Airport cleaning the residue off of jet hulls from ejected bathroom waste (when authorities searched her car, they found handcuffs and rope). At some point, she came to her senses, and devoted herself to worthier pursuits, like attempting to recruit a teenager into burglary so she could purchase a prosthetic leg for her three-legged horse (whom she’d ride in a parade as Lady Godiva).

That arrest must’ve set her on the straight and a narrow, as the world wouldn’t hear from her again until she paid $50,000 to a South Korean genetics lab to clone her dying pitbull.

“Booger”.

Yes, "Tabloid" climaxes with McKinney presenting her four adorable clone pups and seemingly, turning a corner, although once suspects we haven't heard the last from her...

Amazingly, despite my lifelong fascination with offbeat crime stories, I’d somehow never come across McKinney’s globe-hopping scandal despite its relatively recent history—but then again, in 1977 I was busy building TIE fighter model kits and anxiously awaiting the next episode of Saturday morning’s “Space Academy".

Morris wisely lets his eccentric subject command the stage, but has unearthed a wealth of archival material to punctuate each incredible, jaw-drawing development.

"Tabloid" has yet to secure a release date at the time of this writing but it will no doubt create quite a stir when unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

©Robert J. Lewis 2010

TIFF 2010 Review: "The Promise: The Making Of 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town"

2010-09-23T23:37:00.003-04:00

(Gala Presentation)
(USA, 2010, 89 minutes)
Directed by: Thom Zimny
Cast: Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Jimmy Iovine, Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici, Nils Lofgren, Garry Tallent, John Landau, Patti Scialfa, Chuck Plotkin, Patty Smith

"It was both self-indulgent, and the only way we knew how to do it."

A wealth of ultra-rare rehearsal footage from the turbulent birth of Bruce Springsteen's 1978 album, "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" is the main draw of this gripping documentary, which gives us fly-on-the-wall access to the creative mind, obsessive perfectionism, and conflicted persona of a serious artist who before the age of thirty had unwillingly become rock-and-roll's Great Hope.

Amidst a lawsuit with his former manager and alienation from his roots following his overnight transformation ("mutation" as he puts it, in present-day interviews) into an arena superstar, Springsteen resisted a speedy rehash of the jubilant Spector-influenced anthems that made his 1975 "Born To Run" an instant classic, and instead conceived a stripped down musical novel of haunting, exhausted hymns (as author Nick Hornby has defined Springsteen's less bombastic efforts) to the painful surrender to "adulthood"--much to his label, producer, and his faithful band's, chagrin.

Hours of videotaped footage chronicling the exhausting recording sessions at Springsteen's farmhouse in Holmdel, New Jersey (far enough away so as to not disturb the neighbours) have been edited down into a surprisingly-dramatic chronicle that should do much to shatter the woefully inaccurate stereotype of New Jersey's finest son as a purveyor of knuckleheaded barroom barnstormers and patriotic anthems that has, for some, endured to this day.

A sullen, grumbling Springsteen (sometimes subtitled) taxes his band mates' patience as he pours over notebooks of scribbled lyrics and demands retakes of near-Kubrickian intensity as he labours to craft the "sound picture" he'd envisioned.

"More than rich and more than famous and more than happy, I wanted to be great" confesses current-day Springsteen, with a chuckle at his youthful pretensions.

Springsteen's reams of notebook scribbles yielded so many songs--70, by engineer Jimmy Iovine's estimate--that he saved many of them for 1980's "The River", although the majority went unheard until the 2004 anthology "Tracks". The most famous of his rejects would become major hits for The Pointer Sisters ("Fire") and New York punk "godmother" Patti Smyth. Smyth is present to talk about the creation of her only hit, the achingly erotic lament "Because The Night", which was given to her by Springsteen through engineer Iovine, for which she completed the lyrics during an evening of romantic longing over her future husband.

In a "Scrambled Eggs/Yesterday" moment, Springsteen admits that "Badlands" began as a simple melody and a single chant of the title and that lyrics and arrangement came later. It's also surprising to learn that Clarence Clemons' involvement on the album was oft-debated and intended to be minimal, given that Springsteen couldn't figure out where his saxophone would fit in given the punk-and-country influence simplicity of the production. For such an immortal track, it's astonishing to consider that The Big Man's rousing solo on this particular song was an afterthought to the original guitar arrangement, and included more out of fraternal debt than anything else...

Springsteen's former manager Mike Appel, amazingly, appears on camera to give his side of the story with little bitterness or regret. Springsteen, seemingly still smarting from the battle, diplomatically defines his contract with Appel as "not so much evil, as it was naive". Appel's insistence on approval of every stage of production kept Springsteen out of the studio for years, while the band ("My soldiers", admits Springsteen with touching sincerity) finds their collective rock-and-roll dreams put on hold...

The band members, likewise, pull no punches in their candid reminiscences over an experience that for many, still stings: "A bit sad" is how keyboardist Garry Tallent regards the hours-long recording of the beat of a single drum stick. Long-time musical partner Steve Van Sandt regards his friend's willingness to blithely chuck material “a bit tragic, in a way...he (Springsteen) would have been one of the great pop songwriters of all time.” Still, there was much fun to be had during this incredibly fertile creative period, evidenced by Springsteen and Van Sandt's goofy after-hours burn through what would later be refined into "Sherry Darling" on "The River" and "Talk To Me" (which was ultimately recorded by Southside Johnny And The Asbury Jukes).

Ultimately Chuck Plotkin is brought in by Iovine to mix the album and save the day: a producer by trade, and not a mixer, he found a sonic place, according to Springsteen "between the dull and the shrill".

Briskly paced and edited, the documentary disappoints only in that it doesn't provide in-depth coverage of the album's eight tracks in their entirety. "Badlands", "Factory", the excluded "Because The Night", and the majestic "Racing In The Streets" receive the most screen time, while "Adam Raised A Cain" and the title track are barely mentioned beyond the album art and glimpses of notebook scribbles. "Streets Of Fire", which inspired an entire feature film, and "Candy's Room", a concert favourite, go entirely unmentioned.

Even the cover shot is documented: photographer Frank Stefanko reveals alternate takes of the iconic album photo that was shot in his own home in Haddonfield, NJ, complete with distinctive cabbage-leaf wallpaper.

"The Promise" will debut on HBO this October, and will be part of the CD/DVD package commemorating the album's 25th anniversary in November.

©2010 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF 2010 Review: "Cave Of Forgotten Dreams"

2010-09-23T23:15:00.002-04:00

(Reel to Real)

(2010, USA, 95 minutes)

Directed by: Werner Herzog

Filmmaker, documentarian, actor, and all-around bad-ass Werner Herzog has become something of a fixture of TIFF in the past decade, remaining more prolific than ever as he nears the end of his sixth decade but never failing to surprise with each successive endeavour. Whether it be the rousing straight-up thrills of "Rescue Dawn" (a shockingly un-ironic celebration of American might) or the polarizing double-whammy of last year's "My Son, My Son What Have You Done?" and the don't-call-it-a-sequel-sequel "Bad Lieutenant: Port Of New Orleans", an evening with Herzog will be something entirely unexpected and stimulating.

Although an eclectic and ambitious feature director, Herzog's most acclaimed and distinctive works are generally found in the documentary medium, where he has not been afraid to tamper with tidy notions of so-called "reality" in order to spin a good yarn and attempt to illuminate truths that are spiritual and intellectual over those merely factual (which is why, perhaps, he's yet to receive a single Oscar nomination from the Academy bluenoses).

His latest, making its world premiere at TIFF 2010, is Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and given its unique subject, there couldn't possibly have been a better marriage of artist and subject than Herzog and the discovery of the possible cradle of mankind's creation of visual narrative.

The anyone, filmmaker or otherwise, could enter the Chauvet cave at all is something of a miracle: approximately 20,000 years ago, a random rock slide shut off the entrance to a large cave set in the limestone cliffs above France's Ardèche River. It remained completely sealed up and untouched until 1994, when it was discovered, quite accidentally, by a trio of explorers (one of whom was Jean-Marie Chauvet, hence the name). Within, they discovered chambers adorned with Paleothic-era art, some abstract, some alarmingly figurative and sophisticated, chronicling species of animals extinct since the Ice Age. The government immediately declared the site off-limits to the public, many of whom will have their first, and likely only, encounter with this incredible spectacle via Herzog's 3D lens.

That's right: 3D. Herzog seized the opportunity to record his first and possibly only encounter with by recording it for posterity with the very fashionable extra dimension.

Because of near-toxic levels of radon and carbon dioxide that were trapped inside the hermetically-sealed cave like a snow globe, no one is allowed to stay in the cave for more than a few hours at a time.Herzog was allowed just two additional crew persons: a DOP and sound recordist. They brought in battery-operated equipment, which didn't emit heat. Six shooting days of four hour durations were granted, under the conditions that the trio remain, confined to a two-foot wide metal walkway.

Much of the art is believed to date to the Aurignacian, era (30,000 to 32,000 years ago). It is simply, breathtaking in any dimension: along the walls and stalactites can be seen dynamic, dramatic representations of lions, panthers, bears, rhinos and hyenas. The smudged depiction of a quartet of horses even suggests an attempt at motion blur. Spacial relationships between elements are enhanced by the recesses in the walls and odd angles, as if the artist(s) instinctively knew how to utilize the surfaces to create drama. There's evidence that the walls, in some cases, were scraped clear of debris and smoothed to create and a lighter "canvas" upon which to etch.

Some of the images suggest a shamanistic intention--the presence of a buxom fertility statue allows Herzog to make a Pamela Anderson joke.

But there's evidence of at least one previous visit to the cave during the Gravettian period (25,000 to 27,000 years ago): hauntingly, a child's footprints, amidst the remains of ancient hearths and carbon smoke stains from torches used to light the interior, and the red-stained handprint of a man with a crooked finger.

Herzog uses his camera to not only give the rest of us a chance to witness a unique spectacle that will likely be inaccessible to the public for quite some time, but also to allow scientists to see parts of the cave that were previously not viewable due to the delicacy of the terrain (early tours of the cave were cancelled when it was discovered that bacteria from people's breath was eroding the art). He has quite a bit of fun interviewing the eccentric panel of experts (offering an excuse to hoist a spear directly at the 3D lens), and as for the albino alligators--well, I won't spoil that one for you...

TIFF 2010 Review: "Machete Maidens Unleashed!"

2010-09-21T22:10:00.001-04:00

(Reel To Real)

(Australia, 2010, 90 minutes)

Directed by: Mark Hartley

Cast: Eddie Romero, Roger Corman, Judie Brown, Joe Dante, Sid Haig, Lee Ermey, Colleen Camp, Steve Carver, Sam Sherman, Celeste Yarnell

As a life-long fan of exploitation films, critic of shrill anti-horror/anti-porn/anti-videogame demagoguery (often against my better judgment at social gatherings), and champion of most marginalized art forms, I probably have Gerardo de Leone to blame: I was something like 9 or 10 when my hometown's Centre Theatre offered its usual matinee double-bill for the kiddies and I was exposed to the miracle that is/was "Brides Of Blood". I haven't seen it since the late 70s, when "Star Wars" and home video materialized and killed the matinee tradition, nor have I come across it on bootleg VHS or, no doubt, some brand-spankin' new Blu-Ray deluxe edition limited to 5000 copies. I recall it involved a group of Yanks who journeyed to "Blood Island" for various uninteresting reasons. What was most interesting was that the island natives had to appease some jungle-dwelling monster night with sacrificial virgins. Breasts, blood, beasts--Joe Bob Briggs' "The Three B"s right there--were emblazoned onto my young cranium and pretty much corrupted me for life (and this wasn't the worst thing that was screened for us over the years). Not that I'm complaining--if I hadn't have seen BOB I might have ended up a certified public accountant. You've gotta have fun with this stuff.

There's much fun to be had with "Machete Maidens Unleashed!, a riotous tour through 60s and 70s Filipino exploitation cinema that's a worthy companion piece to Hartley's "Not Quite Hollywood", his adrenaline-surged chronicle of Aussie B-movies. It offers up a treasure trove of vintage clips, trailers, (punctuated with witty graphics) and latter-day interviews with many of the surviving participants (many who are lucky to have survived their film careers at all) and unabashed fans of "Pinoy" potboilers.

The history of how the Philippines became a back lot for the American grindhouse is a bit murky, but essentially, Americans were still viewed as liberators after World War 2, so despot Ferdinand Marcos, perhaps in a bid for acceptance of his "New Society", opened his country's doors to filmmakers (lead by Roger Corman, of course) more than welcome to fly over the ocean to pillage cheap exotic locations, cheap labour, access to government resources (esp. the military) with no pesky union rules to hamper speedy production. There were few rules, period.

Despite Marcos’s corrupt Bagong Lipunan campaign of martial law over the entire nation, visiting and even native filmmakers were given free reign to put just about anything up onscreen they desired, and a great many of their efforts featured anti-authoritarian plots.

Not that plot mattered: in a little under two decades, schlock-meisters and starry-eyed ingénues and their betrayed film school idealists churned out monster yarns, women-in-prison sexploitation melodramas, and action scenarios featuring heroes that ranged from washed-up American matinee idols to midget martial-artists.

The cycle came to an abrupt end as political realities made the living conditions perilous: as Marcos' dictatorship unravelled, so did violence increase. The advent of home video would offer the exploitation circuit a new avenue of profit.

Too many anecdotes to even attempt to recount here come fast and furious like verbal mortar rounds: director Brian Trenchard Smith recalls that the Mitchell camera he used was so old it's serial number was "6" and that he'd have to remind the military brass to replace their choppers' live rounds with blanks after a morning strafing the country. Amazingly, there were performers labelled “breakables,” in that for a few bucks, they gladly jumped through glass windows, were set on fire, or jumped from moving vehicles.

Legendary producers Sam Sherman, Roger Corman, veteran performers Sid Haig, Pam Grier, and Colleen Camp, and directors Allan Arkus and Joe Dante, who earlier in their careers edited the trailers for many of these films, talk candidly and humorously of their participation in this bizarre cycle (the latter duo, specifically, on the circumstances behind their notorious helicopter-cutaway shot). Director John Landis, who never directed a film in the Philippines but operates here as a fan and commentator, doesn't really buy the whole "female empowerment" subtext of the women-in-prison cycle, and when some of the actresses--particularly "The Big Dollhouse"s Judy Brown--tell of their treatment, he might have a point...

Two more memorable bits: Roger Corman visibly miffed at having to defend his reputation as being "cheap", and Lee Ermey confessing that he felt "Apocalypse Now" did the men who served in Vietnam a disservice (there some time devoted to Coppola's turbulent and legendary shoot, already well-documented in "Hearts Of Darkness").

There's a fair bit of screen time devoted to acknowledging the contributions of Pinoy cult stalwart John Ashley, who died in 1997. His collaborators speak affectionately of his contributions as actor and producer, which were the polar opposite of his experiences as a teen idol for American International Pictures.

Good-humoured, articulate Edie Romero exudes a sophistication and scholarly knowledge of cinema his actual movies certainly did not. It's perhaps not so strange then, to learn that he was later an ambassador of cinema appointed by Marcos (which is something akin to Andy Milligan getting a Kennedy Center Honour).

No release date as of this writing, but if you're at all remotely interested in the subject matter, you'll find "Machete Maidens Unleashed" a dizzying, dazzling experience. One that's superior to actually having to endure many of the films covered themselves...

TIFF 2010: John Carpenter's "The Ward"

2010-09-15T17:42:00.008-04:00

(Midnight Madness)

(USA, 2010, 88 minutes)

Written by: Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen

Directed by: John Carpenter

Cast: Amber Heard, Danielle Panabaker, Lyndsy Fonseca, Jared Harris, Mamie Gummer

I must 'fess up: there are few people on this earth who are bigger fans of director John Carpenter than myself. He became one of my favourite filmmakers (for a period of time, THE favourite) immediately when I first saw "The Fog" on a double-bill with "Jaguar Lives" in the winter of 1981. He was the only celebrity to whom I've ever written a fan letter (he responded1), and I've since written essays on his body of work in high school and in university film studies (my senior thesis) and have marked his every subsequent release as a major event. A master of widescreen composition and that rare auteur who can make genre personal, I've long held him in the highest esteem amongst 70s/80s directorial darlings like Coppola and Scorsese. It's taken nearly two decades, but the critical community seems to have finally caught up...

Sadly for fans, it's been more than a decade since Carpenter has helmed a theatrical feature, and while his two instalments for HBO's "Masters Of Horror" cable TV series were impressive (esp. "Cigarette Burns", scored by his son Cody), his devotees have been pining for a follow-up endeavour. How could the man who gave us "They Live" stay so silent during two successive Bush administrations? Where was John Nada to save us all?

Several titles have been announced over the years, and one, "The Ward", saw the light of a projector beam.

The first John Carpenter film ever to play the Toronto International Film Festival (it's about bloody time), this modest little shocker bears the director's title above the credits--as per usual--but Carpenter did not conceive or write the film (nor did he score it), so there's something about it that smacks of "work for hire". Still, it shows that the iconoclastic director's skills as the one-time master of screen terror have hardly atrophied during his absence, and delivers on his press kit promise of old school, straight-up chills that he pretty much wrote the patent for in 1978 with his still unequalled "Halloween".

Carpenter's not exactly pushing himself as an artist here, but as comfort food, "The Ward" is entirely nourishing...

It's 1966. Authorities arrest a young woman, Kristen (Heard), after she sets fire to remote farmhouse. She's brought to North Bend Psychiatric Hospital, where she's admitted to the care of Dr. Stringer (Harris), who attempts to unlock the cause of her breakdown and violent act, but she's unwilling to explore her past. Kristen strikes up a friendship with four other patients: sassy Sarah (Panabaker), artistic Iris (Fonsenci), aggressive Emily (Gummer), and the innocent Zoey (Leigh), who clings to a stuffed bunny. The other girls speak of a phantom figure who haunts the halls of the secret ward at night--a ward where few make it out alive...

Comparatively subtle, slow-paced, and even elegant to most modern offerings (hard to believe that not all that long ago, Carpenter was dismissed as a purveyor of misogynistic violence), the director's approach confidently and deliberately echoes the great suspense yarns of yesteryear, acknowledging Jacques Tournier, Sam Fuller, and of course, his own influential early work starting with "Assault On Precinct 13" (although dare I suggest Frederick Wiseman and William Peter Blatty?)...

Not quite the "return to form" one hoped for, Carpenter delivers what he does best: the ghost is as scary as Michael Myers (and seems to have been inspired by Dick Smith's underrated work on John Irvin's "Ghost Story"), the cast of young women endearing and sympathetic (as was his cast in "Halloween"), and people coping with exterior menace while in a confined space has long been his speciality since "Dark Star".
The third act twist telegraphed a bit early, I thought, but actually makes psychological sense so doesn't seem like quite the rug pull as it did--POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT--in the similarly-themed "Shutter Island".

It's nice to have you back, John. But don't make us wait so long for the next one, okay?

"The Ward" is scheduled for release in January in the UK, but as of this writing, no release date for the US has been set, which is a shame...

TIFF 2010: "The Trip"

2010-09-15T17:20:00.001-04:00

(Special Presentations)
(2010, United Kingdom, 90 minutes)

Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon
Directed by: Michael Winterbottom

"The Trip" is a uproarious confection, alternately brash and bittersweet, that finds TIFF stalwart Michael Winterbottom dialing-it-down after his usually confrontational efforts like "Welcome to Sarajevo", "9 Songs", and this year's controversial Jim Thompson adaptation "The Killer Inside Me".

A few years ago, the versatile British filmmaker indulged his lighter side with the inventive meta-comedy/faux-literary adaptation "Tristam Shandy: A Real Cock And Bull Story, a mockumentary about a chaotic attempt to adapt one of the world's most notorious "unfilmable" novels, featuring UK comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing fictionalized versions of themselves (or were they?).

Winterbottom reunites Coogan and Brydon here--as, well, themselves?--and this time unencumbered by powdered wigs and waistcoats. The hook is simple: When Coogan is asked by The Observor to embark on a paid restaurant tour of Northern England (specifically, the Lake District, Lancashire, and the Daleson), he accepts it to impress his actress girlfriend. But when she suggests they take a break from each other and visits the U.S., Coogan scrambles to find a companion and ultimately has to settle on his friend/comedic-rival Brydon. A week-long gastronomic road trip ensues, but food is often an incidental concern:

Who does the better Michael Caine impersonation? Coogan insists he'll work only with auteurs, but pines to sell-out to Hollywood (he's none-too-secretly jealous of Brydon's mainstream success--his "small man in a box" character has spawned an iPhone app!). Riffs on Coleridge and Wordsworth (on location at the poet's home at Dove Cottage), a unique take on the Bronte sisters and the easily-missed power of ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" are among the many subjects argued and deconstructed along many restaurants and hotels.

While largely improvised, there is a semblance of a narrative: Brydon is content with the state of his career and pines to return home to his wife and newborn baby, while Coogan feigns revulsion at his friend's domesticity while obviously searching for companionship through his various sexual conquests and validation by mainstream Hollywood success.

Edited down from a British television series, but nothing seems missing. The feature version is highly recommended but if given the choice I'd go with the original broadcasts, after all, sometimes "more" is "more", esp. when involving comic geniuses of this calibre...

TIFF 2010: "Brighton Rock"

2010-09-14T17:42:00.001-04:00

(Gala Presentation)

(United Kingdom, 2010, 111minutes)
Written by: Rowan Joffe
Directed by: Rowan Joffe
Cast: Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Serkis, Helen Mirren, John Hurt

Someone must’ve decided what the world needed now was the umpteenth restaging of the Brighton Mods/Rocker riots, since this opulent but inert adaptation of the Graham Greene novel shifts the action from 1930 to 1964 but won’t make anyone forget John and Roy Bolting’s classic 1947 screen version any time soon.

Otherwise, it’s more or less the same classic tale: this time, Pinky Brown is played by Sam Riley, the Ian Curtis-lookalike from “Control”, who’s a bit too clean-cut to be a hood, despite having earned a prominent facial scar. Only 17 and already a rising star in the local underworld, he takes charge of his gang when their leader is assassinated. Pinky ruthlessly enacts revenge against his mentor’s killer (he’s nothing if not handy with a blade), but when he finds out his act was possibly photographed by a naïve young boardwalk waitress Rose (Riseborough), he schemes to romance the girl and find out just how much she really knows (not to mention, wait for the photo to be processed—no iPhones in 1964!). Rose’s boss Ida (Mirren) isn’t quite so charmed by Pinky’s boyish demeanor, however, and enlists the help of Corkey (Hurt) to unearth his true intentions (old pros Mirren and Hurt can do these broad character turns in their sleep, but they provide some much needed energy and humour to the film’s second half, along with Andy Serkis in a rare human role as the effete thug Mr. Colleoni).

Handsomely mounted and effectively cast with newcomers and old pros, “Brighton Rock” suffers from what I call “Prestige Picture Sag”. Rowan (not Roland, his father) Joffe, making his directorial debut (he’s the screenwriter of “28 Weeks Later” and “The American”, which opened the same weekend TIFF 2010 launched) and his cast seem to be revel in the fetish-y aspects of the era--all fedoras and switchblades and scooters—but yet there's something maddeningly contemporary about the film, as if we're watching people play "dress up", despite Greene’s crackerjack plotting and generally misanthropic world view.

There’s an abundance of foul language—“f bombs” abound (I’m aware that profanity existed in real life long before it became acceptable onscreen, but there were times when I felt the script had been written by Irvine Welsh). Motivations seem a bit murky—Pinky is alternately timid and reserved and then explosively violent (whereas Richard Attenborough’s Pinky was all coiled menace, Riley’s more like a Vulcan), and after several scenes of being treated so shabbily one wonders why Rose puts up with so much abuse (1964 was surely a more enlightened year than 1938, although maybe not by much).

What’s more—with Pinky established as a cold-blooded type so early on, why does resist every opportunity to take Rose out of the picture (he even marries her, and records a bitter monologue lamenting her very existence at a recording booth on the pier). There’s a curious focus on Catholic iconography, to, that might have been intended to be ironic, but comes off as heavy handed, esp. when augmented by a screechy, overwrought score that had me thinking of Mel Brooks’ Hitchcock parody “High Anxiety”, where every time the orchestra kicked in, a bus with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra on it passed by.

As for the riot--never really acknowledged within the narrative other than to provide Pinky with a crowd to slip into--it plays out in the background like something out of a manic Monty Python sketch, with Joffe sticking to the familiar Frank Roddam playbook.

TIFF 2010: "Super"

2010-09-13T17:58:00.001-04:00

(Midnight Madness)

(USA, 2010, 90 minutes)
Written and directed by: James Gunn
Cast: Rainn Wilson, Liv Tyler, Ellen Page, Kevin Bacon, Nathan Fillion, Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker, and Rob Zombie as “God”

James Gunn's demented "Super" pretty much is--and considering there hasn't exactly been a shortage of "home-made superhero" yarns lately, and especially with this year's Marvel adaptation "Kick-Ass" offering up some mighty, twisted tights to fill, following equally ambitious and mostly successful efforts like the Hamilton-shot "Defendor", and the sadly-mostly-forgotten "Special" with Michael Rappaport. Gunn's followup to his delightful 80s creature feature spoof "Slither" shows his Troma roots loud and proud, albeit with better production values, sustained comic tone, and performances (but there is a Lloyd Kaufman cameo).

Once again, an anonymous schlub finds his calling via four-colours: doughy Frank D'Arbo ("The Office"s Wilson) cooks in a diner and clings to a mere two pleasant memories from his otherwise unremarkable life: an incident where he pointed a police officer in the direction of a suspect, and more significantly, his brief marriage to Sarah (Tyler). When Sarah, a reformed junkie/stripper who has clearly failed in the "reformed" column, leaves him for her drug dealer Jacques (Bacon), Frank receives a spectral visitation from TV-personality Jesus Man (Fillion), who, via no less an authority than God (Zombi), anoints him a new role as the superhero The Crimson Bolt.

No actual powers come with the honour, so Frank must improvise. Embracing the life as a would-be superhero is not without its growing pains--Frank has a hard time with the nuances of what constitutes a "criminal offence". To The Crimson Bolt, butting in line at a movie is as worthy of his wrath (in the form of a pipe wrench) as drug dealing or child molestation.

Thankfully, there's a comic book shop nearby with fetching Libby (Page) more than willing to coach Frank on superhero lore. As The Crimson Bolt's curious public appearances become the stuff of local news and YouTube, Libby becomes suspicious of Frank's regular "research" into non-super-powered crime fighters, and offers her assistance as the sidekick "Boltie"...

Well-worn terrain by now, sure, but Gunn's take lacks the lugubriousness and brow-furrowing that bogs down a lot of latter-day superhero vehicles as their reluctant do-gooders wrestle with morals, responsibility, and blah blah blah. But while he gleefully cranks up the gory violence and outrageous fantasy sequences (Fillion's "Jesus Man" deserves his own series of web shorts at the very least), the characterizations are strong, thanks to pitch-perfect casting. Wilson reels in the broad strokes of his Dwight character from "The Office" and creates a broken man as pitiable as that found in any non-genre drama, and current indie "It-girl" Page (who shared a memorable exchange with Wilson in "Juno") invests what could have been a stock character--charming comic book geek--with just the right touch of reckless, pathological delusion (Frank's desire to right wrongs is obvious, but what's her motivation?). Reliable character actors Henry, Rooker, and even Kevin Bacon anchor reality with brief, memorable turns.

"Super" was one of the first big sales of TIFF 2010, and should be in wide release from IFC in early 2011.

TIFF 2010 Review: "Bunraku"

2010-09-12T22:20:00.001-04:00

(Midnight Madness)

(USA, 2010, 90 minutes)
Directed by: Guy MosheCast: Josh Hartnett, Ron Perlman, Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore, Kevin McKidd, Gakt Camui

The title was, at first glance, intriguing--suggestive of classic hoary melodramas of yesteryear like "Hatari!" and "Mogambo". What it is, however, is yet another of those "another time/another place" genre mash-ups confined to stylized environs that arguably started with Walter Hill's "Streets Of Fire". That particular underrated 80s effort was (according to the director) "mock heroic in structure, comic book in dialogue" and while it was no box-office sensation, its influence can be found in countless films since ranging from "Sin City" to "Sky Captain".

"Bunraku" is apparently Japanese for "puppet theatre", but while there's a considerable smattering of Asian influence on the spirited, stylish yarn, I found myself thinking an awful lot about Simon Wincer's "Harley Davidson And The Marlboro Man". Bear with me...

Past, present, future converge in Moshe's stagebound Never-Never Land, where guns are illegal and wars are won by fist and blade. An unlikely team-up of timeless archetypes the American Cowboy and the Japanese Ronin launches the expected quest tale to dethrone a despot (well, unlikely to anyone who's never seen "Red Sun" with Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune).

The Drifter With No Name (Hartnett), wanders into the town of "Little Westworld" (nice), hell-bent on revenge, teams up with Yoshi The Samurai (Camui), who seeks to reclaim his family's precious ancient Dragon medallion. The Bartender (Harrelson) an old-timer with intimate knowledge of the region's history and key players, guides them towards their mutual foe, "The Woodcutter" (Perlman, shambling around like Bionic Bigfoot), but first, they must fight their way through his greatest warriors, the Nine Killers, climaxing in an encounter with the seemingly unstoppable Killer Number 2 (McKidd--guess who's Killer Number 1?).

Meanwhile, the Woodcutter's bride (Moore) plots with the local Proletariat Peasant to overthrow her husband...

Owing more than a little visual debt Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle", the combination of Western-and-Eastern archetypes, with a healthy dollop of Damon Runyon/"Guys And Dolls", "Bunraku" is certainly an arresting feast for the senses, providing one doesn't expect much in terms of narrative.

A western-with-swords isn't exactly fresh following two "Kill Bill" films and Miike's "Sukiyaki Django Western" and "Six-String Samurai", but Moshe manages to mine the hook for some impressive action setpieces, with Camui's martial arts prowess betraying the reality that he's in fact a Japanese pop star and not a journeyman stunt performer. "Rome"s McKidd has a ball brandishing his blade like Zatoichi in a zoot suit.

"Bunraku" plays like one of those cannily-conceived, would-be "cult" efforts that seems a lot of fun to make, but as a ticket buyer, one wishes some of that spirit had spilled over into the viewing experience, which by the umpteenth sword battle, becomes wearying (I found myself counting down to Killer #2, and then realized there was still a Killer #1 to deal with before I could go home). It's easy to champion the undertaking on a technical level, but to be honest, it's not terribly enchanting or engrossing beyond that...

©2010 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF 2010 Review: "Into The Wind"

2010-09-11T21:29:00.001-04:00

(Real To Real)

(USA/Canada, 2010)

Directed by: Steve Nash and Ezra Holland

Terry Fox's heroic 1980 "Marathon Of Hope" has cemented itself in latter-day Canadian lore--it is now arguably our nation's primary narrative, eclipsing Banting's discovery of penicillin and the building of our national railroad (although he finished second to Tommy Douglas, the founder of our nation's Medicare system, in a recent CBC poll)--but this new ESPN-produced documentary manages to unearth some fresh insights and materials almost 30 years after Fox's too-young passing in 1981.

In a lean 51 minutes, we're retold what still plays like a truly astonishing scenario:

Just 21, Port Coquitlam, British Columbia-native Fox decided to do something for those stricken with cancer, having already lost a leg to the disease (that didn't stop him from becoming a high school wheelchair basketball champ). Inspired by American Dick Traum, the first amputee to complete the New York City Marathon, Fox plotted a course from east coast to west with friend (and driver) Doug Alward, and with typical Canadian indifference and aversion to anything resembling "hero-worship", his launch initially went largely unheralded in the national media went he took his first steps (with the aide of a prosthetic limb) from the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in St. John's, Newfoundland. Incredibly, even the Canadian Cancer Society, to whom he'd written a mission-statement, was reluctant to sponsor him until he'd secured additional financial sponsors.

But by the time he'd reached Ontario, his brother Darryl had joined him and Fox was heralded as a major celebrity. The PR machine was in full force: Fox was persuaded to delay his arrival in Ottawa until Canada Day, photo-ops were arranged with hockey legends Darryl Sittler and Bobby Orr. He'd kick the first ball at a CFL game, and a huge celebration in his honour was held at Toronto's City Hall. Fox was offered everything from a car to a chance to promote Planter's Peanuts, which he entertained only if he could wear the Mr. Peanut outfit.

Fox would be forced to abort his journey on September 2, 1980 in Thunder Bay, Ontario, when he was once again diagnosed with cancer that had now spread to his lungs. By then, he'd raised $1.7 million (although his intention was to raise just $1 from each of Canada's then-24 million citizens). He remains the youngest person ever named a Companion of the Order of Canada.

In a pre-wired era united by a single national television network, Fox's mission didn't exactly explode on the national scene (the CBC was reluctant to pay a cameraman overtime to cover Fox's launch in New Brunswick, and tellingly, the early momentum--such as it was--stalled in Quebec, where Fox assumed "people mustn't get cancer"). Nonetheless, Fox's trek electrified a nation, and a six-year old Steve Nash took daily notice of his integrity and passion.

Yes, that Steve Nash. The basketball sensation-turned-director (with assistance from his cousin, Ezra Howard) has studied his Errol Morris and Ken Burns well. No mere earnest talking-heads marathon, "Into The Wind" ambitiously attempts to recreate Fox's physically-and-emotionally tasking trek via location visits, dramatic restaging, first-time access to his personal journals (some achingly candid remarks voiced by Friday Night Lights’ Taylor Kitsch), and playful animations amidst the expected archival footage.

But it's the surviving personalities, friends and family close to Terry, who give the film its majesty and lingering resonance. Alward still seems affected by the events as if they happened yesterday, but he gamely revisits (and acts in restagings at) key locations--he's clearly still carrying the fire. During shooting, Alward's missing Econoline van was located by biographer Douglas Coupland, where it had been found in the possession of a young musician who'd inherited the vehicle, still in vintage 1980 shape, complete with shag carpet--from his father.

Fox's brother, father, and mother exude a salty grace despite their considerable loss and the weightiness of Terry's legacy. Betty Fox's reminiscences are particularly bittersweet despite her arch humour, given that--as Alward puts it so eloquently--"she never had time to grieve".

Even Fox's prosthetics specialist is still alive--and a impressive stop-motion animation assembles the prosthetic leg in all of its primitive intricacy.

Regrettably, the dirt bag reporter who wrote that Fox drove through Quebec (a flat-out lie that destroyed a lot of the boy's confidence) is never named or brought out to explain himself.

But Toronto Star reporter and biographer Leslie Scrivener ("Terry Fox: His Story") coins the best line: "we have no Martin Luther King, no Nelson Mandela. But we have Terry. His is a gritty story--head down, he worked hard. We work hard".

"Gritty" perhaps, yes, but as the archival footage illuminates, there was also such authority and passion in his voice for one so young. Canada--no, the entire world--not only lost an athlete, but a true ambassador of inspiration and goodwill. He could've been our Bill Clinton, the way he spoke of such universal truths with such conviction and humility.

"Into The Wind" will debut on ESPN this month as part of its "30 For 30" documentary series.

TIFF 2010 Review: "I'm Still Here"

2010-09-10T22:10:00.003-04:00

(Special Presentations)
(USA, 2010, 108 minutes)
Directed by: Casey Affleck
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Antony Langdon, Larry McHale, Sean Combs, Ben Stiller, Edward James Olmos, David Letterman

So it was all a big meta-hoax after all.

There, that's it...and more brain power than any further discussion of the subject of "I'm Still Here" deserves. Still, I returned to TIFF for yet another year to review movies, and it was my first screening of the event, so....

In the days between the press screening (my first of the fest) of Casey Affleck's is-it-or-isn't-it "documentary" "I'm Still Here" and the completion of my final draft of my review, it became confirmed that the proverbial "jig" was "up". And from the official camp, no less--perversely, the director himself admitted during an interview with the New York Times that the much-ballyhooed undertaking--an alleged verite chronicle of actor Joaquin Phoenix' renouncement of his craft to pursue a career as a hip-hop artist--was an entirely staged affair. Immediately, I thought of John Waters' essay "Whatever Happened To Showmanship?"--why in hell would Affleck (presumably a smart guy), and star/accomplice/brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix (presumably a smart guy, too, even if he's playing a dumber version of himself onscreen), atomize whatever chance the film had at box-office success, or at the very least water cooler talking point, before the press tour was even competed?

Chalk it up to the glib brattiness that permeates the exercise on both sides of the lens--now that we know "I'm Still Here" is a preening stunt its conspirators are now trying to defend with a lot of film school babble (although Affleck assures his interviewer that he "never intended to trick anybody...the idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind.”), what, if any, are its merits as an entertainment experience?

Not much--and I would've said the same before Affleck's confession. Phoenix--ordinarily a dynamic, risk-taking actor--slums in the role of "River Phoenix" (much like Chuck Barris played "Chuck Barris" in "The Gong Show Movie") with enough Method-y baggage to infuriate even Brando. Fed up with the sham of the acting profession, he seeks to unmask the "real" Joaquin Phoenix to the world via his self-composed, self-produced hip-hop tracks, but his vapid lyrics and awful-white-boy-rapping reveal nothing but a pitiful imitation of better artists (and clearly, one of them is Heavy D, considering JP's astonishing weight gain within months of his "retirement").

(but it's all an act)

Ditto his droning, nasal, drug-and/or-booze fuelled soliloquies to the lens that reveal nothing more than an insulated, self-pitying pillar-of-salt too stupid, stoned, or brain-damaged to appreciate his good fortune.

(remember, it's an act)

Leaving the shallow pond of Hollywood for the even shallower puddle of the rap music industry, Phoenix, accompanied by his faithful manservants Antony (a recovering drunk) and Larry (a frequently naked enabler), dogs Sean "P. Diddy" Combs (who really wears his own clothing line) from New York to Miami, and ultimately, to Washington, where he's part of newly-elected President Obama's inauguration (inspiring JP to declare "an inauguration is just another Hollywood premiere, but with less pussy"--one of his classier bon mots, actually).

(did I mention that it's an act?)

The often-scatological tedium is occasionally enlivened by some surprising cameos: Ben Stiller visits Phoenix's pig-sty home to offer him a role in "Greenburg", Mos Def reacts "diplomatically" to Phoenix's news of a career change when they meet at an airport, and Edward James Olmos (or "E-Jo") of all people pays an evening visit to deliver a bewildering zen-homily about being a "waterfall on top of a mountain".

Thankfully, the notorious Feb. 11, 2009 appearance on Late Night With David Letterman is played out in its entirely, given that no matter what the backstage machinations, it remains a classic bit of gonzo television. Letterman's camp insists that the host wasn't in on Phoenix's joke, so their unheard exchange at the commercial break will remain as unknown as Bill Murray's farewell to Scarlett Johansson in "Lost In Translation", and at least provide "I'm Still Here" with a bit of sustaining mystery (Phoenix is scheduled to return to the Ed Sullivan Theatre in October--no doubt the appearance will make for a worthy DVD supplement).

The revelation that the film was a staged lark wasn't entirely surprising, as my smug-o-meter went into overdrive more than a few times, given that some of the plot turns seem a tad too obvious and Syd Field-approved, straining credibility. Mind you, documentary filmmakers have been massaging the truth since Robert Frank asked Nanook to build a larger igloo that would better accommodate his camera equipment, so it seems moot to argue about authenticity these days.

(But in retrospect, the credit "co-written by Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix" in the end crawl should've tipped me off...ditto the credit to Affleck's father in the role of Phoenix's dad...)

And please, can we knock it off with the "post-modern"-shtick? When Andy Kaufman--an undeniable avante garde genius--pulled this kind of public stunt, it was genuinely ground-breaking, challenging, and even endearing, esp. at time when the world found fascination in The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and deemed Shields And Yarnell worthy of a weekly variety program. Since then, it's become a tiresome defence for crappy art and lazy irony that died along Baudrillard back in 2007.

Shakier than "Cloverfield" and featuring a scarier monster, "I'm Not There" is a wholly repellent sensory experience--the unlikely marriage of Frederick Wiseman and Michael and Roberta Findley--and the very definition of a "tough-sit" by even the most forgiving moviegoer's standards.

©2010 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF 2010: Behold--The Lightbox!

2010-09-09T09:17:00.002-04:00

TIFF 2009: THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS

2009-09-22T22:09:00.003-04:00

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS
(Gala Presentation)
(Canada/France/United Kingdom, 122 minutes, 2009)
Written by: Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown
Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Lilly Cole, Andrew Garfield, Vern Troyer, Jude Law, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell

It’s unfortunate—but inevitable--that The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus will forever be known as Heath Ledger’s Last Movie, because it’s much more than that: in this age of ridiculously extended titles, it might not be too much to suggest the additional slug line How Gilliam Got His Groove Back. I hate using moth-ridden critical terminology like “return to form”—Gilliam, if anyone, is a filmmaker who delights in avoiding labels—but after his bewildering Tideland, which allowed him to indulge in exactly the kind of deliberately arty, inaccessible, maddeningly self-indulgent affront to expectations and compromises he obviously needed to get out of his system in order to refuel his creative cylinders, his newest is every bit the sumptuous, sensory delight as his beloved classics Time Bandits, Brazil, and The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen (no coincidence that the script reunites Gilliam with Charles McKeown after nearly two decades). Considering its troubled production, the film is remarkably sure-footed and near-seamless in its mode shifts, as if the narrative retooling demanded by Ledger’s sudden passing mid-production were part of the already-trippy conceit from its inception.

One thousand year old Doctor Parnassus (a splendidly robust Plummer) presides over his traveling theatre troupe whose stage show tempts the public with the opportunity to enter an imaginary world based upon their own hopes and fears via a magical mirror. Passage is no mere illusion waiting to be debunked by Penn and Teller, no sirree—Parnassus’ powers are real, bestowed upon him by the Devil himself (Waits as “Mr. Nick”, tearing into every line like he’s gargled with fresh brimstone) centuries earlier. A deal was made after an especially high gambling debt: Parnassus would hand over his daughter Valentina (a doll-like Cole, suggesting there was another line of Tyrell Corp. replicants) to the underworld on her sixteenth birthday.

Setting up in contemporary London, Parnassus comes upon Tony (Ledger, who based his take on the role on former British PM Tony Blair, whom he regarded as a “deluded liar”), a charismatic stranger suffering from amnesia. Reluctantly welcomed into the troupe by driver/dwarf Percy (Troyer) and sleight-of-hand magician Anton (Garfield), he devises a plan to dupe five souls into taking Valentina’s place via the mirror to Paranassus’ “imaginirium”. But Mr. Nick is never far behind…

With only limited success in The Brothers Grimm, Gilliam has now embraced digital FX in a major way—those given to the currently-fashionable lament that CG has ruined filmmaking should find their fears challenged by the pizzaz given to his Pythonesque visions by the addition of ray tracing, texture mapping, and the “Z” axis—at times, it’s as if Magritte and Dali have manifested themselves as After Effects plug-ins…

Gilliam was lucky in that he had already shot the majority of Ledger’s “real world” scenes first, with the FX-heavy other-side-of-the-mirror episodes to follow. This allowed him to recast Ledger’s character with other actors for the fantasy bits (a simple tweak in Act One established the change in physiognomy on the part of the traveler once he went through the looking glass, and presto! The rest of the film was set). Ledger’s fellow actor friends Jude Law, Colin Farrell, and Johnny Depp volunteered to each manifest a side of Tony’s malignant personality and it all works delightfully.

It’s hard not to envision a real-life Mr. Nick trying to stop the production: Ledgers’ passing was followed by producer William Vince’s death just one week after shooting wrapped, and during post-production, Gilliam himself was hit by a car and broke his back. But passion prevailed and Dr. Parnassus ends, wonderfully, with a title card crediting the production to “A film from Heath Ledger and friends”.

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: DELIVER US FROM EVIL

2009-09-20T22:19:00.003-04:00

DELIVER US FROM EVIL (Fri os fra det onde)
(Contemporary World Cinema)
(Denmark/Sweden/Norway, 2009, 93 minutes)
Written by: Ole Bornedal
Directed by: Ole Bornedal
Cast: Lasse Rimmer, Lene Nystrøm Rasted, Jens Andersen, Pernille Vallentin, Mogens Pedersen

Sort of a Danish “Amores Perros” or “21 Grams”, Ole Bornedal’s “Deliver Us From Evil” tackles some big themes, thankfully without Iñárritu’s lugubrious tone and heavy-handedness, and engages well enough as a snapshot of everyday life in modern Denmark before eventually embracing thriller conventions with a mighty Viking hug. Bornedal is the writer/director of the superb 1994 nordic noir “Nattevagten”, which he remade more or less shot-by-shot as “Nightwatch” (not the Russian fantasy epic by Timur Bekmambetov) for Miramax’s Dimension Films, only to have the Weinsteins bury his original and dump his remake to a few theatres after having shelved it for two years.

Various lives intersect, entwine, and combust when a carnival sets up in a coastal Danish town. Affluent young lawyer Johannes (Lasse Rimmer) and his wife Pernille (Lene Nystrøm Rasted, lead singer of the pop band Aqua!), a teacher, have moved with their two children from Oslo, but the intrusion of Johannes’ dirtbag brother Lars (Jens Andersen) makes his dream of renovating the family home and enjoying a quieter pace of life difficult. Lars aspires to go straight—his junkie girlfriend Scarlett (Pernille Vallentin) is pregnant with his child—but he can’t handle even the simplest responsibilities of maintaining a job as a long-haul trucker and cavorts with his loutish mates after every dollar earned.

Stoned and distracted while driving his rig home, Lars feels a terrifying thump and emerges from his truck to find the body and scooter of an elderly woman strewn across the highway. Scattered about are pages of Christian hymns. Unbenownst to Lars, she’s the wife of his boss Ingvar (Mogans Pederson) a deeply religious man and respected town elder, and was on her way to meet Pernille to update hymn books for the school. To cover his tracks, Lars plants evidence on Alain (Bojan Navojec), a hulking, but mild-mannered, Bosnian refugee whom Johannes’ befriends and pays to help with the repairs.

While the townspeople whoop it up in the carnival beer tent, Ingvar grows concerned at his wife’s uncharacteristic tardiness. When the body is discovered, the old man stops the celebrations and demands the culprit confess. Lars fingers Alain, and the bloody hymn pages slipped into his pockets are discovered. The (largely drunken) locals immediately turn on him, but Johannes, convinced of the man’s innocence, ushers him home for protection until the authorities have been properly notified. But a now broken and bloodthirsty Ingvar will answer only to God’s law…

“There are no evil people, only people without love” is the tag line on the poster, and a line spoken by Pernille to her children (who don’t buy it) in their introductory scene which could set us up for the worst kind of Oprah’s Book Club-endorsed hooey. Thankfully, Bornedal is such a skilled and confident filmmaker that he keeps “Deliver Us From Evil” from crashing into another…well, “Crash” (the Haggis version). Characters that could easily be positioned as “types” are flawed and complex—I can’t remember the last film I saw where my loyalties to an entire ensemble fluctuated throughout. Bleeding heart liberal/family man Johannes castigates his brother and his flunkies as the spawn of the country’s welfare state, and saintly Lutheran Ingvar embodies the worst aspects of the society’s insular nature when he decries Alain as a filthy outsider and thus the only possible suspect in his wife’s death. Even Pernille is too willing to offer up Alain as sacrifice once her sanctuary is threatened. Lars is revealed to possess more empathy and humanity than we’re initially lead to believe, and Bornedal tosses in a last-minute twist (bordering on a cheat, but it’s a good one) that further propels our understanding of events into turmoil.

Not that there aren’t some familiar joys to be had: once the third act resets the tale into serious “Straw Dogs” territory, the uber-liberal Johannes, like Dustin Hoffman’s mathematician, begins to enjoy dishing out comeuppance a little too much--to paraphrase Chekov: “If a nail gun is purchased in hardware store in Act One”…well, you can figure out the rest…

One of TIFF 2009’s best entries and a long-overdue second coming for Bornedal across the pond, “Deliver Us From Evil” has been sold to Evokative Films for distribution in Canada, likely not until next year, though.

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: ONG BAK 2: THE BEGINNING

2009-09-17T23:48:00.003-04:00

ONG BAK 2: THE BEGINNING
(Midnight Madness)
(Thailand, 2009, 110 minutes)
Written by: Panna Rittikrai
Directed by: Tony Jaa, Panna Rittikrai
Cast: Tony Jaa, Sorapong Chatree, Sarunyu Wongkrachang

For those of you who just had to know how orphan Ting came to be a Buddhist-raised Muay Thai master and defender of the village of Nong Pradu, Tony Jaa answers your questions with his directorial debut “Ong Bak 2: The Beginning”--only six years after his international smash “Ong Bak: The Warrior”—but, thankfully, not at the expense time in front of the camera, where he continues to redefine the critical term “here comes da pain” (thanks to Al Pacino and Brian DePalma).

Arguably even more numbskull’d and arbitrarily plotted than the original, “Ong Bak 2: The Beginning” makes for a satisfying experience to forgiving fans willing to gnash their teeth and play along precisely for those qualities. Character arcs? Structural beams? “Indoor bullstuff”, as Joe Bob Briggs would so aptly put it. The chief draw here is Jaa’s creation of “Natayuth”, a “dancing art” that fuses various fighting styles from around the world. And lots of elephants…

The story begins in 15th century Thailand (talk about a prequel!), where Tien (Natdanai Kongthong), the 10-year old son of Lord Sihadecho, survives the massacre of his village by Lord Rajasena (Sarunyu Wongkrachang), who has assumed control of Asia and has ordered all subversives executed, and that includes Thien’s parents. Within seconds of being captured by slavers (snaggle-toothed natives of standard ooga-booga issue), Tien is dowsed with blood and forced into pit-fighting a crocodile. But the guerilla group Garuda Wing Cliff has already infiltrated the camp and one of its soldiers, Cher Nung (Sorapong Chatree), helps Tien escape (but not before he dispatches the croc). The boy is then taken to the requisite blind mystic (Cher Nung), who declares that the boy will grow to become the greatest warrior that ever lived. After a series of tournaments bouts, where he successfully spars with warriors from Thailand, China, Japan, and Indonesia, the stoic, adult Tien (Jaa, taking over) is the youngest warrior ever to master the art of Muay Thai, seeks revenge on Rajasena and free his childhood sweetheart Pim (Primata Dej-Udom) from his control…

This is a much more lavish production than its predessor, and the bucks are on the screen, from the period costumes and weaponry to the epic massacre—a flurry of rampaging horses, swordplay, and exploding gunpower bombs worthy of Ridley Scott--that opens the film. But Jaa, as a director, doesn’t seem to trust his own abilities enough to let them play out in all their breathtaking natural glory, and relies too much on image saturation tricks and, more intrusively, varying film speeds that undermine his consistently inventive stunt work and gravity-defying moves.

Thankfully, he’s wise enough to let the camera sit still for awhile, esp. in the jaw-dropping extended set piece where Tien navigates a herd of rampaging elephants in what plays as an ode (intentional or not) to Yakima Cannutt’s famous “drop” in John Ford’s “Stagecoach” without somuch as a pixel of CG enhancement. Jaa almost tops it with a dizzing skirmish in which Tien battles an opponent atop, below, and around his trusty elephant sidekick “Black Tusk” like a sinewy Tasmanian Devil.

The climactic fight is equally thrilling—the best “Boss Level” in a film that’s a series of nothing but--and reminiscent of Bruce Lee’s “Game Of Death”, with Tien dispatching various masked assassins as he works his way up the successive levels of a temple for a final face-off with Rajasena.

Subtitles for foreign language productions vary in even the best instances, but I found some of the translations here to be spectacularly absurd, esp. the need to spell out “Hurray!” when the onscreen crowd so clearly utters it at top volume.

Unfortunately, “Ong Bak 2”takes a frustrating “Matrix Reloaded”/”Kill Bill Vol. 1” turn by ending just as Tien is captured by Rajasena’s soldiers and ordered to be tortured. A narrator informs us of Tien’s possible reincarnation and the final image of that of Ting standing before the head of Buddha that serves as the McGuffin for the original film.

No surprise, then, that “Ong Bak 3” is on the way. “Ong Bak 2: The Beginning” hits North American theatres on October 23, or you could wait it out for the eventual DVD triple-bill and get it over with all in one shot…

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: ONDINE

2009-09-17T22:14:00.001-04:00

ONDINE
(Special Presentations)
(Ireland/USA, 2009, 111 minutes)
Written by: Neil Jordan
Directed by: Neil Jordan
Cast: Colin Farrell, Alison Barry, Alicja Bachelda, Tony Curran, Stephen Rea

It would be a bit too glib to say this was a great film the first time around when it was called “The Secret Of Roan Inish”, but while it certainly can’t be ignored that Neil Jordan’s newest bears more than a passing similarity to John Sayles’1994 fable, “Ondine” is a unique and highly personal effort from the versatile filmmaker, who returned to his roots in Irish history and literature out of boredom and frustration with the 2007 WGA strike. If there can be two movies about 19th century magicians, why not a pair about Gaelic seal people?

When loner fisherman Syraceuse, (Colin Farrell) finds that his catch of the day is a young woman (Alicja Bachelda) who has miraculously survived some extended time unconscious in the water, his first impulse is to take her to a hospital in the village of Castletownbere. But she pleads for anonymity, so, suspecting she may be a refugee, agrees to let her hide out in his deceased mother’s home until she’s recuperated. Syraceuse incorporates this remarkable turn of events into an off-the-cuff story to entertain his daughter Annie (Alison Barry) during one of her dialysis treatments for a kidney ailment that keeps her wheelchair-bound. Annie is convinced that the woman, who says her name is “Ondine”, is a selkie, which, if you remember Sayles’ film, is a seal that can shed its skin to become human. One of the perks of rescuing a selkie, according to the folklore into which Annie immerses herself, is seven years of good luck. Syraceuse begins to believe the legends when Ondine’s presence seems to cause fish to miraculously fill his nets and lobsters his traps in outrageous quantities, much to the suspicion of the local fishing authorities and townspeople, including his ex-wife (Dervla Kirwan) and her loutish boyfriend (Tony Curran). Egged on by Annie’s conviction, Syraceuse becomes bewitched by Ondine’s apparent powers and obvious beauty (no surprise, then, that Farrell and Bachelda are currently a couple off-screen), confessing his impulses to the local priest (another wry turn from Jordan regular Stephen Rea) whom he regards more as an AA sponsor than spiritual advisor. Soon, Ondine becomes a very public presence around Castletownbere as Annie’s constant companion (and savior), attracting the attention of a mysterious visitor whose ominous presence may tip some viewers off to the third act revelation a bit earlier than Jordan intended.

The need for fantasy in the lives of adults as well as children is a theme that runs through many of Jordan’s features from the self-penned “The Company Of Wolves”, “Mona Lisa”, and “The Crying Game”, and the Patrick McCabe adaptations “The Butcher Boy” and “Breakfast On Pluto” (and very much part of Jordan’s next project, Neil Gaiman’s children’s novel “The Graveyard Book”). His characters have found enchantment—used and often abused—via religion, politics, sexual experimentation, folklore, and self-delusion. Fantasy, Jordan has said, looks at the world through an “idealized prism”, but “the world resists that point of view”.

Farrell brings an authenticity to the role beyond his accent—his battle with alcoholism is well known, and he invests Syraceuse with a ragged nobility and palpable love for his daughter. With this following fine work in “In Bruges”, Woody Allen’s “Cassandra’s Dream” and Michael Mann’s woefully underappreciated “Miami Vice”, Farrell’s reputation as Joel Schumacher’s “It Boy” and Hollywood’s most eligible hellraiser should be behind him (“Ondine” is one of three eclectic films he’s appearing in at TIFF this year, the others being Danis Tanovic’s “Triage” and Terry Gilliam’s “The Imagination Of Dr. Parnassus”).

On the production side, Kjartan Sveinsson’s spare, hypnotic score (his band, Sigur Ros, also contributes a song that features prominently into the plot) and cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s expert lens work make the rugged Irish terrain (and faces) of this bittersweet fairy tale all the more immersive…

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

2009-09-16T23:38:00.007-04:00

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS
(Special Presentations)
(USA, 2009, 122 minutes)
Written by: William Finkelstein
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Cast: Nicholas Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, Brad Dourif, Jennifer Coolidge, Xzibit

When it was announced that Abel Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant” would not only be remade, but would star Nicholas Cage in the Harvey Keitel role, the message boards ignited with usual AICN-led charge of Hollywood’s creative dearth, Cage-as-box-office-poison, and various misspellings of the word lieutenant. But Ferrara’s own reaction was the most incendiary: “I wish these people die in Hell. I hope they're all in the same streetcar, and it blows up”. (I somehow doubt Don Siegel and Philip Kaufman forwarded similar sentiments when he offered his own take on “Body Snatchers”).

Reception softened (somewhat) when Werner Herzog signed to direct. The very idea that the iconoclastic German director would take on a remake with a big-name Hollywood actor wasn’t such of a reach, really: he’d already done the straight-up Vietnam drama “Rescue Dawn” with Christian Bale, which was a fictionalized revisit to a subject from one of his own documentaries.

Turns out that his “Bad Lieutenant” is not a remake after all. It’s certainly not a sequel. Nor is it the audience-friendly police yarn the advance advertising would have you believe.

Terrence McDonagh (Cage) is a hard-wired police sergeant in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. When he risks drowning to save an inmate trapped in a literal watery prison, despite the protests of his partner Pruit (Kilmer), his heroic act gets earns a promotion to lieutenant, and with it a back injury that gets him hooked on prescription pain medication.

When not investigating the murder of a family of Senegalese drug dealers, McDonagh idles away afternoons with his hooker girlfriend Franke (Mendes), who has access to some deep pockets, which is just the thing he needs to pay off his gambling debts to his bookie (Dourif).

So far, sounds like pretty standard cop fare, right? The cheap titles, dinky synth score, and murky, grainy stock (no offense to DOP Peter Zeitlinger) would almost have you believe the management had mistakenly threaded up a lost Golan-Globus/Cannon-Films potboiler circa the Reagan-era...

Weeeeell, Herzog has other plans, letting Act One play out according to the Robert McKee playbook (the screenplay is credited to William Finkelstein, Emmy-winner for such episodic TV procedurals like “L.A. Law” and “Law And Order”) before chucking convention and shifting modes into a chain of increasingly baroque sequences that will either send you pounding the manager’s desk for a refund or glued to your seat giddily anticipating the next demented turn.

As we move into Act Two, the capture of prime suspect Big Fate (Xzibit) takes a back seat as McDonagh falls further down the addiction rabbit hole—prompting him to steal from the evidence locker, shake down locals for drugs, and threaten a college football prodigy to take a dive. And then the iguanas make the first of their appearances, to the strains of Ray Charles’ “Please Release Me”, which may or may not be a hallucination…ditto the break dancing spirit of a slain drug dealer.

Suffice to say, this is one batshit insane experience--either a post-modern stunt secretly co-conspired with Ferrara to deliver the biggest “screw you” to anyone who would dare suggest art-house-royalty would even consider slumming in a potential franchise; or, an operatic indictment of corrupt American authority post-Katrina (evidence tampering, the denial of civil rights, forced confessions); or dare-I-suggest something entirely new...?

McDonagh is the child of an alcoholic—his ex-cop father and new wife (Coolidge) are losing their battle with the bottle—offering a glimmer of insight as to his fall from grace. But Herzog doesn’t sentimentalize or judge his behavior—the tone is oddly celebratory of McDonagh’s unbridled indulgence, as if the director sees him as a force of masculine bravado ala the late Klaus Kinski's Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre all-but-extinct from modern movie screens (but living well on cable, thankyouverymuch, thanks to series like "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad"). Perversely, Cage’s “out there” performance manages to anchor the film in “unreliable narrator” territory, and one could make the case that he’s channeling Kinski at every turn out of reverence for his director—if we weren’t already familiar with the bop-eyed/cackling/lurching-around-like-Dwight-Fry-in-a-Kabuki-Theatre-production shtick he’s been peddling since “Vampire’s Kiss”.

By all accounts, "Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans" marked a successful collaboration between the mad-German-visionary and the fallen-A-lister-in-need-of-redemption, one that bodes well for future partnerships. Unlike the director's former favorite leading man, Cage kept his tantrums onscreen, and Herzog wasn't moved to pull a gun.

Some moviegoers, on the other hand, might feel otherwise…

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: UP IN THE AIR

2009-09-16T22:12:00.000-04:00

UP IN THE AIR
(Gala Presentation)
(USA, 2009, 108 minutes)
Written by: Sheldon Turner and Jason Reitman
Directed by: Jason Reitman
Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Danny McBride, J.K. Simmons

George Clooney’s easy, unforced charm and Jason Reitman’s confident direction propel this breezy but unexpectedly astringent comedy/drama about lives adrift across America circa today--some cruelly jettisoned by the realities of the workplace, others hovering noncommittally by conscious choice. Likely to be promoted as a feel-good date flick, “Up In The Air” is a remarkably astute film considering its director is barely past thirty.

Ryan Bingham (Clooney, never better) has been getting a lot of work lately, flying about the U.S. first-class with a single purpose: to fire people. Hardly a cold-blooded corporate axe-man, he feels genuine compassion for his clients, and has even convinced himself that his dismantling of their predictable careers is a gift of liberation; a kick-start to a worthier life path. For fun, he embraces the finest hotel pampering and the anticipation of finally acquiring ten million frequent flyer miles. During a stay in Atlanta, he enjoys a tryst with fellow, but oh-so-feminine free spirit Alex (Farmiga)--“think of me as you with a vagina” she purrs--who seems to share Bingham’s mantra best summed up in his popular motivational speech: “The slower we move the faster we die…moving is living…We are not swans. We are sharks.”

Summoned back to headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska (where he maintains an apartment for the whole seventy days of the year he stays put), Bingham meets Natalie (Kendrick), a pompous young Ivy Leaguer who has convinced his boss (Bateman) that video conferencing is a more tactful and, of course, cost-saving way to terminate employees. Bingham counters that her solution is ineffective and inhumane, and to prove it, takes her on the road with him, arranging to meet Alex again along the way. Having to face the tears and desperation of those made “redundant” without the safety of a monitor, Natalie struggles with the moral consequences of her profession, and Bingham with those of his chosen lifestyle, once Alex reveals herself to be too perfect a fantasy…

Based on Walter Kirn’s 2001 novel, “Up In The Air” emanates rare intelligence and humanity without being twee or self-consciously arty. At first, it seems as if we’re being set up for the dreaded Everyone Learns A Valuable Lesson parable, and for the most part, they do—as do we, at least, those of us who’ve come to dread the star-powered romantic comedy. Reitman and co. delight in setting up potentially hackneyed developments and then skewing expectations--in many ways, I couldn’t help but think of Michael Clayton, in which Clooney assayed a similar role as a world-weary “bagman” for corporations, which had the veneer and structure of a Grisham-issue legal thriller but ultimately proved to be something much more complex and reflective.

Clooney’s unique gift is his ability to show vulnerability without resorting to histrionics. He seems at home in the antiseptic airports, lounges, and hotel rooms, which had me thinking of his role as Chris Kelvin in “Solaris”, another role in which you could see the cracks forming in his roguish facade. In a fun running gag, he accepts the challenge to photograph a cardboard cutout of his betrothed sister and her fiancee (McBride) against various landmarks as a wedding gift.

Kendrick steps out of her leading man’s shadow as Natalie—no small feat, that--who could’ve been the film’s one false note. Initially, she seems to have stepped out of the supporting cast of “The Office” as a cold-blooded corporate drone, but gradually, her buttoned-up automaton is worn down by the fall-out of her career’s demands, and a nuanced, fragile person emerges, one whose Prince Charming fantasy of marriage and family is a defense mechanism and a blinder to the real world around her.

“Up In The Air” is also a remarkably ballsy film, daring to risk alienating a large part of the potential audience by seeking laughs from the all-too-serious subject of workplace downsizing (at the time of this writing, the U.S. unemployment rate is hovering just below a depressing 10%).Whereas in the last Great Depression most comedies aimed to be distractions from the problems of the world, this one confronts the realities of our age head on. It’s in these sequences where the film is most affecting. Reitman shot scenes with real people talking about what how being fired has affected their lives and self-esteem, and he’s interspersed these bits ala “Reds” and “When Harry Met Sally” with scripted moments, including two particularly powerful scenes with a combative Zach Galifianakis and a broken J.K. Simmons (his second memorable cameo of TIFF 2009, following his turn as a war-vet science teacher in “Jennifer’s Body”), respectively.

Reitman’s now three-for-three, an impressive track record for someone so young, and who obviously had to overcome suspicions of nepotism, which should now be extinguished once and for all. The term “Reitmanesque” is well on its way to entering the lexicon of film terminology--with apologies to his father, who was on his way to claiming the term for himself until he decided a pregnant Arnold Schwarzenegger was a sure-fire idea...

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: THE BOYS ARE BACK

2009-09-14T23:13:00.003-04:00

THE BOYS ARE BACK
(Special Presentations)
(Australia/United Kingdom, 2009. 104 minutes)
Written by: Allan Cubitt
Directed by: Scott Hicks
Cast: Clive Owen, Nicholas MacNulty, George MacKay, Laura Fraser, Emma Booth, Alexandra Shepisi

I made room for this one in my screening schedule because after a full week of near dawn-‘til-dusk angst and allegory, I craved a film I could connect with on an emotional, balls-to-the-wall sentimental level, cynics be damned. This year was my first TIFF as a new parent, you see, and a film about fatherhood was just the thing to assuage my guilt for being at the movies all day and NOT at home with my beautiful twin boys.

Prestige-picture stalwart Scott Hicks helms this heavily fictionalized adaptation of Simon Carr’s 2000 memoir, which imposes a fairly standard structure on the reporter’s anecdotal chronicle and strives admirably (and somewhat achingly in parts) to avoid TV movie clichés (which ultimately proves to be a vain pursuit).

Here, Carr becomes Joe Warr, a sports writer who has lost his wife, once a promising jockey, and struggles to raise their six year old son Artie, who still hasn’t full comprehended his mother’s passing. When Harry, his teenaged son from a previous marriage, comes to visit from England and decides he wants to stay, Joe finds his “free range” style challenged by the older boy who was raised in a more traditional, structured environment. Almost immediately after arriving, Harry reluctantly assumes the parental role that his father falls short of amidst the meddling of his in-laws and the growing pressures of his publisher.

Clive Owen, normally cast as the hard-wired laconic type, gets to loosen up as the befuddled widower whose motto “Just say yes” raises a few eyebrows from helicopter-parent-types (as well as the requisite comely single mom) who don’t respond warmly to poppa’s permissive nature. So while the youngest boy sits on the car hood as Joe speeds along the beach (dad’s probably not wearing a seat belt, either) and the house resembles a fetid trash dump, everyone learns an important lessen about individual responsibility—arguably, the result of Joe’s own extended-adolescence as it is a carefully honed manifesto. Thankfully, isn’t played for sitcom-y laughs: when Joe leaves town to cover the Australian open for his newspaper, the boys are left to their own devices (guess what can go wrong with that plan?) and the house is nearly destroyed by a teen house party that goes dingo.

Owen is aided immensely by two terrific young actors who are far removed from the cloying moppets of who tend to populate these sorts of undertakings and spend most of their screen time dropping would-be clever zingers from writers several times their age. As Artie, Nicholas McAnulty is largely required to be cute and precocious but reveals conflicted emotions behind all that unbridled, alpha-male energy. George MacKay (who might remind some viewers a little of “Harry Potter”s Rupert Grint), as the older and sensitive Harry, struggles to fit in with his new family and takes his missteps and perceived disappointments harder than his father does.

In the film’s second half, Harry returns home to his mother, prompting Joe to own up to his responsibilities and attempt to woo him back, with Artie in tow. It all builds to a climactic reunion on a London subway platform that relies a bit too much on coincidence (doesn’t anyone ever get stuck in traffic jams or have trouble hailing a cab?) and isn’t the only irksome contrivance in an otherwise well-meaning and potent romp.

Obvious and unnecessary are the visitations of his late wife’s ghost, in the Jiminy Cricket role as Joe’s troubled conscience. The initial flashback scenes with Joe and Katy (Laura Fraser) coping with the messy realities of her debilitating condition and planning for Artie’s life without her are sufficiently raw and heart-wrenching without the inclusion of a now overused convention that even “Rescue Me” dropped after a few seasons. Also, Joe’s fledging relationship with a classmate’s mother begins to crackle (after the initial meet-cute dialogue) before this turn is drop-kicked from the narrative entirely once the events leave Australia.

Mind you, very few “dads”—single or otherwise—are fortunate enough to eke out a living at a financial level where one can just fly halfway around the world to make amends with estranged lovers and children. I wasn’t expecting Ken Loach or Roberto Rossellini kitchen sink realism here, but more than once I found myself mentally quoting Elaine from “Seinfeld”: “Give me something I can use.”

The film is best taken on an episodic level, with most of its virtues found in the performances and gorgeously photographed Southern Australia scenery (further idealized by the accompaniment of Sigur Rós’ dreamy score), pamphlets for which should be handed out to grief counselors the world over.

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: THE ROAD

2009-09-13T23:49:00.002-04:00

THE ROAD
(Special Presentations)
(USA, 2009, 119 minutes)
Written by: Joe Penhall
Directed by: John Hillcoat
Cast: Viggo Mortenson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Garrett Dillahunt, Michael Kenneth Williams, Guy Pearce

This long-awaited adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel demanded a careful touch, given that without the author’s precise--and for some impenetrable--literary voice, this simply-plotted parable of “borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it” could’ve ended up as little more than an art house version of “The Road Warrior”.

It was unlikely that the Coen brothers would be available, or even willing, to take another swing so soon after their definitive screen translation of McCarthy’s “No Country For Old Men”. Thankfully, the cinematically-robust material —which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and have its reclusive creator break his publicity silence via Oprah’s Book Club of all things--found its way to John Hillcoat, who gave us “The Proposition”. An Australian riff on “Heart Of Darkness”, its unflinching portrayal of betrayal and bloodshed, played out through ravaged faces and landscapes, bore an uncanny kinship to McCarthy’s anti-westerns “The Border Trilogy” and “Blood Meridian”, declaring the Hamilton, Ontario-born director a perfect fit.

Set a decade after an unnamed apocalypse has turned the world into a wasteland where the sky constantly rains ash (the obvious assumption is a nuclear catastrophe) and only insects and humans have survived, “The Road” refers literally and metaphorically to the perilous route The Man (Mortenson) and his son (Smit-McPhee) navigates to the coast, which the father believes to be a sanctuary. He is haunted by memories of his wife (Theron) who chose suicide over having to face, as McCarthy puts it, “the crushing black vacuum of the universe”. Her idealistic husband (a former doctor) fled their home to forge a more hopeful future. At night he reads to his son to instill a moral code, by teaches him survival skills so that he will “carry the fire”. Other than a cart of crude supplies, The Man’s only possession is a pistol containing two bullets, one for each of them, should they fall prey to the roaming mobs of interlopers who have succumbed to cannibalism as the last desperate act of survival.

While some moviegoers will be attracted by the obvious genre elements—bombed-out cities, some brief gunplay and chases, posses of flesh-eating, white trash goons—“The Road” is the farthest thing from an adventure film (although parts of it are thrilling) and much closer in sensibility and tone to Cornel Wilde’s “No Blade Of Grass” or the British television serial “The Survivors”. Playwright Joe Penhall’s screenplay expands the wife’s role in flashbacks and eliminates some of the novel’s more extreme imagery (esp. the grisly fate of a pregnant woman and her unborn child) but otherwise adheres to McCarthy’s prose beat for beat. Mortenson’s voice-overs are verbatim from the text, but wisely not overused.

Two pivotal set pieces from the book are memorably realized: the pair’s armrest-ripping escape from a house of all-too-human horrors, and a lyrical interlude in a fallout shelter, where the boy giddily enjoys the pleasures of a safe bed, canned fruit, and Coca-Cola.

A mangy, emaciated Mortenson is perfectly cast as The Man, haunted by ghosts and anticipating menace at every turn and yet who must maintain the illusion of “hope” his son needs to move on. Smit-McPhee is a bit older and better fed than the child in the novel, but brings a resemblance to Theron and the appropriate innocence to the role. Also worth noting are memorable cameos from a heartbreaking Robert Duvall, the ever-reliable Garrett Dillahunt (shaping up as this generation’s Bruce Dern), “The Wire”s Michael Kenneth Williams, and blink-and-you’ll-miss-him Guy Pearce (who starred in “The Proposition”)as fellow wanderers.

It’s appropriate that the film was shot on real American locations laid waste by disasters both natural and man-made. Production designer Chris Kennedy and DOP Javier Aguirresarobe masterfully paint a portrait of a dead world (“streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor” to intrude with another of my favorite passages) from the worst areas of Pittsburgh and the derelict Pennsylvania Turnpike, to post-Hurricane Katrina Louisiana, and the still-petrified Mount St. Helen’s in Washington. They’re complimented by a spare score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis that might be a tad too winsome for such bleak dramatics, but is perhaps intended to be representative of the Man’s undaunted spirit. It all works, even though there’ll be many-a-moment where you’ll wish it didn’t…

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: HARRY BROWN

2009-09-13T23:49:00.001-04:00

HARRY BROWN
(Special Presentations)
(United Kingdom, 2009, 97 minutes)
Written by: Gary Young
Directed by: Daniel Barber
Cast: Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Charlie Creed-Miles, David Bradley

Director Daniel Barber defines his debut feature “Harry Brown” as a story that “needed to be told”. Star Sir Michael Caine related to the character, an ex-soldier with working class roots appalled by the current state of England’s youth, and did the film as a “warning to British society”. But for all of its supposed urgency, it’s just another tale of a good man Who Can’t Take It Anymore--“Death Wish” with hoodies and chavs…

Ex-marine Harry Brown (Caine) idles away his days in a tenement flat studying chess masters like Bobby Fisher, exiting only to console his dying wife in the hospital. Outside, the grounds are overrun with angry punks of all ages who resort to violence as much for sport as urban survival. After his wife passes way, Harry finds some comfort with his veteran friend Leonard (David Bradley) at the neighborhood pub, where they witness a brazen public drug deal, prompting Len to admit that he carries a bayonet as protection from the crime that’s overrun the city.

When detectives Frampton (Emily Mortimer) and Hicock (Charlie Creed-Miles) arrive to inform him of Len’s death from a brutal beating, Harry fears he could well be next and craves justice. He follows dealer Kenny (Joseph Gilgun) to his grow-op under the auspices of purchasing an illegal gun, where he’s introduced to paranoid mastermind Sid (Liam Cunningham), who keeps his girlfriend stoned and becomes increasingly suspicious of Harry’s queries. A gunfight erupts, in which Harry kills them both. He drives the girl to the hospital and drops the drug money in a church donation box.

News of a vigilante panics the authorities, who are plotting a massive raid on the complex. Frampton and Hicock question several young suspects, all of whom are turned loose for lack of evidence, which prompts Harry to even more extreme measures…until things go off the rails with a third act plot twist hardly worthy of your average TV cop show…

Screenwriter Gary Young may have aspired to splash about in the minimalist kitchen sink realism of a filmmaker like Shane Meadows, but this thin, button-pushing scenario doesn’t add a damn thing to what Michael Winner’s “Death Wish” and Phil Karlson’s “Walking Tall” (both 1974) and their respective sequels, rip-offs, and remakes (Lewis Teague’s “Fighting Back”, James Glickenhaus’ “Exterminator” series) explored (and exploited) decades ago. The major twist here is that Harry is nearly an octogenarian, but Charles Bronson was well into his 70s when he starred in the last two “Death Wish” entries, and in last year’s surprise hit “Grand Torino”, 78-year old Clint Eastwood also played a senior war vet driven to vigilantism to protect his dwindling middle-class neighborhood.

But that film at least attempted to give some depth and personalities to its troubled youths, even if it wallowed in caricatures and fell short of “The Wire”. In “Harry Brown”, goons Kenny and Sid are such ridiculously loathsome caricatures--all multiple-piercing, tattoos, rotting teeth, and jaundiced flesh--that they look like they stepped out the casting lineup for the remake of Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser”. Others are typically foul-mouthed rotters who dash about in the dark like Street Thunder from John Carpenter’s original “Assault On Precinct 13”, a film that made no attempt to humanize crime but deliberately presented its gang members as relentless phantoms. There are some tense scenes here and there and the climactic drug raid, which erupts into a fiery tempest of police vs. civilian violence, is well-staged.

Caine, of course, brings more poignancy to material than it deserves. While the actor insists in the press notes that the film doesn’t “glamorize violence”, he contradicts himself in another statement by regarding “Harry Brown” an “urban western”, and he’s not far off. The deck is so heavily stacked in Harry’s favor that to doubt this decrepit good citizen’s crusade for even a second suggests a lack of human blood in one’s veins—there’s about as much moral gray area here as in a Tom Mix two-reeler (the final showdown is in the local saloon), but at only 97 minutes, it’s thankfully not much longer…

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD

2009-09-13T23:06:00.010-04:00

GEORGE A. ROMERO’S SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD
(Midnight Madness)
(Canada, 2009, 88 minutes)
Written by: George A. Romero
Directed by: George A. Romero
Cast: Alan van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Barry Fitzgerald, Kathleen Munroe, Devon Bostwick, Athena Karakanis

George A. Romero returns to a more conventional narrative approach in “Survival Of The Dead”, which should win back some of the purists put off by “Diary Of The Dead”s foray into “new media” experimentation as he rebooted his four-decade-old franchise for a new century (and new home, since he relocated to Toronto). His second Canadian-produced feature (and fourth-shot, after "Bruiser", “Land Of The Dead” and “Diary”) finds the former Pittsburgh native taking advantage of rural Ontario’s bucolic landscapes and regional colour to stage his latest zombie allegory as a modern-day “western”—specifically, a tribute to William Wyler’s “The Big Country”, as he slyly quipped in his introduction.

Turns out he wasn’t kidding: When Colonel “Nicotine” Crockett (van Sprang), whom we first met in “Diary”, fights through the zombie hordes (“Deadheads”, as they’ve been nicknamed) to escape to the promised safety of Plum Island, he and his dwindling troupe, which includes a few surviving Delaware National Guardsmen and a nameless teen (Bostwick) who’s a crack shot, find themselves unwilling participants in an ongoing feud between two combustible Irish families. Only six days in, the outbreak has already spread to this remote haven, and the hot-tempered xenophobe Patrick O’Flynn (Welsh) believes the only way to deal with the problem is to shoot ‘em in the head--family, friend, or otherwise. Across the island, Seamus Muldoon (Fitzpatrick) insists a cure will be found, so he orders the newly-resurrected rounded up and contained on his ranch. When O’Flynn’s daughter Janet (Munroe) becomes infected, O’Flynn’s extreme stance is tested, but not at the expense of his hatred for his lifelong rival…

“Survival” is a unique entry in the saga in that it features returning characters from the previous installment, and the passage of time between films is only a few days (as opposed to an entirely new decade, as has been the tradition since “Night”). It’s also only the second to be shot widescreen, using the much-heralded Red Camera HD system.

A brisk 90 minutes, “Survival” is Romero’s shortest chapter yet and is the most jovial, aided immensely by Canadian character pros Welsh and Fitzpatrick, who are clearly having a blast (literally) as trigger-happy foes who’ve carried their mutual loathing into their autumnal years, for reasons never really explained.

He provides plenty of opportunities to showcase Spin FX's computer-generated gore, and while the pageant of seemingly infinite zombie splatter is more convincing (and, as Romero defends to the anti-CG brigade, easier and less expensive from a filmmaking perspective), it lacks the homespun charm and genuine awe factor of Tom Savini’s latex and karo syrup practical gags (which, because they were shot live on location, always seemed more integral to the narrative).

The creator of the most potent supernatural allegory since the vampire has seen his concepts pillaged, and some would say even eclipsed, by countless rip-offs, remakes, and tributes since Bill Hinzman first lurched at Judith O’Dea in the Evans City Cemetery in 1968. While clearly there’s a statement being made here about the futility of revenge and bred-in-the-bone prejudice, Romero seems to just want to have fun this time out, serving up plenty of gunplay and slapstick, incorporating a goofy plot twist involving a twin, and a recurring riff on whether the ghouls can be conditioned into eating something other than human flesh (the answer is "yes", btw, in the series' most bizarre plot turn since Bub dispatched Rhodes with a salute in "Day Of The Dead").

Artfire Films has secured distribution rights to "Survival Of The Dead" for Canada, the UK, Japan, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia, but curiously, a release date has yet to be determined for the U.S. at the time of this writing.

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: CREATION

2009-09-13T21:33:00.003-04:00

CREATION
(Gala Presentation)
(United Kingdom, 2009, 108 minutes)
Written by: John Collee
Based upon “Annie’s Box” by Randal Keynes
Directed by: John Amiel
Cast: Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Martha West, Jeremy Northram, Timothy Spall,
Toby Jones

The ordinarily staid Toronto International Film Festival kicked off with a healthy dose of controversy this year with Naomi Klein-and-company’s organized protest against its "Spotlight On Tel Aviv", and by eschewing CanCon tradition in awarding the Opening Night Gala slot to the kind of earnest, big-themed actor-ly piece seemingly engineered exclusively for festivals. It’s not bad in and of its type, but with a title like “Creation”, the average viewer should expect something more grandiose than this dour, housebound melodrama which consists largely of people squabbling in period garb. And when one of the squabblers is none other than Charles Darwin, author of what has rightly been called the most important idea ever conceived outside of the Big Bang Theory, a tale of procrastination and writer’s block comes off as a bit of a let down, especially without the Charlie Kaufman touch.

Controversy should have followed this well-intentioned, handsomely-mounted BBC Films/UK Film Council production, given the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design imbroglio still raging in America’s schools and churches (six months into President Obama’s first term, the fringe crackpots only seem to be gaining momentum, so don’t expect to see that saddled dinosaur robot on eBay any time soon…). Early accusations of it being an atheistic screed are laughably overstated--John Collee’s script is rather toothless this respect, focusing on the years before Darwin published his incendiary “On Origin Of The Species”...

Based on the novel Annie's Box, by Randal Keynes (Darwin's great-great-grandson!), “Creation” follows an ailing, grief-stricken Darwin (Bettany) at his country house in Kent, as he aches over the loss of his ten-year old daughter Annie (Martha West, daughter of “The Wire”s Dominic West) and struggles to find the courage to complete the 200-plus pages of what will ultimately become his defining work. His heretical theories are well-known to the locals, especially to the church, much to the distress of his religious wife Emma (Connelly), who dreads the repurcussions on their social standing and their children. When he learns that a colleague and fellow naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, has already published an essay proposing virtually identical evolutionary theories, he becomes even more despondent...

John Amiel’s workmanlike direction only comes alive in the fleeting glimpses of Darwin’s seminal voyage to the Galapagos Islands on the H.M.S. Beagle, where he was inspired to devise the theory of natural selection, and in an extended subplot recounting his heartbreaking relationship with Jenny, a young orangutan at the London Zoo from whose behavior he concluded that so-called ‘human’ qualities as altruism, empathy, and morality were part of nature.

There’s a little “Inherit the Wind”-type debating between Darwin and Reverend Inness (Northram), a hiss-able pious prick who once made Annie kneel in rock salt for questioning a Bible lesson. And a team of supportive scientists (Jones and Spall) credit him for “killing God”. And of course, Annie appears throughout in spectral form to act as her father’s conscience, not unlike Clive Owen’s dead wife in “The Boys Are Back”—something of a through-line I saw in a handful of films at this year’s TIFF.

As Darwin’s conflicted, religious wife Connelly affects a convincing British accent but otherwise isn’t given much to do but fret prettily as the wife/mother beyond the requisite “you care more about—insert subject of film here—than you do about me/us/our children” scenes--pretty much the same role for which she won the Oscar in “A Beautiful Mind”.

Bettany invests his all, though--paler than usual and sporting a bad comb over and even worse sideburns—while on familiar ground as well, having already played a fictionalized version of Darwin in the far more awe-inspiring “Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World”.

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: THE HOLE

2009-09-12T22:52:00.002-04:00

THE HOLE
(Special Presentations)
(USA, 2009, 98 minutes)
Written by: Mark L. Smith
Directed by: Joe Dante
Cast: Chris Massoglia, Nathan Gamble, Haley Bennett, Quinn Lord, Teri Polo, Bruce Dern

Any new film by Joe Dante is a cause for celebration in this reviewer’s wholly biased opinion—sorry, QT, but the Corman-mentored/former “Castle Of Frankenstein” movie critic-turned-trailer-cutter-turned director was the pioneer of ebullient nerdfests overstuffed with high-and-lowbrow references and a giddy celebration of “movie reality” at its most spectacular and craptacular. But this truncated encounter will have to do for now, because my viewing of “The Hole” is an unfinished one. Fifteen minutes before the already-brief film would have ended, the fire alarm at the Ryerson Theatre wailed like a banshee from the bottom of the titular chasm and forced evacuation, delaying the climactic showdown with the ultimate Deadbeat Dad for another day (as yet undetermined, but hopefully soon)…

Up until then, it was certainly an engaging, PG-spook fest: when seventeen-year old Dane (Massoglia) and his younger brother Lucas (Gamble) relocate from Manhattan to the cozy hamlet of Bensonville with their mother (Polo), they find some excitement in the form of Julie (Bennett), the precocious teen beauty next door who not only reads heady tomes by Plath and Dante (cute) but is popular enough to throw the most awesome townie pool parties.

Exploring the basement of their modest bungalow, the boys uncover a padlocked trap door that leads to…well…nothing. After a series of tests and experiments, including lowering a camcorder into the seemingly limitless abyss (punctuated by one hell of a delicious big boo), it’s clear they’ve unleashed something as varying forms of supernatural mayhem begin to manifest themselves, including a ghostly little girl, the most frightening clown puppet since “Poltergeist” (but don’t tell Charles Band), and the boys’ absentee father, an abusive thug who has lived on in their frightened consciences through bad memories and letters from jail, but who has found a direct line back into their lives via The Hole…

Hardly sporting the most original hook—isn’t this essentially the plot of every other book ever written by R.L. Stine? (it also shares a title with a recent British thriller starring Thora Birch and Kiera Knightly)—“The Hole” could be cynically dismissed as another attempt to woo the tween/”Twilight” demographic. Writer Mark L. Smith, who gave us the nifty “Vacancy”, is obviously a student of the genre, having shamelessly pillaged from Tibor Takacs’ “The Gate” to Bernard Rose’s “Paperhouse” to Hideo Nakata’s “Ringu”, but keeps his paranormal shenanigans strictly on the family-friendly level. This poses no problem whatsoever for the consistently-inventive Dante, who infuses the material with the same demented wit he brought to his breakthrough hit “Gremlins”, and palpable affection for his young cast.

Otherwise, he plays it mostly straight here, with fewer genre samples and cameos than usual—but Bruce Dern is back from “The ‘Burbs” in full-throttle Crazy Ralph mode as the local kook who knows a thing or two about the town’s history (his H.Q. is the Orlac Glove Factory), and yes, that’s Dick Miller as the baffled pizza guy.

Despite his obvious jones for notorious cinematic hucksters like Corman and gimmick king William Castle, Dante shows surprising restraint with the stereoscopic technology, which certainly improves with each successive release (and there will be more—so many in fact, that “The Hole” won a Best 3D Film Of The Year (!) award at this year’s Venice Film Festival). Sure, a few things come popping out of frame and are tossed directly into the lens ala Dr. Tongue to elicit a cheap and easy “whoa!” from the viewer—hey, it works—but “The Hole” is one of the most immersive 3D experiences I’ve yet seen, with the creepy confines of the house nicely augmented by the additional spatial distance (and some bone-rattling audio work), and climb up a rickety derelict rollercoaster guaranteed to induce vertigo…

Even with its rich atmosphere, charming chemistry of its cast, and admirable respect for the viewer’s intelligence and patience, “The Hole” could have a tough time finding an audience. Gen Y-ers seeking scares can and likely have witnessed much more extreme exercises in terror with the click of a Torrent, and fans of Dante’s early work might find a cast of teens only slightly less appealing than Brendan Fraser and the major stars of Looney Tunes.

But Bruce Dern and Dick Miller in 3D—as if you need another reason to go…

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: DAYBREAKERS

2009-09-12T22:31:00.001-04:00

DAYBREAKERS
(Midnight Madness)
(Australia/USA, 2009, 98 minutes)
Written by: Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig
Directed by: Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan, Vincent Colosimo

As anyone who’s slogged through the “Underworld” series can attest, a nifty take on the established lore, state-of-the-art CG, and that de rigueur steely blue sheen do not necessarily guarantee a great vampire movie. In a reversal on the “Blade” series’ notion of a secret vampire society with its own economy, code, and caste system, Michael and Peter Spierig’s “Daybreakers” proposes an intriguing expansion on Richard Matheson’s original hook for “I Am Legend”: what if the world was not only overrun by bloodsuckers, but what if the conditions of the mutation had been naturally assimilated into civilization? Ten years after the outbreak, in the year 2019, cars are now manufactured with an option for daylight driving (shuttered windshields, interior video assist), cities offer an underground “Subwalk” galleria for AM coming-and-going, gated communities afford properties that can protect from UV rays, coffee shops offer hemoglobin as a flavour shot, billboards champion fang whiteners, and Uncle Sam points out from recruitment posters to join the good fight against the human resistance.
Some vampires, like hematologist Edward Dalton (Hawke) refuse to consume human blood (pigs will do) and toil to invent a blood substitute. Others merrily hunt them for sport or patriotic duty. While humans are outnumbered, their extinction is not to the vampires’ gain: with only 5% of the human population left, the world is faced with a blood shortage which is already inspiring riots and public executions of disfigured, bat-like vamps—“subsiders”--who dare to feed on their own kind out of desperate hunger.

While the Spierigs have certainly thought about their premise from the inside-out and have fun painting in the margins, what constitutes a surface plot takes its cues from the Syd Field playbook with disappointing blandness, considering the potential for a truly unique entry amidst the current glut of vampire revisionism. The script is occasionally witty (on his birthday, Dalton quips “I’ve turned 35 ten times already” and “life’s a bitch, then you don’t die”) and the cast (mostly) has fun with the concept. Sam Neill lets ‘er rip at the evil corporate head of Bromley-Marks who’s not above turning his own daughter into a bloodsucker, while Willem Dafoe channels Levon Helm as a human-turned vampire-turned back to human “Che” of the human resistance (nicknamed “Elvis”). Unfortunately, our lead is Ethan Hawke as Dalton, the vampire scientist who spends most of the movie with his usual disaffected facial expression, like he’s still irked that nobody liked his novel “The Hottest State”. When he ultimately conceives of a cure for the entire vampire plague, his commitment to the cause seems dutiful more than impassioned.

Conveniently, the human underground have set up their base camp in a former vineyard, which provides Dalton—now a fugitive for his human sympathizing, and hunted by his soldier brother--with the inspiration to cure human blood of its unnatural, transformative impurities through a unique take on wine fermentation (actually, he’s inspired by Dafoe’s account of his reverting back to a human state after a nasty car accident that set him on fire…I spent a bit of time researching fanboy comments on the internet and frankly still don’t get it).

The Spierigs made an impressive debut with 2003’s “Undead”, which basically was about alien-inspired zombies, and will forever be known to local audiences as the last film ever to be screened at the Uptown Cinema. They’ve got a great collective eye for composition and ideas to burn, obviously, but considering the six years it took to finally produce a followup, it’s a shame that “Daybreakers”s wild concepts and clever details are burdened by a convoluted, logy screenplay that relies on exploding bodies and one too many car chases…

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: SUCK

2009-09-12T20:29:00.002-04:00

SUCK
(Contemporary World Cinema)
(Canada, 2009, 90 minutes)
Written by: Rob Stefaniuk
Directed by: Rob Stefaniuk
Cast: Rob Stefaniuk , Jessica Pare, Malcolm McDowell, Alice Cooper,

"Suck"…doesn’t…so let’s move on…

Just when it seemed like the last thing the world needed was another musical-horror-comedy-cult-flick-wannabe (a moment of silence for “Repo! The Genetic Opera” and Troma’s “Poultreygeist”) along comes this off-the-radar charmer from Canada that successfully dishes out all three with enthusiasm and aplomb while mining some pretty well-worn terrain (Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr, and Freddie Francis beat ‘em to it). Prospects for a “Rocky Horror”-caliber future are unlikely given today’s short-attention-span climate, but “Suck” is nonetheless a damn funny movie.

Rob Stefaniuk, whose 2004 debut “Phil The Alien” left no impression this reviewer whatsoever, wrote and directed this rollicking road movie that follows the unexceptional bar band The Winners (named after lead singer Joel Winner, also played by Stefaniuk) from the dingiest rock clubs of Montreal to Toronto to Buffalo to Manhattan as they hope to score a shot at the big time, despite advice from their manager (Dave Foley) that they should give up. The night before they embark (in their hearse) to a gig in Toronto, group bassist Jennifer (Jessica Pare—leading one to ask, Megan Fox Who?) returns from an overnight tryst with a ghoulish admirer and begins to exhibit some strange qualities: pale skin, an aversion to daylight, and a thirst for blood. While their hapless French-Canadian roadie Hugo gets stuck with the dirty work of cleaning up after a vampire, the band begins to experience unheard of success as Jennifer’s unique stage presence becomes a huge draw. Pursuing them is the combustible, eye-patched “Eddy” Van Helsing (Malcolm McDowell, who left “subtlety” back at Heathrow a long time ago), a descendent of the infamous vampire hunting family who’s afraid of the dark and seeks vengeance against uber-vamp The Queen (Dimitri Coates of the Philadelphia-based Burning Brides) for taking the life of his lounge-singer girlfriend back in the 70s.

Stefaniuk’s directorial skills have improved immensely since his debut: the road structure provides an effective hook so what we’re left with is not just another rudderless gag-fest ala the “Scary Movie” franchise. There’s a group dynamic amongst the band members—who one-by-one line up to volunteer to be Jennifer’s dinner—that rings true. Hipster cameo king Iggy Pop appears briefly as a reclusive producer, as do Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins, and most memorably, Moby as a G.G. Allin-type punk rocker (a non-vegan, too!), and Rush guitar Alex Lifeson in a hilarious deadpan turn as a U.S. border guard (he just might have a future in acting if the whole music thing doesn’t work out).

For Van Helsing’s flashback scenes to his 70s love-affair with a lounge singer (Barbara Mamabolo), snippets of a young Malcolm McDowell smoking and drinking from the orgy sequence in Lindsay Anderson’s classic “O Lucky Man!” are cleverly employed and rerun to hilarious effect, as if to acknowledge that the production could only afford to license a few seconds of a major studio release.

Inspired graphic flourishes include animated maps and stop-motion travel shots that suggest equal parts Ralph Steadman and Tim Burton, sly visual nods to genre founding fathers Murnau and Browning, and some winks to iconic music images like the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road (duh!) and T. Rex’s “Electric Warrior” (beautifully done).

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: ENTER THE VOID

2009-09-11T23:44:00.001-04:00

ENTER THE VOID
(Vanguards)
(France, 2009, 155 minutes)
Written by: Gaspar Noé
Directed by: Gaspar Noé
Cast: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy

Gaspar Noé has produced only three features in eleven years, but he certainly labours to make each one memorable. His films don’t so much aspire to entertain the viewer as they do to pummel him/her into feeling something—anything--usually revulsion...

Considering the steady dump of impersonal hackwork in theatres on any given weekend, this commands a certain amount of respect. But I’ve long suspected that his fly-on-the-wall nihilism is a bit of a stunt, evidenced by the countdown clock to an impending bit of nauseating incestuous businesses in “I Stand Alone”, to the excruciating, single-take, nine-minute long rape of Monica Belluci in “Irreversible”. The Buenos Aries-born provocateur seems to be the answer to John Water’s lament for the lack of “showmanship” on the art house circuit. Think William Castle with indie cred.

With “Enter The Void”, Noé moves into Roger Corman territory circa “The Trip” by painstakingly simulating a drug experience (presumably one of his own) via one of the more avant-garde applications of CG. He opens with a neon sign flashing “Enter”, and then pulls back to the POV of Oscar (Nathaniel Brown—heard more than seen), a 20-something loser holed up in a Tokyo flat, bidding goodbye to his younger sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta) and then kicking back with a pipe and some primo DMT. From his POV, lights dim, colours swirl, and ceiling becomes alive with flowering fractals and writhing tentacles of light. It’s a long way from stock footage from AIP’s “The Terror” and “The Unearthly”. It also goes on for a very long time I must say—and got me wondering, as a non-drug user: wouldn’t it be something if cinema could evolve to simulate the sensory stimulation of chemical substances without the risk to one’s body and mind? And then I thought: why bother? Getting high looks an awful lot like the trip through V’Ger in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, and I’ve got that on DVD.

Oscar’s reverie is interrupted for a drug deal which takes him to the nearby sh*thole bar “The Void”. His bohemian painter pal Alex (Cyril Roy) warns that narcotics are dangerous (he’s not above using them, just not selling them) and remains outside. Inside, Oscar is double-crossed by his client Victor (because Oscar’s been sleeping with his cougar mom), and a sudden police raid climaxes in his being shot to death in the washroom. Oskar’s consciousness lives on, however, and his spirit floats from his body, taking in the crime scene, Alex’s panic, and flies to the sleazy club where Linda slums as a dancer (and a bit more).

Oscar watches passively from the afterlife for the remainder of the film’s ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE MINUTE running time, as the fallout of his death accelerates Linda’s and Alex’s respective downward spirals. The film’s second act, if there indeed is such a structure, shifts the focus to the third person, from just behind Oscar’s head and right shoulder, as he revisits his sister’s birth, his parent’s amorous activities and his Primal Scene moment, and the truly horrifying collision with an 18-wheeler that turns mom and dad into hamburger meat and leaves the children orphaned, and eventually, separated into foster homes.

With the third act, Noé returns to Oscar’s disembodied POV and the visuals get even more surreal: a model city of Tokyo becomes a dream palace where past, present, and presumably future converge, Oscar bears witness to Alex’s degeneration into homelessness, and watches his sister’s abortion of her boss’s love child (and in case you weren’t sickened enough, floats closer to an eyeball-searing inspection of the bloody fetus—take that Mr. Castle, with your Percept-O and Coward’s Corner!). Gradually, Linda and Alex overcome their poor lifestyle decisions and come together as lovers, unknowingly presenting Oscar a chance at potential rebirth…

Initially, Oscar has to physically fly from location to location, but eventually, discovers a way to travel via light sources (into the light bulb in his apartment, out the table lamp in Linda’s strip bar), but towards the end of the film, he seems to be able to travel at random (and absurdly so—he flies into a burning stove element in Linda’s apartment and then out of her navel in the abortion clinic!).

And Oscar is certainly a randy bit of ectoplasm, stopping to linger whenever possible on sexual acts from both internal and external POVs, occasionally entering the heads of various persons in the throes of eros to experience their sensation (including what it’s like to do his own sister…eww…) and into that same sister’s private parts to witness… well, you fill in the blank here.

Buddy Alex is a disciple of the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, which Oscar had only perused before his death, and this writer has not read at all (I’ve got a copy that came in a gift pack with some hot sauce). Presumably, there are parallels between the book and Noé’s structure and imagery that might resonate to those in-the-know.

Sure, it’s easy to be blithe towards a film like this, given its excessive running time and epic forays into the worst examples of directorial self-indulgence. But Noé is clearly a talented filmmaker with a desire to push and expand his chosen medium, and the choreography of camera, cast, locations, and post-production enhancements required to pull of such an illusion is nothing short of masterful. For all its in-your-face horror, “Irreversible”s structure worked backwards, cleverly, so that the final scenes of marital bliss were emotionally devastating given the viewer’s advance knowledge of the leads’ doomed fates. I felt nothing with Oscar’s possible reincarnation…only the fear of what I might see should his spirit become disembodied again and follow someone into the bathroom. Maybe tonight I’ll finally open The Tibetan Book Of The Dead and see if it all connects—if not, I’ll pass on the DMT, thanks, and take my chances with the hot sauce…

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: JENNIFER'S BODY

2009-09-11T22:22:00.001-04:00

JENNIFER’S BODY
(Midnight Madness)
(USA, 2009, 103 minutes)
Written by: Diablo Cody
Directed by: Karyn Kasuma
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Megan Fox, Adam Brody, JK Simmons

Diablo Cody’s much-anticipated follow-up to her Oscar-winning indie hit “Juno” has been salaciously previewed as homage to 80s horror films with the bodacious “It” girl Megan Fox as a succubae Freddy Krueger, but it turns out that “Jennifer’s Body” is not particularly effective or interesting as a horror film per se.

Directed with bland efficiency by Karyn Kasuma (whom no one will confuse with the second coming of John Carpenter or Wes Craven…or even Fran Rubel Kuzui for that matter), it works best when it plays up Cody’s mojo as the nought-generation’s heir to the throne of the late, great John Hughes, whose distinctive 80s works bestowed his teenage characters with a depth and dignity rarely seen in commercial cinema and whose influence has been openly acknowledged.

In truth, it may be “Jennifer’s Body” but it’s “Needy’s Movie”, Needy being the equally fetching Amanda Seyfried’s combination Molly Ringwald/Final Girl who unearths the secret behind her hottie BFF’s sudden change in behavior and diet. There are some standout moments—the fire that destroys the local roadhouse and claims the lives of several students and teachers echoes DePalma’s “Carrie” and the tragic 2003 Great White concert in Rhode Island, the fallout of trauma and mourning for students and staff is nicely observed, and the flashback to Fox’s brutal sacrifice at the hands of a vacuous, demonology-obsessed emo band is truly chilling, esp. with Adam Brody and his mates merrily crooning Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny”.

JK Simmons, Amy Sedaris, and Lance Henriksen turn in welcome cameos. True to modern day genre form, there’s plenty of gore and R-rated sex chat, but no nudity whatsoever, and I was at times irked by Cody’s brand of teenspeak jargon, which some viewers past “a certain age” will find only slightly more intelligible than Alex DeLarge’s narration in “A Clockwork Orange” (turns out if you’re “salty”, then you’re da bomb…sorry, wrong decade).

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2009: THE INFORMANT!

2009-09-11T21:19:00.002-04:00

THE INFORMANT!
(Special Presentations)
(USA, 2009, 120 minutes)
Written by: Scott Z. Burns
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Matt Damon, Melanie Lynskey, Scott Bakula, Joe McHale, Thomas F. Wilson

Since his last release was the polarizing HD-shot Godard-riff “The Girlfriend Experience”, it’s no surprise that Soderbergh’s followup is a more commercial effort, given his usual pattern of one-for-me/one-for-them post-“The Limey” (for what it’s worth, still my favorite Soderbergh film). Thankfully, whenever Soderbergh “slums” in the Hollywood sandbox, the results are still interesting (I still might be the world’s only passionate supporter of his “Criss Cross” remake “The Underneath” which he’s more or less disowned). While the premise of “The Informant!” doesn’t exactly smack of “box office”, it is a rollicking, uber-accessible work—at first glance another of those “inspired by a true story” prestige-wannabees just in time for Oscar season--headlined by Matt Damon, who clearly relished the opportunity to hide his pungacious, All-American looks behind a layer of paunch threatening to burst through the off-the-rack office attire, and a Sy Sperling hairpiece perched precariously atop a palour baked by flourescents.

But “The Informant!” is more reminiscent of the Coen Bros. downright misanthropic farce “Burn After Reading” than “Erin Brokovich” or that windshield wiper drama with Greg Kinnear. That’s because the title character is hardly a noble, destined-to-be-martyred whistle blower—Damon’s propensity for lying and inability to admit to any personal error defines the term “pathological”, although his later attempts to whitewash his behavior via medical and psychiatric means yield nothing to keep him (justly) out of the slammer (it’s that rare movie where you’re on the side of the Feds for a change…). I don’t know how much of this is actually “true”, but even if a sliver of the screenplay is based upon confirmed facts, then the recent collapse of America’s corporate culture makes a helluva lot more sense.

The incredible whirlwind of events begins when Michael Whitacre (Damon), an executive on the chain at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM, an Illinois agricultural conglomerate ) pulling down six figures despite no real skill or aptitude for business (he defines himself repeatedly as a “chemist”), approaches the FBI with confidential information regarding a global conspiracy in lysine price-fixing allegedly ordered from on high. The tenacious agents—played with winning chemistry and humanity by Scott Bakula and Joel McHale--initially believe Whitacre’s outrageous claims that at first seem noble, moral, and selfless, if at the expense of any common sense and personal gain. Of course, the entire conspiracy has been manufactured by Whitacre, initially because he’s vengeful and bored, but later to provide a smokescreen so he can embezzel tens of millions from the company. Whitacre is such a clueless dolt, the kind of middlebrow salaryman who finds inspirational quotes from in-flight magazines and regards Grisham as literature (even though he doesn’t really read the books, he just watches the movies), that it’s amazing that much more astute individuals—his bosses, the FBI, federal prosecutors, didn’t smell a rat earlier. But he’s an endearing doofus, and his ruse utterly defies logic, that it’s not hard to see why anyone wouldn’t play along…

Visually, Soderbergh (also acting as his own DOP) takes his cues from the Martin Ritt/Mike Nichols playbook and lets his stellar cast and authentic locations (AMD in Decateur, Illinois, and the original Whitacre mansion) bring Scott Burns’ superbly modulated screenplay (equal parts farce and blistering tragedy, adapted from what I gather is fairly straightforward non-fiction account by Kurt Eichenwald). The cast is uniformly excellent, with outstanding supporting turns by Clancy Brown, Patton Oswalt, Thomas F. Wilson, and both Tommy AND Dick Smothers (but not as brothers). It was surprised by the music credit to Marvin Hamlisch, whose last score that I was aware of was 1980’s “Ordinary People”.

©Robert J. Lewis 2009

TIFF 2008: NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD

2008-09-16T20:43:00.008-04:00

NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD
(2008, Australia)
Directed by: Mark Hartley
Cast: Barry Humphreys, Jack Armstrong, Brian Trenchard-Smith, George Miller, Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford, Quentin Tarantino

The unjustly marginalized subject of "Ozploitation" is finally given its due in newcomer Mark Hartley's exhaustive--and exhausting!--chronicle of the Australian b-movie era of the 1970s and early 1980s. Pummelling the viewer with its dizzying pace, wild, hallucinatory graphics, and flurry of boobs, blood, and bravado, Not Quite Hollywood takes its cues from Ron Mann who has built a career on challenging the definition of what a "documentary" can be.

For those who associate Australian cinema with prestige fare like Picinic At Hanging Rock and Breaker Morant, it will come as a surprise that many of the creators of such acclaimed art house darlings frequently dabbled in exploitation films--sex comedies, slasher yarns, action marathons--tales whose production histories are arguably as raucous and entertaining as the films themselves (as someone who's seen most of them, I can make such a claim with a fair degree of authority. That, and I've worked with Brian Trenchard-Smith...).

While some, like Trenchard-Smith and Philipe Mora never broke out of the exploitation ghetto (and from their gleeful reminiscences, never aspired to in the first place), it's a kick to learn that Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) and Peter Weir (Master And Commander) recount their early efforts with affection, candor, and not a trace of regret or even ironic detachment. There's a wealth of information here (no one, apparently, denied Hartley the rights to any clips).

A giddy, "let's clean out the big ol' barn and put on a show" mentality propeled the era, even if "the show" required untrained drivers to drive at breakneck speeds while cameraman hung off the vehicles mere inches from the ground, and explosives unleashed without any training and assurance of success, or safety. Deservedly, late stuntman Grant Page (who could have been the model for Danny McBride's pyrotechnics berserker in Tropic Thunder) gets a substantial amount of screen time and is warmly remembered by directors, actors, and fans alike--some of whom he almost killed.

While these early entries may not be well know in mainstream circles, their pioneering spirit and cultural significance has not been lost on a new generation of Australian filmmakers, with James Wan (Saw) and Greg McLean (Wolf Creek) on hand to validate their importance. Of course, these films weren't exactly heralded by the critical community at the time of their respective debuts, and some pundits, like Bob Ellis, are still lamenting their creation, calling onscreen for one particular producer's entire body of work to be "burnt to the ground and the ashes sown with salt’.

Trenchard-Smith spins a hilarious, if bitter, anecdote about Steve Railsback on Turkey Shoot (I saw it under its U.S title Escape 2000). For "fair and balanced coverage", Railsback himself gives his account of the production, which only serves to illustrate Smith's claim that the American star was a pampered primadonna (who obviously is still carrying the baggage of this now 25 year old quickie production).

Richard Franklin, who recently passed away (and whose last film Visitors, is an interesting psychological thriller involving pirates and the ghost of Susanna York) was one of my favorite Australian filmmakers (he's probably best known for "Psycho 2") and his classic 1981 Hitchcock riff, Road Games, receives long overdue gushing from uberfan Quentin Tarantino and testimonials from U.S. stars Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis (and to think, as a die-hard follower of his thrillers, I didn't know Franklin's early features were softcore porn!).

I'm old enough (just) to have seen a great many of the 80s entries in their first run as a precocious high schooler who could sweet-talk the box office cashier into letting me in underrage in what was then stodgy Ontario under the rule of Mary Brown's vile censorship cabal. At film school, Australian cinema was part of the faculty's hoity-toity anti-Hollywood agit prop (you know, all American movies are bad, except for a select few by Welles, Ford, Scorcese, etc.), but it was the austere, mannered dramas of Weir, Beresford, and Campion that were shoved down our throats--not the adrenaline-surged post-nuke westerns of George Miller's Mad Max series or the AIP-spirited monster romps Razorback.

Humorous, frank, and at times, contradictory (if a lot of it ain't true, it should be), documentaries like this are difficult to review, esp. those with such scope, so I'll leave it to you to discover its unique joys. My viewing experience was strangely personal, as I noted that at roughly the same time in Canada, a parallel movement was in full-swing during what's become known at the 1970s "Tax Shelter" era, one that was regarded with even more scorn--abroad, and especially at home.

Whereas many still-thriving careers were formed behind and in front of the camera, a majority of the key participants have sought to distance themselves from their potboiler roots (a claim I can make first hand, having worked on a handful of latter-day exploitation entries, and having tried for years to develop a documentary and/or written book-length study of the period, only to find veterans unwilling to cooperate. Caleum Vatsndal's 2004 "They Came From Within", a chronicle of Canadian horror films, relies mostly on anecdotal testimonies and archival quotes, with very few first-person interviews).

But this documentary shows that the Aussies celebrate their low-rent romps with affection and nationalistic fervor as a grand "f-you" to the austere pageantry of their imperialistic homeland (compared with Canada, again, where British cinema is held up as the model over that of our American neighbours). As scene-stealer Barry "Dame Edna" Humphries puts it: "I never thought that Australia needed culture...culture after all is cheese."

It'll be a good long time before we ever see a Canadian-financed documentary lauding Al Waxman's exploding head in William Fruet's killer snake opus Death Bite--but in "Not Quite Hollywoo, the werewolf ballerina from Philipe Mora's Howling 3: The Marsupials is celebrated as an iconic image. Oy, indeed!

©2008 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF 2008: IT MIGHT GET LOUD

2008-09-15T16:52:00.003-04:00

IT MIGHT GET LOUD
(USA 2008)
Directed by: Davis Guggenheim
Cast: Jimmy Page, The Edge, Jack White

So AC/DC's music has become a Wal-Mart exclusive, Dylan and McCartney sing only for Starbucks, and legions of teenagers are picking up guitars but are plugging them into gameports instead of stacked Marshall amps. Sure, it's hard to be a saint in the city, but it's just as hard not to be another sanctimonious boomer when one realizes that today's definition of "three chords and the truth" is a series of prefab joystick maneuvers. Look what they've done to my song, ma!

Thankfully, a documentary has come along just in time to celebrate what the late critic Lester Bangs coined as “the outburst of inchoate obnoxious noise” from Les Paul’s momentous creation, presented, after an exhaustive week of high art and noble, in glorious Dolby to all but drown out the rumbling of the subway tunnel directly under the Manulife Centre...

I'm not really a boomer--technically, I'm one of the original Gen-Xers (a label I initially detested but have come to miss now that it's been taken away from me), which makes me something akin to Burl Ives' "Mr. In-Between"--too young for the 60s renaissance, not quite old enough to have been immersed in the dogma of punk and thus tolerant of 70's cheese, and loathe to completely ridicule the 80s given that it provided the soundtrack of my teen-and-university years.

I suppose that's why I enjoyed It Might Get Loud so much (fyi--it does and gloriously)--it celebrates a certain old school “purity” without being nostalgic (well, a little) and didactic (which is a lot coming from the director of An Inconvenient Truth). Davis Guggenheim captures a meeting and jam session between three generations of rock-n-roll royalty, each an iconoclastic talent, eternal student of the art form, and master of his craft. Need I introduce Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Edge of U2, and Jack White of The White Stripes?

Their mojos were forged in wildly different generational and cultural factors: Page, of course, is the elder statesman of the trio, and arguably an entire musical genre unto himself. Here, nattily attired and silver mane'd, he waxes romantically on his musical influences as he pulls nuggets from his floor-to-ceiling shelves of vintage vinyl LPs (he lovingly air guitars to Link Ray's "Rumble"), revisits the halls of Headly Grange where Led Zeppelin IV (and most notably, "Stairway To Heaven") was recorded, expands on the real reasons behind his signature inventions (the double neck, for example), and unveils some rare archival television recordings of himself as a 14 year old guitar prodigy named "James" who fronted an accomplished skiffle band.

The Edge, aka David Evans, hails from a generation that in many ways was a response to the excesses of Page and his brethren who pioneered "heavy metal", "progressive rock" and multi-disc concept albums. Since these days U2 sells everything from iPods to global consciousness, it's easy to forget that the band began as a quartet of DIY wannabees, and the Edge still wears his post-punk pedigree with pride. In Dublin, The Edge pulls out the original four-track rehearsals of “Where the Streets Have No Name”, reveals the techniques behind all those foot pedals and digital delays, and tours his old high school, right to the precise spot where he first noticed the ad posted that would unite him with Paul “Bono” Thewson, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullens, Jr.

Jack White has yet to achieve the iconic status of the others, but no one can dispute his range and passion. As frontman to The White Stripes and sometime member of The Raconteurs (and now a film composer, having written the theme for the upcoming new Bond sequel), White's a hybrid of both sensibilities: a Detroit punker obsessed with analog effects and retrofitting old instruments—his one-man rebellion against the electronica deluge and AOR bombast of the 80s. In the opening scene, he fashions an instrument from a block of wood, a Coke bottle, a guitar string, and a thrift shop speaker. "See, you don't even need a guitar". From his home in Tennessee, while interacting with an identically clad child (who resembles a Damon Runynan version of “Mini Me”), White cites the raw style of bluesman Son House as his musical inspiration. Revisiting his Detroit haunts, White admits nearly joining a seminary, tours his former upholstery company, and reveals his rare debut album, recorded with a business partner.

But the biggest kick is the free form chat and jam session on an LA soundstage in which they exchange secrets, gossip, and riffs--Page is impressed by the chord work on White's "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground", and marvels at The Edge’s pedal effects. All three get to trade slide guitar licks on Led Zeppelin's "In My Time Of Dying", a moment that despite being staged (and slickly lensed by DOPs Guillermo Navarro and Erich Roland), comes off as intimate, genuine, and definitely infectious.

TIFF 2008: THE BURROWERS

2008-09-13T21:06:00.005-04:00

THE BURROWERS
(USA 2008)
Written by: J.T. Petty
Directed by: J.T. Petty
Cast: William Mapother, Clancy Brown, Karl Geary, Doug Hutchison, Sean Patrick Thomas, Jocelin Donahue

Who'd have thought that there was filmmaker out there aspiring to be the next William "One Shot" Beaudine? J.T. Petty's The Burrowers debuted at this year's Midnight Madness and has been trumpeted as some sort of breakthrough in high concept--a horror western--but some of the first films I can remember watching were Beaudine's Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula and its co-feature Jesse James Vs. Frankenstein's Daughter--no, I'm not that old...such fare was typical of what my hometown theatre offered easily-entertained youngsters on matinees in the 70s.

Not that Beaudine's potboilers would ever be considered the definitive take on the subject, and of course, Petty is certainly a much more accomplished filmmaker (but really, who wouldn't be?)--I suspect the buzz has more to do with the acclaim for Petty's documentary S&Man (a deserved MM hit in 2006, and for reasons unknown, unavailable on DVD) than The Burrowers strengths as a film. It's a serious-minded and handsomely mounted exercise in genre-mashing, offering a solid horse opera scenario that ultimately gives away to a ho-hum creature feature.

It's 1878, shortly after the end of the Civil War: Irish farmhand Coffey (Geary, who goes back to Petty's first feature Mimic: Sentinel) works up the courage to propose to fetching Maryanne Stewart (Donahue), and rides off to her family's cabin to ask for her family's blessing. But at the Stewart homestead, the family is under seige from unseen marauders. The men barricade the women and children in the barn, and struggle to fend off what they assume are marauding Indians. When Coffey arrives, he finds the men butchered, but the women and children missing, including Maryanne.

The local ranchers assume they've been kidnapped by Commanches, and have formed a scout party lead by the local sheriff (Brown, who could save any film, and usually does...). Coffey offers his services, and makes a friend in ex-slave Callaghan (Thomas, who gets all the best one-liners). The prognosis is hardly encouraging: when shifty Parcher (Mapother, fast becoming the "oh that guy" of the early 21st century after appearances on Lost and In The Bedroom), the group's experienced tracker, is asked if he's ever successfully found anyone, his curt response is "not alive".

The posse joins up with the preening Colonel Henry Victor (Hutchison, literally twirling his moustache) and his cavalrymen, who have vowed to exterminate any Indians--Commanche or otherwise. They navigate settlements along the Dakota Plains with Parcher acting as translator, and are warned by the Ute tribe that the attacks are actually the work of "the burrowers", flesh-eating creatures who live below the earth. It soon becomes obvious to Geary that racist Victor and his Bluecoats have no interest in the search and are only interesting in killing Indians. When some of the men go missing, they are later found half-alive and buried in shallow graves--the burrowers don't kill their prey right away and use a venom to paralyze them and induce madness. This offers some hope for Maryanne's rescue--but, as Parcher offers, would she be better off dead?

The Burrowers takes its lugubrious cues from recent revisionist westerns like Unforgiven and The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, than say, the coy Cinemascope pageantry of How The West Was Won or the hyper-stylized melodrama of Sergio Leone. But I couldn't help but think what a vicious wit like Joe R. Lansdale--who knows a thing or two about supernaturally-themed oaters--could've brought to a premise that begs for a few B-movie frissons to lighten its precious load (you can't help but think of Tremors, but it isn't nearly as much fun). Petty's heart is in the right place, but the entire enterprise seems more like an opportunity to wallow in period fetishes and stage Malick-influenced tableaus than to create any real sense of menace, or allegory, even though he's clearly striving for something topical with the theme of the white settlers' destruction of the ecosystem (the burrowers are said to feed on man because the buffalo were wiped out) and mistreatment of the natives (represented none-too-subtley by Victor's xenophobic bloodlust).

The script plunders The Searchers and Red River in all the right places but it's hard to get worked up over all the teeth-clenching of this buckskin testosterone fest when you realize it's all a delay mechanism until another grizzled cowpoke gets sucked into the ground by a fairly shoddy (by today's standards) CG-beastie.

Dubious effects aside, the film is otherwise beautifully shot by Rob Zombie's regular DOP Phil Parmet, who shows some real range here--er, on the range--composing the big grassy vistas and craggy facial landscapes the genre demands, complemented by an appropriately Morricone-esque score by Joseph LoDuca.

©2008 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF 2008: SAUNA

2008-09-11T23:21:00.008-04:00

SAUNA
(Finland/Czech Republic, 2008)
Written by: Iiro Küttner
Directed by: Antti-Jussi Annila

Cast: Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen, Viktor Klimenko, Sonja Petäjäjärvi

The title suggests an 80s sex romp from Golan/Globus era, but this mannered, metaphysical nailbiter is a rare Finnish entry into horror cinema, mindful of visceral, American-styled shocks ala Saw, but intriguingly rooted in that country's culture of sauna, in which the ubiquitious structures were regarded not only as bathhouses but also sacred structures where children were born, bodies of the dead were washed, diseases cured, and supernatural beings visited. It's a demanding but rewarding experience to patient horror mavens who've been attending sequels and remakes out of resigned duty (hoping for periodic highlights like Cloverfield and The Strangers), and a parable of the sacred and the profane, drenched with the paranoia of Poe and the Lutheran leitmotifs of Bergman.

It's the year 1595, at the end of a twenty-five year war between Sweden and Russia. New borders are literally being drawn up as joint teams of Finns and Russians navigate the endless forests and marshes to establish bounderies mutually satisfying. A pair of Finnish brothers, Eerik and Knut Spore, are dispatched by their King to rendevous with a team of Russian soldiers. Eerik, the oldest, is a decorated Cavalry commander and patriot who has spent much of his life fighting (and loathing) the Russians, whereas Knut is a cartographer and intellectual with a position waiting at a university in Sweden once their tasks are done.

During a stay at a village, Eerik kills a man whom he suspects of paganism and Russian sympathies. Knut protects the man's young daughter from his hotheaded brother's temper by locking her way in a root cellar, oppressing his own lustful urges. The brothers flee before the other villagers notice, leaving the girl locked up.

Exploring the ravaged northern landscape with the two Russian soldiers and their commander, the brothers come upon a mysterious, uncharted village surrounded by a large swamp, where the denizens seem to be neither Swedish nor Russian. Guilt-ridden Knut is drawn to the ominous stone sauna at the village's centre, which is both feared and respected by the townsfolk as a place of power. Knut learns that no children have been born in years, the old do not die...

While definitely violent and less-than-rose-coloured in its view of humankind, Sauna doesn't suffer from the suffocating nihilism of recent French efforts like Frontieres or Martyrs, or Rob Zombie's Sid Haig vehicles.

The film's titular object is an ominous white, marble structure central to the village that rises out of a shallow marsh, the reflection of its dark doorway creating a reverse silhouette that probably-none-too-coincidentally suggests the monolith of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I'd not seen Annnila's debut feature, the acclaimed Jadesoturi (The Jade Warrior) but after Sauna it definitely shoots to the top of my Netflix queue (actually, I don't subscribe to Netflix and am a terrible renter. I'll probably just buy it when I happen upon a copy). The widescreen imagery is evocative and immersive--reminiscent (in a good way!) of Guillermo Del Toro's chiaroscuro palette--and the pacing more assured and confident than one would expect from a sophomore effort.

©2008 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF 2008: PONYTPOOL

2008-09-11T23:13:00.016-04:00

PONTYPOOL
(Canada, 2008)
Written by: Tony Burgess
Directed by: Bruce McDonald
Cast: Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Georgina Reilly, Hrant Alianak

It's been bemoaned that the art of conversation is dead, but I've long maintained that people talk too damn much. Every time I step out, I feel like I'm the paranoid wreck in the "Tell Tale Heart" under constant auditory assault from all directions-- incessant chirping behind me at movies and concerts, in lineups and packed elevators, and now, with the innovation of the cellphone, it's become a full-fledged pandemic. These days, when you see a guy walking down the street talking to himself, you have to pause to consider: stark raving loon, or merely another Bluetooth poseur? That's why I knew I was going to love Bruce McDonald's first horror film when I was handed the promotional postcard bearing the tag line: "Shut Up, Or Die".

Just when you think you've had your fill of flesh-eating and "aim for the head" set pieces, novelist/screenwriter Tony Burgess figures out a fresh spin on the red-eyed, slobbering horde. This taut, clever adaptation of his novel "Pontypool Changes Everything" proposes: what if the zombie virus didn't come from a Venus probe, or a rampant virus, or a supernatural curse--what if it was spread by language?

Grant Mazzy (McHattie) was once the Canadian Don Imus (right down to the cowboy hat), until his abrasive wit and divining rod for controversy got him demoted to the guy who reads the obituaries, weather, and school closings in the small town of Pontypool, Ontario. CLSY-AM, aka "The Beacon" broadcasts out of a former church basement and might not offer the audience base of a big city like Toronto, but it provides Mazzy with a forum for his cynical observations and mocking contempt for his new digs--much to the chagrin of his oh-so-patient producer Sydney (Houle) and engineer Laurel Ann (Reilly). It's Valentine's Day, but Mazzy expects a typical mind-numbing shift until he's accosted by a deranged woman on his way to the station.

Over the course of the broadcast, reports come in of increasingly strange local activity: an OPP standoff with some unruly ice fisherman results in gunfire, death, and loss of limbs for both sides. A violent mob attacks a psychiatrist's practice. Mazzy dismisses it all one big stunt, until he's contacted by the BBC for his take from Ground Zero (they initially think it's got something to do with French Separatists--what other conflicts could erupt in peaceable Canada?). Mazzy can decipher only a single common element amongst the reports: the attackers seem to be speaking gibberish, repeating the same unintelligible mumbo-jumbo over and over...

As the community unravels, the Beacon proves to be a safe stronghold from the madness outside, and Mazzy is determined to stay on the air. But they get an unexpected visitor in the form of psychiatrist Dr. Mendez (Alianak), who escaped the seige on his office. He's concocted a theory that languages are a form of benign parasite in the brain--one that's somehow become malignant. The first words to be infected are benign terms of endearment— "sweetheart", "honey", "baby" (it is Valentine's Day, remember?)--could changing the meaning of commonly-used words stop the outbreak? A considerable challenge--considering the hordes have gathered at the door and the virus has now infected the station...

Godard once opined that all you need for a movie is "a girl" and "a gun". While Jean-Luc was definitely onto something, substitute "ghoul" for "girl" (but keep the gun) and I'm putty in a filmmaker's hand. I've seen and adored just about anything that pits man against the rise of a new (often cannibalistic) world order --admittedly with varying degrees of "adore", mind you (sorry, Paul W.S. Anderson)--from my first encounter Romero's seminal Pittsburgh allegories as an underage viewer to Fulci's Italian maggot-fests during my high school years to Boyle's UK-based apocalypses as a so-called mature adult--seems as long as mankind invents new things to screw up, the zombie will remain relevant. Pontypools zombies are not the undead--they're closer to the "Rage" infected in 28 Days/Weeks Later--but they're out to eliminate us, one syllable at a time...

A decade in the planning, Pontypool began with an offer from the CBC to create a radio drama. McDonald wanted to pay homage to Orson Welles' infamous 1941 War Of The Worlds broadcast, using Burgess' novel as a springboard. Burgess kept his novel's hook but changed the lead character to a radio announcer--an occupation and location ideally suited to the linguistics angle. When that fell through, McDonald realized the confined location and small ensemble would be perfect for an inexpensive, horror film. Financing was raised independently (no help from the CBC there) and the film was shot in Stayner, Ontario by McDonald's regular DOP Mirolsaw Baszak on the Red One HD hard drive camera system.

The press notes pay lip service to the likes of Umberto Eco, Noam Chomsky and Carlos Castaneda, and while I won't deny the film its literary and philosophical cred, Pontypool reminded me a lot of John Carpenter's underrated Prince Of Darkness, which came and went to audience and critical indifference in 1987. It, too, was a high-minded, character-based and dialogue-driven thriller that posited questions of religious faith, alternative history, and quantum physics against a "trapped in a church" yarn featuring a mathematically-replicating evil (and a Satanic legion lead by a zombified Alice Cooper).

Best known for brief-but-memorable character turns in Seinfeld, A History of Violence, and 300, Canadian journeyman actor Stephen McHattie is superb in a rare lead role that requires him to carry a good part of the entire enterprise in close-up. His laconic charisma and leathery drawl are the film's chief strengths, and McDonald is wise to let the staging and direction serve what should be a career-making performance (he deserves a place amongst the esteemed company of Eric Bogosian in Talk Radio and David Strathairn in Good Night And Good Luck). Little Mosque On The Prairies Alianak has fun overacting as the frenzied academic-who-figures-it-all out--a clearly stylized touch that has polarized some viewers but I thought worked in the spirit of McDonald and Burgess' arch concept.

Where McDonald's past films like Highway 61 and Hardcore Logo were more sprawling and breezily absurdist affairs, Pontypool shows a remarkable gift for maintaining tension in a single location (it shares a certain kinship with Vincenzo Natali's one-room s.f. thriller Cube), mining horror and humour from a largely unseen menace (there are a handful of effectively utilized gags from the effects house Mr. X)--the director must've spent at least some of his formative years studing the pros...or he's a very quick learn. Too bad the intensity and breathless pacing of the second act is diluted by a hurried, too-convenient climax (but stay tuned for the truly bizarre end-of-credits coda!).

Heady themes won't secure an audience, of course: some of Canada's better recent genre films--Fido, the aforementioned Cube--have failed to connect with homegrown moviegoers and have found warmer reception overseas. It'd be a shame if Pontypool was met with all the enthusiasm of another sequel to The Gate (we'll see when it's finally released next spring), but considering its central conceit--the English tongue as epidemic--McDonald could well score his first major hit in Quebec...

©Robert J. Lewis 2008

TIFF 2008: THE SKY CRAWLERS

2008-09-11T22:40:00.004-04:00

THE SKY CRAWLERS (SUKAI KURORA)
(Japan, 2008)
Directed by:Mamoru Oshii
Written by: Chihiro Itō
Voice Cast: Rinko Kikuchi, Chiaki Kuriyama, Shosuke Tanihara, Ryo Kase

Produced by the renowned Tokyo animation house Production I.G.--perhaps best known to North American audiences for the epic Ghost In The Shell series and the animated sequences in Kill Bill--The Sky Crawlers stands out against the glut of anime not so much for its visual invention, but for its quiet, contemplative pacing and ambitious mixture of genres.

In a futuristic world where war has been eradicated, the human hunger for bloodshed remains, and is sated by mock conflicts staged as entertainment. Two different "companies"--Rostock and Lautern--have been engaged in a long-running campaign without any apparent political or social motivation. Born into battle are a unique race of humanoids called Kildren, adolescents who do not age past their teen years and would otherwise live forever if they were not inevitably killed in combat. In the opening skirmish, a young pilot engages a superior foe whose plane is marked with a black panther insignia.

Yuichi Kannami lands at Urisu base to report for duty as a fighter pilot. He soon makes friends with Suito Kusanagi, the airbase commander and also a Kildren, who feels they've been destined to meet for quite some time. But all Yuichi can remember of his past is that he's an expert flyer. Although he is denied his request to meet his predecessor, oddly, Yuichi is assigned his plane. Even the mysterious pilot's friends and lover (a prostitute) can't determine whether he's alive or dead.

Yuichi befriends his fellow pilots and they become close during their candid meets in and out of the barracks, including a local diner and even a brothel (!), even though what he really wants it to get closer to Kusanagi. Eventually Kusanagi admits that she killed the pilot he's been drafted to replace, in order to free her former lover from the cruel cycle of meaningless violence. The other pilot, bearing the black panther logo, left her company to join his rivals with the promise that he could become an adult. Aware of Yuichi's skills, she pleads for him to kill her in battle and free her, too. But he cannot.

The stakes of the game eventually find Yuichi taking the skies against the black panther, now an "adult man" who proves to be almost supernaturally unstoppable. His moment of truth arrives just as he he becomes aware of the lies behind the sport and his love for Kusanagi. But if his skills and aircraft fail him, another pilot will surely be on the way....

Oshii takes an oft-mined Rollerball/The Running Man scenario and plays up the existential ennui with expansive vistas and ambient soundscapes that threaten to suffocate the diminutive characters as they wait out their doomed lives--there's as much Malick in play here at there is Miyazaki.

Like the replicants of Blade Runner, the Kildren were initially bred for mankind's benefit but eventually developed human emotions and an awareness of their mortality. They're a lot less violently "proactive" than the likes of Roy Batty and Pris--rather, they're a mopey, melancholy lot, prone to longing gazes and hushed conversations punctuated with even longer silences. Their simple cel-shaded renderings make them seem a lot like anemic androgynes sporting identical faces and emo hair cuts--thankfully, the retro costumes handily preserve "his" and "hers" accoutrements to help tell some of the characters apart.

The aircraft design is inspired and convincing, like Bruce McCall versions of vintage WW2 Spitfires and Corsairs. They're showcased in a series of pulse-pounding dogfights that burst off the screen with gut-wrenching 3D choreography and impressive photorealism. The theme here is as schizo as the imagery: the whammo factor, for some, will seem an odd fit with the obvious social commentary at the heart of its admittedly timely premise--children bred for warfare, flag-waving propaganda copped from classic Hollywood war films, European imperialism has gone awry, and videogaming's clean violence without consequence. And yet the tone is too prosaic to express any real outrage.

But the pretty pictures and sheer oddness of it all will keep anime enthusiasts and euchronie readers engrossed for its lengthy, 2-hour-plus running time.

Sony Pictures will distribute the film in North America and will reportedly submit The Sky Crawlers as their entry for Best Animated Feature consideration for 2009's Academy Awards.

©2008 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF 2008: THE DUNGEON MASTERS

2008-09-10T23:11:00.003-04:00

THE DUNGEON MASTERS
(USA 2008)
Directed by: Keven McAlester
Cast: Scott Corum, Richard Meeks, Elizabeth Reesman

In the fall of 1982, my friends and I were dealt our own Night That Panicked America that shook our god-fearing, Ottawa Valley hamlet. CBS premiered an otherwise unremarkable TV movie entitled Mazes and Monsters that paired Meatballs star Chris Makepeace opposite a then-largely-unknown Tom Hanks. Based on a novel by Rona Joffe (and shot in Canada, with a musical score by Hagood Hardy!), it was a dramatization of the events surrounding the disappearance of Michigan university student James Dallas Egbert III, whose mind was apparently destroyed by his obsession with the insidious social menace of the day: role-playing games--specifically, Dungeons and Dragons.

While overwrought and heavily fictionalized (the case's investigator disproved most of Joffe's account, blaming the youth's problems on drug addiction and homosexual intolerance), it didn't matter: the sentiment drove home with the usual reactionary parental and religious groups looking for an easy blame for society's ills. All role-playing games were immediately banned in my high school, (even my favorite, Car Wars!) and "D&D" became a perjorative only slightly less prestigious than "slasher flick" and "heavy metal". Of course, typical of such media circuses, the controversy didn't hamper TSR's sales in the least--D&D sales reportedly quadrupled within a year of the film's broadcast!

While I was a serious sci-fi and comics buff, I was never a disciple of role-playing games...their slow pace bored me silly, their concepts smacked of a third-rate Terry Brooks novel, and I couldn't stick within the rules--why couldn't my cleric just pull out a sword and decapitate everyone? If this was indeed "role playing", then why couldn't I do what I wanted? Besides, I was too hooked on Robotron and Defender...

...which brings me to this age of Jack Thompson's specious, reactionary crusades against Rockstar Games (echoed, unfortunately, by persons who-should-know-better like Hilary Clinton) and the surfeit of "studies" linking videogames with everything to childhood obesity to youth crime . Compared to the outcry over "Hot Coffee", preaching the evils of role playing games, which usually involves bunch of aging geeks tossing six-side die and scribbling over character sheets while hopped up on Diet Coke and Pizza Pockets, seems about as absurd as the Frederic Wertham trials.

Filmmaker Keven McAlester's engaging documentary The Dungeon Masters (the film's title echoes the name of the book by the investigator of Egbert III's tragedy) explores the current state of role-playing games--yes, people actually still play them--by following three devotees who are well into adulthood and whose mundane lives are both enlivened and arrested by their committed fandom.

The subjects, at first glance, embody the stereotypical image of an aging sci-fi geek who's spent a little too much time under convention hall flourescents getting acquainted with spirit gum and Joe Louis cakes, but beneath their respective defensive bravado are more complex individuals. There's more than a little bit of The Simpson's smug "Comic Book Guy" in slovenly Scott, an unemployed hypnotherapist who lives in a rat's nest apartment in California where his wife toils as the building's custodian and mother to their infant son while he plods away on a fantasy novel and assorted filmmaking efforts. His cable access series Uncle Drac’s Magical Clubhouse (check out a clip here) has won him local cult status but his treatment for an epic fantasy novel has him courted by a major fantasy publisher until his meddlesome agent costs him the deal.

In Louisiana, computer programmer Elizabeth has endured a series of bad jobs and an abusive marriage, retreats into her alter ego as a "Drow elf", right down to ash-hued makeup and pointed ears. In the elfin society, women wield the power and can have men executed. Surviving Hurricane Katrina, she begins a new relationship with a fellow male "Drow" (love means never having to hide the greasepaint) and aspires to steady employment in a "corporate" job until circumstances find her single again.

Middle-aged Richard freefalls through life in Florida as a motivational speaker, nudist, U.S. army reservist, and dungeon master-for-hire as he seeks to reconnect with an adult stepson in the military whom he abandoned as a child, and ultimately, renounces the fantasy realm to re-embrace his Jewish faith.

It's Richard's story that is the most bittersweet, but I suppose if I related to any one character more than another, it would be Scott, who clearly has talent but whose impatience and fractured work habits have cost him the creative path he'd prefer to emulate than simply follow as a dutiful fan (although I am thinner and have managed to forge a profitable, if not exactly illustrious, living as an artist). By virtue of Elizabeth's comparative youth (she's only 23), she has time to mature and develop (I hope!) a better taste in partners.

Documentaries about obscure subcultures, esp. those with boomer/Gen-X cache, are nothing new these days--witness the recent sensation King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters and the glut of reality TV that sets up its vain, washed-up subjects for ridicule. But rather than do the obvious and chide the subjects for their extended adolescence and self-denial (and kudos to Scott, Richard, and Elizabeth for placing so much trust in the filmmakers), McAlester structures each of their tales as something of a personal, heroic journey, with dramatic pay-offs that shrewdly suggest that their fervid imaginations and obvious (if misguided) intellects are as empowering as they could be deemed imprisoning.

A former music video director and video artist, McAlester has an eye for composition that's complemented by the work of Richard Linklater's DOP Lee Daniel (whose distinctive work on Slacker and Dazed And Confused was good prep for these subjects and locales), and a playful, evocative score by Blond Redhead.

If I found the film lacking in one aspect, it's that I wouldn't have minded some screen time with D&D creators Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson who likely could have never foreseen the phenomena they created as a series of fanzines back in 1974, or perhaps author Steven Johnson, whose book Everything Bad Is Good For You dares to take the contrarian view and praises marginalized media (like role-playing games) for their unique, even beneficial, developmental and cognitative strengths.

©2008 Robert J. Lewis

TIFF 2008: THE WRESTLER

2008-09-08T21:26:00.006-04:00

THE WRESTLER
(USA, 2008)
Written by: Robert D. Siegel
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Mark Margolis, Judah Friedlander

There's a terrific scene in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler in which Mickey Rourke, as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, is assigned to deli counter duty at the supermarket where he works stocking shelves. Even with his thinning Vince Neil locks under a hair net, he works the room like a champion huckster--charming the ladies, patiently doting on an indecisive old biddie, chucking "long bombs" to the guys. Years in the ring (along with too much booze, drugs, and steroids) have eroded Robinson's physique and his health, but not his capacity to excite a crowd. It makes you realize how much you've missed that Mickey Rourke--the Reagan era's once magnetic heir to Brando and Pacino until he blew his ride on an ego-fueled bender that had him plummeting from one bad career choice to another...

The Wrestler is being trumpeted as a comeback not only for Rourke, but also for the director himself. I’m not sure why—since his debut with the homemade mathematics oddity Pi a decade ago, Aronofsky hasn’t been the most prolific filmmaker, but he’s been busy, mostly with efforts that have hit a variety of detours. After the innovative and acclaimed Hubert Selby adaptation Requiem For A Dream, he announced his "Batman: Year One" project, which became Nolan’s reboot. Then, he took a kick at Watchmen, before being usurped by Paul Greengrass, who was usurped by Zach Snyder. Then, of course, there was the first incarnation of The Fountain, which saw its production halted, sets dismantled in Australia, and megamillions wasted when headliner Brad Pitt left the production.

Somewhere along the line, he campaigned to direct an episode of Lost. The one pursuit that wasn't in vain was his engagement to actress Rachel Weisz, with whom he eventually made The Fountain opposite Hugh Jackman.

Perhaps, then, the comparatively uncluttered dramatics and kitchen sink milieu of The Wrestler appealed to a filmmaker usually consumed with--and probably exhausted by--big themes and grand visions that would've taxed Kubrick. It's the first film Aronofsky hasn't had a part in writing himself (the screenplay is by Robert D. Siegel), but thematically, it's a fit: it's another tale of a marginilized obsessive consumed by his addiction.

Randy Robinson--born Robin Ramzinksi--works weekdays at a New Jersey supermarket and spend his weekends on the regional wrestling circuit, struggling through matches in school gyms and low-rent venues for a percentage of the door and a reminder of his former glory. Back in the 80s, he was the subject of compilation videos, a WWF video game, and even spawned his own action figure. Well into middle-age now, he pumps his battered body with steroids and can barely take the blows he choreographs with the young bucks hoping for a shot at his former stardom. Once in a while he persuades one of the kids in the trailer park to take him on in a round of Nintendo, but they're not impressed by their neighbour in 8-bit mode. His truck radio blares the hits of Cinderella and Ratt--from cassette tapes, no less.

When he suffers a heart attack after a fight, Randy takes stock of his life and attempts to woo the stripper with whom he's spent too much money and many platonic nights: Cassidy (Tomei) is also well-past forty and a single mom, and welcomes Randy's sincere, if aggressive, attentions and protection from the college rabble. He also seeks to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Stephanie), now college-age but still harbouring heartbreak over his absence. He follows her home and offers a gift--a hideous jacket he's picked out (despite Cassidy's protests)--and after a bitter, cathartic exchange, Stephanie agrees to meet her father for dinner. But he never shows up--he misses the date for a last minute match and a drunken tryst with some groupies. Randy tortures himself over his stupidity--but the ring and whatever-passes-for-an-adoring-crowd are an addiction that clouds his better judgement.

Then along comes the tempting offer of a twentieth anniversary rematch against The Ayatollah, with whom he once clashed at Maple Leaf Gardens. While Randy has been warned another fight could kill him, this could be his legacy for Cassidy, Stephanie, and his fans...

The Wrestler in many ways is another straightforward palooka melodrama ala The Champ and of course, Rocky. But it's a unique environment for a sports movie: not the Vince McMahon Pay-Per-View spectacles merchandised out the wazoo, but the low-rent rasslin' I saw on TV as a kid, when beefy, unbuff galoots would knick their skulls with razor blades so the wounds would open during the match and the blood would splatter the old ladies in the front row.

Siegel and Aronofsky stage some absorbing "fly on the wall" moments with the fighters backstage, many of whom discuss their craft with the seriousness and devotion of Cirque Du Soleil acrobats and the extremes to what they'll put themselves through to entertain even a spottily-attended house--metal chairs, broken glass, barbed wire, and then there's the staple gun--earned my begrudging respect.

Rourke invests the role with a commitment that rightly has been drawing parallels to DeNiro’s Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull but with nary a trace of New York-honed "method"--rather, the performance brims with authenticity that could only come from having lived a life not too far removed from the one imagined onscreen. Aronofsky delays showing us his face (the first few scenes play out terrifingly like a body slam version of Gus Van Sandt's Elephant) but after the opening credits that chronicle Randy's--and Rourke's--once haughty starpower, it's a shock when we finally see him revealed as a shambling, leathery, peroxided hulk to whom even the most minor physical movement seems to sear him with pain . For me, it harkened back to his nuanced performance as Johnny Handsome from Walter Hill's underrated 1988 crime drama, as a man whose soul was fractured than his surface appearance.

Notable, too, is the support from Tomei, on a career resurrection of her own after her strong turn in Sidney Lumet's Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, who brings a defiant dignity to what could've been a hackneyed "hooker with a heart of gold" role (they're clearly made for each other--80s relics both who blame Kurt Cobain for ruining the party).

In his intro, Aronofsky remarked that all one needs to make a good film is "a lens and good performers". And, I'd add, a director as willing to dive off the ropes as his protagonist . Rourke rewards that risk by giving The Wrestler his all--body, and soul...

© Robert J. Lewis 2008

TIFF 2008: BLINDNESS

2008-09-07T22:36:00.012-04:00

BLINDNESS
(2008, Canada/Brazil/Japan)
Written by Don McKellar
Directed by Fernando Meirelles
Cast: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga, Don McKellar, Danny Glover, Yuseke Iseya, Mitchell Nye, Maury Chaykin

Fernando Meirelles' Blindness gradually lacquers its images with a bleached, milky white sheen that suggests a forgotten William Castle process--"Glaucom-A-Rama"? (and a complimentary eye-exam in Coward's Corner?) It's suitable that this allegorical saga of a planet-wide plague of "white sickness" (a sudden loss of vision, but at no risk to one's capacity to brood) eventually becomes hard to discern visually--the pics match the dramatics, adapted from Jose Saramago's much-lauded novel, which have an awful lot to say about The Human Condition, but at the expense of any real sense.

Of course I'm being cheekily cynical here--but then I'm always weary of those important sure-this-has-a-sci-fi-plot-but-it's-not-a-Hollywood-movie efforts that co-opt genre fiction's trappings but feel they're taking the high road by withholding the pulpy pleasures (the powerful Children Of Men excepted, in which its doom-laden drudgery was infused with humanity and urgency, but does the world really need another No Blade Of Grass or The Quiet Earth?). And the history of literary adaptations sporting international ensembles is a spotty one: go back to At Play In The Fields Of The Lord, right on up to Love In The Time Of Cholera. Maybe it's a conspiracy from the beleagured publishing industry, because if you leave this thing utterly stymied, the obvious answer is it's because you didn't read the book. Well, mission accomplished: I'm kinda-sorta of tempted to tackle the novel now, because I found the film's premise intriguing enough to want to try and figure out just what the hell this was all about.

Never have I pined so hard for Rod Serling to step into the final shot, take a drag, and beat me over the head, and tell me what I'm supposed to be feeling.

While hardly the Cimino-esque disaster you might think it is given the Cannes fall-out, the film, while ambitious, is damn frustrating, but not due to a deliberately obtuse/David Lynch-y/Lost Highway surrealist vib--rather, it's maddeningly inert, and illogical, with burdened with random character motivations (from characters who are never named). Although based on a Portugese novel, it's very Canadian (relax, I'm born n' bred here, and have worked on many-a-homegrown production), with its multicultural cast, existential themes, chatty exposition, careful avoidance of American-style spectacle. Think Atom Egoyan's Day Of The Triffids (without the walking plants, obviously), and the scene will be set...

It begins innocuously enough with a traffic jam in an unnamed city. A young Japanese man (Iseya) has suddenly lost his sight while at the wheel. He insists on no hospitals, so a good samaritan drives him home--and then steals his car. The young man's wife comes home, and convinces him to see an eye doctor. The opthamologist (Ruffalo) can find nothing wrong physically--even thought the man describes the condition vividly as a blinding blanket of whiteness--and concludes it's a psychological condition. Until he himself succumbs to the syndrome the next morning, and concludes it's an ocular virus contagious by touch. Soon, more and more citizens become afflicted--the car thief (McKellar), a prostitute (Braga, far less a survivalist than she was in I Am Legend)-- prompting a nation-wide quarantine. When the government disease control squad comes for the the opthamologist, his wife (Moore) fakes the condition so she can go off with him. They're interned in an abandoned mental hospital along with the young Japanese man, the thief, the prostitute, a young boy (Nye), a gentle old man (Glover),and others.

Seemingly forgotten by the outside world, save for periodic food and medicine drops, the inmates learn to navigate around the cramped, filthy interior thanks to Moore's aide. But in a neighbouring ward, a young hothead (Bernal), declares himself kingpin and assumes control of food distribution, which he enforces with random shots of his pistol. Payment is at first taken in the form of cash and jewelry, but when the offerings run out, he demands that the women of Moore's ward provide sexual services or he'll let everyone starve. After days with sustenance, the women comply. But after a single night of brutal rape, Moore leads a revolt and engineers a fiery escape from the hospital, only to find the outside world a horrifying wasteland of squalor and starvation...until...

...that would be telling. Suffice to say that Don McKellar's adaptation seems intent on cramming in too much of the source material--to the point of having to shoehorn in a narrator (Danny Glover's character) at the halfway point. For those who have seen McKellar's charming end-of-the-world elegy Last Night, Blindness is a nihilistic 180 on a similiar scenario. But while attempting to translate the novel's symbolism visually to the screen is a noble pursuit, the literalness of the motion picture medium works against Saramongo's high-falutin' ideas and interior passages. Because everyone else in the cast is so enfeebled, Moore becomes our sighted surrogate, but her characterization is illustrative of the film's many problems.

Moore defies authorities to stand by her man and joins Ruffalo in the asylum, but once there, shrinks away the moment Bernel and his crony Chaykin take control of the ward and food supply. Somehow, this diminutive little cur has smuggled in a handgun and a seemingly endless supply of ammo, which is enough to keep the inmates at bay (a stray bullet is deadly, sure, but his aim is sloppy, so why not chance it?). Moore could've snatched the weapon from this fool's hand in about ten seconds, and yet, she shrinks away and lets him starve the others and rape the women as payment. It takes a woman's death by beating to prompt her to action, but why allow it to happen at all, when she's had the upper hand from the very beginning? Obviously, it's in service of another grand statement, but the film lost me at this point. What's more---all the adult males are either blubbering idiots, government cronies, sage-like patricians, thieves, or violent rapists. So why betray the female empowerment subtext by having Moore suddenly degenerate into a shrinking wallflower, just to serve the plot?

I'm not sure how the blind will react to being portrayed as completely helpless--reduced to clawing at window glass and pawing unopened canned goods like George Romero zombies when not being fed on by wild dogs--surely in this age where so much of the essentials of urban life are carried out through automation, international business is conducted via desktop terminals, and technology developed to assist the visually impaired and the physically challenged (sight restoration thru stem cells having recently been successful in some candidates) there would be many who could continue to live their lives comfortably and even assist in the transition for the newly-afflicted. Had the story been a generation removed from the epidemic, we might buy the fact that the details and the "whys" have been forgotten in favour of immediate, day-to-day survival. But the time-frame here--presumably only a few months--is so compressed that the complete breakdown of society is absurdly quick, leaving ciphers to scavenge where only nameless ciphers once lived before.

While Blindness is handsomely shot by César Charlone (who also photographed Meirelles' far-superior City Of God), I was underwhelmed by the film's non-milky visuals, possibly because after last year's I Am Legend, 28 Weeks Later, and even Wall-E, I've finally become numb to derelict megalopolises, esp. when they seem no worse off after the apocalypse than they did before.

©Robert J. Lewis
2008

TIFF 2008: ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO

2008-09-07T22:27:00.006-04:00

ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO
(USA, 2008)
Written & directed by: Kevin Smith
Cast: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson, Brian Halloran, Jason Mewes, Brandon Routh, Traci Lords, Justin Long, Katie Morgan

Before I begin: Kevin, enough with the Star Wars. Look, I'm as big a fan of the Classic Trilogy as anyone of a certain age, but peurile jokes about Princess "Lay-yah" were probably doodled in countless Scribner notebooks well before Empire was released (I know they were in mine...thank goodness for the pre-digital age, where everything lost is justly so...). Hell, you already gave us that hilarious debate over the Rebel Alliance vs. The Empire's independent contractors in Clerks, schtick about Jedi mind tricks in Mallrats, and cast Mark Hamill as a villain (complete with lightsaber) in Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back. Time to move on...have you looked at the box-office receipts for The Clone Wars? The rest of the world (and presumably, much of your fan base) has...

Recycled jokes and moth-ridden pop culture references aren't the only problem with Smith's latest attempt to expand his cinematic horizons--while he was too busy writing unfinished comic book sagas (which I'm still stewing about, obviously) and thesping opposite the likes of Jennifer Garner, Bruce Willis, and the cast of Degrassi: The Next Generation, along came Judd Apatow and his killer brood to declare themselves the new kings of raunch comedy and the Red Band trailer, and make Jay And Silent Bob's stoner schtick seem as dated as an old Cheech N' Chong LP . But committed fans who have lamented Kevin Smith's bold (and after a decade-plus, terribly familiar) statement that he was abandoning the "Askewniverse" for good will breath a sigh of relief (or whatever) at his latest foul-mouthed farce, which true to form, layers on the scatalogical gags and arch dialogue around a soft, sentimental centre.

Twentysomethings Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Banks) are best friends since childhood who share a ramshackle apartment in a blue collar hockey town. While each is bright and good-hearted, neither has set the world on fire, career-wise, with Zack slumming at the counter of a chi-chi coffee shop. Suffice to say, the monthly demands of rent, food, and hydro are taxing, and their platonic relationship doesn't generate much heat to get through the long Pennsylvania winters.

At their miserable 10-year high school reunion, Miri discovers, among other indignities, that she's become the YouTube phenomenon "Granny Pants" thanks to a slacker's cell phone camera, and the happiest alumni (Routh and Long, who almost steal the show) have found notoriety as gay porn stars. Zack gets the idea to exploit her celebrity status as a viral video star for their financial gain, given that their utilities have been turned off and eviction looms. They'll make their own skin flick, he offers, because 1) if everyone's seeing Miri's ass for free on the web, why not get paid for it? and 2) "everybody wants to see everybody else naked, even if it’s two nobodies from the mid-west". Zack pursuades his workmate Delaney (The Office's Robinson) into coughing up some seed money (his tax refund courtesy of Dubya, which he'd planned to blow on a plasma TV), enlist Deacon (Clerks star Anderson) to work the camcorder, and hire a few adult "professionals" for authenticity (Lords, Morgan, and Mewes). Their opus will be entitled "Star Whores", sort of a latter-day Flesh Gordon, with a ready-made audience and lots of sequel potential.

...until the ramshackle building housing their set and equipment gets demolished.

Undaunted, Zack moves the production moves to his employer's digs, and an entirely new scenario is concocted. But Zack and Miri's cavalier friendship is tested as the shooting day of their debut coupling approaches, and Zack grows resentful of Miri's decision to "perform" with another cast member...

(Cripes--"seed money", "shooting day", "member", even "concocted"...somehow, the more I try to verbally dance around the subjects, the more I sound like a hormonal 14-year old...)

By the time the gang moves the production to the coffee shop for an after hours shoot, we're back in Clerks 2 territory, with a scatalogical "backdoor" gag that will replace any lingering trauma of that film's biker dude attempting to mount a goat. I'm not sure why Zack and co. set out to make a "real" porn programmer of the Vivid Video/Jenna Jameson variety, with deliberate bad acting and stagey production values--wouldn't it have been more timely, and accurate to Zack and Miri's demographic, to have gone for a homemade sex tape ala Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, Paris Hilton, or (gawd help us) Fred Durst? The laughs are solid, sure, but much of it smacks of discarded scenes from Boogie Nights.

The Monroeville, PA location affords Smith the opportunity to mine some nods to another George..."Romero", with a visit to the infamous Monroeville Mall (the Maceys is still there!), a local hockey team named "The Zombies", even a Tom Savini cameo. But the film owes it successes to the familiar presences of Smith's rep company--acerbic Halloran and the inimitable Mewes, neither stretching here--and the Sid And Marty Kroft-ish charm of the competition's MVP Rogen, who takes some of the preciousness out of Smith's sometimes too-precious verbal melees--although I laughed the loudest at the cameo from another Apatow alumnus, 40 Year Old Virgin's Gerry Bednob, here again required to deliver a hilarious profane diatribe against his slacker staff.

Some years ago, Smith after the epic closing chapter Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, he attempted a more dramatic venture with Jersey Girl, until any hopes of an image change were squashed by the Bennifer/Gigli fallout, tainting the good-natured effort with a Ben Affleck backlash and forcing him to remove J-Lo's scenes, only to have the film die a quick death. So he was back with Clerks 2, an equally enjoyable-but-unremarkable confection that, for reasons I can't imagine, was awarded an 8-minute standing ovation at Cannes...

Zack And Miri is more spirited and less guarded than Jersey Girl, and has thus far avoided the controversy of his ambitious anti-Catholic romp Dogma, although I'm sure once it's released there will be those bluenoses who will call for its destruction based on the title alone (and despite his past battles with the MPAA, Smith was able to secure an "R" rating for what might be his most gloriously profane screenplay thus far). The inevitable sex scene between the two leads is undeniably sweet and touching (thanks largely to the natural chemistry between the leads, since Smith, by his own admission, isn't much of a director), and the overall tone benign enough to calm those less liberal-minded viewers who only know Lords' work from her John Waters films and Melrose Place appearances.

Unfortunately, the film never recovers from a third act detour into a series of painfully drawn-out relationship spats played out at top volume, to the annoyance of the porno crew, Monroeville's citizens (living and undead), and certainly this viewer. Smith should've studied the competition a bit more closely--the film could've used a lot less Chasing Amy, a little more Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd...

©Robert J. Lewis 2008

TIFF 2008: JCVD

2008-09-06T22:53:00.008-04:00

JCVD
(Belgium/Luxemborg/France, 2008)
Written by: Mabrouk El Mechri, Frederic Bendusi, and Christophe Turpin
Directed by: Mabrouk El Mechri
Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Francois Damiens, Saskia Flanders, Karim Belkhadra, Alan Rossett

Jean-Claude Van Damme is just about the last person I ever thought I'd see given the Charlie Kaufman treatment, but in what the programmers have labeled a "discovery year" (read: "What? No Miike?"), here it is and it's the damnedest thing: Mabrouk El Mechri's JCVD has become, incredibly, one of TIFF 2008's most talked-about films, and one of the few Midnight Madness sell-outs in that program's 20 year history. It's also the first Van Damme effort I've sat through top-to-bottom since, well, whatever the last DTV potboiler was in which he played another set of kickboxing twins/clones, and I don't think I've shelled out money for a JCVD theatrical feature since Maximum Risk (wait, wasn't he a twin in that one, too?). While I found him to be a skilled martial artist (on the other hand, I always thought that if pushed, I could take flabby Seagal), he never struck me as particularly charismatic, and his choice of scripts smacked of leftovers from the Golan/Globus era. Turns out I may have been wrong--for once, it didn't take a Tarantino homage to convince me to reevaluate another washed-up B-movie icon.

Although QT's spirit can certainly be felt throughout, with its mobius loop structure, dizzying tonal shifts, verbal duels overstuffed with cinematic ephemera (mostly en francais, but hey...), hell, there's even a vintage soul track over the opening titles. It's an amazing trick--managing to work as a show business satire, gripping kidnapping yarn, blistering autobiographical confessional--and not a word of it is true.

The film opens with the single best action sequence Van Damme has ever done: to the oft-sampled groove of Curtis Mayfield's "Hard Times" (the superior Baby Huey cover), our man storms a desert camp and, in a stunning four-minute continuous take, dispatches various nogoodnicks who come at him with everything from guns to knives to flamethrowers in a sinewy ballet of bomb blasts and broken limbs. That is, until our hero reaches the enemy bunker and one of the flats falls over. The young hack directing the spectacle demands another take, to his star's exhausted protests ("I'm 47 years old!"). But JCVD's has little choice but to comply--his funds are tight, and he's in the midst of a child custody trial, where his filmography is the key evidence used against him as proof as to why he's unfit as a single parent to his daughter (Flanders).

His bottomfeeding Hollywood agent (Rossett) tries to sell him on another action cheapie shot in Bulgaria, but Van Damme pleads a shot at a studio film, even in a smaller role. He takes a time-out to his home in Schaarbeek to visit his family and reboot. After posing dutifully with some fans (who just seconds earlier were dissing violent American genre cinema), he rushes to the post-office to collect a wire transfer of a cash advance on his next project.

Flash forward: the police have formed a tactical command post around the post-office, led by Chief Bruges (Damiens). It appears that JCVD has suffered a psychotic meltdown and has taken the staff and customers hostage in return for a hefty ransom. The local media has a field day--it's Belgium, after all--vintage interviews replayed and dissected, his parents are brought in to help negotiate, and the adoring throng cheers on the local boy as an anti-hero.

Of course, a flashback reveals that JCVD has had the sh*t luck to wander in on the midst of a robbery, and has been snatched as a hostage by the bickering small-time hoods, who have been handed the ultimate cover and escape insurance. But even armed sociopaths can be starstruck, which a defeated and jet-lagged JCVD must manipulate to his advantage...

So what we have here is a little Costa Gavras, a little Curb Your Enthusiasm, a little F Is For Fake, a little of The Gong Show Movie (no, not Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind in which Kaufman proposed a ''what-if" scenario based on Barris' autobiography--I mean The Gong Show Movie, a little-seen 1980 oddity in which Barris played himself facing a fictional frenzied day). There's some great fun to be had for committed fans, who'll nod knowingly at the potshots taken at John Woo (a kidnapper quips: "If it wasn't for you, he'd still be shooting pigeons in Hong Kong") and fellow 80s/90s action icon Steven Seagal (who steals a role from JCVD after promising to cut his ponytail).

The film's standout moment occurs past the mid-point, where JCVD breaks the fourth wall to address the audience directly. In another continuous take, as he's raised by crane up into the soundstage rafters, Van Damme delivers a raw, self-damning monologue in which he thanks us, the viewers, for helping him realize his boyhood dream, speaks candidly of his downward spiral into drug addiction, and fights back tears as he professes his love for his daughter and his fear of his possible fate. It's a powerful, unexpected detour and quite a feat of performance--not only because of who it is we're empathizing with, but even more so when one realizes the hostage scenario and degrading media circus that has driven him to such cathartic candor is completely fabricated! His daughter, his ex-wife, his parents, his agent--are all played by actors (to cynics who will snigger that it's too easy to play oneself, I'll offer Aerosmith's Steven Tyler in Be Cool as a counter-argument...).

Shot with all the style and gusto one would expect from a guy who obviously spent too much of his youth hoarding import laserdiscs and pouring over bootleg tables at conventions, JCVD is an impressive debut from first-timer Mechri and a long-overdue--but who knew it?--introduction to the real (?) Jean-Claude Van Damme. It's a pleasure to have finally met your acquaintence, sir--and Double Team is forgiven…

TIFF 2008: ME AND ORSON WELLES

2008-09-05T23:35:00.005-04:00

ME AND ORSON WELLES
(United Kingdom, 2008)
Written by: Holly Gent Palmo, Vincent Palmo
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Cast: Zac Efron, Claire Danes, Christian McKay, Ben Chapman, Zoe Kazan, James Tupper, Eddie Marsan

It's somehow inevitable that Richard Linklater would eventually latch on to Orson Welles as a subject--each filmmaker made their respective directorial debuts at a criminally young age, instantly forging a personal and independent sensibility, remaining prolific while constantly experimenting with cinematic technique and form, and not above hanging up the auteur cap once in a while to play in more commercial sandboxes. But whereas Linklater seems to have had no trouble getting his eclectic body of work produced, Welles spent the better part of his career shilling for cash to finance projects that were either compromised beyond his bold intentions or never completed for a variety of reasons, some entirely his fault.

The Welles we meet here is a long way from corpulent, Mephisto-bearded patrician of Vivitar commercials and four-walled Nostradamus documentaries: it's 1937, and the tireless multi-hyphenate prodigy has, at the ripe old age of 22, already polarized the New York theatrical world with a "voodoo" version of "Macbeth" (actually, a groundbreaking collaboration between FDR's Federal Theatre Project and The American Negro Theater of Harlem) and a truncated radio adaptation of "Hamlet" (which eliminated the "To Be Or Not To Be" soliloquy!). He's about to embark on a radical take on "Julius Caesar", one which will modernize the themes to (then) contemporary fascist dress, eschew the traditional stage ornamentations, ramp up the violence, and run a mere 90 minutes. A tall order for what would be Broadway's first-ever Shakespearean production, which Welles proudly boasts to anyone within earshot.

But it's the Me of the title through which this formative period of Welles' career is recounted. Based upon the novel by Robert Kaplow, it's the kinda-sorta true story of a 17-year old New Jersey dreamer, Richard Samuels (Efron), who's bored with the hive mind of high school and who, like Welles, aspires to conquer the Manhattan stage--to the chagrin of his single mother and grandmother, of course. In his spare hours, he frequents a music shop for inspiration, where he strikes up a friendship with shy Gretta (Kazan), who hopes to one day sell her short stories to The New Yorker.

Outside of the newly refurbished Mercury Theatre on 41st Street, Richard comes upon Welles' (McKay) announcement of his avante-garde, modernist interpretation of "Caesar", as it will be displayed on the marquee. Through a happy accident, Richard is invited to join Welles' troupe in the bit part of Lucius, one that'll require him to learn the ukelele and sing...

Sucked into the whirlwind pace of Welles' world, Richard is inspired by his newfound mentor's bravado (who is only five years older than he is!), but also intimidated by his ruthless and unpredictable temper. He becomes enamoured with "older woman" Sonja (Danes), the production's secretary and Welles' sometime girlfriend--a secret everyone in the troupe conspires to hide from his pregnant wife, Virginia. Richard accepts a bet from actor "Joe" Cotton (Tupper--an uncanny lookalike) that he'll get her into bed before anyone else, and engineers a date. But he finds that while Sonja is a willing partner, her first duty is to herself and her own career advancement, and she's using Welles to get to producer David O. Selznick.

When Welles betrays her, Richard confronts him on the subject, and is promptly fired. Then re-hired. Such is life with Welles, who'll charm anyone and promise anything to secure a historic opening night...

Me And Orson Welles is hardly the first backstage fantasia about life with Welles--in the last decade and a half we've seen Cradle Will Rock, RKO 481, and even Ed Wood. What's unique about this one is its source: author Kaplow was inspired by a backstage shot of a young bit player next to Welles, and conceived this "what if" scenario about the cruel realities of showbiz (during the post-premiere Q&A, we were told the boy in the photo is one Arthur Anderson, still living and in his 90s).

Linklater maintains a breezy tone with the expected Noises Off antics as the days lead up the big premiere, tempered with the very real incidents of anti-Semitism and the misogyny of the era. As with his delightful mainstream hit School Of Rock, the idealistic young leads are dealt a hard life lesson without the usually treacley sentiment--in the end, everyone's better off for having had the experience at all. It's also a rare period drama that's a lot less earnest and grandiose than most its type (unlike Tim Robbins' Cradle will Rock, Efron and Kazan don't walk off into a lament over Andrew Lloyd Webber).

Never much of a visual stylist, Linklater keeps things decidely non-fancy and avoids the monochrome grit of most period recreations in favour of a warm Rockwellian palette and colourful costumes that could almost have come from Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. Using vintage production drawings, audio recordings, and eyewitness testimony of the event, Welles' unique take on "Caesar" has been restaged with a high degree of accuracy, on sets constructed on, amazingly, The Isle Of Man (also, London's Pinewood Studios and New York locations). According to the film's production notes, the nearest replica of the Mercury Theatre that could be found was in England, with many of the extras drafted from The Royal Shakespearean Company.

Much will be made of the presence of teen sensation Efron, who, for those sleeping under a rock, is something of a tween icon these days based upon his association with Disney's High School Musical franchise. While no match for Welles at the same age (as of this writing, he's just shy of 22), he's perfectly fine here in what is essentially the ingenue role--methinks he might be a little too elfin and contemporary but he's an agreeable, if slight, presence. Efron seemed genuinely thrilled in the post-screening Q&A to have been offered the opportunity to show some range, and he accomplishes just that.

As an adult performer, Danes continues to win me over. She's very good here in a potentially unlikeable role: Sonja is hardly the sweetheart Richard thinks she is--while manipulative and self-serving, she's at least honest about it.

But the film soars because of newcomer McKay, having previously portrayed the man on stage, who perfectly embodies Welles' brilliance, charisma, and fearless ego. In a standout scene, Welles' segues into a passage from his The Magnificent Ambersons script during a live radio drama opposite Les Tremayne, eliciting equal parts awe and contempt from the cast and crew--a perfect Wellesian contradiction. McKay follows in the considerable footsteps of Liev Schreiber, Vincent D'Onfrio, Angus McFadyen, Jean Guérin, and Danny Huston (I suppose it's worth mentioning voice actor Maurice LeMarche as well) and eclipses them all--not bad for his screen debut.

On my way out of the theatre, I overheard a couple of killjoys who had a problem with Efron--but more so with his sizeable teenage fan presence in the audience, I would suspect--and one of them sniffed indignantly "how many of them have ever seen any of Welles' works?" I say "who cares"? If this entertaining little fable leads even a handful of teenage girls to sample Citizen Kane or The Third Man, then what's the harm? Cineaste-types too often act like they own these films, and are quick to become resentful when someone outside of their hermetically-sealed subculture dare to intrude. Welles felt Shakespeare was for everyone--so are his own films and how one comes to discover them really doesn't matter.

"What will I do to top this?!" McKay wonders in the final moments. That's a good question, Richard...

©Robert J. Lewis 2008

TIFF 2008: "APPALOOSA"

2008-09-05T23:28:00.007-04:00

APPALOOSA
(USA, 2008)
Directed by Ed Harris
Written by Ed Harris and Robert Knott
Cast: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortenson, Rene Zellweger, Jeremy Irons, Lance Henriksen, Timothy Spall

The most anachronistic thing about Ed Harris' Appaloosa is how straight-forward it is--post-Unforgiven and Deadwood, whatever audience endures for the Western (or, at least, me...) has become so used to "deconstructionism" that when faced with an old-fashioned "oater" that's as unpretentious and straight-shooting as a tattered Zane Gray paperback you might unearth at a yard sale, one can't help but go looking for the allegory behind every swing of a saloon door or glint of gun metal. Is the jailhouse supposed to represent Abu Ghraib? And those cattle rustlers--they're Blackwater, right? Plus, there's less spoken profanity in its entire 114 minute running time than in a single Al Swearengen soliloquy--this thing could almost play in the Gunsmoke time slot on Peachtree TV.

After the impassioned--and at times, histrionic--biopic Pollock, which Harris nurtured obsessively for several years for his directorial debut, this sophomore effort displays a surprisingly warm touch from such an intense and devoted actor, who ambitions here were simply to create a type of film he enjoyed in his youth. Not a terribly radical notion, admittedly--with Open Range and the remake of 3:10 To Yuma having also attempted to resurrect the horse opera in recent years to varied success, but Harris' take is easy, breezy stuff, chock full of genre conventions--yes, that's "Camptown Races" playing on the saloon piano! and the Indians belt out war whoops--that are only dutifully addressed in favour of oddball character bits.

Based on a novel by Spenser creator Robert B. Parker, the story is set in the titular town in New Mexico, circa 1882. When Appaloosa's Marshall and deputies are murdered in cold blood under the orders of rancher Randall Bragg (Irons, taking cues on masking his accent from Daniel Day Lewis), the town elders waste no time in hiring nomadic lawman Virgil Cole (Harris) and his long-time friend and deputy Everett Hitch (Mortenson) to do something about the Bragg's campaign of terror. They reluctantly agree to Cole's rather extreme set of laws, active immediately. Within the day, the seasoned gunmen have already unholstered their weapons and sent Bragg a message that he won't be tolerated nor his reputation feared. A guilt-ridden young man, who witnessed Bragg's execution of the lawmen, offers to serve as a witness if Cole and Hitch will ensure his protection--an arrangement that leads to the rotter's immediate arrest.

When Allison French (Zellweger) arrives in town in search of work as a church organist ("you're not a whore?", Cole asks matter-of-factly, when considering the notion of an attractive young woman traveling alone), both men begin a boyish rivalry for her attentions. Cole, who’d previously been with only "horses and squaws", wins Allison's hand--and more--and soon, they're moving in together and building a house, to the chagrin of Hitch, who regards Cole as his permanent life partner.

When Allison makes an aggressive pass at Hitch, he rebuffs her out of loyalty to his friend, and learns of her true colours when she threatens to blackmail him. Meanwhile, an uncharacteristically beaming, lovestruck Cole is suspicious when some familiar faces from his past suddenly arrive in town for Bragg's trial, especially the oily Ring (Henriksen). Bragg is convicted and sentenced to hang, but Cole's old friends have other plans. In cahoots with Ring, Bragg's gang bust their boss out of custody during a thrilling train siege, and kidnap Allison to keep Cole and Hitch at bay. In pursuit, Hitch is faced with dilemma: should he tell his best friend of his lady's dubious loyalties? Would Cole's emotions jeopardize the hunt for Bragg?

Mortenson and Harris were obviously born to wear Stetsons and strap on six-guns, but the film's standout moments crackle when their masculinity falters and they become tongue-tied over picking out fabric for curtains, discussing previous romantic dalliances, or when Hitch plays Cyrano to Virgil's limited vocabulary (even though he's been seen thumbing through a tome by Ralph Waldo Emerson). While they've worked together on only one film previously (David Cronenberg's A History Of Violence), their effortless rapport suggests they could well have been lifelong friends off-camera as well.

Unfortunately, Zellweger (replacing original choice Diane Lane), is badly miscast, mincing about daintily in Allison's hoop skirt and parisol about as believably as Jodie Foster vamped in Miss Kitty's wardrobe in Richard Donner's Maverick update. Ally's affections are conditional, and seemingly airborne to whatever alpha cowpoke is in the immediate vicinity--is this the advent of the "modern" woman to further rock Virgil's old timey world views (although Emerson did support the 19th women's rights movement), or, are we meant to see Zellweger’s use of her feminine charms as her survival tool against all this rampant testosterone? Whatever the intention, Zellweger never pulls it off--she comes off as manipulative and vaguely pathological, rather than resourceful.

Harris has admitted to studying the Western classics of Hawks and Ford--My Darling Clementine, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Red River specifically--seeking to "keep it simple visually, and [with as] as few cuts as possible" (from the press notes). He also sought inspiration from the iconic Wild West paintings of Frederick Remington. Dean Semler's photography is pretty and functional but not particularly distinguished, perhaps in service to Harris' no-bullstuff approach to the material. The film lacks Ford's painterly vistas or Peckinpah's gritty, sunbaked textures, although Sergio Leone would have surely fallen for the four great craggy faces in play (Harris, Mortenson, Irons, and of course, Henriksen), and likely Zellweger's shiny, squinty countenance as well.

Not only did Harris purchase the rights to the novel, hand deliver a copy to Mortenson at The Toronto International Film Festival, cowrite the screenplay (with Robert Knott), direct the adaptation, and take on the lead role, he even sings one of the two end title songs (the other is by Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers)! Thankfully, his commitment is evident in every frame, even if the experience is, in the end, a little underwhelming, considering the magnitude of the talent involved.

©Robert J. Lewis
2008

Movieforum Celebrates 10 Years At TIFF

2008-09-01T22:51:00.002-04:00

Incredibly, TIFF 2008 marks the 10th straight year that Movieforum has covered The Toronto International Film Festival--back in 1998, shortly after our original hub's launch from the digital dust of eDrive and Tapehead, Canadian Correspondent (and longtime TIFF supporter back to the days when the event was known as "The Festival Of Festivals") Robert J. Lewis charmed himself some special screening vouchers and the following year, his thorough and thoughtful reviews awarded us official accreditation that the kind folks in the press department have granted us each successive year since.

With the first screening only days away, we've resurrected our blog incarnation for daily coverage of the 33th annual Toronto International Film Festival, which officially begins Thursday, September 4, 2007. As per our usual format, Robert's daily capsule reviews will appear shortly, with a more thorough and formal overview to follow at the fest's conclusion.

TAD 2007: "The Tripper" Review

2007-10-24T00:06:00.000-04:00

(USA, 2007, 93 minutes)
Written by: David Arquette and Joe Harris
Directed by: David Arquette
Cast: Jason Mewes, Lukas Haas, Thomas Jane, Jaimie King, Paul Reubens, Balthazar Getty

It’s common knowledge that the iconographic white face of killer Michael Myers in Halloween was, in fact, a William Shatner slip mask purchased by the prop department at the 11th hour, so it’s now possible (but not recommended, John Carpenter’s film is still a classic) to re-interpret the shocker as the “booty call” of a hormonal and murderous Captain Kirk, who, having conquered all the women in the universe, turns his dilithium-powered gonads on the promiscuous young co-eds of Haddonfield, Illinois.

In David Arquette’s directorial debut, a bevy of libidinous youths are pursued by a slow-moving killer who sure looks a lot like late president Ronald Reagan, but the resemblance here is purely intentional. Arquette, perhaps inspired from his appearance in Wes Craven’s popular slasher pastiche Scream, has conceived a loopy horror homage (cowritten with Darkness Falls’ Joe Harris) that pits a forest full of modern-day hippies (apparently there are such things outside of Lenny Kravitz videos and the “Burning Man” festival) against a vengeful faux-Ronnie who would rather dispense of dissenters with his bare hands than call in the National Guard. In The Tripper, “Bloody Thursday” gets an extension…

Sometime in the late 60s, televised images of Vietnam and the burgeoning counterculture flicker across the blank expression of Gus, a young boy. In the next room, his terminally ill mother is doted on by Dylan, her poor but loving husband. Dylan takes the boy with him to his job at the local forest, where a group of protestors have chained themselves to a large redwood to protest the industry that Dylan relies on to pay for the care of his ill wife. After a squabble, Dylan pulls a gun on them, but the local police intervene. Quiet Gus erupts in action and comes to his father’s aid by taking a chainsaw to the peaceniks’ leader. Gus is taken away, kicking and screaming.

Present day: Four youths are on their way to the "America Free Love Festival” weekend bash in Northern California: George Bush supporter Joey (Kevin Smith regular Mewes, hardly stretching here), his anti-Republican girlfriend Linda (Thomason), and stoner couples Jack (Heath) and Jade (de la Huerta), and Ivan (Haas) and Samantha (King). Arriving at a campsite near the venue, they immediately have a run in with the local rednecks, who give chase before a showdown in the local diner, where a now-adult Gus (Nelson) pounds some manners into the thugs.

Of course, Gus’ father is now a crazy old coot who has lived in the woods in the decades since and warns the kids to stay away, even setting lethal traps for anyone who dare disturb his precious forest. When a hippie/nudist is found dangling and gutted, stoic and by-the-book sheriff Buzz Hall (Jane) decides to take no chances and shuts the concert down, much to the chagrin of oily Mayor Burton (comedian Rick Overton) and flamboyant concert promoter Frank Baker (Reubens), who have their own crooked deal going.

Within her circle of half-baked friends, only Samantha keeps her head clear, and becomes aware that the concertgoers are being dispatched by a single individual, who sports a Ronald Reagan mask and swings a mean hatchet. As Hall and his deputy investigate Dylan’s homestead, they discover much history about Gus’ obsession with The Great Communicator, but can they build a case in time before another fatal axe blow is dealt?

Although set in present day, The Tripper owes its style and sensibility to two ghetto genres of yesteryear: the 1960s drug/counter culture exploitation flick ala Corman’s The Trip and Psych Out, and the low-rent slasher yarn of the 80s like The Burning or Don’t Go In The Woods. For a novice, Arquette displays imagination and skill by utilizing various film stocks, inventive angles, garish lighting effects that range from Creepshow to Ken Russell (not to mention Oliver Stone’s multimedia sensory assault Natural Born Killers), and effective use of locations (the fine cinematography is by Bobby Bukowski)—although it’d take a major no-talent to screw up a ready-made, living soundstage of ominous trees, rotting bark, mist, marsh, and consuming shadows.

It’s not a complete parody in the Thursday The 12th”/”Pandemonium sense, although Thomas Jane’s squared-jawed sheriff, like Tommy Smothers’ diligent Mountie, is always one step behind. Paul Reubens (who, coincidentally, played Smothers’ assistant in Soles’ early 80s spoof) tears into his brief role as a showboating Bill Graham type, but his scenes seem to come from a different movie entirely.

Arquette cameos as one of the rednecks, as does his brother Richmond as Jane’s useless deputy, and his wife Courtney Cox, as an animal lover who gets a bit too close to her cause and literally bleeds for it.

Star Thomas Jane also co produced the film, along with 30 Days Of Night author Steve Niles (and Jane’s visage is used as Cal McDonald for Niles’ current “Criminal Macabre” series from DC/Vertigo).

The gore is explicit and surprisingly brutal, given that The Tripper also strives to be satiric and topical as it spills the red stuff in quantities far greater than what could be considered “trickle down”. The political undertones of the film are just sort of there—I was never exactly sure what was being lampooned, as Arquette’s script dishes out as much contempt for dim, wayward youths as it does for the suit-and-tie conservatives that would love to see every last one of them slaughtered. The film is full of bile for Reagan’s phony “old values” posturing and a key plot point hinges on when, as Governor of California, he approved the release of thousands of mental patients back into communities to save costs. But leftist icon Robert Kennedy is also a target, too. And then there’s the pet pig named George W. Perhaps Arquette’s platform is completely nonpartisan and a clarion call for anarchy—which gets an A for ambition but makes it damned hard to muster up any empathy for one side or the other.

Still, it’s funny to see the Reagan maniac—whose mask makes him look like a homicidal Spitting Image puppet (although somehow less frightening than the one in Genesis’ “Land Of Confusion” video)--deliver a messy axe blow and quip “Just Say No” or remark “It’s Morning In America” as he regards his latest victim (what, no “We Begin The Bombing In Five Minutes”? or reference to Ronnie and Nancy’s occasional dabbles with the Ouija Board?). There’s an amusing bit with jelly beans—Reagan kept a bowl to judge a man’s character--and yet, the references don’t add up to much other than shading.

The Tripper is one of those low-budget, under-the-radar movies you get the impression was a lot of fun to make for all involved—and thankfully, most of it translates into an enjoyable viewing experience for the committed horror fan as well. But considering the ambition and pedigree of talent involved on both sides of the camera, it’s as quickly forgotten as just another empty campaign promise.

TAD 2007: "Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead" Review

2007-10-23T01:43:00.000-04:00

(USA, 2007, 103 minutes)
Written by Daniel Bova, Gabriel Friedman, Lloyd Kaufman
Directed by Lloyd Kaufman
Cast: Jason Yachanin, Kate Graham, Allyoson Sereboff, Robin Watkins, Joshua Olatunde, Lloyd Kaufman

Founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974 in NYC, Troma Team Productions became notorious for its rough-hewn sleazefests like The First Turn-On and Squeeze Play and since then, the spawn of Hell’s Kitchen has spread (like a fungus, as the old joke goes) from a distribution company into a production studio, home video label, web portal, and annual film festival (Tromadance—what else?). Amazingly, Troma (the name means nothing, btw) brushed briefly with the G-rated set when its figurehead The Toxic Avenger (or “Toxie”, to friends) was spun off into a children's television series (The Toxic Crusaders) and a line of action figures. But as the exploitation market shrinks, Troma has managed to outlast the New Worlds and the Avco-Embassys and endure as the vulgarian Mecca for those who subscribe to Picasso’s adage that “good taste" is the enemy of creativity…

But as a willing customer for such titles as Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid and Stuff Stephanie In The Incinerator, I can tell you that while few card-carrying devotees of the B-circuit might admit it, the idea of Troma is often a lot better than the films they produce and/or distribute. So I’m pleased to report that for the most part--with mucho caveats mind you—Troma’s latest scurrilous pageant—the musical horror farce Poultrygeist: Night Of the Chicken Dead--is a (literal) gas and worth checking out if you've got the fortitude for this sort of thing.

Hopeless nerd Arby (Yachanin) and his white bread wannabe-girlfriend Wendy (Graham) celebrate their last night of high school together dry-humping in the Tromaville cemetery, coincidentally right on top of where the ancient Tromahawk Tribe have been buried. They’re interrupted by a masturbating serial panty sniffer (oh, you cry, not that plot again!), who inadvertently helps resurrect one of the centuries’ old corpses, whose disembodied finger makes Arbie’s passage to manhood all the more memorable by lodging itself in his rectum.

Assuming you’re still with the film, and this review, we cut to a year later. Arby, stuck in Tromaville to take care of his mentally-retarded father and blind mother (both never seen), returns to find the graveyard has been paved over to host a franchise of the Southern-based “American Chicken Bunker” fast food chain. An array of leftist protestors has blocked entrance to the restaurant, and Arby is surprised to find that his true love Wendy has joined up with CLAM (College Lesbians Against Mega-Conglomerations). To spite the dogma of Wendy and her girlfriend Mickey D (Sereboff), Arby accepts a job with the restaurant as a “counter girl”. His manager is the militant Denny (Olatunde), and his dubiously-qualified coworkers include the effete Paco Bell, hillbilly hick/bestiality enthusiast Carl Jr., and radical Muslim Humus, who wears a birka with her ACB uniform.

On the first day of business, a crazed man barges into the restaurant (porn icon Ron Jeremy—no Kevin McCarthy) to warn everyone in the restaurant that the spirits of the Tromahawk tribe will enact vengeance for disturbing their sacred burial ground. The franchise’s greedy owner, General Lee (Watkins—having seemingly studied under Foghorn Leghorn), has arrived from his latest cross-burning to MC the Grand Opening and laughs off any suggestion of disaster. Even after--for reasons never 100% fully explained--a suspicious but otherwise unnoticed batch of noxious green eggs show up, which become an added ingredient of the chain’s daily menu and are immediately inhaled by the loutish patrons.

The first, a morbidly-obese glutton (Troma regular Joe Fleishaker, who appears to have doubled in size since his turn as the Mayor in the years since The Toxic Avenger and has somehow managed to stay alive), gives birth to the first of the film’s many forms of rampaging man-fowl in the men’s room. It’s a scene that starts off disgusting and manages to outdo itself with such outrageous excess than even the most jaded devotee of bathroom humour will feel bludgeoned by its conclusion (you’ll thank Kaufman’s wife for insisting on the usage of those rapidly multiplying “censored” banners—I won’t say any more).

Assuming, again, that you’re still with me—Arby encounters “Old Arby” (Kaufman), an almost spectral backroom dweller who warns the youth to ditch this career and aspire to more in life, or he’ll be stuck behind the counter forever. But as the spirits manifest themselves in increasingly monstrous (and ridiculous) forms, it’ll be a long time before Arby and co. get out of the restaurant at all.

It's forever the Reagan Era in Tromaville, evident by the grainy film stock (which does nothing to beautify the Buffalo, New York locations), rinky-dink synth score that sounds like it's performed on a Casio keyboard, visible edits, dodgy ADR, and geysers of blood, bile, and purple slime. But the sensibility is definitely current, and the satire targets 21st century hot buttons as the Morgan Spurlock and Eric Schlosser indictments of the fast-food industries (the characters are named after fast food chains), post-9/11 hysteria, increased societal splintering and political/sexual/ethnic “tribalism”, and even the Abu Ghraib scandal. The Photoshop’d stills of a hooded chicken being marched on a dog leash are probably the funniest thing I’ll see on film this year (I asked Kaufman if the Lindy England photos were public domain, to which he shrugged and remarked: “I sure hope so!” Could Poultrygeist get Redacted…?).

It might be too much to say that Poultrygeist is one of American cinema’s most merciless deconstructions of political correctness since (Kaufman’s protégés) Parker and Stone’s Team America: World Police (which was, if nothing else, a Troma production with better film stock and a longer production schedule), but then again, everything about Troma films is too damned much—there’s a talking burrito, ass ripping, castrations, and as the title promises, hordes of rampant, carnivorous chicken mutants, one of whom, yes, does bite the head off a human (if Troma could afford Ron Jeremy for a cameo, couldn’t they have splurged a little more for Ozzie Osbourne?).

For all of the precious fluids spurted across our glazed corneas though, Kaufman shows himself to be an old-school vaudevillian throughout--who else in this day and age would put a "This Space For Rent" sign amidst a crowd of protestors like something out of a Harvey Kurtzman MAD Magazine panel? Zip and boing sound effects abound.

Billed as a musical, there aren’t really a lot of songs, and only a few are memorable, my favorites being Kaufman’s Riverdance-influenced “Longing To Live/Waiting To Die”, and the sorority-set “Slow Fast Food Love”, a shamelessly sexploitive riff on the Grease duet “Summer Nights” (you can listen to some of the soundtrack here at Troma's MySpace page). By the time the splatter goes into overdrive for the extended climax (outdoing—and outgrueing—the marathon spectacles of dismemberment from Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead and Robert Rodriguez’ From Dusk Til Dawn), the tunes are dropped entirely. Kaufman explained that he intended “Poultrygeist” as something more akin to Takashi Miike's Happiness Of Katakuris (Lloyd’’s knowledge of film, from Hitchcock to Stan Brakhage, is impressive).

Post-screening, after a truly pathetic audience response to a karaoke round of the Poultrygeist title song, Kaufman bounded back onto the stage, joined by the ever-present scantily clad Goth chick, a Michael Berryman lookalike (one assumes he was part of the entourage and didn’t wander in from the nearest Annex methadone clinic), and the worst "Toxie" yet seen in public (couldn't he afford a latex slip mask that fit? And where was the tutu?) for a very candid Q&A.

The shocker came when Kaufman (a Yale grad) announced that this could well be his last film. Poultrygeist was the first Troma production totally funded by Kaufman and his wife out of their own pockets, using their home as collateral. The current state of film exhibition makes it hard for even an established name brand like Troma to make money (I had long assumed Troma’s cash cow was home video). Kaufman and Herz have long been supporter of independent film, distributing titles from around the world (often with minimal re-cutting—are you listening Harvey Weinstein?) and Kaufman regularly appears in the efforts of first-timers (for free) to lend a “name” and possibly ensure them a professional deal. So Kaufman can be forgiven for shilling on the sidewalk hours before the screening, shilling in the lobby selling DVDs and soundtrack CDs, shilling on stage, and still shilling at the neighboring pub afterwards. He’s definitely the genuine article who takes his philosophy and trade literally to the streets.

Poultrygeist won’t open in New York until March of 2008, with some regional releases planned. Until then, you’ve got time to beg, plead, and threaten your local movie houses into booking it—more than ever it seems, the future of anarchic, truly independent cinema depends on your voice...

BTW, Lloyd told me to mention Toxic Avenger: The Novel, which you can order here at Amazon.

©2007 Robert J. Lewis