tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89778930017761252602024-03-14T07:23:44.668-05:00Eternal Sunshine Of The Logical MindBob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.comBlogger746125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-1160539822744916992015-02-24T12:37:00.001-05:002015-02-24T13:52:13.411-05:00Blindspot - "A Night At The Opera" and "The Navigator"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IIK77WfaXuc/VOwTPPN3f3I/AAAAAAAAQco/LA5TNhr1nfk/s1600/BlindspotANightAtTheOpera4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IIK77WfaXuc/VOwTPPN3f3I/AAAAAAAAQco/LA5TNhr1nfk/s1600/BlindspotANightAtTheOpera4.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
I remember a Saturday evening many years ago sitting down with my Dad to watch the Marx Brothers. I think we had tuned into PBS around 7PM and a double bill of <b>Monkey Business</b> and <b>Horse Feathers</b> was showing. Together they didn't even total 2 and a half hours, but holy crap did we cram in the laughs. It was silly, goofy and appealed to every juvenile instinct I had in my body (and still have). It seemed to have the same effect on my Dad since he sat in his chair giggling in that "Dad" fashion and shaking half the house along with him. Of course, that just made everything that much funnier. I was probably about 10-11, so I was also old enough to catch some of the puns, banter and sharpness of these obviously practised comedians and realized that this was a craft. A well-honed one.<br />
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And speaking of artists and their crafts...Buster Keaton remains to this day one of my all-time favourite artists in any medium. Far more than just simple slapstick, his silent comedies of the mid-to-late 20s were things of beauty and marvels to behold that would make you smile, laugh and question basic laws of physics. A somewhat "life changing" experience was watching a 3 hour American Masters program on PBS dedicated to Keaton (which I fortunately taped to VHS and wore down to microscopic width). His life had tragedy, regret and failure, but also contained some of the greatest work to ever be caught on celluloid. As the "great stone face", Keaton rarely broke a smile or showed a sense of fear while throwing himself (or mostly being thrown) info a myriad of dangerous stunts and physical gags. Though he was also an obviously well-rehearsed funny man with razor sharp timing, the falls, leaps and tumbles seemed almost improvised. It was part of his brilliance and was fascinating to hear him reflect on the broken bones and sets of cat-lives that he had. Those interview clips of Keaton in his late 50s also greatly reminded me of my Dad - there was just a certain way he told a story.<br />
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While watching these two films, it was fun to contrast what the Marx Brothers and Keaton each took from the rich comedic environment of vaudeville. Though they both retained the manic energy of stage comedy, they displayed it in different ways. As mentioned, Keaton focused it almost entirely on his sight gags that occasionally felt like dares gone wrong, but demanded a Cirque Du Soleil performer's strength, agility and finely tuned sense of balance (not to mention massive pain tolerance). As an example, an old clip from an early Fatty Arbuckle short shows him resting a foot on a counter while he tries to unstick his other foot from the floor. When he successfully peels it from the gooey molasses he had spilled, he lifts it up onto the counter WHILE THE OTHER FOOT REMAINS THERE. He appears to hang there in mid-air for far longer than any self-respecting pull of gravity would allow and then falls into a heap on the floor. It's remarkable, surprising and very funny.<br />
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The Marx Brothers, though still pretty good with a pratfall themselves, funnel most of their creative juices into the more verbal, musical and clownish elements of vaudeville. Groucho was given most of the good lines and putdowns (of anyone within his line of sight), but he also typically had several wonderful bits of verbal jousting with Chico as they each layered spoonerisms on top of assumptions and formed perfect moments of miscommunication. Each film also regularly had outlets for their music - Groucho's catchy songs, Chico's playful, wiggling-finger piano playing and Harpo's mostly delicate harp solos. Regardless of the plot, the lovers they were trying to help put together and the selfish schemes they were trying to torpedo, they never forgot to show the joy of just clowning around for the simple sake of amusing oneself (and hopefully others around them). To call them boisterous would be like calling a dozen, coca-cola-caffeinated 9 year-old boys playing video games a quiet play date.<br />
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Both films are somewhat similar in that they each have very distinctive moments and scenes that help define classic comedy from the early days of Hollywood, but also - when viewed as entire films - fall somewhere around "average" on a grading scale. <b>A Night At The Opera</b> contains the wild and ridiculous cabin scene that stacks people on top of each other before they spill out to the hallway and provides all of the aforementioned antics (including both Chico and Harpo doodling on a piano in front of very amused children), but sputters in several sections and offers little humour from any plot points. Well, OK, Chico and Harpo playing catch in the orchestra pit of the opera is still damn funny...<br />
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Keaton's <b>The Navigator</b> contains an underwater sequence that - especially for its day - is quite impressive. With a bulky diving suit on, Keaton is filmed using a lobster as a pair of scissors, fencing with a swordfish and fighting off an octopus. There's also some inventive and silly humour in the kitchen and a variety of Buster's slips and bumblings, but the dominant scenes are around an encounter with dark-skinned cannibal savages. They want to board the abandoned ship on which Keaton and his potential girlfriend have been stranded, but not much funny happens during these extended scenes and they seem to only serve two purposes: 1) reminding the "savages" of their inferiority and 2) allowing a good final gag to save them. At 58 minutes, it's pretty breezy, but even so it slogs a bit once they reach that island.<br />
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Nevertheless, both films do provide ample evidence of their classic style of humour while also keeping audiences reasonably entertained. I'll be seeing my parents this coming weekend as they prepare for an upcoming move, so I'm thinking I might bring along a sampling of both artists' films. At 87, my Dad is much less willing to go along with an anarchic bunch of maladroits or catch the subtlety of the deft contortions of a silent comedian, but I'm pretty sure the Marxes or Keaton can still get a good couple of chair shakes from him....<br />
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Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-91173898825966936442015-01-31T23:58:00.000-05:002015-01-31T23:58:29.035-05:00Blindspot - "The Deer Hunter" and "Coming Home"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QXBVUo58wMM/VMc27QQ2u5I/AAAAAAAAQag/a6t8N_Ho6WY/s1600/BlindspotTheDeerHunter1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QXBVUo58wMM/VMc27QQ2u5I/AAAAAAAAQag/a6t8N_Ho6WY/s1600/BlindspotTheDeerHunter1.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Whenever the blind spots of our history of film knowledge come up in conversation, one of the most common questions is "Why haven't you seen movie 'X' yet?". Sometimes it's just matter of "Hey, ya just can't see them all!", but usually there's a specific reason for not having ventured into a classic film (especially for those of us who list movie-watching as a passion). In the case of this month's tandem Vietnam War selections (<b>The Deer Hunter</b> and <b>Coming Home</b>), the reasons are several fold. The first is the subject matter - though I have no issues with war films or specifically ones about Vietnam, like many I had reached a bit of a saturation point in regards to the topic. Not that war films are typically happy-go-lucky affairs or that I want all my viewing experiences to shut out the evil world, but the Vietnam films seemed to have cornered the market on depressing (for many valid reasons of course). As well, both films gave the sense of revolving around a single main event or condition and (from my poor memory of hearing about them when I was younger) didn't really pull me into their plotlines. Not to mention the fact that <b>The Deer Hunter</b> is a full 3 hours long and the vast majority of the first half of the film takes place before any of the characters even head overseas.<br />
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But this is why I'm continuing the Blindspot efforts...Things aren't always quite what they seem. For instance, the long preamble in <b>The Deer Hunter</b> not only introduces the film's main characters before they go to Vietnam, but it also gives ample reason why they would volunteer to go. Their lives at home don't appear to offer much more than what they already trudge through daily (hard physical labour, drinking and hunting) and maybe the possibility of gaining a mortgage on a small house in a decrepit part of town with a spouse that you can somewhat stomach. This rather bleak view of the working class environment inhabited by the characters is built through a wedding and its preparation. By the time the nuptials take place it feels a bit like a drunken wake - though they toast the marriage of Steven and Angela, it is also a farewell party for Steven (John Savage), Mike (Robert De Niro) and Nick (Christopher Walken) before they leave for Vietnam. The entire time spent in the town is slow, awkward and entirely depressing in its limitations regarding the potential scope of these characters, but it is also highly effective at painting this way of life and the strong community bonds. After almost half the film has unspooled, the three wind up in Vietnam and the film wastes no time in painting a new picture - a horrendous, gruesome and inhumane one. After Nick and Steven rescue Mike from a particularly nasty battle, the three end up captured in a small camp where the guards entertain themselves by pitting their prisoners against each other in games of Russian Roulette. The film is justifiably known for this sequence as it is terrifying, tense and remarkably hard to watch. Their home back in the steelworks of Pennsylvania looks like a damn paradise at this point. A desperate plan is hatched, escapes are made and the three are separated and wind up in different states of disrepair.<br />
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With <b>Coming Home</b>, the rehabilitation of paralyzed vet Luke (Jon Voigt) became more than just the expected simple melodrama of a love triangle with complications. Though old school friend Sally (Jane Fonda) does indeed slowly fall in love with Luke while her husband Bob (Bruce Dern) remains overseas, the film patiently provides fully developed characters that grow, change and adapt over the course of the story. It never becomes a straight up love conquers all story or a flag-waving salute to the injured men from the war. It actually tries to deal with the mess - the physical and mental wreckage of people and their attempts (or lack thereof) to make it through life changing events. Luke begins as an angry, railing-at-the-world patient in the hospital but slowly warms to Sally's attempts to help. She's volunteered at the hospital to keep her occupied while Bob is away and as she slowly assists Luke in regaining a sense of purpose, her own world begins to expand. The conservative values and outward appearance begin to loosen up, her political eyes open and she starts to question things - even the possibility that she could be falling into love with someone else. Luke for his own part rediscovers his passion and campaigns against the war effort while realizing that he could indeed still build a life. Sally and Luke emerge as fully realized people who are flawed but willing to make efforts to repair what's been broken and get on with focusing on their loves and desires.<br />
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Both films spend much less time in Vietnam itself than you'd think classics of the genre would do. <b>The Deer Hunter</b>'s first trip to Vietnam lasts for only about 35 minutes while <b>Coming Home</b> spends almost no time there at all (apart from a few scenes showing some of Bob's experiences). Neither film suffers for its lack of time spent there since neither film is really simply about Vietnam. The focus of both films is how people try to make it through to the other side and how they don't always succeed. <b>The Deer Hunter</b> shows some harrowing consequences - particularly the mental slides of Steven (after his own paralyzing injury), Angela (unfortunately playing the cliche poor woman so scarred by emotional toil that she retreats into catatonia) and Nick. Walken is particularly effective in that latter role as he transitions from the cocky boyfriend of Linda (a gorgeous young Meryl Streep) to a disconnected zombie roaming the streets of Saigon. After having returned home, Mike suspects Nick is still in Vietnam and returns to find him (despite his love for Linda no longer being unrequited). He too has changed - no longer the man of black and white viewpoints, he can empathize and wants to heal the wounds and make things right. His hunting days may be over...<br />
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<b>Coming Home</b> also shows the process and difficulty of healing both the physical and mental scars. Just as Luke is regaining a place in the world, Bob returns even more coiled and frayed than when he left. His view of war, his country and himself has changed, but he doesn't know what to do with all that information. His wife's infidelity adds kindling to the fire and allows Dern one truly excellent "freak out" scene when he yells at his wife with a blazing rage. He's not the only one suffering though - the brother of his buddy's girlfriend Violet (now good friends with Sally) is struggling in a mental hospital to regain his footing. Robert Carradine plays him with a great deal of sensitivity and you can almost feel the pain and stress as he tries to do a simple thing like play his guitar. Nothing remains simple for those exposed to the ugliness of humanity and it can infect others around them as well. Both films have moments of hope and show strength of character and community. But in the end, no one truly walks away unscathed.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t2S12DkZjgE/VMc24MUIliI/AAAAAAAAQZ8/BcAoUH6kizg/s1600/BlindspotComingHome2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t2S12DkZjgE/VMc24MUIliI/AAAAAAAAQZ8/BcAoUH6kizg/s1600/BlindspotComingHome2.png" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-19506552975100933702015-01-31T15:19:00.002-05:002015-01-31T15:46:12.258-05:00"A Most Violent Year"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kzEGwahMPVA/VM0xvoMLo-I/AAAAAAAAQbs/fe618SKbegk/s1600/AMostViolentYear1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kzEGwahMPVA/VM0xvoMLo-I/AAAAAAAAQbs/fe618SKbegk/s1600/AMostViolentYear1.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<i>Listen to <a href="http://www.thematinee.ca/episode130/">The Matineecast</a> where I discuss "A Most Violent Year" with host Ryan McNeil.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
There's really not a great deal of violence in <b>A Most Violent Year</b>. Though set in 1981 New York City (a low period for the city marked by high crime rates), there are few visceral moments of bloodshed and brutality. What does exist is an almost constant <i>threat</i> of violence - around every corner and edit in the film, it feels as if some form of foul play sits in wait. The landscape of this version of New York City is bleak, crumbling and empty. The barren streets and rundown manufacturing plants aren't exactly conducive to strolling about, but the lack of people in the background of the film gives you the feeling that they too are worried about those threats lurking in the shadows.<br />
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The real violence of the film, however, refers to the damage done to its main character's (Abel Morales played exceedingly well by Oscar Isaac) view of the American capitalist framework and his moral approach to honest work resolving in honest returns. Morales wants to behave ethically - though he'll take every advantage in marketing ploys, he doesn't want to game the system or cheat his competitors. He feels he should reward those who succeed in his business (an oil company for home heating) and coach those who don't in order to give them an opportunity to grow. Morales is a sharply dressed man with focus and drive that leads you to believe he WILL get what he wants. When he stares at you, you listen. He's at a turning point in his business as he puts a huge down payment on a new parcel of land for expansion, but needs to come up with the rest of the capital to close the deal. He is warned up front by the old owners that they are happy to do business with him, but on their terms for their benefit. As Morales tackles problems of his trucks getting hijacked and being investigated for possible shady financial reporting, he struggles to gather up the remaining money needed to close the deal.<br />
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There's room for a great deal of tension in a plotline of this nature, but director J.C. Chandor is going for something different. Though that feeling of violence being in the air is always present, the tension is muted. Perhaps it's the murky greens, yellows and browns of the cinematography and surroundings, but there's an odd lack of immediate anxiety - in particular during the first half or so of the film. It's oddly devoid of rhythm with a slow pace and very low key soundtrack. As the film moves forward and Morales begins to get more and more constricted in the possible options at his disposal, the editing and music begin to add further dynamics to the film. Though it is somewhat effective in bringing forth the feeling of Morales becoming cornered and forcing his hand to play in the new capitalism space (stretching beyond the limits of the law, resorting to intimidation tactics, etc.), the style of the film somewhat diminishes the impact. He is obviously of recent immigrant status and with strong feelings about the proper way to conduct oneself, but even though he resists, he begins to see that the new American dream is that of preserving and increasing your status in life with little regard for those beneath.<br />
<br />
If that sounds like a dig at the current view of the wealthy 1%, that's certainly an element of this deeply cynical story. Morales' wife Anna (Jessica Chastain in a role that doesn't have nearly the range or scope it should have had) claims that he needs to be more protective of his family when threats begin to come closer to their new mansion, but what she is really saying is that he needs to ensure they retain their newly achieved higher station in life. Her attitude, practiced manner in condescending to the police and slightly trashy (complete with bright red lipstick) way of dressing, suggests possible family ties or experience with the criminal element. His lawyer (another winning and entertaining performance by Albert Brooks) has obviously dabbled with a variety of clients and his colleagues/competitors in the industry are all figuring out the new system around them as well. The main question posed by the film is whether Morales can retain his morality along with his old view of the promise of the United States and yet still prosper. Or does success in this new version of America truly mean the need to prevent others from also achieving it. There's only so much room near the top and you don't want to be caught in the collapsing, decaying section of society. Much of the film is shot very dark and dim lighting sometimes casts the characters as silhouettes of themselves to indicate that they may have already succumbed to the "easy" path. Others, who don't have the ability to fully commit to this new way of life, fall by the wayside.<br />
<br />
There are several "surprise" moments in the movie (revelations, actions, etc.), but few are truly surprising. Apart from an excellent car chase sequence through a train tunnel that is truly exciting and raises you from your seat somewhat, the rest of the film is a set of straight line developments that you can mostly see coming from a distance. That's not necessarily a criticism as perhaps that is part of the film's intent - a warning of sorts that we can already see the disintegrating situation around us and that we shouldn't be shocked when it finally does crumble. However, that message doesn't necessarily make for a satisfying film since the path it takes isn't always compelling. The end doesn't always justify the means.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U9GpDtCymYM/VM0xxoSe40I/AAAAAAAAQb0/dlOs618PToY/s1600/AMostViolentYear2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U9GpDtCymYM/VM0xxoSe40I/AAAAAAAAQb0/dlOs618PToY/s1600/AMostViolentYear2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-89789051677858342882015-01-04T23:13:00.001-05:002015-01-04T23:13:33.998-05:00Movie Moments Of The Year - 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YzQPyaf10IY/VKn-x3MKDFI/AAAAAAAAQZE/5Br1nISYfO4/s1600/MovieMoments2014-LEGOMovie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YzQPyaf10IY/VKn-x3MKDFI/AAAAAAAAQZE/5Br1nISYfO4/s1600/MovieMoments2014-LEGOMovie.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Another cobbled together list of some of my favourite moments from 2014's films as well as older ones I saw for the first time. So here's a leisurely stroll through them...<br />
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<h3><b>2014 films:</b></h3><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e3El-LRPgLE/VKoAOfJmcNI/AAAAAAAAQZQ/QJU3XiuIl9o/s1600/MovieMoments2014-Noah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e3El-LRPgLE/VKoAOfJmcNI/AAAAAAAAQZQ/QJU3XiuIl9o/s1600/MovieMoments2014-Noah.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>The story of creation in <b>Noah</b> - beautifully composed as it also worked in evolution and epic timescales into the mythology of the story.</li>
<li>"SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP!! SPACESHIP!!" - <b>The LEGO Movie</b>.</li>
<li><b>The Grand Budapest Hotel</b> - every perfectly centred frame.</li>
<li>Those final credits of <b>22 Jump Street</b> - they're funny cuz their true...</li>
<li>Being in the same theatre with Caroll Spinney (the puppeteer of Big Bird and Oscar The Grouch) and James Randi within the same week during Hot Docs.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v0oUubSHbQQ/VKn887gTmyI/AAAAAAAAQX4/WBKOf2tDWDk/s1600/MovieMoments2014-Nightcrawler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v0oUubSHbQQ/VKn887gTmyI/AAAAAAAAQX4/WBKOf2tDWDk/s1600/MovieMoments2014-Nightcrawler.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>The breathless car chase in <b>Nightcrawler</b>.</li>
<li>The bracing last 10 minutes of <b>Whiplash</b>.</li>
<li>The wonderful sing-a-long in <b>A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence</b> (more fully described <a href="http://eternalsunshineofthelogicalmind.blogspot.ca/2014/09/tiff-2014-pigeon-sat-on-branch.html">here</a>).</li>
<li>And then followed later in the film by the gut punch...</li>
<li>The docking scene and entry into the black hole sequence from <b>Interstellar</b>.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4gV2k7Ux8dQ/VKn88vvsb-I/AAAAAAAAQYE/O9SwmDrZSnw/s1600/MovieMoments2014-HappyChristmas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4gV2k7Ux8dQ/VKn88vvsb-I/AAAAAAAAQYE/O9SwmDrZSnw/s1600/MovieMoments2014-HappyChristmas.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>Melanie Lynskey in <b>Happy Christmas</b>.</li>
<li>The end discussion of the erotic novel in <b>Happy Christmas</b> - please tell me there are extended outtakes of that somewhere on the DVD...</li>
<li>Alejandro Jodorowsky's brief passionate anger about a director's ownership of their dream of the story in <b>Jodorowsky's Dune</b>.</li>
<li><b>Gone Girl</b>'s moment of realization that she once again has been trapped into playing a role and once again has to take action...</li>
<li>The butterflies arriving with Spring in <b>The Duke Of Burgundy</b>.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0IXorKAn6O0/VKn872uh6rI/AAAAAAAAQXg/7iprCFA_gks/s1600/MovieMoments2014-20000DaysOnEarth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0IXorKAn6O0/VKn872uh6rI/AAAAAAAAQXg/7iprCFA_gks/s1600/MovieMoments2014-20000DaysOnEarth.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds performing "Higgs Boson Blues" and "Jubilee Street" in the awesome music doc <b>20000 Days On Earth</b>.</li>
<li>The opening single take swooping shot in <b>The Town That Dreaded Sundown</b> which introduces all the major players at once.</li>
<li>The first reading of the play with Edward Norton in <b>Birdman</b> where Michael Keaton's actor actually improvises and reacts instead of sticking to the script.</li>
<li>Both times that "Une Femme Avec Toi" plays in <b>The New Girlfriend</b> - both are emotional high points.</li>
<li>The avalanche in <b>Force Majeure</b> and the immediate consequences.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pcE4CA7T19k/VKn88X1fpmI/AAAAAAAAQXs/On4X_AAHpSs/s1600/MovieMoments2014-GuardiansOfTheGalaxy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pcE4CA7T19k/VKn88X1fpmI/AAAAAAAAQXs/On4X_AAHpSs/s1600/MovieMoments2014-GuardiansOfTheGalaxy.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>Little Groot's dance at the end of <b>Guardians Of The Galaxy</b>.</li>
<li>The opening titles of <b>The World Of Kanako</b> - insane and perfectly capturing the tone and pace of the film to follow.</li>
<li>The hallucinogenic trip in <b>They Have Escaped</b>.</li>
<li>Michael Keaton enters a small New York City liquor store lit up like a Christmas tree in <b>Birdman</b>.</li>
<li><b>Norte: The End Of History</b>'s turning point: the off screen murder.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OyqXT7-TwAw/VKn8-p77SJI/AAAAAAAAQYg/d0ez6AasfDo/s1600/MovieMoments2014-TheGuest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OyqXT7-TwAw/VKn8-p77SJI/AAAAAAAAQYg/d0ez6AasfDo/s1600/MovieMoments2014-TheGuest.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li><b>The Guest</b> dispatching some bullies.</li>
<li>Ghostly visitors in the documentary <b>The Darkside</b> - subtle and effective at getting the storyteller's experiences across.</li>
<li>The explanation (which involves the idea of fornication with sandwiches) of why vampires prefer virgin blood in <b>What We Do In The Shadows</b>.</li>
<li>Scarlett Johansson in repose in <b>Chef</b>.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5VNzjaLwKwY/VKn8_J9ZoPI/AAAAAAAAQYs/UhENcuSlxm4/s1600/MovieMoments2014-TheImmigrant.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5VNzjaLwKwY/VKn8_J9ZoPI/AAAAAAAAQYs/UhENcuSlxm4/s1600/MovieMoments2014-TheImmigrant.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>Though I didn't like the film much, that final shot in <b>The Immigrant</b> is glorious. As is the entirety of Marion Cotillard's performance.</li>
<li>Dave Franco's De Niro impersonation in <b>Neighbors</b>.</li>
<li>The impressive car chase in <b>The Raid 2</b>.</li>
<li>A royal meeting in the garden in <b>A Little Chaos</b>.</li>
</ul><br />
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<h3><b>Older films:</b></h3><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l0Rli7Ppi6o/VKn8-7W9TPI/AAAAAAAAQYk/6FumPsqwsNs/s1600/MovieMoments2014-TheUninvited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l0Rli7Ppi6o/VKn8-7W9TPI/AAAAAAAAQYk/6FumPsqwsNs/s1600/MovieMoments2014-TheUninvited.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>Light and shadow in <b>The Uninvited</b>.</li>
<li>Those damn minions in <b>Despicable Me</b> - I just couldn't help smiling during every scene they were in. Great comedic creations.</li>
<li>The massive iceberg calving event towards the end of <b>Chasing Ice</b>. Also the time lapse photos of glaciers shrinking over a few years were remarkable.</li>
<li>"Cool" from <b>West Side Story</b> - the energy, anger and frustration of youth captured in dance.</li>
<li>A final walk on the beach in <b>About Time</b>.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qEuZAQBfCbw/VKn89S5vitI/AAAAAAAAQYI/HPD9ROKPZN4/s1600/MovieMoments2014-Sorcerer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qEuZAQBfCbw/VKn89S5vitI/AAAAAAAAQYI/HPD9ROKPZN4/s1600/MovieMoments2014-Sorcerer.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li><b>Sorcerer</b> - the unbearable tension of the rope bridge crossings of both trucks.</li>
<li>Every bit of spittle that flies from the mouth's of the characters of <b>Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf</b>.</li>
<li>Russian Roulette in <b>The Deer Hunter</b> - after hearing about the scene after all these years, it was even worse than I imagined.</li>
<li>The over-the-top-and-around-the-bend practical effects at the end of <b>Society</b>. Extra gooey...</li>
<li><b>Trouble Every Day</b>'s two "graphic" moments were absolutely harrowing.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XnY1HQJByi4/VKn88AS9V2I/AAAAAAAAQXw/F4xXliPN97w/s1600/MovieMoments2014-AshesAndDiamonds.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XnY1HQJByi4/VKn88AS9V2I/AAAAAAAAQXw/F4xXliPN97w/s1600/MovieMoments2014-AshesAndDiamonds.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>A drunken walk across a banquet table with a fire extinguisher in <b>Ashes And Diamonds</b>.</li>
<li>The depiction of insanity and an insane asylum in the Japanese silent film <b>A Page Of Madness</b>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUqGpnGnNCk">This moment</a> from the B-movie <b>Deadly Spawn</b>. Baffling.</li>
<li>Meg Tilly's shrieking accusation in Abel Ferrara's <b>Body Snatchers</b>.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8WCstK6awxM/VKn89fZ8uSI/AAAAAAAAQYM/RQr7s5PNpZ8/s1600/MovieMoments2014-PatGarrettAndBillyTheKid.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8WCstK6awxM/VKn89fZ8uSI/AAAAAAAAQYM/RQr7s5PNpZ8/s1600/MovieMoments2014-PatGarrettAndBillyTheKid.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<ul><li>Slim Pickens' death scene in <b>Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid</b> - waiting for his life to fade away like the setting sun.</li>
<li>The build up of tension towards the end of <b>The Bedford Incident</b>.</li>
<li>Spotting all sorts of unknown-at-the-time faces in <b>Prime Time</b> (aka <b>American Raspberry</b>).</li>
<li>Crossing water using floating pieces of wood in <b>36th Chamber Of Shaolin</b>.</li>
</ul><br />
<br />
And finally:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Watching some of my all-time favourite films (<b>Network</b>, <b>12 Angry Men</b> and <b>To Kill A Mockingbird</b>) for the first time with The Boy.</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ad8Ah3K0QZ0/VKoN0Xh6QFI/AAAAAAAAQZg/uQ7wY0TfkvQ/s1600/MovieMoments2014-ToKillAMockingbird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ad8Ah3K0QZ0/VKoN0Xh6QFI/AAAAAAAAQZg/uQ7wY0TfkvQ/s1600/MovieMoments2014-ToKillAMockingbird.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-13787409198539241322015-01-02T00:01:00.002-05:002015-01-04T13:45:16.840-05:00My Favourite Films of 2014<br />
A personal list of the films that excited me, moved me and stuck with me this past year...<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">1. Grand Budapest Hotel</span></b><br />
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I have loved every Wes Anderson film so far. It's not just his style (though I fell for every wonderfully designed, coloured and centered frame in this film), it's his whole approach to storytelling - and dammit if this wasn't a great story with some lovely human touches. And Ralph Fiennes should get recognized for a brilliant comedic turn - particularly since he made my son laugh harder than anyone else on screen this year.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">2. Gone Girl</span></b><br />
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Another case of both substance and gorgeous style. Fincher's version of the novel manages to allow sympathy, empathy and detest for BOTH main characters. And like most great magicians, he pulls the trick off with a sense of effortlessness.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">3. A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence</span></b><br />
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The beauty of Roy Andersson's films (in particular with his trilogy: <b>Songs From The Second Floor</b>, <b>You The Living</b> and this one) is that through absurdity, humour and the occasional stunning image, he brings you both the warmth and the horror of humanity and leaves it up to you what to take away. There's nothing else like it.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">4. Whiplash</span></b><br />
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The drums drive the film forward with a distinct pulse through raucous periods, through tension filled moments and even through a few of the quieter sections. It feels like the perfect vehicle to represent the insistent drive for perfection that consumes these characters.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">5. The Duke Of Burgundy</span></b><br />
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I absolutely feasted on the smorgasbord of images and sounds on display - like director Peter Strickand's previous film "Berberian Sound Studio" and one of 2013's faves "Upstream Color", my senses came away satiated to the gills.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">6. Nightcrawler</span></b><br />
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Satirical, tense, blackly comic and even provoked a spontaneous round of applause after the best damn car chase I've seen since I don't know when. Can't wait to see it again.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">7. Clouds Of Sils Maria</span></b><br />
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The film may have layers upon layers of meta, but it does so within the confines of the stories. The real joy, though, is in watching and listening to Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart interact and react to each other.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">8. Interstellar</span></b><br />
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I tend to agree with just about any negative points made about the film - from the comments about thin characters to the rather pointless (but I think accurate) criticism of its science - but none of that stops me from just getting lost in the grandeur of the space sequences, the ideas and the unstoppable effect that time has on us. And I don't think I took a breath from that docking scene all the way to the black hole - almost like I was left dangling out in space...<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">9. Boyhood</span></b><br />
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My own Boy is somewhere in the middle of the arc travelled here by the character of Mason, so forgive me for attaching personal feelings to this film. But that's what it does so fantastically well - it finds those smaller moments in the life of its characters to really bring them out and feel like true people.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">10. 20000 Days On Earth</span></b><br />
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Nick Cave has led a pretty remarkable life and through his storytelling (and what a great teller of stories he is), several surreal sequences, a variety of old clips and recent concert footage, we get a fascinating portrait painted.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">11. Inherent Vice</span></b><br />
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A drug-fueled, paranoid, modern retro take on <b>The Big Sleep</b>. All the "messiness" of the film is (at least in my opinion) by design. The fun of experiencing it is being thrown into Doc's confused brain and the ever-growing list of characters and plot points.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">12. Wild</span></b><br />
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I will likely always be a Jean-Marc Vallee fanboy (simply due the <b>C.R.A.Z.Y.</b> and <b>Cafe De Flore</b>), but I didn't go in with massive expectations for his latest. His skill (and his editing team's as well) at cutting to sound (not just music, but dialogue and ambient sound) is remarkable and helps to tell this solo trek with flashbacks in a fresh and emotional way. Reese Witherspoon is great and Laura Dern puts in one of the best supporting performances of the year.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">13. Locke</span></b><br />
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I'm not sure this "one man in a car on the phone" movie would have worked with anyone but Tom Hardy. With his calm matter of fact demeanour and Welsh accent, he helps make it a terribly interesting journey up a British motorway. I never found it dull in the least as we slowly learn the details of the reasons for his sudden left turn.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">14. The Town That Dreaded Sundown</span></b><br />
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A compelling, moody, surprising and absolutely gorgeous film that pleases aesthetically, but also encourages you to actively engage with its visuals, colours and foreground/background object placements. A wonderful surprise and a new take on "rebooting" an old story.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">15. Birdman</span></b><br />
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The device of making the entire film seem like a single take (even though the 2 hour run time is spread over several days) kept me completely engaged with Michael Keaton's struggling actor/celebrity and allowed me into his state of mind. The performances all around were entertaining and the film delivered many more laughs than expected.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">16. The New Girlfriend</span></b><br />
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Francois Ozon has been an up and down director for me (even within individual films), but this is easily the best thing I've seen by him - particularly in the way he brought some well deserved emotion to the surface during several key points in this story of a man and a woman coming to terms with their true feelings about who they are.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">17. The LEGO Movie</span></b><br />
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That astronaut had a crack in his helmet almost exactly like the LEGO figure I had when I was a kid. So there was no going back at that point...There was no need to turn around, though, as the energy, humour and creativity of the animation was more than enough to keep that smile locked on my face.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">18. Force Majeure</span></b><br />
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Possibly the best looking film of the year. Every single damn shot was composed so very carefully and helped tell the tale of a relationship that was already precarious and whose slide might not be preventable once it begins to crumble. That avalanche metaphor is kinda perfect for this story.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">19. They Have Escaped</span></b><br />
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Not your average teen runaway story, this Finnish road film marries great hallucinatory sights and sounds to show attempts to escape adulthood.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">20. The Rover</span></b><br />
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Bleak, but riveting. You could feel every bit of desperation in each and every character. <br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">15 Honourable Mentions:</span></b><br />
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<b>Leviathan</b>, <b>The Babadook</b>, <b>Guardians Of The Galaxy</b>, <b>1001 Grams</b>, <b>The World Of Kanako</b>, <b>What We Do In The Shadows</b>, <b>Kabukicho Love Hotel</b>, <b>Shrew's Nest</b>, <b>Happy Christmas</b>, <b>Coherence</b>, <b>Spring</b>, <b>The One I Love</b>, <b>Cold In July</b>, <b>American Interior</b>, <b>God's Pocket</b>.Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-90730215213567995252014-12-31T00:28:00.001-05:002014-12-31T00:28:39.206-05:00Blindspot - "East Of Eden" and "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?"<br />
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There are some who believe that Good and Evil are two very distinct objectively defined entities and that things and ideas are black or white, true or false, moral or immoral. Some would say that thought could be extended to define people in these terms and to categorize them in one of two camps: "Pure as the driven snow" and "Face of an angel" OR "Pure evil" and "Rotten to the core" (phrases we all use to describe people with no middle ground). Of course, these are a fool's definition and try to provide easy answers to explaining behaviours that please or enrage us. The "truth" is that it all depends on your perspective and viewpoint. The landscape is made up of thousands of shades of grey and they are all relative. And speaking of relatives...<br />
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The sibling rivalry within <b>East Of Eden</b> and the spousal feuding of <b>Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf</b> traverse many degrees of that light to dark spectrum between good and evil. Hurting the one you love is always a complicated and confusing thing to do and that's certainly the case in both films. You could be forgiven, however, if you didn't see a lot of shading in that good/evil spectrum during the onslaught that is Virginia Woolf. From the first words spoken, it feels like a two hour blitz of spiteful bile and vituperative arguments. Most of the insult flinging occurs between the middle aged George and Martha, but they aren't shy in sharing it and spreading it around. George (Richard Burton) is a History professor who lives within the campus grounds with his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and after an evening at a school social (with a few drinks) they set about their favourite sport - a little verbal sparring with each other. It seems to begin harmlessly - a barb here, a curt word there - but as it escalates, one can tell this is much more than just tiredness and booze stirred together into a cranky cocktail. It seems to be their lifeforce. The only way they can get through the day at this stage of their lives together is by tearing each other down. Even the moments of true passion which still exist between them can't stem their craving for a verbal attack fix. "I disgust me" says Martha, sounding every bit like a drug addict. And when the young couple Nick and Honey arrive for some nightcaps (Nick is a new professor that Martha flirted with at the social event), the mixture of booze and disgust becomes downright toxic for all.<br />
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<b>East Of Eden</b> wallows less in that deep end of the cesspool, but still gets itself pretty dirty...Its tale of two brothers competing for their father's love and attention is a modern take on the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, with older brother Cal (James Dean) typically coming up short in the sweepstakes to gain his father Adam's (Raymond Massey) favour. The turning point is when Cal's younger brother Aron usurps him by announcing his engagement just before Cal presents Adam with the proceeds from his business as a gift. Their father rejoices at Aron's news, but scowls at Cal's offer of money: "I'd be happy if you gave me something like your brother's given me - something honest and human and good". The film returns to this perception of good and evil over and over ("Was she bad?", "Do you think I'm bad?", "He's good!") as people try to figure out which end of the spectrum they lie on. The film makes the case that there aren't really any absolute good or evil people since we are all capable of both. The choice of behaviour is ours. Throughout <b>East Of Eden</b> you can see the reasons for each person's behaviour: good intentions gone wrong, decisions based on immediate emotion, and longer term goals that don't show themselves right away.<br />
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Reason is a bit further removed from the world of George and Martha though...There are so many points within the film that they could stop the attacks and nastiness, but just as it threatens to peter out, it escalates to even further heights. Short of booze and pride, one never quite gets a handle on exactly why they behave in this manner (nor why Nick and Honey - after initially getting undeservedly pulled into these warped games - begin to go on the offensive with almost equal gusto). But that simply makes this examination of fragile souls so damn interesting and fascinating. It's not simply that car wreck that everyone strains to see, it's that YouTube compilation of Russian Road Rage videos. It's an exhausting film for the viewer, but the actors (in particular Burton and Taylor) are magnificent in their ability to continually wring more madness and anger and sarcasm from their characters. Mike Nichols (who passed away shortly after I watched the film) somehow juggles the ever increasing desperate attempts at lashing out of all 4 characters within fairly constricted spaces (the rooms of the house, a car, a bar, etc.). Tiring to experience, but oddly exhilarating.<br />
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<b>East Of Eden</b> didn't quite hit those peaks. It's not that it fails in any category whatsoever (top notch acting across the board, what felt like perfect framing of characters from scene to scene, glorious photography, etc.), but the melodrama on hand never quite seemed to go beyond the simmering stages. The film has reveals and characters going off deep ends, but as mentioned, you could always see the reasons behind their movements and reactions. Perhaps it's unfair because I'm comparing it to <b>Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf</b>, but I wanted more escalation, more anger, more unbridled explosions of emotion, etc. It gave me a few too many moments to reflect on some plot points and relationship arcs that didn't quite flow naturally. In a great melodrama, I wouldn't have cared as much, but here it didn't quite sit as well.<br />
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Regardless, it tells its tale effectively and remarks on our perception of our own behaviours. Both films (especially through the eyes of family members) cover a wide slice of human actions and reactions - from kind to cruel and from logical to lunatic.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PJFxpM-hoWY/VCjN5A_1qWI/AAAAAAAAQEM/myPGaEn11ew/s1600/BlindspotWhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PJFxpM-hoWY/VCjN5A_1qWI/AAAAAAAAQEM/myPGaEn11ew/s1600/BlindspotWhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf7.png" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-78324203628030517012014-11-01T21:58:00.001-05:002014-11-01T21:58:45.358-05:00Toronto After Dark 2014 - The Town That Dreaded Sundown<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yyXTkgk_V5Q/VFMUVrWjQ8I/AAAAAAAAQTA/Q_CRU0ozMks/s1600/TownThatDreadedSundown1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yyXTkgk_V5Q/VFMUVrWjQ8I/AAAAAAAAQTA/Q_CRU0ozMks/s1600/TownThatDreadedSundown1.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Easily the biggest surprise and possibly my overall favourite film of this year's Toronto After Dark film festival was Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's (director of several American Horror Story episodes) take on the 1976 early slasher <b>The Town That Dreaded Sundown</b>. Though that little film from 1976 has its supporters and certainly has some choice moments, it seemed like an odd pick for a revisit. The original as directed by Charles B. Pierce (director and star of the head-shakingly bad <b>Boggy Creek II - And The Legend Continues</b> - best known for being one of MST3K's victims) is an awkward melange of horror/docudrama/slapstick comedy that tries to tell the actual events of a masked serial killer who terrorized Texarkana in 1946. And yet...There were some well-realized moments of genuine horror and interesting filmmaking. For his first feature, Gomez-Rejon seems to have focused on those positive aspects and has built a compelling, moody, surprising and absolutely gorgeous film.<br />
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Of particular note is the way he composes his frames. More than once during the film, I found my eyes roaming about the square footage on screen, trying to pick up all the little details and contrasting different colour combinations. I'm sure I missed some clues lurking in the background, but the simple pleasure of being pulled into this lovingly created canvas and wanting to savour each little corner, shadow and object was more than enough. If that sounds like a bit of an overstatement, it's partly due to having very few expectations regarding not only the story but the level of filmmaking. It's not that I thought the movie was going to be bad (the trailer is quite handsome actually), but from its opening tracking shot that pans down from a Drive-In screen playing the original film (and which continued through the parking lot filled with many of the films primary characters) it was obvious that Gomez-Rejon had very strong stylistic ideas for the film - all of which actually help move the story forward and engage the audience.<br />
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The town of Texarkana (which straddles the border between Texas and Arkansas) still lives with the past - not just those killings from 1946, but also with the movie made about them. They have yearly screenings of the film which pull in most of the townspeople, but there are also those that would rather put it all behind them. In neither camp is high school senior Jami who, even though she describes herself as unpopular, finds herself at that Drive-In on a date with one of the star athletes of the town. She isn't a fan of the original movie so they go to a secluded spot and just as romance is kicking in, they are interrupted quite rudely and violently by a hooded figure. Jami is spared and escapes, but it appears that the attacks have started up again. Further victims follow, but Jami is determined to help track down the killer this time (since the original was never solved). What follows is part classic well-paced creepy slasher and part "re-imagining" of what a sequel can be...<br />
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It doesn't follow the story of the 1976 film, but instead incorporates that film (and clips from it) into this continuation of the real-world events of 1946. The word "meta" will be used to describe it and though that's somewhat accurate, don't let it scare you off. It's original in its approach and will even keep you somewhat guessing as to the various suspects, timings of killings, etc. Its cast is excellent too - Addison Timlin does an excellent job as the re-imagined Final Girl with her own issues and a veteran troupe of actors provide her damn fine support (Veronica Cartwright, Edward Herrmann, Ed Lauter, Gary Cole). And I'll say it again - it's a feast for the eyes. It pleases aesthetically, but also encourages you to actively engage with its visuals, colours and foreground/background object placements. I love surprises.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q98BdndE59M/VFMUVadI3YI/AAAAAAAAQS8/KsF_hHzoAio/s1600/TownThatDreadedSundown2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q98BdndE59M/VFMUVadI3YI/AAAAAAAAQS8/KsF_hHzoAio/s1600/TownThatDreadedSundown2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-79843142560109896072014-10-30T23:24:00.000-05:002014-10-30T23:24:07.057-05:00Toronto After Dark 2014 - The Babadook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aP0t9qKGNpc/VE29mWprJkI/AAAAAAAAQSo/x34VQyaKX_c/s1600/Babadook1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aP0t9qKGNpc/VE29mWprJkI/AAAAAAAAQSo/x34VQyaKX_c/s1600/Babadook1.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<i>Ba Ba-ba DOOK DOOK DOOK!!</i><br />
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Silly made up sounds to fit a children's verse or shudder-inducing syllables to remind you of the darkness that exists in all our souls? In the case of first-time feature filmmaker Jennifer Kent's critically praised creeper <b>The Babadook</b>, it's not an either / or situation. The cute can definitely coexist with the terrifying.<br />
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Young Samuel typically celebrates his birthday in tandem with his cousin even though the date isn't right. His mother Amelia likes to avoid discussing his actual date of birth since it was the rather auspicious occasion of the car crash that took his father's life (as he drove Amelia to the hospital to give birth). As he closes in on turning 7 years old, Amelia seems to be having a harder and harder time coping with single parenthood. Samuel is a handful as his imagination gets the better of him on a regular basis - his certainty that monsters are after him, his magic tricks and his creative construction of weaponry are all putting Amelia right on the edge. One night she finds a storybook called The Babadook that she's never seen before and they decide to read it together. It illustrates a tall, top hat-wearing, cloaked in black man-beast called The Babadook who will come a calling and knock three times. And Once you let him in...he never leaves.<br />
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The book seems to leave quite the impression on Samuel as he starts worrying about the dagger-fingered Babadook and warns his mother repeatedly about it - especially after something knocks on their door one evening. Amelia's sleep patterns start getting messed up, Samuel appears to be harder and harder to control and she starts having issues at work. She's a complete wreck and begins pushing away those that can and want to help her - she is caught up in a crushing concern for her son while also being way past the frustration point with him. The house starts closing in on her...<br />
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And what a claustrophobic house it is. Dark, gloomy and somewhat colourless (the red Babadook book easily stands out), the house seems to shrink as the movie goes on - shadows become denser as they surround people and objects, spaces feel more cramped and camera angles leave no escape for Amelia. Essie Davis is absolutely fierce at times and summons all manner of terror and rage while expertly capturing the frustrated, hopeless, sleep-deprived nature of a parent "trapped" by forces beyond their control. Samuel is one of those forces, but so is her own internal struggle to see beyond the he's-driving-me-crazy moments in front of her. The film and its monstrous, looming ghostly figure are the perfect representation of the feelings of a lone parent - never sure about their decisions, not being of sound mind, torn between protection of their child at all cost and a desire to get the hell away...When a night's sleep feels like it all happened in a 5 second time span, you tend to open yourself to dark ideas...<br />
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The film seems to revel in practical effects and lighting and it creates almost unbearable dread. If there was one criticism I heard about the film, it was that its gradual build-up and finger-clenching tension never quite resolve in a final scare-burst. Though I understand that desire since that creep factor is handled so well, it's actually quite appropriate that things don't end with an expected result. After all, what is parenting but one long unresolved set of choices along an analog spectrum of possibilities. Sometimes it can be hard to recognize the darker impulses, but you have to resist them and lock them up inside. A frightening prospect.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_b5bqWEob_w/VE29mQsvxdI/AAAAAAAAQSk/H939QEEwpqc/s1600/Babadook2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_b5bqWEob_w/VE29mQsvxdI/AAAAAAAAQSk/H939QEEwpqc/s1600/Babadook2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-39970064771668607692014-10-26T09:09:00.001-05:002014-10-26T09:11:35.894-05:00Toronto After Dark 2014 - Dead Snow 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NhFDDGHARbI/VEQNZ7-XvdI/AAAAAAAAQRc/cLL_vQjAoa0/s1600/TADDeadSnow2_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NhFDDGHARbI/VEQNZ7-XvdI/AAAAAAAAQRc/cLL_vQjAoa0/s1600/TADDeadSnow2_2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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It must've been the easiest elevator pitch ever...<br />
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<center><i><br />
"Nazi zombies...[pause for effect]...in the snow."</i></center><br />
The film I'm referring to, of course, was <b>Dead Snow</b> and it delivered on its premise...A field full of dead German WW II soldiers are awakened and then begin to spill the blood of a group of young adults all over fresh pristine snow. It was funny, gory and even a little bit scary. With an audience, it was a thing of beauty from the first zombie hand breaking through the cold white crust to the last open-ended moments where the sole-survivor realizes he may not yet be out of the woods. Which brings us to the sequel...<br />
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Though I guess they didn't have to do an elevator pitch this time around (since the first film was somewhat successful), I suspect it would have gone something like this:<br />
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<center><i><br />
"More Nazi zombies plus Russian zombies plus more zombies, more offensive humour, more gore, more outlandish situations, more, more, more."</i></center><br />
Note there were no pauses for effect there. As a matter of fact, to give the same sensation as watching the movie, you shouldn't have any pauses at all while you say that sentence (preferably delivering the entire pitch all in one fell swoop without taking a breath). <b>Dead Snow 2</b> (subtitled "Red vs. Dead") piles ridiculous onto ridiculous onto a mound of bodies and doesn't wait for you to catch up with the story. It's a pretty straightforward tale anyway: the Nazi zombies want revenge on the town that killed them and now that they have a purpose (and a tank), the only way to stop them is through a rival army of zombies. The chosen horde here is a set of Russian soldiers that had been put to death by these very same Nazis now laying waste to small Norwegian towns.<br />
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That lone survivor of the previous film Martin continues to have a really bad stretch - after having accidentally killed his girlfriend and cutting off his own arm to avoid a fresh zombie bite from infecting him, he ends up in hospital under suspicion of murdering all his friends and with the wrong arm reattached. Once escaping, he seeks the help of the Zombie Squad: an elite team of Americans prepared to take on zombie infestations. Turns out, the squad isn't exactly professional and consists of three movie geeks who can't wait to fly to Norway to engage in a real zombie fight. Martin Starr leads the team and though they are certainly not what they advertised, they end up being both effective and quite interesting. The film does very little with the fact that one of the women on the team is a Star Wars nerd, but it's forgiveable because they are quite likeable and show no signs of simply being zombie fodder.<br />
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The American team obviously gives the movie a good reason for having about half of its dialogue in English (I'm sure the words "wider audience" could have been squeezed into that elevator pitch), but it feels pretty natural. If it's a compromise to reach a bigger audience, it's one of the few...Everything else is amped up - the number of attacks, the gore, the pace, the creativity of dispatching zombies, etc. It also purposely tries to be a bit more offensive with mixed results. Some jokes are funny (if the zombie apocalypse comes and you are wheelchair bound, don't look for any help...) but others are awkward (the one gay character is treated somewhat like a North American 80s movie would treat him). The Nazis are a bit more interesting this time as well - the evil, evil, evil Herzog still leads the contingent, but he seems much more of a character this time out (yes, zombies can apparently have personalities and memories too) and is joined by an almost-as-evil Nazi scientist. The film layers in a whole variety of original ideas and successfully delivers surprises right until the end.<br />
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Somewhat like its own protagonist does with the Russian zombies, <b>Dead Snow 2</b> recklessly tries to re-awaken its genre. It does a hell of a job.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlNJeGgMkIs/VEQNbmUDuLI/AAAAAAAAQRk/N_cooXX6AAs/s1600/TADDeadSnow2_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlNJeGgMkIs/VEQNbmUDuLI/AAAAAAAAQRk/N_cooXX6AAs/s1600/TADDeadSnow2_1.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-92064480512511784172014-10-19T18:53:00.000-05:002014-10-19T18:53:33.285-05:00Toronto After Dark 2014 - Zombeavers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_7BtHwjHyBs/VEQNBPvyWjI/AAAAAAAAQRI/f2pnWH2EOO8/s1600/TADZombeavers2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_7BtHwjHyBs/VEQNBPvyWjI/AAAAAAAAQRI/f2pnWH2EOO8/s1600/TADZombeavers2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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The best thing about <b>Zombeavers</b> is that it isn't much more than its title implies. It creates a toxic spill in a remote area then plops a bunch of college kids in a cabin right next to it. Voila - zombie beavers attacking young co-eds. It also stays true to its 80s horror antecedents by making most of the gore and effects practical. CGI beavers would have ruined the film entirely, whereas these stuffed critters with partial animatronic characteristics and clunky tails do the trick nicely. When they come crashing through floor boards, they almost feel like they could chew your foot off. Of course, they are also just slightly ridiculous enough to laugh at when they suddenly show up in a bathtub or at the front door. Especially with their light blue glowing eyes... <br />
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The worst thing about <b>Zombeavers</b> is, well, that it isn't much more than its title implies. Now that shouldn't be taken necessarily as a criticism...It's just that when the film works, it works so very well. So when it doesn't, it's somewhat disappointing. The film handles its action sequences very well and has moments of pretty inspired humour & gore, but then there are several scenes of bland, lengthy or even pointless chatter between the characters. Given the funny outtakes at the end of the film (some of which felt a bit like those line-o-rama special features many comedies have these days) and considering Judd Apatow, David Wain and others are thanked, I couldn't help but want a bit more <i>ooomph</i> to the script. In fairness, my complaints are along the lines of wanting more than I'm really entitled to or should in any way expect. But it's to the film's credit that at some point - I did expect more.<br />
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Another thing about <b>Zombeavers</b> is that it sometimes is actually a bit more than its title implies. Think you know who's going to get it next? Think the kills will all be based on levels of morality? Think you know how the beaver bite transforms its victim? Probably not...Not that the movie rolls out loads of surprises, but just enough so you aren't completely sure of what the next scene may bring. One might even say that there's just enough subversion of this type of genre to raise the eyebrows of those looking for simply a genre-throwback. On top of that, the cast does quite well with the material and only falter during some of those slower spots (though those moments could easily be "blamed" on pacing issues or editing). All three of the leading ladies (Cortney Palm, Rachel Melvin & Lexi Atkins) acquit themselves quite nicely through tears, screams, laughs and loads of prosthetics.<br />
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In the end, it's a movie about beavers who become zombies. That alone should be enough, but you get more (including a great final "stinger"). So go enjoy <b>Zombeavers</b>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CQ82C31-Zfk/VEQNBVeml0I/AAAAAAAAQRQ/cdoDNBqQuvs/s1600/TADZombeavers1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CQ82C31-Zfk/VEQNBVeml0I/AAAAAAAAQRQ/cdoDNBqQuvs/s1600/TADZombeavers1.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-79143040222148103022014-10-19T13:12:00.000-05:002014-10-19T13:12:01.722-05:00Toronto After Dark 2014 - ABCs Of Death 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JrSh6Ke8Ixg/VEKWEBvAxxI/AAAAAAAAQQs/2ArP9yxj3lg/s1600/TADABCsOfDeath2_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JrSh6Ke8Ixg/VEKWEBvAxxI/AAAAAAAAQQs/2ArP9yxj3lg/s1600/TADABCsOfDeath2_2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<center><b>A</b> <b>B</b>etter <b>C</b>ompilation? <b>D</b>efinitely!<br />
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<b>A</b>ppreciate <b>B</b>eing <b>C</b>hilled, <b>D</b>istressed & <b>E</b>ntertained?<br />
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<b>A</b> <b>B</b>arrel <b>C</b>ontaining <b>D</b>emonic <b>E</b>nticing <b>F</b>un.</center><br />
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However you want to say it, <b>ABCs Of Death 2</b> easily outpaces its predecessor in pulling together 26 stories (from 26 different directors/director teams) marked with mishaps and killings. When I saw the first in this series (let's assume right now that number 3 will be in the works soon if not already), it was easy enough to count the solid segments on one hand. With their follow-up, the producers have gathered a completely new group of directors (many of whom have had films at previous After Dark festivals) and reversed the trend. I can only think of 4-5 stories that didn't work for me or had major issues. If your 125 minute anthology film is firing on all cylinders for 80% of its runtime, that's a damn good ratio.<br />
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The lesser stories certainly stand out...<b>P is for P-P-P-P Scary</b> may have been trying for something different, but seemed out of place, unfocused and intentionally somewhat annoying. <b>L is for Legacy</b> suffered hugely from easily the worst acting and special effects of the entire omnibus. A shame since you don't see a great deal of genre fare from Africa (at least not in any potentially wide released film). There was an attempt to try things from a different angle as the story uses an African myth of the supernatural avenging the wrongly accused, but its execution is simply poor. And <b>I is for Invincible</b> failed to do anything interesting with its tale of a family trying to get rid of their rich matriarch.<br />
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These lesser segments impact the flow of the film somewhat, but even so, they are spread out and never drag things down. At 4-5 minutes a segment, this enables the 2 hour film to move at a pretty brisk pace. It all starts well with an amateur assassinator's idealized view of himself and a pompous British personality getting bested by mutated badgers. It's at this point that the audience started to settle into their seats and realize that talk of the sequel being an improvement was bearing itself out. The mix of styles starts to show here too - while 'B' is a stripped down "single shot" from a TV cameraman, both 'A' and 'C' have top notch production values and special effects. <b>D is for Deloused</b> is a grotesque, but fascinating stop-motion animation (very similar to a Tool video) and Bill Plympton uses the letter 'H' to contribute a manic wordless hand-drawn view of the deleterious effects that can arise from the head games couples play. A high point of the film is its actual centre: a slo-mo mountain of a man terrorizing a sidewalk in <b>M is for Mastigate</b> and Larry Fessenden's marvelous convergence of events in <b>N is for Nexus</b>.<br />
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Apart from the 'P' segment, the final half of the film is consistently strong mixing in a zombie courtroom, some torture porn karma and a reminder of the evil that children's musical instruments can cause. Of particular note are 3 segments that bordered on perfection. Juan Martinez Moreno's <b>S is for Split</b> takes a harmless call home, works it towards a particularly malevolent outcome then spins it to something wholly unexpected. As fun as Moreno's <b>Game Of Werewolves</b> was (an After Dark closing night selection a few years ago), this is a step up in filmmaking. Continuing his own high-quality streak and wonderful 80s practical effects, Steve Kostanski (of Astron-6 fame) brings us <b>W is for Wish</b> and uses it to explore what the world of a Saturday morning toy commercial's characters might inhabit. And finally, <b>Z is for Zygote</b> takes to the extreme the old-fashioned idea that a woman must remain a perpetually youthful looking baby factory - and does so while being funny and really damn disturbing at the same time.<br />
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In all, <b>ABCs Of Death 2</b> showcases a wide variety of talent and creativity. If this is a harbinger of what we may see in the horror genre in the next few years, we could be in for another renaissance. In other words:<br />
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<center><b>S</b>horts <b>T</b>esting-ground <b>U</b>rges <b>V</b>itality - <b>W</b>isdom e<b>X</b>panded, <b>Y</b>ielding <b>Z</b>enith.</center><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ytYrAQb3lWY/VEKWEhDM0uI/AAAAAAAAQQw/dWLDzPR5Lfk/s1600/TADABCsOfDeath2_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ytYrAQb3lWY/VEKWEhDM0uI/AAAAAAAAQQw/dWLDzPR5Lfk/s1600/TADABCsOfDeath2_3.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-77189029715788655522014-10-17T19:41:00.001-05:002014-10-17T19:41:53.557-05:00Toronto After Dark 2014 - Housebound<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yFSu84nlwLo/VECqsO7E7oI/AAAAAAAAQQY/4dRuxJyq6Es/s1600/TADHousebound1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yFSu84nlwLo/VECqsO7E7oI/AAAAAAAAQQY/4dRuxJyq6Es/s1600/TADHousebound1.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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What defines a "crowd pleaser"? Is it a movie with a perfect mix of numerous genres and styles? Lots of laughs? Characters that become endearing to the audience? A happy ending? Depending on the audience, atmosphere and expectations, those elements may or may not work at any given moment, so you have to look at a movie in the context of the people you see it with. So taking last night's opening night crowd into consideration, you could easily say that <b>Housebound</b> pleased the vast majority of them quite extensively. I spoke to a variety of people afterwards and didn't hear a single negative thing about it. Not a bad word. Not even a <i>shrug</i>.<br />
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That's not to say it's perfect...There are some very familiar moments at the beginning of the film and a few "surprises" that are telegraphed. But those recognizable beats start to slide into a fine rhythm and before you know it, the movie has found a solid groove and has the audience locked into it. Even during some of its early scenes, the story and its strongly-realized characters still inject some humourous and interesting turns to keep you interested. After an attempted ATM robbery gone wrong, an angry 20-something woman named Kylie is put under house-arrest at her mother's place and begins to experience some of the house hauntings her Mom has talked about for years (and boy can this woman talk...and talk...and talk...). The security guard entrusted with checking up on her (the electronic bracelet on her ankle keeps her honest) doesn't help matters by immediately trying to record the psychic energy of the house. So Kylie is trapped in a house surrounded by a babbling mother, a naive guard and some kind of rather annoying presence. <br />
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The setup is a nice novel one, but it excels in two very key areas: comedic timing and characters. Though not a full out laugh-fest, the film makes the most out of mundane situations (a restroom break), mundane objects (you may approach your cheese grater with a bit more trepidation in the future) and oft-used plot points (old psychiatric hospitals, things on the other side of a wall and mother/daughter relationships are all spun in slightly different directions) by simply hitting the funny notes at precisely the right times with the right accents. A dry reply, a well-placed sound affect or just an expression is all it takes in certain parts of this movie to deliver very satisfying laughter. Speaking of timing, the scares are executed nicely with several jumps well-earned and moments of mounting tension scattered throughout.<br />
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<b>Housebound</b> is also populated by some great characters brought to life by a talented cast. In particular, Rima Te Wiata as Kylie's Mom Miriam perfectly captures everything both adorable and aggravating about your parents. She also has such a great, pleasant and expressive face that it brings to life even the most basic of scenes. Morgana O'Reilly plays the badass angry daughter with fiery energy and keeps every interaction with just about anybody at a DEFCON threat level of at least 4 or 5. The supporting players do just about everything asked of them as well with nary a miss in tone or line reading. These are not perfect people, but they sure end up being both likeable and interesting. And that's sure to please just about any crowd.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J7CKxIg6gFw/VECqsAvR0sI/AAAAAAAAQQU/fwbrofxX6tg/s1600/TADHousebound2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J7CKxIg6gFw/VECqsAvR0sI/AAAAAAAAQQU/fwbrofxX6tg/s1600/TADHousebound2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-14421720343124005802014-10-13T22:29:00.002-05:002014-10-13T22:48:22.384-05:00Toronto After Dark 2014 - A Preview<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-itBQKD_d8JI/VDn0JuCcQbI/AAAAAAAAQLs/w8w9Ve2cZTI/s1600/TorontoAfterDarkLogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-itBQKD_d8JI/VDn0JuCcQbI/AAAAAAAAQLs/w8w9Ve2cZTI/s1600/TorontoAfterDarkLogo.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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As I've mentioned before, the <a href="http://torontoafterdark.com/2014/">Toronto After Dark</a> film festival is quite close to my heart...I was there at its birth in 2006 and have attended every single one of its birthday parties since - whether it was in the old or new Bloor Cinemas, the Toronto Underground or in its recent digs at the Scotiabank. Every year has had its share of great and good films (and yes, a few not so great ones too) as well as memorable moments like the <b>Funky Forest</b> screening, the storm that blew out a projector, the <b>Black Dynamite</b> screening, the after after-parties, closing down Pauper's Pub every night, and some damn fine Q&As by directors who are genuinely excited to be there.<br />
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Even though just about every film festival that has ever existed says "this will be our biggest year ever!", all signs certainly point to this being a big one in the history of Toronto After Dark. With just a few days to go before the festival kicks off (it runs from Oct. 16-24 and screens 19 feature length films and 28 shorts), there are already 3 sell-outs and, according to their web site, apparently another 3 about to sell out. Good news for the fest to be sure, but not too surprising when you look at their lineup (all trailers can be viewed from the <a href="http://torontoafterdark.com/2014/schedule-lineup/">festival's schedule page</a>):<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Thursday October 16th</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Housebound</span> - This opening night film from New Zealand promises a haunted house set of thrills. Apparently it can back up that claim with an award from another festival as well as numerous good reviews floating around. I haven't seen a really good haunted house movie in a while, so I'm pretty psyched for this opener and expect the fest will kick off with a rollicking crowd pleaser.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Suburban Gothic</span> - Described as a "ghost-hunting horror comedy", this could go either way - specifically because of the two words "horror" and "comedy" being put together. Oh sure there have been plenty of good ones, but if the director and cast can't hit the proper tones, it can all fall apart. The cast looks pretty solid, and since TAD has been pretty good at kicking their festival off strongly, I'll stay on the optimistic side for this evening.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Friday October 17th</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Hellmouth</span> - A portal to hell horror starring Stephen McHattie? Sign me up! Written by Tony Burgess of <b>Pontypool</b> fame? I'm doubly excited! Wait...Didn't Burgess also write last year's abysmal (at least in my opinion) <b>Septic Man</b>? OK, let's call it even and just say I'm singly excited...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zpLS9wATJ5w/VDx56HxvH7I/AAAAAAAAQOw/yGvnsWL84gY/s1600/TAD2014ABCsOfDeath2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zpLS9wATJ5w/VDx56HxvH7I/AAAAAAAAQOw/yGvnsWL84gY/s1600/TAD2014ABCsOfDeath2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">ABCs Of Death 2</span> - I'm a big fan of horror anthology films, so the first <b>ABCs Of Death</b> sounded like manna from heaven. Turned out to be a mixed bag of Halloween treats - mostly of that crappy candy corn variety. To be fair, there were several really strong stories and rumour has it that this second installment has much more quality control on it and an even more interesting list of directors.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Saturday October 18th</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Shorts After Dark</span> - Each of the feature length films has a Canadian short film playing before it and the quality level is usually quite high (which says a great deal for our filmmakers and the selection committee), but each year the festival also devotes an entire screening to shorts from across the globe. So you'll get a good solid 90 minutes or so of internationally spiced horror and genre that has been culled from a wide set of submissions. I've rarely been disappointed in these collections, so don't skimp on the festival - go see the shorts!<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Zombeavers</span> - The Saturday evening of the festival is always reserved for a pair of zombie films since it immediately follows the annual zombie walk through the city. This makes for a helluvan interesting crowd in attendance, but can lead to some dicey movies. There's usually at least one good zombie film per year, but since the festival shows two...Well, let's just say there are no guarantees. Will <b>Zombeavers</b> manage to keep the brain-hungry hoardes satisfied? It's a 50-50 shot, but with an entertaining audience, it's worth a shot.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead</span> - The screening of the first <b>Dead Snow</b> (easiest elevator pitch ever: "Nazi Zombies") went over like gangbusters and I've no doubt this follow-on film will too. With the same director at the helm and the saga continuing pretty much from where it left off, the new film reportedly ups all the gore, humour and surprises. Though I mentioned above that I'm usually concerned about "horror comedies", I'm less so in this case. They've shown they can hit the right mix.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Sunday October 19th</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">The Drownsman</span> - A young woman's fear of drowning manifests itself into a killer called The Drownsman in this Canadian thriller. If the film plays up the psychological aspects and doesn't focus solely on (as the description states) "a new unstoppable force of a killer", it could be interesting. Granted, it could be interesting as a straight up slasher as well, but the chances aren't as good. Either way, I'm happy to support Canadian horror/genre film, so fingers crossed.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Wolves</span> - Let's be honest...That's not a great title for a werewolf film, now is it? Hopefully there's a bit more originality in the script (by David Hayter - writer of the first 2 X-Men movies) and action scenes which are promised to be "non-stop". It stars two known entities in Lucas Till (X-Men: Days Of Future Past) and Jason Momoa (Game Of Thrones) so that might drive some ticket sales.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Late Phases</span> - Sunday gives us 2 werewolf movies in a row as <b>Late Phases</b> puts Nick Damici up against a beast ravaging a retirement community. It's a better title than the other werewolf movie, so I'll give it points for that and assume it has something new to offer as well.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Monday October 20th</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Open Windows</span> - Though starring Elijah Wood and Sasha Grey, the main draw to <b>Open Windows</b> for me is director Nacho Vigalondo (<b>Timecrimes</b>, <b>Extraterrestrial</b>). His Q&As are known to be almost as entertaining as his films, so let's hope he makes it to Toronto for this screening of his "cyber-thriller". Yeah, I had a hard time writing "cyber-thriller", but I have to think that Vigalondo could do something interesting, dark and not obvious in this arena.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter</span> - This story of a Japanese woman who totally believes that the movie <b>Fargo</b> was a true story has itself confused about as many people as <b>Fargo</b> did itself. Though there apparently was a real Japanese woman who did end up dying in Minnesota (about a decade ago), the veracity of the details about her searching for the buried money from the film are, ahem, somewhat in question. Now this "true story" of a woman who believed a "true story" was a true story has been turned into a movie. And a Sundance award winner at that (for Musical Score). The only thing I believe is that I'll be there to see it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Tuesday October 21st</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Predestination</span> - Ethan Hawke stars in this too-easily-compared-to-Looper-and-Minority-Report sci-fi tale of a cop who is tasked with stopping crimes before they happen. It's still a great premise that could easily lead to more interesting spins on it, so let's hope we get something unique.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Time Lapse</span> - More sci-fi (TAD has quite nicely tried to make theme nights wherever possible) covering yet another concept that has been around the block a few times - a camera that shows photos of people's futures causes alterations in timelines. Again, one can only hope that the great concept inspires a novel approach to it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Wednesday October 22nd</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Refuge</span> - And speaking of well-worn concepts, how's about some post-apocalyptic goodness? Another double dose theme night kicks off with what sounds like a fairly generic description (scavengers threaten a family in a gloomy post-war landscape). My guess is that this will live or die on the strength of its characters.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PnDLOJBdtIk/VDx57F47uTI/AAAAAAAAQPE/CvDmKKWNKY8/s1600/TAD2014Wyrmwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PnDLOJBdtIk/VDx57F47uTI/AAAAAAAAQPE/CvDmKKWNKY8/s1600/TAD2014Wyrmwood.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Wyrmwood</span> - OK, so the short little blurbs for film festival screenings almost always over-promise, but how can you resist "insane, action-packed, post-apocalyptic, zombie slaying road movie from Australia!". Yeah, neither can I...Word on the street is that it's a keeper.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Thursday October 23rd</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">The Town That Dreaded Sundown</span> - Having just recently watched the original 1976 film which "documented" the actual slayings that occurred in Texarkana in the mid-1940s, I'm curious how this "reinvention" of the story will pan out. The original was a weird synthesis of slasher/docudrama/slapstick, so hopefully this one picks a few less genres to inhabit...<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Why Horror?</span> - Though I've never been a big fan of Rue Morgue overall, I give them credit for attempting a documentary which looks at why many of us enjoy horror films. There's plenty of ground to cover and plenty of big names to interview (they've apparently pulled in a good number of them), so for a genre that has such a variety of sub-genres and approaches to the form, it has potential. My concern is based on whether Rue Morgue will shrink the scope of "horror" to tackle mostly the gorier aspects of it (something I don't shy away from, but find is only one of many possible characteristics of horror).<br />
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<span style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">Friday October 24th</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">Let Us Prey</span> - Liam Cunningham (another Game Of Thrones alum) plays a stranger who arrives at a dead end police station and becomes involved in a stand-off with demonic forces. Hard to judge, but last year's closing night double feature was pretty damn solid, so let's assume they held on to this specifically for the final Friday night .<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">The Babadook</span> - The closing film of the fest is one of the more anticipated in recent memory as the scuttlebutt says it's quite fantastic. After reading a children's pop-up book, a mother and her son are haunted by the presence they seem to have just set free. Seems pretty straightforward, but I'm hoping for a creepy on-the-edge-of-your-seat barnburner. I hope I'm not over-hyping this Aussie flick, but I have a good feeling about it.<br />
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I'm excited every year as I approach opening night of Toronto After Dark because I know the fun that awaits: goofy/fun/scary/thrilling movies (and yes, a few that are none of those things), great conversation & arguments about those movies and always at least a couple of memorable moments outside the films themselves. Starting Thursday, it'll just be a question of when they will occur.<br />
Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-58989305091762116442014-10-13T02:08:00.000-05:002014-10-13T02:08:49.967-05:00October Horror 2014 - Chapter 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6Nvn57sqJ_w/VDthamX6DjI/AAAAAAAAQNc/oZrwXnnnPE4/s1600/OctoberMonsterClub14.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6Nvn57sqJ_w/VDthamX6DjI/AAAAAAAAQNc/oZrwXnnnPE4/s1600/OctoberMonsterClub14.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Let's dig into a few more tasty horror treats...<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things</span> (Bob Clark - 1973) - I'm not sure how this "let's get our friends together and make a movie" movie didn't completely collapse into itself, but it somehow stayed afloat even if about 70% of the frame at any given time seems to be complete blackness. Fortunately director Bob Clark (<b>Black Christmas</b> and a c.v. of films almost as diverse as Robert Wise) wisely decided to clad his group of friends in brightly coloured clothing for their night time adventure through an island cemetery for fun & games and inspiration for their play. None of them seem to like each other, so calling them "friends" might be a stretch, but they all seem to follow the egotistical and nasty director who performs a number of rituals over the graveyard. Without really meaning to, he ends up accidentally waking a whole assortment of dead folks. The last 20 minutes of the movie actually work quite decently with the troupe trying to battle and escape the zombies, but it's a bit of a challenge to get there.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rWkb6UFVDBs/VDtff1U3KZI/AAAAAAAAQL8/TJEzxNLH3zY/s1600/OctoberChildrenShouldntPlayWithDeadThings11.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rWkb6UFVDBs/VDtff1U3KZI/AAAAAAAAQL8/TJEzxNLH3zY/s1600/OctoberChildrenShouldntPlayWithDeadThings11.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">The Monster Club</span> (Roy Ward Baker - 1980) - Yet another of those great horror compilation films, this one has the huge bonus of having both Vincent Price and John Carradine in the wrap-around story. The club of the title is where Price's vampire brings his recent victim (Carradine) to regale him with a few tales of monstrous behaviour. The film gives itself a bit more room to stretch its stories by including only three of them and fortunately they all hit the mark nicely and retain the right tone of dark humour with their horrific situations. The Monster Club itself falls victim to some early 80s cheese in the form of the performing "rock music" acts, but it serves to keep things hopping. Price is just a joy to watch and you really wish there was more of him, but when has that not been the case?<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">The Town That Dreaded Sundown</span> (Charles B. Pierce - 1976) - As a mix between narrated docudrama, slasher and low-rent comedy, this is an odd film...The murders in the film are apparently based on true events from the mid-40s and which were indeed committed by some hooded phantom stranger around the Texas-Arkansas border. Those crime sequences are handled reasonably well with a strong sense of menace and an imposing killer. The rest of the film, though, has little consistency with occasionally glacial pacing, completely useless details and a bumbling patrolman who is used at all the wrong times to bring unnecessary levity to the story. It's still of interest and I'm curious about the new version of this coming out soon, but this could have been a classic 70s thriller instead of a curio.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">Gurozuka</span> (Yoichi Nishiyama - 2005) - It's hard to be fully invested in a movie when the characters continuously act stupidly - something that is pretty consistent throughout <b>Gurozuka</b> and almost pulls the whole movie down with it. Fortunately, there are enough moments of creepiness and even genuine frights to keep things going. 7 young female film students go to an abandoned house in the woods to investigate and recreate what happened there 7 years previously. It's a shame that you essentially give up on the logic of the story and any attachment to the characters, but a solid atmosphere, good sound cues and those damn Noi masks (especially when they're bloody) managed to keep me, if not involved, at least curious what would happen.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kp2Bj805_dM/VDtgoSwMaTI/AAAAAAAAQNE/mH2LSV4Kxfw/s1600/OctoberGurozuka9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kp2Bj805_dM/VDtgoSwMaTI/AAAAAAAAQNE/mH2LSV4Kxfw/s1600/OctoberGurozuka9.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NTOzlb5tEGg/VDtgM7c9UvI/AAAAAAAAQMk/Zdk38h5-gjw/s1600/OctoberGurozuka10.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NTOzlb5tEGg/VDtgM7c9UvI/AAAAAAAAQMk/Zdk38h5-gjw/s1600/OctoberGurozuka10.png" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-62988833840424895282014-10-11T00:24:00.001-05:002014-10-11T15:31:24.601-05:00October Horror 2014 - Chapter 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3CihuxLNFpk/VDi-uUU9PTI/AAAAAAAAQLc/wjSDZStpcT8/s1600/OctoberNightOfTheEagle5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3CihuxLNFpk/VDi-uUU9PTI/AAAAAAAAQLc/wjSDZStpcT8/s1600/OctoberNightOfTheEagle5.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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I'm behind in my viewing, so I'm feeling a bit under the gun...After this batch it'll be time to pick up the pace again.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">Dr. Terror's House Of Horror</span> (Freddie Francis - 1965) - I'm a big fan of the old Amicus horror anthology films - titles like <b>The House That Dripped Blood</b>, <b>Tales From The Crypt</b>, <b>Torture Garden</b> and <b>Asylum</b> would give you 4-5 short horror stories with a variety of actors (as well as a bonus wrap-around framing device) and bring forth a great 90 minutes of entertainment. The tales weren't really overly gory or jump-out-of-your-seat scary, but they excelled in bringing horrific ideas into 15-20 minute long stories with dashes of black comedy. Dr. Terror's grab bag was the only remaining one of the Amicus omnibus films that had eluded me, so I finally caught up with it and it didn't disappoint. With Peter Cushing dolling out the fates to 5 men he meets on a train (via tarot card readings) and Christopher Lee and Donald Sutherland amongst the leads of the individual scenarios, the film breezes by at a fast pace and introduces you to plants with their own brains, voodoo jazz, an artist's disembodied hand, and a couple of different spins on vampires and werewolves. Great stuff.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">Trouble Every Day</span> (Claire Denis - 2001) - Art horror that builds to excruciating levels of unease and takes carnal desire to extreme lengths. Claire Denis' look at this (blood)lust is most famous for its 2 graphic sexual encounters, but the entire film reeks and drips of our natural urges. Vincent Gallo creepily plays (I suppose 'creepily' is somewhat redundant) an American who has just married a young French girl but is also battling an odd disease. In his mind, his only hope is a French scientist who seems to have dropped off the radar and is attempting to deal with his own individual patient. She has already devoured several sexual mates and is still hungry...With very little dialogue, Denis builds up a frightening scenario of the impossibility of dampening our baser and more dangerous natural instincts.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">Night Of The Eagle</span> (Sydney Hayers - 1962) - I was actually looking for Michael Armstrong's 1970 film <b>Burn, Witch, Burn</b> (otherwise known as <b>Mark Of The Devil</b>) when I stumbled across this spiffy little chiller from the early 60s (sometimes also known as <b>Burn, Witch, Burn</b>). Shot in lovely black and white, it sits comfortably right alongside many of the Hammer psychological thrillers ("mini-Hitchcocks" as Hammer called them) made in that same decade - films that were less gothic horror and more about modern tales of evil lurking just beyond the corner. Titles like <b>Scream Of Fear</b>, <b>Paranoiac</b> and <b>Nightmare</b> provide small surprises, twist endings and a wonderful sense of fun and melodrama. <b>Night Of The Eagle</b> hits most of these high points as we follow a university professor who seems to be loved by all and his wife who knows the secret reason why. She's been using voodoo protection all this time, but when she is forced to stop, something will have to give: either his luck or her sanity. Possibly both.<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">I Married A Witch</span> (Rene Clair - 1942) - OK, so I'm allowed to stretch the boundaries of horror a bit...Or, in the case of this trifle of a movie, a lot. The Criterion Collection released this last year during October, so it sounded like it might be a fun little ditty to toss into the cesspool this month. I expected there not to be many frights in this comedy starring Veronica Lake and Frederic March, but I didn't expect there would also be a dearth of laughs. With the star power involved and the wonderful poetic French director at the helm, I couldn't help but hope for something charming and memorable. It's well-loved by some, but I frankly found it incredibly disappointing - even for a throwaway comedy. Lake has that certain something about her, but she doesn't seem to feel comfortable in the role and overdoes just about everything (in particular the voiceovers that she and her warlock father do while they are in the form of smoke). There's little genuine here - Frederic March feels miscast, the line readings feel rushed (except for Susan Hayward who does well in a small part) and the story is forced. Lake's witch seeks revenge on March who happens to be a descendant of the man who killed her years ago, but things shift and love conquers all. Minus a few decent gags during a wedding scene, there is little impetus to keep things rolling.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tx4_o4e8SmI/VDYbGLA279I/AAAAAAAAQLI/a63fOjlaBco/s1600/OctoberIMarriedAWitch7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tx4_o4e8SmI/VDYbGLA279I/AAAAAAAAQLI/a63fOjlaBco/s1600/OctoberIMarriedAWitch7.png" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-14198795511111064232014-10-06T00:38:00.000-05:002014-10-06T00:38:38.114-05:00TIFF 2014 - 11 days, 47 films<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CS2RPI9jHW4/VAcVSujVxpI/AAAAAAAAQAU/LgreJr1q7Oc/s1600/TIFF14-PigeonReflectingOnExistence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CS2RPI9jHW4/VAcVSujVxpI/AAAAAAAAQAU/LgreJr1q7Oc/s1600/TIFF14-PigeonReflectingOnExistence.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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What follows is a quick run down and wrap-up of the 47 films I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival this year (which took place from September 4-14) and listed roughly in order of preference.<br />
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Along with seeing the films, I also managed to sit only 20 feet away from Juliette Binoche (damn good thing I was sitting due to the swooning that was happening in my head), met the filmmakers of <b>Spring</b>, talked to Jermaine Clement, hung out with my fantastic film friends and met some equally fantastic folks from out of town (hi Andrew, Sam, Justine, Max, Odie, Josh and others who will jump to mind moments after I post this...). Needless to say, I had a great time - I didn't even really regret seeing the also-ran movies.<br />
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11 months to go until TIFF 2015...<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">A Pigeon Sitting On A Branch Reflecting On Existence</span> - A wholly worthy end to Andersson's trilogy about the human tendency to live in purgatory and miss out on happiness. Indelible images (oh good lord, that human rotisserie...) and scenes that had me grinning stupidly.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Whiplash</span> - The film and performances (especially a fierce J.K. Simmons) are just as good as you may have heard when it came out of Sundance a double winner (Audience and Critic awards), but it's the finale that puts it right over the edge. The most bracing thing I've seen all year. Goosebumps on goosebumps.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The Duke Of Burgundy</span> - I absolutely feasted on the smorgasbord of images and sounds on display and came away satiated to the gills.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Nightcrawler</span> - "He's dead. Get the shot." Satirical, tense, blackly comic and provoked spontaneous applause after the best damn car chase I've seen since I don't know when. Can't wait to see it again.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Clouds Of Sils Maria</span> - Has layers upon layers of meta, but does so within the confines of the stories. But the real joy is in watching and listening to Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart interact and react to each other.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The New Girlfriend</span> - Ozon has been an up and down director for me (even within individual films), but this is easily the best thing I've seen by him.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">They Have Escaped</span> - Not your average teen runaway film, it marries great hallucinatory sights and sounds to show attempts to escape adulthood.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Leviathan</span> - Thick with inescapable hypocrisy. Watch out for anything red.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">1001 Grams</span> - Charming and lovely and nowhere near as slight as you may first think.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The World Of Kanako</span> - Not for everyone, but there's a certain kind of brilliance to the Sion Sono meets Seijun Suzuki sensory overload of this particular world. Best credits sequence in years.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">What We Do In The Shadows</span> - Easily the funniest film of the fest. Virgin sandwiches only!<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Kabukicho Love Hotel</span> - This is what happens when you create fully-fleshed out characters - their hardships feel real and their victories much more sweet.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Shrew's Nest</span> - Much more dynamic and tense than many of the recent Spanish "horror" films. <br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Out Of Nature</span> - Essentially a filmed internal monologue which does an effective and entertaining job in letting you in on one man's attempt to figure it all out.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Spring</span> - Evolution is amazing and brutal and unpredictable and this film so totally gets that. Fantastic.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">'71</span> - The confused landscape of Northern Ireland is well realized here along with visceral chases and a palpable sense of fear.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Confession</span> - Slowly but surely builds its characters and plot until a resolution that fully meets its goals. Engaging and quite beautifully filmed.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Scarlet Innocence</span> - Started as low rent melodrama and moved to top shelf high melodrama. Nice trick. <br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The Editor</span> - Hits that fine balance between parody and genuine tribute of the giallo. It almost overstays its welcome, but most of the jokes land and it really does look great.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Partners In Crime</span> - Somewhat slight, but still a stylish and solid look at one example of how bullying can have broader consequences.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Kahlil Gabran's The Prophet</span> - The animation is strong enough to carry the film alone, but if you also give in to the poetry and the cadence of the words, the film becomes something quite wonderful.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">It Follows</span> - Great concept, 70s-80s throwback style & score and a fine ability to create tension make this a lot of fun despite an abundance of plot holes and issues. Overlook those and you'll be fine.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Electric Boogaloo</span> - Exactly what you expect and that's OK (though it's a shade less fun than its older siblings <b>Not Quite Hollywood</b> and <b>Machete Maidens Unleashed</b>). Also, Sybill Danning is still gorgeous.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Cake</span> - Anniston's character isn't simply a bitch - her reactions and behaviour are that of a fully realized person. A finely measured film.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">A Little Chaos</span> - It may be conventional, but this easily won me over on the strength of its individual parts. And Kate. Definitely Kate.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Gyeongju</span> - The Past and ghosts litter the streets of the city of Gyeongju and though it takes awhile to navigate them, the stroll is quite pleasant.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Over Your Dead Body</span> - Though quite dry in its first half, it ends up using its beautiful sets to properly capture the tone of its Japanese ghost story source material.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The Grump</span> - Gentle with its topic of fearing and resisting change, but is also a bit fearful of using non-stock characters. Still, it should improve your mood...<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Red Amnesia</span> - Plays with the idea of regret not being enough to make up for past sins. Though it takes its time to get there, it becomes very satisfying.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Arie Libre</span> - An effective portrayal of a marriage imploding, but hurt somewhat by the husband character being disproportionally a jackass. Then again a female friend thought the same thing of the wife - so maybe the film got a good balance.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Haemoo</span> - Mixed feelings - a solid "at sea" tale that takes a fascinating dark turn and then devolves as its characters become less complex the longer the film runs.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Eden</span> - A fairly joyless wander through the French dance music culture that provides little insight into it or its main character.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The Good Lie</span> - Stronger for focusing on its African characters instead of their North American "saviours" (Reese Witherspoon is in a supporting role at best here) and achieves some genuine emotion, but it is otherwise so very by the book.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The Owners</span> - A slow, absurdist, depressing, black comedy from Kazakhstan with little dialogue. Its washed out look doesn't help the static feeling throughout much of the movie, but it's also oddly enjoyable at times. And there's plenty of dancing, so you've at least got that to fall back on.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Monsoon</span> - Gorgeous but never reaches for anything big - counter to what its overly serious narration implies it does.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Men, Women & Children</span> - Reitman tries to be universal with his themes by using many individual stories, but misses the mark with most of them. Trimming it to a few better developed stories would have brought out the themes much more.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Tokyo Tribe</span> - Alternated between riotously fun and terribly dull. An exhausting experience. But dammit if Beatbox Girl wasn't awesome.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The Reaper</span> - The quiet and slow pace of the film showed that death is patient and waits for opportunities, but waiting with it isn't always that exciting.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Wild Tales</span> - Certainly had some inspired moments, but was taken out of it by an audience who seemed to be rehearsing to be canned laughter for a sitcom. Nothing remotely close to being that funny in it.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Cut Snake</span> - For all its contrivances and lack of emotional weight, <b>Cut Snake</b> was fine. But nothing more. Not a bit more.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Love In The Time Of Civil War</span> - 2 hours of unrelenting misery. Accurate and well acted misery, but misery just the same. Highest density of crack smoking per minute of footage ever.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Who Am I - No System Is Safe</span> - And we're still waiting for a good hacker film..."You write machine code?" "Yes". No, no you don't dude.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Tour De Force</span> - One 5 minute somewhat affecting scene does not forgive 90 minutes of tepid and forced drama mixed with stock "comedic" scenes. Could have been devastating if they actually built real characters.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">The Cobbler</span> - The line "you are the guardian of soles" is actually spoken out loud. And not for laughs. McCarthy ditches his complex and interesting characters for dull plot.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Waste Land</span> - Never has the descent into madness been so dull.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Revenge Of The Green Dragons</span> - The last time I came across this many cliches I was watching a clichéd movie about cliches while eating a cliche sandwich. With a side of cliches.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-weight: bold;">Impunity</span> - Poorly paced and plotted, muddled and, frankly, stupid. I don't know what <b>Impunity</b> was doing at this festival.<br />
Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-75426919590693631442014-10-05T16:50:00.001-05:002014-10-05T16:50:33.396-05:00October Horror 2014 - Chapter 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nOSRYDpKMrg/VDAAO3vDaOI/AAAAAAAAQFY/1NbEKPGm1Io/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nOSRYDpKMrg/VDAAO3vDaOI/AAAAAAAAQFY/1NbEKPGm1Io/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness8.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Skeptical about yet another set of October horror reviews? Can't says I blame you, but I'm doing it anyway...<br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">Comedy Of Terrors</span> (Jacques Tourneur - 1963) - A less than auspicious start. You would think that with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff all being directed by Jacques Tourneur (Jacques freakin' Tourneur!) that you might end up with a bit more than warmed over gags, broad dull humour and an uninteresting story with staid visuals. But that's exactly what you get here. Price and Lorre are occasionally entertaining just by their sheer presence as undertakers that need to create a market for their services, but it all becomes old pretty quickly. The musical score is possibly the worst part of the whole affair - it's overbearing as it continually tries to tell you what's funny with little whistles, blorps, xylophone runs and all manner of recycled generic bad kiddie TV show music. Painful at times. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-13H8WSifKZY/VDACYQCgNLI/AAAAAAAAQHM/tZ10egGwEB8/s1600/OctoberTheComedyOfTerrors8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-13H8WSifKZY/VDACYQCgNLI/AAAAAAAAQHM/tZ10egGwEB8/s1600/OctoberTheComedyOfTerrors8.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">Pieces</span> (Juan Piquer Simon - 1982) - <b>Pieces</b> starts out with a bang (as a young boy puts an end to his mother's haranguing about the filth he is exposed to), but fairly quickly slides into the "pretty lame" categorization of slasher films as we fast forward 40 years to a series of killings of young sexually confident women on a university campus. The film moves from lame to seriously lame, but then seems to stake out territory in the so-bad-it's-good realm. This status is quickly followed by a shift into the sphere of no-that's-just-incompetent-filmmaking with a further shift into OK-I'll-admit-that-I'm-actually-entertained-by-this-silliness-and-HORRIBLE-dubbing. And then there's the bonus of a "WTF was that ending?" ending. So yeah...That was <b>Pieces</b>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PVuUH0FaVA0/VDAAqLoPutI/AAAAAAAAQFk/5fTXFi0CXQM/s1600/OctoberPieces4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PVuUH0FaVA0/VDAAqLoPutI/AAAAAAAAQFk/5fTXFi0CXQM/s1600/OctoberPieces4.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">Society</span> (Society - 1989) - Though it has its shaky "let's just dispense with the logical questions so we can move on with the plot" moments, <b>Society</b> is overall an entertaining, disorienting and somewhat stinging satire of class differences and how the rich feed off those below them. And when I say "feed"...Well, let's just say that the film is not overly subtle. This is especially true in its staggeringly grotesque last 20 minutes (even with the credit at the start of the film indicating that Screaming Mad George is responsible for the surrealistic make-up effects, you aren't really prepared for that final party scene). It's somewhat appropriate given the relationship between much of the upper echelon and those below - both then and even moreso now.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ksmnYO5dnA4/VDAA-fpTCmI/AAAAAAAAQGM/UqdGLCw7BIk/s1600/OctoberSociety1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ksmnYO5dnA4/VDAA-fpTCmI/AAAAAAAAQGM/UqdGLCw7BIk/s1600/OctoberSociety1.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DIRiu0JC4UY/VDAA_anp1uI/AAAAAAAAQGU/A7G6qSYT3pY/s1600/OctoberSociety5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DIRiu0JC4UY/VDAA_anp1uI/AAAAAAAAQGU/A7G6qSYT3pY/s1600/OctoberSociety5.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fb2MULtG0qM/VDABAeHXZbI/AAAAAAAAQGg/1YTtxX8nC4E/s1600/OctoberSociety6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fb2MULtG0qM/VDABAeHXZbI/AAAAAAAAQGg/1YTtxX8nC4E/s1600/OctoberSociety6.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MlBi4cLXlZk/VDABBU4x88I/AAAAAAAAQGo/q0Qz3-khnG0/s1600/OctoberSociety8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MlBi4cLXlZk/VDABBU4x88I/AAAAAAAAQGo/q0Qz3-khnG0/s1600/OctoberSociety8.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5LN5iQVFg6Y/VDAA_LmDNMI/AAAAAAAAQGY/Zg4mT2fdfJY/s1600/OctoberSociety11.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5LN5iQVFg6Y/VDAA_LmDNMI/AAAAAAAAQGY/Zg4mT2fdfJY/s1600/OctoberSociety11.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">A Page Of Madness</span> (Teinosuke Kinogasa - 1926) - This hour-long Japanese surreal look at the inside of a mental institution is quite remarkable - not just for its time, but from a modern perspective as well. The layers and layers of superimposed images attempt to provide an entry point to what it might feel like to have delusions, but the almost non-stop use of quick cuts, shafts of light, canted angles and bars across all entrances also leaves you feeling like there simply is no possible escape. The story suffers somewhat from the use of these techniques, but it almost doesn't matter. This is a creepy, unsettling and very sad film.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OYzPHo5DAj0/VDAANQT6A2I/AAAAAAAAQE8/T6mlcJYfd38/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OYzPHo5DAj0/VDAANQT6A2I/AAAAAAAAQE8/T6mlcJYfd38/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness2.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uc25TvK3jgU/VDADLbC-jLI/AAAAAAAAQHg/BtbC-283RlQ/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uc25TvK3jgU/VDADLbC-jLI/AAAAAAAAQHg/BtbC-283RlQ/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness3.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1L4Sg1F4UkM/VDAAOT8Er2I/AAAAAAAAQFQ/O76__H7Scik/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1L4Sg1F4UkM/VDAAOT8Er2I/AAAAAAAAQFQ/O76__H7Scik/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness4.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-njXcpziFZTI/VDAANUuvX6I/AAAAAAAAQFA/JEwVbiriip4/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness12.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-njXcpziFZTI/VDAANUuvX6I/AAAAAAAAQFA/JEwVbiriip4/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness12.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m_fgrOupKUQ/VDAANg6-9MI/AAAAAAAAQFE/TsCUp46Pcco/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m_fgrOupKUQ/VDAANg6-9MI/AAAAAAAAQFE/TsCUp46Pcco/s1600/OctoberAPageOfMadness13.png" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-57927420592584208462014-09-13T23:57:00.000-05:002014-09-30T23:31:59.068-05:00TIFF 2014 - A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wDO2q0yb9QI/VBO4T8fmnyI/AAAAAAAAQCg/1VL5f1A1hGs/s1600/TIFF14-PigeonReflectingOnExistence2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wDO2q0yb9QI/VBO4T8fmnyI/AAAAAAAAQCg/1VL5f1A1hGs/s1600/TIFF14-PigeonReflectingOnExistence2.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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How do you review or even talk about a movie that you've eagerly (very eagerly) been waiting to see for 7 years? A movie that brings deadpan to new levels of dead? A movie that packs in little bits and pieces into carefully constructed frames with long shots and no camera movement? A movie that closes a trilogy on the "human condition"? I'm not sure, but I do know that I loved it. Every single static shot, every single pasty white face, every single line delivery, every single bit of marvelous set design and every single surprising image that helps build up Roy Andersson's thesis about our species.<br />
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My affair with Andersson's set of masterpieces (I truly do not bandy that word around easily) began with his 2000 film <b>Songs From The Second Floor</b> which seemed to gives us a singular view of purgatory. Operatic singers on subways, constant traffic jams and people laying in wait in fields make up a world that seems disconnected from the rest of humanity. The colour has been drained away from the walls, the clothing, people's faces and life itself. No one cracks a smile, but there's plenty of humour throughout (a lot of it dark) and moments of simply glorious cinema. Andersson followed this up seven years later with 2007's <b>You The Living</b> - a film that almost made me burst out in tears at the simple beauty that was right in front of its characters but being missed on a daily basis. It's a movie that excoriates those who choose to complain and whine about things they don't have, pine for things they can't have and ignore what they already have. Again, the static scenes force your eyes to roam the landscape of these constructed sets and rooms and pick up on Andersson's themes while also laughing at the intrinsic head-slapping obliviousness of humanity. It's punctuated by a set of scenes near the end that moves from a funeral to a honeymoon train trip to a woman in a bathtub singing that remains one of my favourite stretches in all of film.<br />
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So what about <b>A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence</b>? The third and last installment follows the same style as the previous two (thou there's less pastel blues and greens this time out) while it works its way through what are essentially sketches that are loosely tied via characters - in particular a pair of entertainment gadget salesmen (the "classic" laugh bags are a popular product) who simply want to bring fun to other people even though they seem to take no joy in it whatsoever. There seems to be little fun for any of the inhabitants here though. They all seem to be chasing something with little regard for other people or wallowing in their own self-pity - instead of occasionally reflecting on their lives and the possibilities (like we presume the pigeon is doing as it pops up on the soundtrack occasionally).<br />
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Two key brilliant (and completely different) scenes cement this film for me...Firstly, a bar scene set in 1943 as the owner/bartender Limping Lotte croons a sales pitch to her customers about dollar shots to the tune of "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah". The military men at the bar sing back (using the same tune) that they would like a drink but have no money so what are they to do? This sets up a back and forth as Lotte smilingly sings back that all she requires is a kiss if they are willing...And they are willing...It's such a wonderful depiction of how humans can interact, can be kind to each other and can create these moments of wonder that I grinned like an idiot throughout it. Contrast this with the section "Home Sapiens" from late in the film - it starts with a monkey receiving electro shocks from an uncaring technician and follows it with a human rotisserie for slaves that, as it roasts them inside, creates music for the pleasure of the aristocracy. It's a moment that sucked the air straight out of the audience's lungs. An almost paralyzing silence came over the crowd as we were shocked and disgusted at this ridiculous concept - while also knowing that things equally as pointless and horrific have occurred in reality.<br />
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Which is the beauty of Andersson's films - through absurdity, humour and the occasional stunning image, he brings you both the warmth and the horror of humanity. And leaves it up to you what to take away. There's nothing else like it.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FCeywJtqJbI/VBUa4rnc8QI/AAAAAAAAQC0/-P_2iMVd7ck/s1600/TIFF14-PigeonReflectingOnExistence3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FCeywJtqJbI/VBUa4rnc8QI/AAAAAAAAQC0/-P_2iMVd7ck/s1600/TIFF14-PigeonReflectingOnExistence3.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-38537550999915264082014-09-13T09:30:00.001-05:002014-09-13T09:30:36.686-05:00TIFF 2014 - Whiplash<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WuH2P2hmhhU/VBLdd0S7O9I/AAAAAAAAQCQ/OLZ8hIuN6Vk/s1600/TIFF14-Whiplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WuH2P2hmhhU/VBLdd0S7O9I/AAAAAAAAQCQ/OLZ8hIuN6Vk/s1600/TIFF14-Whiplash.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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Whiplash ends with possibly the most bracing cinematic moment of the year. A concert, some drumming and one helluva great resolution to the battle between the film's two main characters. The music, the editing, the performances of Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons and the entire rhythm of the scene results in a glorious and almost breathless conclusion - one that made me, at scene's end, let out a pent up "Yeah!". I never do that, but simply couldn't help myself.<br />
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But I'm getting ahead of things...Damien Chazelle's Sundance jury winning film (which won the audience award too) delves into the freshman year of Andrew Neyman (Teller) as he enters the renowned Schaefer Music school to study drumming - specifically jazz drumming. Based at least somewhat on Chazelle's own personal experiences with the drive to be the best and the constant pushing by teachers and rival students, the film focuses on Andrew's unhealthy relationship with his teacher Terence Fletcher (Simmons). Andrew is desperate to please him as it would be a sign that he's the best. He dreams of one day joining the legions of jazz greats and leaving behind a legacy. Fletcher, for his part, recognizes immediately that Andrew is a talent and brings him into the main performance band, but is relentless in his verbal abuse, intimidation and belittlement. Fletcher believes this to be the proper tactic to find the gems, but the relationship starts taking its toll...<br />
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Simmons is a powerhouse here. It's a surprise to no one of course, but he is on fire in just about every scene with his eyes burning, insults spewing and his physical presence filling up the frame. Those insults thrown mostly at students have their own rhythm and almost feel like improvised drum fills with pauses and staccato punches. Teller is terrific too (he obviously has drumming talent to go with the acting chops) as he descends into obsession. The music throughout the film is tremendous and comes in fits and starts, sharp bursts and long workouts. The title tune is a standout and gets replayed several times as the band practice it and Fletcher has them redo parts over and over and over (he doesn't discriminate who he tortures). The drums drive the film forward with a distinct pulse through raucous periods, through tension filled moments and even through a few of the quieter sections. It feels like the perfect vehicle to represent the insistent drive for perfection that consumes these characters. They may never reach it, but it's possible the film itself did.Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-88525001085727890652014-09-11T00:47:00.002-05:002014-09-11T00:50:10.332-05:00TIFF 2014 - Nightcrawler<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U-5l1ppojag/VBEyhMFKC1I/AAAAAAAAQB4/hzZ6OCJ4Jew/s1600/TIFF14-Nightcrawler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U-5l1ppojag/VBEyhMFKC1I/AAAAAAAAQB4/hzZ6OCJ4Jew/s1600/TIFF14-Nightcrawler.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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Dan Gilroy's <b>Nightcrawler</b> is essentially a perfectly crafted film. As it tells the story of naive scammer/thief Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), the film never once seems to hit a sour note or lag its pace. Through our initial intro to Lou, some fleshing out of his character, his discovery of a new possible career path and the film's gradual shift to action and cynicism, there aren't any dead spots or moments where you might question the film's direction. It's not due to any attempt to dull the audience's senses through too many fast paced cuts or loud obnoxious songs, but simply because the damn thing is so incredibly engaging from start to finish.<br />
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Lou is a con man and thief who seems to get most of his ideas and conversation points from Internet education videos. After a few of his failed attempts at getting work (using his "selling skills"), he stumbles one night on a car accident scene and witnesses some freelance videographers taking footage of the wreckage and carnage. He learns that you can make money doing this by selling the videos to TV stations. He asks the videographer Joe (Bill Paxton) for a job and is rebuked. Being the "hard working individual" that he is, he decides to go it alone and buys himself a cheap camera (from the proceeds of a theft). Of course he makes a mess of it initially, but Lou has a unique skill - he learns from his failures and builds on them. After getting a sale with one of the stations, he starts to develop a relationship with the news producer Nina (Rene Russo) and becomes more aggressive at getting the kind of footage she wants. Knowing that "if it bleeds, it leads", he gets a police scanner, an assistant named Rick (a great and very entertaining turn by Riz Ahmed) and aims for success.<br />
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As he gets better at it and even beats Joe at his own game, the confidence begins to build and the film picks up steam. He turns Joe down flat when he's offered a partnership with him, spouts corporate platitudes to Rick (of particular note is his "performance review" to Rick which is both hysterical and depressing because of how accurate it mimics a corporate training seminar) and gets himself a bright red Mustang. When he manages to get to a crime scene at a private residence ahead of the police, he doesn't hesitate to enter the house and get fresh footage of the victims lying in their own pools of blood. He also happens to get the criminals on tape as they flee, but he holds on to that video for his own purposes and doesn't even share it with the police. One might say that his moral fibre is of the flexible variety. Things escalate at this point and the film has numerous scenes of delicious tension and one major set piece of action so perfectly created that the audience at my screening deservedly broke into spontaneous applause at its conclusion (it's so good that you don't realize you've been gripping your chair the whole ride). The film has little good to say about U.S. TV journalism, but does so in a manner that still manages to find an inciteful point of view. It's not a happy one, but what news story is these days?Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-69101202988013831842014-09-11T00:36:00.001-05:002014-09-11T00:36:56.853-05:00TIFF 2014 - Scarlet Innocence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Cll5Yj-oFI/VBEyqg6iu6I/AAAAAAAAQCA/7XlJQoTkYls/s1600/TIFF14-ScarletInnocence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Cll5Yj-oFI/VBEyqg6iu6I/AAAAAAAAQCA/7XlJQoTkYls/s1600/TIFF14-ScarletInnocence.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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A common statement about Korean cinema is that its films seem to be able to change genre and tone on a dime and do it better than just about anyone else. So it shouldn't be much of a surprise when the tone of <b>Scarlet Innocence</b> changes dramatically somewhere around the end of the first third of it. And yet, after being lulled into what could have been a low rent melodrama with cliche situations, the turn in the film towards high rent juicy melodrama with brighter colours, sweatier lust and lots of vengeance is not only unexpected, but so very welcomed.<br />
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It's not that the opening third is dull or boring, but it seems very conventionally set up to be a straightforward drama as checkboxes start getting ticked off. The story begins with a disgraced teacher moving to a small town to begin again and a student who starts to develop a crush on him. It evolves as you might expect and does so with a slow pace and decently constructed characters. It feels like it's building into a standard soap opera - nothing overly compelling, but still enough to keep the interest level from waning. But just as you think you've properly slotted the one note tone of the film, it shifts several gears at once - pretty much stripping the transmission completely. The single scene that accomplishes this precedes a jump forward of several years and suddenly the palette is more vibrant, the score more of a presence and all the emotions seem pitched higher, louder and broader. And it becomes a great deal of fun.<br />
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Suddenly there is betrayal, scandal, gangsters, gambling houses and all manner of bad behaviour. It also stops feeding you the story and expects you to keep up, fill in the details yourself or just sit back and give the director some confidence that he'll get you caught up soon enough. If the plot elements start getting a bit sillier, it's forgiven given the new context of the film as top notch melodrama (with perhaps a bit more brutality than Sirk may have used). And all this from an ancient Korean story of a daughter's devotion to her blind father...Seriously, you just never know where Korean cinema is going to wind up.Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-23841048479044139762014-09-02T22:50:00.000-05:002014-09-02T22:50:33.112-05:00Before They Got Big...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ySPqOMHSnWc/VAaD8R-iNEI/AAAAAAAAP_U/J7BLCeaqOoI/s1600/HushHushSweetCharlotte.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ySPqOMHSnWc/VAaD8R-iNEI/AAAAAAAAP_U/J7BLCeaqOoI/s1600/HushHushSweetCharlotte.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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After being cooped up in a cottage for an entire week (not that I'm complaining), I went on a bit of a movie bender and dove into some titles from the 60s and 70s. Almost as much fun as watching these films (and I was treated to some great stuff) was spotting some future stars in very early film appearances. Here's a quick run down of a few I stumbled across...<br />
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<b>Donald Sutherland (in "The Bedford Incident")</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--tlW_SUHH-Y/VAaD8hTCjHI/AAAAAAAAP-s/MZ2UF5PgTgE/s1600/DonaldSutherland.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--tlW_SUHH-Y/VAaD8hTCjHI/AAAAAAAAP-s/MZ2UF5PgTgE/s1600/DonaldSutherland.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
This fine and surprising maritime thriller had some awesome talent in it: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Martin Balsam, Wally Cox, etc. It also happened to contain one of the very first film roles for this young Canadian lad. Nothing to really indicate his future career, but he manages to get in a few smirks.<br />
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<b>Peter Bonerz (in "What Ever Happened To Aunt Alice")</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hWZYnH__MLM/VAaD-23qfdI/AAAAAAAAP_M/NRay-nd5ePA/s1600/PeterBonerz.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hWZYnH__MLM/VAaD-23qfdI/AAAAAAAAP_M/NRay-nd5ePA/s1600/PeterBonerz.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
OK, so he may not be a big name nor even a very recognizable one, but Bonerz's role as dentist Dr. Jerry Robinson on The Bob Newhart Show (a major component of my childhood) is an old favourite. So it was nice to see him (even if just a scant few years before that classic sitcom started) in this entertaining and blackly comic suspense film. He looks so baby-faced.<br />
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<b>Christopher Guest (in "Deathwish")</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZbEEEVtWpaY/VAaD7W3CeCI/AAAAAAAAP-g/Ra6oov42RM0/s1600/ChristopherGuest.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZbEEEVtWpaY/VAaD7W3CeCI/AAAAAAAAP-g/Ra6oov42RM0/s1600/ChristopherGuest.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Speaking of baby-faced kids, you can definitely buy Christopher Guest as a rookie cop in this scene near the end of "Deathwish". Not a lot of room for improv, but I'd like to think the outtakes between him and Vincent Gardenia were gold.<br />
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<b>Olympia Dukakis (in "Deathwish")</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LZRsVfK3t80/VAaD-Ez_HBI/AAAAAAAAP_A/FBcseuAZyeE/s1600/OlympiaDukakis.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LZRsVfK3t80/VAaD-Ez_HBI/AAAAAAAAP_A/FBcseuAZyeE/s1600/OlympiaDukakis.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Though she never gets a full on view of her face in her single scene, her voice has a nice dose of attitude as she provides an update to a police detective bullpen. You could tell. You could just tell she had something...<br />
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<b>Jeff Goldblum (in "Deathwish")</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qi9MO5txPck/VAaD8_BzmAI/AAAAAAAAP-w/aNVn5150wlg/s1600/JeffGoldblum.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qi9MO5txPck/VAaD8_BzmAI/AAAAAAAAP-w/aNVn5150wlg/s1600/JeffGoldblum.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
It may have been my least favourite film of this bunch, but it sure had a great ratio of future successes in its secondary cast. After witnessing his performance as "Freak #1", though, you likely would have been hard-pressed to guess that Goldblum would be one of the ones to break out.<br />
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<b>Joan Rivers (in "The Swimmer")</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gz3Ichs4hj0/VAaD956QjRI/AAAAAAAAP-8/xlRJlLLPRq8/s1600/JoanRivers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gz3Ichs4hj0/VAaD956QjRI/AAAAAAAAP-8/xlRJlLLPRq8/s1600/JoanRivers.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
Though already known as a comedienne from TV, this was her first speaking role in a film. Both she and the scene are a bit awkward, but the entire film is profoundly odd, so it worked out well.<br />
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<b>Bruce Dern (in "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte")</b><br />
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Along with Hitchcock's "Marnie" in the same year, this was Dern's first big screen appearance (after several years on TV). And look at him now...<br />
Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-55967956520473100912014-08-27T10:49:00.001-05:002014-08-27T10:49:30.306-05:00Blindspot - "Ride The High Country" and "Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W68LG0ljAa0/U_1UVpn9ynI/AAAAAAAAP8o/JmVEA2oX8i4/s1600/BlindspotPatGarrettAndBillyTheKid1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W68LG0ljAa0/U_1UVpn9ynI/AAAAAAAAP8o/JmVEA2oX8i4/s1600/BlindspotPatGarrettAndBillyTheKid1.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<b>The Wild Bunch</b> is not my favourite Sam Peckinpah film. There, I've said it. Even worse, though, is that I don't particularly like it. The stylized violence in the opening and closing battles is everything I expected and more, but it's all the stuff in between (if memory serves that is) that was thoroughly disappointing. The "characters" and their attempts at manly bonding felt forced and hurt the whole experience of the movie for me. Granted, it's been quite a while since I've seen it and I owe it a rewatch, but I found that two other views of the Old West by Peckinpah - <b>Ride The High Country</b> and <b>Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid</b> - provided much stronger and more interesting characters while still splashing the blood around a bit. But they did it in very different ways...<br />
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<b>Ride The High Country</b> is, for the most part, a classic Western. Told mainly via interactions between its male characters, its straightforward story reveals its themes of good, evil and redemption fairly early on and builds on them. Steve Judd (Joel McRae) and Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott) are two former partners who reconnect in their later years to help bring back a deposit of gold to the bank. With the Gold Rush winding down, many questionable characters are trying to get a final crack at a stake and the bank doesn't believe their gold will be safe without some protection. What Judd doesn't know is that his old friend Gil and his young impetuous associate (named Heck) plan to keep the gold for themselves - whether Judd wants them to or not. Along the way up to the mining town, they stop for a rest at a ranch run by a strict religious man and his daughter Elsa (an impossibly young Mariette Hartley). She's looking for a way out of the restrictive setting of the ranch she's never been allowed to leave, so she tags along with the men when they leave the next day. She's decided to go to the mining town to marry her fiancee who works there with his brothers. Somewhat predictably, all doesn't go as planned...Elsa's fiancee and his progressively creepier brothers see her presence as being useful for only so many purposes - mostly sex and cooking - and to be shared by all. On the way to the mining town, Heck and Elsa flirt a bit and Heck makes a pass at her. She rebuffs him, but he insists and she needs Judd to pull him off. Judd knocks Heck to the ground and is followed by Gil giving him the same treatment. Though it shows the goodness in these two old timers (both saving the poor "defenseless" woman), it creates an awkward follow-up scene when Elsa actually apologizes to Heck (I guess for not allowing him to fully take advantage of her) and he seems to be sulking. It is quite jarring from a modern day perspective to see Elsa do this, but it almost makes sense given the obvious hierarchy of man over woman in this early part of the 20th century and her desperation to keep moving away from her father's ranch. It also establishes firmly where Heck's morality is based and how he can only crawl up from there.<br />
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The morality in <b>Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid</b> is somewhat sketchier. Most of these men have done bad things, but their moral centres revolve around respect and honour to their friends and partners. Pat Garrett and Billy are old friends, but when Garrett goes to meet Billy at the beginning of the movie it is solely to give him a warning: that Garrett will be his executioner. They part on good terms and Billy considers several options for leaving the town and his gang behind. With deputies in tow, Garrett manages to capture Billy after a shootout, but Billy escapes by gunning down two of the deputies (one self-righteous fool and one honourable man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time). From here, the chase resumes until its foregone conclusion. There really isn't much more to the story than that. Given the scarcity of dialogue, some gorgeously shot scenes and an unspoken fondness for the Old West, one can easily understand why the film often gets described as being poetic, evocative and elegiac. However, the film as a whole is far too scattered and littered with half-drawn characters and scenes that it's hard to see it as a complete work. There have been a few versions of it though: the studio edited theatrical release which Peckinpah disowned, a "preview" version which TCM put together that attempted to pull together Peckinpah's vision (the version I saw) and a director's cut which theoretically comes closest to Peckinpah's intent. Along with numerous production issues, Peckinpah was in full alcoholic mode during the shooting of the film, so it ran over-budget, over-schedule and certainly caught the attention of the studio suits. And yet, for all its problems (e.g. way too many cutaway shots to Bob Dylan, an odd soundtrack, scenes left adrift, etc.), there are some absolutely glorious moments.<br />
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Many of those moments are created by the leads (James Coburn as Garrett and Kris Kristofferson as Billy) since how they say things (or more often, don't say) becomes extremely important due to the paucity of dialogue. Whether it was Peckinpah's direction or their own decisions, the actors bring these characters fully formed to the screen. Coburn's silent glares speak volumes and Kristofferson has a natural charisma that definitely surprised me. And then you have Slim Pickens...Now it's always great to see Slim in anything, but his short yet unforgettable appearance in the film is one for the ages. Even though we had just briefly met him a few minutes earlier, his death scene is both heartbreaking and beautiful. After being shot in a gun battle as another of Garrett's recruits, he stumbles to the river and sits and waits for his life to fade out like the setting sun. Most of the other famous cameos in the film, though fine, don't have any of that staying power. Perhaps Peckinpah was going for the feeling of a rich tapestry (mixing in a bit of Dylan, Jack Elam, Jason Robards, Barry Sullivan and more), but none of them are given much with which to play and instead they feel somewhat wasted. <b>Ride The High Country</b>, in contrast, does far more with its characters and provides enough meaty dialogue not just for its central roles (Scott and McRea), but also the supporting roles with weight (Heck, Elsa, Elsa's fiancee) and the rest of the cast (the brothers, the drunken judge, the brothel owner). Both Scott and McRea truly stand out and, like Coburn and Kristofferson, add a great deal more to their characters. They manage to create something perfect in the delivery of their lines. It's not that the line readings are particularly realistic, but just that the words seem to tumble effortlessly out of their mouths. Even when they say things like "The Lord's bounty may not be for sale but the Devil's is...if you can pay the price" (and other phrases that essentially state themes of the movie) it just sounds right coming from them.<br />
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Judd tell Westrum at one point: "All I want is to enter my house justified". By the end of the film, after Judd's consistent take on what's right and what's wrong, you feel as if he has succeeded in his quest and even tugged along Westrum and Heck while he was at it. Garrett, on the other hand, may very well have been trying to reach that same lofty goal, but by the time the opening scene replays itself at the end, you realize that he may have gone about things the wrong way. After deciding to throw in with the businessmen looking to clean up the West (in particular, to get rid of people like Billy), no amount of rationalizing his decision could make it feel right. Though we don't see his life between the killing and the years-later bookends, one gets the feeling that Garrett has struggled with trying to justify his actions and has paid a price. In High Country, there's an understanding of that grey area between good and bad: "My father says there's only right and wrong - good and evil. Nothing in between. It isn't that simple, is it?" "No it isn't. It should be, but it isn't". That seems to be a statement about how people are always in transition - becoming bad from their natural good state or trying to get back to being good through redemption. In <b>Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid</b>, it's more a statement of fact - everybody has some of both, so choose your actions carefully. Some have called Peckinpah's final Western a eulogy for the Old West, but it feels more like one for the films about the Old West. One that leaves you feeling quite melancholy.<br />
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If <b>Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid</b> didn't completely win me over with its ramshackle nature, it certainly left an impression - in particular in relation to its main characters. <b>Ride The High Country</b> has a much greater hit ratio (and even shows some early bits of Peckinpah's different view of violence), but also leaves its strongest impression through its two lead characters. And that's where <b>The Wild Bunch</b> left me cold - the characters. But both of these Westerns have left me considering Peckinpah's other films (in particular <b>The Wild Bunch</b>) and has made me eager to revisit them and fill in the ones I haven't seen (<b>The Battle Of Cable Rogue</b> and <b>Major Dundee</b> for example). I think that alone is pretty high praise.<br />
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Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-72254003357462960742014-08-06T22:03:00.001-05:002014-08-06T22:03:09.311-05:00Blindspot - "The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin" and "The Five Deadly Venoms"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PwuKiFr--9Q/U-LcnKzI7rI/AAAAAAAAP8I/0BGOAw3EnwI/s1600/Blindspot36thChamberOfShaolin2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PwuKiFr--9Q/U-LcnKzI7rI/AAAAAAAAP8I/0BGOAw3EnwI/s1600/Blindspot36thChamberOfShaolin2.png" width="550" /></a></div><br />
You may notice a distinct difference in the quality of the screen caps contained within this post. <b>36th Chamber Of Shaolin</b> has a proper widescreen aspect ratio and clear image (straight from the Dragon Dynasty DVD) while <b>Five Deadly Venoms</b> has a poorly cropped 4:3 image that was obviously recorded years ago off TV to well-worn VHS (and then transferred to YouTube where I found it). Was I desperate to catch that second film and willing to watch anything I could source? No. It was actually a bit of a design point.<br />
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Several months ago when I first mentioned this pairing of Shaw Brothers Kung Fu films for my Blindspot, it was suggested to me that I should swing on down to Chinatown and get my viewing copies there. After all, crappy, English-dubbed copies are how most people get introduced to Kung Fu in the first place. Though I completely saw the merit in the idea, I was against it for two reasons...First and foremost, I really can't handle cropped films and bad dubbing - hell, even Fellini films dubbed afterwards back into their own language (as Fellini intended) drive me a bit crazy since things like intonation never quite match up quite properly when dubbed. I've been a stickler for proper aspect ratios since realizing what they were (somewhere during the mid-point of the VHS years) and mostly seethe if I come across a film on TV or DVD in a bastardized form. Secondly, I already had that copy of 36th Chamber on DVD sitting at home on my stack of unwatched films. But the idea of watching at least one of the films in the format in which I would've seen my first taste of Kung Fu was still somewhat appealing. My knowledge of Kung Fu is not extensive (loads of Jackie Chan, the more serious <b>Come Drink With Me</b>, the much less serious <b>Mad Monkey Kung Fu</b> and all sorts of clips and scenes from Sunday afternoons long ago), but when I think of it, I do indeed think of desaturated videotape stock, people being cut out of the frame and halting English dubbed over to attempt to match with the characters on screen. Oh, and enough wooshing and whacking sounds to make a foley artist break into a sweat.<br />
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All of which can make a Kung Fu film somewhat hard to take seriously. But then I started to watch <b>36th Chamber Of Shaolin</b>...Its opening sequence of Chia-Hui Liu (aka Gordon Liu) framed in different manners executing solo Kung Fu moves was enough to show that there was a great deal of artistic craft going on here. Not that I doubted there would be, but it completely settled me into being able to look upon the film as a complete entity. It also validated my decision to see this film on its full canvas - what a shame it would've been to miss the entirety of each of these opening shots. Not only the backdrops and art direction, but the perfectly sculpted body of Liu and each one of his refined moves. When the story starts, though, his character San Te is somewhat less attuned to the ways of the Shaolin monks than he is in those credits. He is a frustrated young student watching his surroundings get overrun and manhandled by the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty. His protests get him in some trouble and he manages to escape to the Shaolin monastery. He seeks to become enlightened in the ways of the masters of martial arts so that he may return and help get back ownership of his old village to its denizens. After being left to tend to menial jobs for awhile, he figures out that he can now ask to be taught Kung Fu. He discovers that it is a painstaking process and that he must focus on and master individual skills one at a time in 35 separate chambers. The film glides by quite easily as it works through a straightforward three act structure: young student in village; student at monastery working through the different chambers one at a time; monk leaving school to seek justice.<br />
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There's less straightforward about <b>Five Deadly Venoms</b>. The plot description is easy enough: a student of all five major disciplines of fighting (Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, Toad) is instructed by his dying teacher to find 5 previous students. Each of the five had mastered one of the five styles and the teacher is worried that some of them may turn evil. The student knows all five styles, but has mastered none and so must team up with one of the five to ensure none of the others commit any crimes. The teacher does not know the names or faces of any of these masters, so the student is left to his own devices to find them. Like 36th Chamber, the film opens with some great montages as we see each of the five masters (in their masks) performing their specialized skills. The choreography and filming is definitely leaning to the sillier side of things (Centipede smashes plates falling from the ceiling, etc.), but it certainly sets up the rest of the film to be a battle between these five with the wildcard of the student thrown into the mix. And it is to a certain extent, but also continually falls apart into over-explanation, needless plot points and the occasional bits of goofy humour that don't work very well (at least not for me). Worst of all, there seems to be a definite lack of actual Kung Fu throughout the film. The final fight is great and helps to redeem things, but short of the little bits sprinkled here and there, it becomes somewhat tiring as we flit between Centipede/Snake and Lizard/Toad as they try to outmaneuver each other (while the student observes). Meanwhile, Scorpion is unknown to everyone.<br />
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Admittedly, I have to firmly blame the crappy quality of the video and the annoying dubbing as prime reasons for not enjoying <b>Five Deadly Venoms</b> as much as I likely should have. A pristine copy probably wouldn't have vaulted it above 36th Chamber, but with blurry faces continually being chopped at the edges of the frame and English sentences being chopped into odd meters, I found it hard to stay with the story and get pulled into the film. I expect it is still a few notches below 36th Chamber in terms of its action, story, pacing, cinematography, etc., but I feel I need to see it again in much better circumstances. The concept is terrific - 5 different styles of attack based on reptiles and insects held by 5 hidden masters and only one student left to find them. There are moments of real mystery as you try to figure out who is who at the same time as the student, but it never felt like a cohesive story. Only the final fight really gels as the student finally dives headlong into battle with and against the masters and we witness a variety of well planned choreography. As with 36th Chamber, there's certainly some "fantasy" in some of the moves (leaping on the sides of walls and staying there, hovering in air longer than gravity would allow, etc.), but it all fits into the reality of the worlds in the films so there's no issue. 36th Chamber's Kung Fu moments easily win out - the battles are more crisp, there are more elements in play (various weaponery for example) and even the training sections as San Te moves through the chambers are really entertaining. My favourite is probably the Head Chamber where he solely practices using his head for different Kung Fu moves (initially getting battered by having to bat heavy sandbags around with it) as well as the first time he crosses the water using only the floating pieces of wood. This is where 36th Chamber excels - in treating its slightly ridiculous set pieces with serious tones while finding the right mix of physicality from its actors and the added "effects" (e.g. editing, wires, and huge dollops of additional sound).<br />
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The foley editing of arms and weapons whooshing through the air and fists connecting with bodies is certainly overdone and can feel comical at times. It obscures and wears down <b>Five Deadly Venoms</b> (though with what feels like additional music, I can't say for sure how much is present in the original cut of the film), but feels just fine in <b>The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin</b>. I don't profess to be a Wu-Tang Clan fan (a neglected area of my musical background), but the seminal rap group was heavily influenced by 36th Chamber. It's easy to see how San Te building towards creating a new 36th chamber in order to share Kung Fu with the common man could have been inspiring to a group of diverse rap artists. One could also develop an entire philosophy simply from the words of wisdom spoken by the many monks from the different chambers. <b>Five Deadly Venoms</b> had much less depth, spirit and entertainment within its restricted walls, but there was still enough there to possibly draw me back for a revisit with a superior copy of the film. At the very least I could get some better screencaps from it...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FD0e6a6Yfas/U-Gm30JEWhI/AAAAAAAAP7M/r72ZAfGtFT4/s1600/BlindspotFiveDeadlyVenoms6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FD0e6a6Yfas/U-Gm30JEWhI/AAAAAAAAP7M/r72ZAfGtFT4/s1600/BlindspotFiveDeadlyVenoms6.png" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8977893001776125260.post-55864684629798866822014-07-28T19:06:00.001-05:002014-07-28T19:06:57.067-05:00A Momentary Lapse Of Reason-able blogging<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JpzjKvWwWAE/U9beD2dEaqI/AAAAAAAAP6Y/AXtZbsApIEw/s1600/AMomentaryLapse1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JpzjKvWwWAE/U9beD2dEaqI/AAAAAAAAP6Y/AXtZbsApIEw/s1600/AMomentaryLapse1.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
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Short of my recent post on <b><a href="http://eternalsunshineofthelogicalmind.blogspot.ca/2014/07/lucy.html">Lucy</a></b>, I've been missing from the old blogosphere for a good solid 4 months. Looks like things have continued on without me well enough, but this was easily my longest break since I started scribbling my opinions on the Internet. So what happened? Nothing really...There's no big dramatic story here. No period of self-reflection followed by life-changing revelations. No turning point event that has altered my view of what life is about. And (fortunately) no major family tragedies.<br />
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Sure there are trials and tribulations like everyone else. My folks are getting older and life is getting a bit harder for them both (we as a family need to figure things out in the next 6-12 months), but it's far better than 2011 - a bad year when we lost several friends, my beloved Aunt and almost my Dad. So grand scheme of things? Life is good. I like my job (most days), I love my wife, and my son (just turning 14 - how the hell did that happen?) is the absolute best thing ever.<br />
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So what's wrong with me? Along with this dearth in posting (I can never quite get to the point where I call it "writing"), there has also been a major drop in the simple act of watching film. As of right now, I've seen 134 films this year (theatrical, DVD, BluRay, streaming) including new, old and rewatched movies. That's abysmal for me. I've usually hit that number before the end of the first quarter. The simple answer is that I've been focused on other things:<br />
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<ul><li>In the sidebar, my little lame "About Me" section says that music occasionally crowds out film as my number 1 obsession. Well, that's certainly been part of the shift...After getting myself an <a href="http://www.rdio.com/">Rdio</a> subscription, I've been diving into my lists of albums I've always wanted to hear, slowly making it through the <b><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/1001-Albums-Must-Hear-Before/dp/0789320746/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406590703&sr=1-2">1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die</a></b> (I'm not getting much younger you know) and keeping reasonably on top of 2014 releases (Mogwai, The Souljazz Orchestra, Moonlit Sailor, Djam Karet, Tycho, Gord Downie & The Sadies, Collapse Under The Empire, The War On Drugs, Kongos, Manchester Orchestra, Band Of Skulls, Against Me!, Broken Bells, Lost In The Riots and Bob Mould would make a nice Top 15 at this stage).</li>
<li>Work has never been busier for me. Note, that's not necessarily a complaint. Oh, there have been moments of absolute frustration, but also some of great satisfaction. Since February, it's been a much more devoted focus during the day and spots of additional work at home in the evening. I'm fine with that, but it nibbles at the free time and makes my brain crave some respite.</li>
<li>The Boy too has been snatching more and more of my cycles - again, not a complaint! He's been wanting to watch more movies with me (usually ones I've seen, but that's good) and has been trying to push his film boundaries to match with what the Internet proclaims are the best movies ever (ie. mostly male dominated films slightly above his pay grade). It's been great as we typically go back and forth between something I think he should watch and something he wants to watch. I should probably take a stab at a post on that sometime soon...He's also going to bed a bit later which means he commands the basement (where the computers and video game systems live comfortably next to the DVD collection and TV) for longer periods of time in the evening. Again, I've no issue with that as it was completely expected and somewhat of a design point. We don't have the biggest house in the world, so we wanted him to have some space. It also allows him to have his buddies over for weekend (and mid-week in the summer) movie or game nights. And having your child comfortable with having his friends over is gold.</li>
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When I was watching movies during this time, I would often think of little tidbits I'd like to post (the many different things being fired by men in <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093185/reference">The Hidden</a></b>, my son's reactions to what he watches, etc.), but then 2 things would happen: 1) I'd feel like I should actually be watching something instead of blogging (so much to see) and 2) the process of typing up a post would start to feel a bit like homework. There's another side to it as well - is anyone really reading? Over the last few years my hit counts have been bottoming out (rightly so in that I haven't been providing consistent updates or content) with most hits coming from Google Image searches (I've always been a bit image heavy). It's somewhat self-propagating as I wonder what came first: the lower hits or the dropoff in posting? Also, there's been quite the change in landscape since I first started tossing out my missives back in 2007. It used to be much more of a - dare I say the word? - community (at least for me). There was a set of bloggers who sought each other out, commented on others' posts, discovered new sites/writers and pulled them into the ranks, etc. I'm overstating it somewhat, but there was much more daily contact with other people who wanted to discuss film. And by far that's been the most enriching part of this whole experience - the many friends I've made. Both the virtual online folks (a few of which I've managed to meet in the flesh) and the countless Toronto bloggers, writers and film buffs who have become a pretty damn important part of my life.<br />
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But it is different now - or at least it feels different. There's more emphasis on being FAST with your opinion. It's less about sharing and questioning, but a bit more about telling and marketing. Seeing a new release on opening night? Too late...You've already missed the boat if you didn't catch the preview screening. The conversation may already be done. I could blame Twitter, but that's too easy and likely only a bit of the reason. Also, Twitter can be a fantastic tool at quick connections and is particularly invaluable during a film festival (sharing your early impressions of films you've just seen, getting immediate reactions about ones you're hearing rumours about, and finding moments to meet up with others). I'm equally culpable during these periods in trying somewhat to be first out of the gate - the credits are still rolling and I'm trying to put together my 140-character "bon mots" about a movie that no one else has seen yet. But hey, it's pretty cool to get re-tweeted by a filmmaker or distribution company, so I will totally cop to that.<br />
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So this is really all apropos of nothing...That's just the new landscape. I never expected or even wanted to be a full time critic, so it's not like dreams are shattered for me. I have friends putting in the hours and the work to try to make it. I respect the hell out of them (and the other online critics and writers) as they make progress and even seem to occasionally enjoy it. The job does come with some new and necessary skills though: doing self-publicity and working social media. Neither are my forte, so it only increases my appreciation of those who do it well.<br />
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But as I've started getting back into the viewing habit over the last couple of weeks, I have a bit of an urge to start jotting down a few thoughts along the way. Though I have no expectations that I might do it on a consistent daily basis, I have been missing it...So even though I'll always have competing interests, obligations and distractions, I certainly plan to carve out some time for writing. Or whatever it is you might call this...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-65hzdQcIFNI/U9beENOeYZI/AAAAAAAAP6c/zc3y-mwZdzM/s1600/AMomentaryLapse2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-65hzdQcIFNI/U9beENOeYZI/AAAAAAAAP6c/zc3y-mwZdzM/s1600/AMomentaryLapse2.png" width="550" /></a></div>Bob Turnbullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02243657105760780425noreply@blogger.com7