The Film Corner with Greg Klymkiw

9 (2009) ***½
dir. Shane Acker
Starring the voices of: Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly, Martin Landau, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover

Review By Greg Klymkiw

9 is blessed with a simple narrative that, not unlike the little engine that could, drives the picture forward with the force of a powerful springboard – yielding big ideas and exquisitely generating emotional responses as viscerally thrilling as they are profoundly moving. Based on his acclaimed award-winning and Oscar-nominated short, director Shane Acker attracted the likes of such visionaries as Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov to assist with the production of his feature debut. Blending the dark magical qualities of the former and the razzle-dazzle rollercoaster ride action of the latter, Acker goes the distance and then some with this astoundingly gorgeous animated sci-fi adventure. He also brings his own unique visual style to the fore and creates a movie that careens through a futuristic, yet retro look that is altogether unique. On a story-level, Acker builds to a suspenseful climax and a conclusion that is almost as awe-inspiring in its sense of spirituality as the final moments of Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It’s a ride that keeps you glued to the screen and desperately wanting, by the end, to not leave the cinema. He keeps you wanting more and this is a considerable virtue, indeed. However, rather than leaving unanswered narrative questions, you are left with much that is cerebral and, dare I say, philosophical.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world that resembles our own (but early 20th century retro), a strange little rag doll with the number 9 stitched on his back (Elijah Wood), comes to life in a ramshackle room with the long-dead body of an old man, his inventor (Alan Oppenheimer). He eventually discovers others like himself, tucked away in a bombed-out cathedral while huge metal machine monsters roam the lifeless planet seeking to destroy the rag dolls. Led by the patriarchal #1 (Christopher Plummer), the dolls are convinced they must hide to survive, but #9 is convinced that the key to their continued existence is to fight back, and most importantly, try to discover the reason why the monsters are hell-bent on wiping them out. #9 leads the battle charge with the help of #5 (John C. Reilly), a mechanical whiz, #2 (Martin Landau), an old scientist, #6 (Crispin Glover), a feverishly crazed artist, #7 (Jennifer Connelly) a “gorgeous” ninja-styled ass-kicker (a “ninjette”?) and the hulking more-brawn-than-brains #8 (Fred Tatasciore). As it turns out, it’s not just the existence of the rag dolls that’s in peril, but the potential to bring real life back to the planet.

One of the extraordinary aspects of 9 is Acker’s use of the all-star cast of voices. This is not the usual assembly of names to inject boxoffice appeal into an animated film. Each and every actor used (save for one sore thumb) is endowed with the sort of voice one needs to give life to animated characters. Christopher Plummer is not surprisingly, in excellent form as the authoritarian figure that demands adherence to his belief that survival can only mean keeping the lowest profile possible. This said, however, would paint a portrait of a character far too one-dimensional for an actor as great as Plummer to be wasted on and there is another aspect of #1 that we get subtle glimpses of so that his eventual transformation comes as one of those surprises we should have seen coming right from the very beginning. All the other actors acquit themselves superbly, but the one low-point is Jennifer Connelly’s weak voice work that borders on cliché. But no matter, Wood is a great, finely textured hero, Reilly a warm and fun presence and Glover, especially and predictably brilliant as a tortured artist.

Acker has a real gift for blending images that are stunning in their detail – in fact, almost awe-inspiring – and yet, that are as dark and bleak as all get out. The shattered ruins of a civilization that once was – lying dead under greenish clouds of some vaguely nuclear haze are powerful indeed. Similar to the strange feelings evoked by John Boorman in Hope and Glory, his live-action autobiographical portrait of England during World War II where, to a child, there was something oddly fun about the Blitz in a boys’ adventure manner – Acker manages to make this dead world a kind of cool playground. To the dolls, it’s as dangerous as it is fascinating. And this is exactly one of the things that stays with you after you see 9. Acker allows you to fill the shoes of his title character and much of what you experience is from his perspective. Even George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead had this going for it – especially in the main setting within the mall where the survivors create their own Heaven on an Earth that has become a living Hell. For the dolls in 9, it’s especially evocative since they’ve never really known anything else and certainly for the title character, he is very much a child born into a world that is dizzyingly intoxicating.

The depiction of life before the apocalypse is seen mostly in strange flashbacks or film footage and yellowed newspaper clippings where Acker creates a Hitler-like global dictator referred to only as The Chancellor (Tom Kane), a foul despot who uses the scientist/inventor (whose corpse we see at the beginning of the film) to create a world of deadly machines that have a life and mind of their own. The scientist, duped into thinking his life’s work will be used for the good of mankind, suffers the slings and arrows of his own genius as he sees the machines used to destroy The Chancellor’s enemies and eventually, mankind itself.

This, of course, is where Acker parcels out the spiritual element of the picture. Though the cathedral is initially seen as a place of sanctuary, it soon becomes, like all symbols of organized religion, a place that represents authoritarian rule and not unlike the totalitarian evil that has destroyed the world. But what’s very interesting and extremely moving is how Acker depicts the notion of how many scientists – especially astrophysicists – have embraced the notion of a higher power. This is not God as some patriarchal old dude with a furry white beard, but something far more mind-boggling. It is the notion that science IS spiritual – that the very idea and essence of soul is so fully rooted in Creation itself. This is what eventually carries the picture to a conclusion that is tremendously moving.

9 has a perfect running time. At 78 minutes it moves in mysterious ways. Though short in length, it’s a picture that has as many moments of breathing room as it does moments of utterly breathtaking, break-neck action. Contemporary audiences are so out of step with just how short many features were during the Golden Age of Cinema that it’s conceivable that some people might be taken aback by just how short it is. This, I feel, is their loss – getting one’s money’s worth at the movies has less to do with how much running time can be applied to a picture, but just how satisfying the ride actually is.

And make no mistake, 9 is a ride that is very much worth taking.

Like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Acker infuses his film with a Judeo-Christian ethic and finally, it is a sacrifice – the ultimate sacrifice, in fact – which opens the doors to a sense of rebirth. And in a world as dead and bleak as the one Acker fashions, mankind’s redemption is only attainable through rebirth.

For much of the film’s running time, Acker presents us with a perfect example of what’s often referred to as “A Terrible Beauty”, but ultimately, what he delivers is pure, unadulterated beauty. It’s not something we get enough of in movies today. Most importantly, it’s not something we get enough of in life. 9 admirably fills a void on both counts.

"9" looks absolutely gorgeous on Blu-Ray and it's well worth owning. It's available in a number of terrific bargain-priced editions via Alliance/E-One.

Law Abiding Citizen (2009) *1/2
dir. F. Gary Gray
Starring: Gerard Butler,
Jamie Foxx, Colm Meaney

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Great vigilante movies are driven by a hero or anti-hero that we connect with on a personal level and where ultimately, there are few, if no shades of grey in the quest for retribution. They are also driven by a directorial style that is not only efficient, but endowed with a clear obsessive voice.

Michael Winner’s classic 1974 thriller Death Wish is the first mainstream picture in a decidedly urban setting to make vigilantism entertaining and acceptable as an alternative to supposed law and order. Charles Bronson starred as Paul Kersey, a Manhattan architect whose perfect life is shattered when a pack of thugs home invade his wife and daughter, rape and beat them to a pulp, send the wife to her grave and the daughter to a catatonic state. Frustrated by the seeming indifference of the police and the general lack of law and order, Kersey embarks on a one-man vendetta against crime – roaming the mean streets at night and inviting random acts of violence against him to provide ample opportunities to turn the tables and blow the filth away. The chief investigator of these vigilante slayings is a detective played by the sympathetic, jowly and always-engaging Vincent Gardenia. Between bouts of exquisite vigilante violence and an entertaining cat-and-mouse game between Bronson and Gardenia, Death Wish had “hit” written all over it, playing as it did to packed houses of cheering blood-lusting action enthusiasts in addition to crossing over and appealing to movie-goers of all stripes..

Winner himself seemed to hit his stride as a director with Death Wish– displaying virtuosity and a penchant for nastiness that was seldom matched either by his own work or others (save for Don Siegel and Sam Peckinpah who decidedly went further and with even more style in their own ground-breaking pictures). That said, Winner was no slouch in the style department. With Death Wish, his style was dark, clinical and even now, it’s a film that packs a considerable wallop. Aided by Wendell (Anatomy of a Murder) Mayes’s terrific single-minded screenplay, the picture wisely dispensed with the shades of grey in the original source material of Brian Garfield’s novel. The thematic retribution staple of so many westerns and historical pieces was now placed in a contemporary context and was, for quite some time, accepted by audiences with very open arms.

With a great tradition of vigilante pictures since the ground breaking Death Wish (including the delightful surprise hit Taken), Law Abiding Citizen had a lot of potential to join this delicious coterie of moral reprehensibility as mass entertainment. Kurt Wimmer’s ambitious screenplay sets the wheels in motion for vigilantism directed at ALL the perpetrators of crime – the criminals, the lawyers AND the entire justice system. Seeing the filth get their come-uppance is always pleasurable, but to have the vigilante act upon the system itself, not unlike a home-grown terrorist, could have taken the genre into a whole new realm.

The buff macho hero at the centre of Law Abiding Citizen is seeming everyman Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) who is home-invaded, forced to watch as his wife and child are raped and murdered, then left for dead – bound, gagged and bleeding on his living room floor. As if this wasn’t indignity enough, Clyde watches helplessly as the ambitious Philadelphia prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) negotiates a plea-bargain and sends the accomplice to a death sentence while the foul perpetrator of the violence is handed a slap on the wrists. Needless to say, revenge is extracted on both the accomplice and the true person behind the heinous crime in a manner that puts most torture porn to shame. That’s just an appetizer, though. Where the real fun begins is when our hero plays cat and mouse with the system that let him down and he begins murdering lawyers, judges and politicians – in the City of Brotherly Love, no less.

Sadly, the picture is a letdown on two prime counts. Firstly, and most notably, the direction provided by F. Gary Gray is so utterly lacklustre that this potentially stirring narrative plods forward – not with an obsessive quality, but with the dull, single-mindedness of a bull elephant rampaging about a fine china shop. Gray is a director who at his best is barely competent (The Italian Job remake) and at his worst, completely bereft of talent (Be Cool, the miserable sequel to Get Shorty). Secondly, Kurt Wimmer’s potentially solid screenplay veers into confused, schizophrenic territory where the anti-hero becomes a sort of protagonist to the prosecutor, who is portrayed, not as the antagonist, but as the eventual hero. Unfortunately, the prosecutor is clearly a bonehead. He ignores his duties as a family man for his job, he allows ambition to guide his actions and he becomes obsessed with nailing the vigilante to save his own ass – personally and professionally. In many ways, this is a similar problem that drags down Scorsese’s (at least well crafted) remake of Cape Fear where the simple good versus evil story is marred with the wrongheaded attempt to shade the tale with grey – what made J. Lee Thompson’s original so powerful was the pure adherence to black and white (lawyer – good, psychopath – bad, unlike Scorsese’s: lawyer – morally ambiguous, psychopath – bad, but almost justified in exacting terror upon the lawyer).

One wonders if Wimmer’s Law Abiding Citizen screenplay was unceremoniously and bone-headedly over-tweaked-and-tinkered-with to provide new-fangled moral ambiguity to what should have been a simple, but effective white-hat-black-hat action thriller. Most importantly, one also wonders if it might have been a more successful outing if Wimmer had directed himself. As a director, Wimmer's Milla Jovovich ass-kicker Ultraviolet displayed just the sort of panache and obsessive qualities that could have made “Law Abiding Citizen” a genuinely entertaining and effective vigilante picture. It was, alas, not to be. Instead, we’re saddled with a confused, dull and by-the-numbers action thriller that lacks a necessary nastiness and clear directorial voice. We still get to see lawyers, judges and politicians blown away along with criminal scum and while this is not without considerable entertainment value, it all could have risen above the mere IDEA of such delightful proceedings and instead delivered the real goods.

"Law Abiding Citizen" is available on DVD/Blu-Ray from Alliance/E-One.

"Look, a lot of rich White people, but mostly me, have been really, really
kind to you and I think you better start winning some games - not for
us, but for yourself. Well, and for me, too. Mostly for me, okay?
But mostly, TO BETTER YOURSELF!!!"

The Blind Side (2009) *½
dir. John Lee Hancock
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Jae Head, Kathy Bates

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Watching people be nice to other people is, for the most part, pretty boring. It's simply and unequivocally not very interesting and as such, makes for poor drama. In fact, it pretty much makes for NO drama at all. As Frank Capra proved on so many occasions, the only time in the movies that seeing people be nice to other people had anything in the way of dramatic impact was when the feel-good cinematic epiphanies were preceded by pain, suffering and/or conflict of the most unbearable kind.

The Blind Side is pretty unbearable, too, but not because the movie drags us through hot coals to get to the nirvana of feel-good, but because it's just so unbearably... feel-good.

Based on the true story of rich White people who helped a poor Black boy become a football player,The Blind Side could have been unbearable on the same kind of political grounds that so many movies have been where rich White people are seen as the real heroes in the salvation of Black people from their "lowly" station. This, however, is the least of the movie's problems.

The picture's biggest failing is that a lot happens, but for most of the film's running time it feels like not much of ANYTHING has happened.

Real-life football legend Michael Oher (surname pronounced like "oar") is fictionally presented to us in his adolescence as a big, quiet, seemingly oafish, physically powerful and possibly retarded Black boy - kind of like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. His Momma is a crack addict, but luckily, a kindly neighbour from the wrong side of the Memphis tracks has not only provided him with a home, but is especially kind to him by taking the lad to a high-toned private Christian school to get an education and possibly a sports scholarship. The Coach at the school also proves to be very kind to Michael and fights the good fight with the school administration to let him be admitted as a student. Some of the teachers are not pleased with his lack of academic prowess, but sooner than you can say, "White people are the saviours of Black people", the Science teacher realizes how smart he is and becomes very kind to him. Soon, all the teachers are kind to him (with the exception of the nasty English teacher who thinks he is an illiterate moron).

Alas, Michael becomes homeless when the kindly fellow from the beginning of the movie is unable to extend further kindness since his offscreen wife (like in Diner where we hear, but don't see Steve Guttenberg's wife-to-be) wants this large homeless boy off their couch. Michael sleeps where he can, hand washes his clothes in a laundromat and dries them in dryers left spinning and unattended. Still, this is a minor setback since by this point, so many people have been kind to him, that it's merely a matter of running time before someone will be kind to him again.

In the school yard, for example, when Michael sees some cute little girls on the swings and tries to give them a push, they run away - thinking, perhaps, that he's Chester the Child Molester. Well, sooner than you can say, "White people say wise things to Black people they could never have thought of by themselves," in walks a horrendously cute little White boy (Jae Head) who is quick with the wisecracks and overflowing with precocity. "Try smiling," Whitey says to the hulking, dour Black boy. And Goldurn' all ta' hail, if'n dis' don't work wonders. Michael smiles and soon, this 200 pounds of brawn is happily pushing pubescent girlies on the swings. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but this CAN work for child molesters, mais non?)

At this point in the proceedings, things could be going a lot worse for our hero, but so far, people have been kind to him. Then one night, the rain comes down like cats and dogs. The White boy and his family drive by our drenched hero and the Mom (Sandra Bullock) is shocked that this boy is homeless. Quicker than you can say, "Rich White people are the only ones who can put roofs over the heads of homeless Black people," she lets him sleep in their suburban mini-mansion. At first, he sleeps on the couch, but when his girth threatens to collapse it, Mom kindly buys a bed and gives him his own room.

Mom takes a real shine to this silent oaf and proceeds, for most of the film's interminable running time, to be... you guessed it!... kind to him. Her kindness is overflowing. One scene after another follows where Mom is not only kind to him, but gets others to be kind to him to.

One of Mom's friends remarks, "You're really changing that boy's life." Mom stares off wistfully and says, "No, he's changing mine." How he's changing HER life is a tad beyond me. She's gorgeous, has a gorgeous husband, two gorgeous kids, a gorgeous mansion and a gorgeous wardrobe. Since she's been very kind to him already, one can only suspect that her life changes since she becomes even MORE kind to him. Eventually, everything this Black boy deserves is handed to him on a silver platter - thanks to the kindness of Mom and so many other kind White people.

But wait! Conflict is on the horizon! To get into college to play football, our hero needs a higher Grade Point Average.Well, you might be surprised to hear this, but Mom hires him a private tutor (Kathy Bates). Damn, this tutor is good! And most of all, she is so kind to him. Even more surprising is that his teachers are kind to him and give him the support he needs to get the grades he needs.

But, hark! Do I hear the sound of even more conflict a-rumbling?

You bet! Remember that mean English teacher? Well, he's still pretty mean and it looks like he might not give our boy the grade he needs.

Oops, false alarm! He's kind too. Those pesky English teachers may seem like old sticks in the mud, but deep down, they're very kind - especially when they're White and want to teach some hard academic lessons to Black people that other White people are afraid to teach.

During the last few minutes of the movie, there is one final bit of conflict when a mean Black lady puts some bad ideas into our hero's head about the rich White lady who is so kind to him and he goes back to the Projects where he meets some not-very-nice Black boys and things get a tiny bit too unpleasant for all concerned.

Thankfully, this does not last long. Kindness rules and all is well again.

Written (I use the term loosely here) and directed (so to speak) by John Lee Hancock, The Blind Side is a movie that has very little going for it - no drama, virtually no conflict or tension, a running time that feels at least forty five minutes too long, a vaguely foul odour of racial condescension and globs of un-earned feel-good.

If, however, there is a plus-side to this odious trough of pap, it's oddly displayed in the presence and performance of Sandra Bullock. She is someone I always found incredibly hard to take. Her earnest perkiness, a perpetually stupid grin plastered on that long, horsey face and a yippy-yappy voice that made me long for the incessant barking of a rabid chihuahua always inspired in me a considerable expulsion of bile.

These feelings eventually shifted from nut-sack squeezing to admiration and, I must shyly admit to a regained firmness of a key appendage at the very sight of her. Somewhere around the time of her appearance in Paul Haggis's heavy-handed, overrated glorified TV-movie Crash, Bullock blossomed into something far more palatable and genuinely appealing. Some age, some maturity, some well-placed heft on her frame have all contributed to the enhancement of her ability to woo the lens of the camera. She also invested her peformance in Crash and the flawed, but underrated Alejandro Agresti film The Lake House with the kind of chops I never realized she had. In the latter title, she actually moved me. And no, it wasn't a bowel movement. The girl made me cry. And Christ Almighty! I even found her sexy and funny in "The Proposal".

In The Blind Side, she commands the screen like a pitbull - ravaging the lens with the kind of intensity I wish the movie itself had. Her performance has Oscar-bait written all over it, but within that context, I'd have to say it's entirely deserved.

If her second Oscar win is for Gravity, it will be for an equally intolerable movie, but at least The Blind Side is moronically entertaining instead of the dull, dour and idiotically overrated sudsy space opera. The Blind Side works very hard to be as awful and stupid as it is.

Alan Partridge (2013) **1/2
Dir. Declan Lowney
Starring: Steve Coogan, Colm Meaney

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Several notable elements, including a decent story idea, a fair whack of solid laugh-lines, a couple of knee-slapping physical comedy set pieces, plus the winning presence and performance of the picture's star, co-writer and creator Steve Coogan in the title role, all promise a tremendous tickler of the funny bone. The parts, however, prove greater than the whole.

Playing a sickeningly obnoxious disc jockey at a British seaside radio station, Coogan is, as per usual, a marvel. He manages to take a character which, by rights, would normally prove to be utterly detestable. By adding just the right (and subtle) smidgens of human shadings, he allows us to root for the borderline repulsive persona he occupies. In fact, it's a character Coogan and his UK fans know very well since he's been playing the wisecracking ingrate of the movie's title in a variety of mediums for over 20 years.

Alan Partridge, however, is the character's first official foray into feature film and one its makers no doubt hoped might make decent inroads into the North American marketplace. This, for now, is probably not in the cards. It's a pity, that the movie just isn't all that good. This is a drag, because the material is brimming with potential, but little else.

Even the most mainstream radio broadcast entities used to have something resembling personality on a corporate level as well as in the myriad of on-air styles and voices. Now, with endless conglomeration and idiotic "branding" and streamlining, audiences are being shovelled the horse shit of less and less choice. The station Partridge and his mates work for is vaguely milk toast-ish, but then, so are many of its listeners. A corporate takeover results in the firing of a folksy Irishman on the late night shift (Colm Meaney) and his subsequent armed hostage taking at the opening night party of the newly branded station puts Partridge in the unenviable position of being the key go-between for both sides.

The situation has a great deal of potential for mining the material for considerable substance and satire, but the flaccid direction by TV-camera-jockey Declan Lowney lets much of it down. As funny as much of the movie is, it's scattershot in all the wrong ways. It either needed the kind of in-your-face sledgehammer of a Sidney Lumet type or the roiling acidity of Lindsay Anderson or perhaps even, a gentler Ealing Comedy touch (soft on the outside, razor-sharp on the inside) - something the Scottish director Bill (Local Hero) Forsyth used to be so good at.

Instead, Alan Partridge is all over the place and suffers for it. The lack of a strong directorial voice and vision undercuts everything the movie seems to want desperately to do. Even Coogan is haphazardly directed here. When he's on, he's on, but when he's off, he's usually unnecessarily over the top and needed someone to reign him in and glean all the gold he can so amply deliver. (Coogan's great turn in Hamlet 2 is a perfect example of how he needs to be handled.)

Still, there are laughs to be had when Coogan hits the nail on the head with several of the film's zingers. "Never insult Muslims," Partridge warns his co-host. "Christians are fine and the Jews, a wee bit, but never Muslims." This, of course, is in response to an equally funny bit where an on-air caller is encouraged by Coogan's sidekick to promote peace in the Middle East by merging Judaism and Islam to yield "Juslims".

There's a screamingly funny bit when a station employee hides in a closet during the hostage taking and upon discovery reveals he's used his lunch box to take a crap in. Needless to say, when it's tossed out the window, the teams of Swat guys scatter when the lunchbox full of excrement lands at their feet.

After spinning one of several album cuts he and Meaney have to dig out of a storeroom since the new owners of the station have completely revamped the playlists, Coogan crows: "You can keep Jesus Christ. You just heard Neil Diamond - truly the 'King of the Jews'".

There are plenty of decent laughs to be had, but far too much of the movie feels like its clodhopping about to its predictable and unsatisfying conclusion. The movie needed a director - one with a firm hand, craft and a voice. Alas, this doesn't exist and the movie suffers for it.

Alan Partridge is currently in theatrical release via Video Services Corp. (VSC) It'll be worth a spin once it hits DVD, but until then, it offers up very little incentive to see on a big screen.

Here is a lovely selection of VSC (Video Service Corp.) titles you buy directly from the links below, and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner:

THE BANSHEE CHAPTER is now available on DVD from levelFILM and guess what? I have finally succumbed to running movie giveaways on my site. Thanks to the fine folks at District PR, someone finally offered a title I not only love, but feel strongly enough about running a giveaway contest here at The Film Corner. THE FULL DETAILS on the contest are below. Hint: You'll need to actually read the review and do some work to win, but it'll be worth your while if you do. The DVD itself is a gorgeous transfer of a super-creepy, crap-your-pants sci-fi-horror-film and having just watched the DVD, I can declare unequivocally that the movie held up magnificently on a second viewing. I enjoyed it so much, I'll definitely partake of subsequent viewings.

THE BANSHEE CHAPTER won Film Corner accolades of the highest order. It was one of my TOP PICKS at Adam Lopez's 2013 Toronto After Dark Film Festival and also secured a spot on the Film Corner's TEN BEST HORROR FILMS OF 2013 list.

Without further delay, here's the review, and don't forget to play the skill-testing Trivia Challenge down below to WIN you very own FREE DVD copy of THE BANSHEE CHAPTER.

Synopsis:

A journalist (Katia Winter) searches for an old college chum (Michael McMillian) who disappears after experimenting with the same mind altering drugs actually used in secret experiments conducted by the American government during the 50s and 60s. She teams up with an irascible alcoholic druggie (Ted Levine) who is modelled - not at all loosely - upon the late "Fear and Loathing" author Hunter S. Thompson. What they discover is far more horrifying than anything, anyone could ever possibly imagine.

Babe-o-licious star Katia Winter displays
her exquisitely large mouth
designed especially for
SCREAMING!!!!!

The Banshee Chapter (2013)
Dir. Blair Erickson ***1/2
Starring: Katia Winter, Ted Levine

Review By Greg Klymkiw

On a level of pure visceral horror, The Banshee Chapter could be the most terrifying movie of the past decade. This relentlessly intense first feature by writer-director Blair Erickson creeps about with a slow burn, mounting steadily with each passing scene until it begins tossing the tried and true shock cuts when you least expect them. After each and every wham-bam of a cinematic sledge hammer to the face, I found myself literally clutching my chest, gasping for breath and croaking out, repeatedly: "Jesus Christ!" There's absolutely no denying the sheer force and directorial skill on display, however, the shocks are earned by an utterly horrific backdrop.

One of the scariest elements in the movie is the use of "numbers stations" within the context of some supremely creepy story beats. Numbers stations are well known to shortwave enthusiasts as the ultra-ominous broadcasts of code-like messages using a combination of spoken numbers and gibberish - usually uttered by disembodied voices of mostly women or even more hair-raisingly, children. Often assumed to be coded signals from various nations' espionage agencies, conspiracy theorists believe that many of them go well beyond the purview of mere government code and perhaps represent something even more insidious. Given that The Banshee Chapter goes out of its way - not only to scare the crap out of us, but to give us an acute case of the willies, it's safe to say we're treated to some of the most viciously vulpine assaults upon our collective psyches.

Katia Winter discovers something that makes her happy she's wearing "DEPENDS"

There's no two ways about this film's effectiveness as a shocker and that it's also blessed with a phenomenal, delightful and delectably over-the-top rendering of Hunter S. Thompson (let's not kid ourselves) by the legendary Ted (Silence of the Lambs'"Buffalo Bill") Levine. It's also a blessing that we get the super-hot babe Katia Winter delivering a more-than-credible performance as an online journalist who is driven, for once, not so much for the story, but to get at the truth behind the disappearance of a friend, but to also confirm and confront a nagging feeling that her feelings for her pal involve those of unrequited love.

The blasts of radio frequencies, the use of real stock footage and recreated "stick footage" and yes, all the diarrhea-inducing shock cuts combine beautifully to throw us aboard a roller coaster ride of terror we are often begging to be let off of. Everything that contributes to the movie's success as a pure horror film of the highest order are indeed present.

I think it's also important to note that the movie has more shock-cut scares per capita than anything released in years. Some critics might make the mistake of crapping on these as "cheap" scare tactics, but they can just shove their collective heads and snobby noses back up their respective assholes as far as I'm concerned. There's nothing "cheap" about this tactic. In fact, it was a stylistic tool invented by one of the greatest pioneers of horror in cinema history, the legendary chief of the genre division at the old studio R.K.O. Pictures.

The first time this sort of scare ever occurred was in 1942's The Cat People, that wonderful collaboration twixt Lewton, Jacques Tourneur and DeWitt Bodeen. When the shock came in that film, audiences all over the world filled their drawers. Lewton repeated the shock throughout several of his classic films and there was nothing cheap about it because it not only scared people, but was rooted within the whole notion of scaring people with the unknown, the dark and shadows and was also a natural tool within the storytelling itself. (The shock comes during the "walk in the park" sequence and what causes us to jump is what directors and crew - for decades afterwards - would refer to as "The Bus" whenever shots were being set up for eventual use in shock cut sequences. See the movie - most of you probably haven't - and you'll see why all the stalwart old crew hacks called these scenes "The Bus".)

The only time the scare is "cheap" is when there's nothing else in the picture. This is hardly the case with The Banshee Chapter since it pretty much never relies on overt violence or bloodletting, but comes from elements that are not only unique to the narrative, but are perfectly in keeping with the sense of pure paranoia that infuses Erickson's fine picture.

This, I think, however, is why it's a bit disappointing that the consistency in terms of visual storytelling seems somewhat arbitrary. We never are sure what perspective Erickson favours. At times, we feel like we're following a documentary film made by our leading lady, at other times, it feels like someone else's documentary, while yet again, the movie engages in the tropes of "found footage".

Do you really want to know what's being extracted here
and why
and how
it will be used?
Yeah, I thought not.

This lack of consistency might well have been an intentional attempt to always be shifting the perspective, but it's an experiment that usually doesn't pay off successfully because it seldom feels right. Whenever the question of what we're watching crosses our collective minds, we're yanked out of the forward trajectory and forced to regroup. Not that the intent is a bad one - it just doesn't always work and that's a bit of a shame. In retrospect, I have to sadly, if not grudgingly admit that this experiment and/or just plain inconsistent mise-en-scene is what keeps the movie from creeping into what could have been the territory of a pure horror classic. In spite of this, though, the scares are there - they're brutal as all get out - and I have no doubt Erickson will continue to deliver goods of an ever-higher artistic achievement. These are serious quibbles, but they don't take away my faith in his talent or the ultimate quality of the film (and my highest recommendation).

Most importantly, none of this changes the fact that I soiled a pair of pants and boxers that needed to go straight into the laundry after I saw The Banshee Chapter. Next year, I think I might need to attend the Toronto After Dark Film Festival adorned with some "Depends" - kind of like those pathetic gamblers at the casinos.

Hell, maybe distributor levelFILM and/or publicity firm District PR should cut a promotional tie-in with the Depend® brand. I give this idea to both entities - FREE OF CHARGE. Use it!

"The Banshee Chapter" was an Official Selection of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 and now available on DVD via "levelFILM".

THE GREAT "BANSHEE CHAPTER" FILM CORNER TRIVIA CHALLENGE TO WIN YOUR VERY OWN - FREE - DVD COPY OF "THE BANSHEE CHAPTER"

COURTESY OF: levelFilm, District PR and yours truly at The Film Corner. Here's what you need to do. Each day, for five days, I will add one Trivia Challenge Question related to the film being reviewed. At the end of five days, email all your answers with "BANSHEE" in the subject heading to klymkiwfilmcorner[at]yahoo[dot]ca. The first person to get all five questions right, will win this DVD.

And now, here's Question Number 1:

I refer to the historic innovator of the shock-cut in horror movies by name in the review, but I only refer to this individual by a last name. What is the first and last name of this brilliant head of RKO's horror division?

And now, here's Question #2:

So, you've answered Question 1 and identified the individual who innovated the shock-cut in horror movies and was the head of RKO's horror division. What famous multi-Academy-Award-winning producer did this person mentor and toil under for many years as a script editor, ghost writer, creative consultant and general assistant?

And now, here's Question #3:

Okay, so now you've answered Questions 1 and 2. You now know the name of the man who innovated the horror movie shock-cut we know and love and you've identified the name of the ridiculously famous and brilliant producer our man worked for (before becoming head of RKO's horror division), but now I'm going to really make you work. When our man worked for this famous producer, he was ordered to write up a few scenes depicting the suffering of wounded soldiers. Our man was so angry at the famous producer, he intentionally wrote (uncredited, of course) a scene that was essentially one long shot that was so huge, so expansive, so utterly un-doable and one that would have cost the entire sum of one low budget feature at the time. Our man knew for sure the scene would never be shot. The famous producer, however, was insane and LOVED the idea so much that he DID shoot it and it became one of the most famous shots in movie history. What was the name of this ultra-expensive, wildly popular epic feature that is still the biggest grossing film of all time (adjusted for inflation, of course)?

Come back tomorrow for Question #4.

In the meantime, here are some fine levelFILM titles you can buy and if you buy 'em by directly clicking on the links below from amazon.ca, amazon.com and amazon.uk then you'll be contributing greatly to the ongoing maintenance of THE FILM CORNER:

Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson: Malevolent Bedfellows

Out of the Furnace is one of the best crime pictures in a long time - one of such unremitting violence and bleakness, yet imbued with a strange muted malevolence tempered by considerable humanity - that it's alternately surprising it received as wide a theatrical release as it did in early December of 2013 and did not, given the pedigree of its director, lay claim to far richer critical accolades and awards consideration that it so richly deserved.

Thankfully, it can be rediscovered by discriminating audiences in the gorgeously transferred new DVD/Blu-Ray combo from VVS Films. The film is gorgeously shot on actual 35mm FILM STOCK by ace cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, and while this was definitely pleasing theatrically on a big screen, audiences will be equally wowed by the look on Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is definitely the way to go with this one right now and I urge people to see it this way rather than on far inferior modes of delivery like V.O.D. and/or digital download and streaming. The package is competitively priced and the film offers such riches that it's a movie worth owning to experience more than once. For me, the film is often enough in such cases, but for fans of added value material, you'll find a few items of interest such as as series of featurettes detailing subjects like "Inspiration: The Stars Of Out Of The Furnace Reveal What Inspired Them To Become Actors" (a bit too EPK-like for my taste), "A Conversation With Co-Writer-Director Scott Cooper" (decent enough, but I'd really have preferred a detailed commentary track since Cooper clearly has a gift for discussing filmmaking), "Crafting The Fight Scenes" (if this sort of thing interests you) and "The Music Of Out Of The Furnace" (of which I might have preferred a more in-depth analysis of). In a completely and utterly perfect world, a commentary with Cooper and Takayanagi which focused solely on the extraordinary look of the film would have tantalized me to no end, but it is sadly not to be since none of these companies ever hire ME to produce all their extra features. (Insert smiley face here.) The movie, is ultimately the thing, and you get that here in spades.

Out of the Furnace (2013) ***1/2
Dir. Scott Cooper

Starring: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson,
Willem Dafoe, Sam Shepard, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When a movie opens with Woody Harrelson at a drive-in theatre forcibly shoving a wiener down his date's throat and then, after smashing her face repeatedly against the dashboard he barrels out of the vehicle to savagely beat a man who tries to come to the woman's rescue, you know beyond a shadow of any doubt where you are.

Hell.

It has another name in America - it's the Rust Belt, the grey, dirty and dreary cities and towns of Pennsylvania that belch endless clouds of poison smoke into the sky from the steel factories providing the lion's share of employment to the dazed citizenry unlucky enough to live there. Save for working in the mills that slowly kill you and/or signing up for military duty in the Middle East, the only other real employment is in the dark underworld that permeates the tattered fabric of this septic tank of despair.

There are plenty of bars and off-track betting parlours to numb the pain of living.

And there's violence. Plenty of it.

Director Scott (Crazy Heart) Cooper's fine, muted crime drama from a screenplay he adapted from an original script by Brad Ingelsby takes us through familiar territory, but it does so in ways wherein the eruptions of extreme cruelty come when you least expect them. The tropes of the genre are employed, but you never quite know how they'll manifest themselves and this might be one of the picture's greatest strengths. An atmosphere of hopelessness pervades the world of the film and even when Russell, a mill worker (deftly underplayed by Christian Bale) tries to make a good life for himself, events conspire to keep dashing his simple, reasonable hopes for something resembling a future. His brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) is a desperately shell-shocked soldier with three horrific tours of duty in Iraq (and a fourth pending). His solace is in gambling and his future in underground bare-knuckle boxing.

Amidst the empty storefronts of Braddock, Pennsylvania and in the dank, empty home where the brothers' Dad dies a painful death from the effects of working the mill his whole life, Russell and Rodney's lives will soon cross paths to be inextricably linked with the psychopathic thug Harlan DeGroat (Harrelson) and the tough, but strangely amiable bar-owner (and bookie) John Petty (Willem Dafoe). To say things get grim is an understatement.

Out of the Furnace is a heartbreaking portrait of an America on the verge of total collapse. Ironically, it's set on the eve of Barack Obama's victorious ascension to the presidency in 2008, but any shred of hope is dashed by the reality of a country that's been battered by a genuinely villainous corporate New World Order that is intent upon driving an even bigger wedge between rich and poor. What's left is an ever-increasing class of the working poor and the insidious element of low-level thuggery and crime.

The movie is finally unrelenting in painting a portrait of a grimy world not unlike the real Old West, where senseless acts of violence can be met with vengeance, but nothing about the retribution is sweet.

Director Cooper delivers a picture that'll be hard for audiences to face, but the end result will haunt them long after the lights comes up and strangely, they'll feel richer for having seen this journey rather than the myriad of empty extravaganzas littering the movie screens. Though the movie is saddled with an unfortunate love-interest and subplot involving Zoe Saldana, it survives this ho-hum intrusion upon a world that otherwise feels intrinsically male - where the traditional roles applied to men continue to permeate a savage, desperate existence.

"Out of the Furnace" is available in Blu-Ray/DVD combo from VVS Films. Feel free to order the film (and other great VVS Films titles) directly from the links below, and in so doing, support the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

My American Brothers & Sisters can order directly from the links below, & in so doing, support The Film Corner HERE:

In Fear (2013) ***
Dir. Jeremy Lovering
Starring: Alice Englert, Iain De Caestecker, Allen Leech

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Being trapped deep in the Irish countryside - well, nowhere, really - there's probably nothing more fill-a-load-in-your-drawers scary than being lost in a strange rural maze as the sun is going down and that maybe, just maybe, you've inspired the wrath of some half-ton-driving drunken louts encountered earlier at a pub.

Such is the dilemma facing Lucy (Alice Englert) and Tom (Iain De Caestecker) as they drive to a musical festival. They're not quite a couple yet, but there's definitely a spark between them - so much so that when Tom suggests they veer off the road to a quaint, old hideaway hotel he's found on the internet for a night of romance before continuing on - Lucy agrees. Though she's feeling like things are moving a trifle too fast, they clearly have a solid rapport. Little does she know, however, that they'll be needing to move a whole lot faster than a mere "trifle" and it's going to have nothing to do with romance.

It turns out the hotel is located on a huge tract of gated land and includes a fairly long drive into deep, ominous woods. Alack and alas, their cel phone and GPS coverage cuts out which is not going to bode well as they plunge into a strangely circuitous series of roads with confusing signs and worse, the overwhelming sense that someone or something is out there. Strange sightings occur - mostly of the red-herring variety, but the couple's fear still hits them in exponential zaps.

Gas is getting low and Lucy not only suspects it might be the inbred young lads they've had some sort of altercation with in the nearby pub prior to beginning their journey, but that Tom had some words with them privately which really pissed them off. When she demands he come clean, whatever romantic spark once existed, pretty much fizzles.

As the sun goes down, fear and tension builds as they get more and more lost. There's still no sign of a hotel and no matter which way they go, they wind up at the same strange old shack with an ominous "get the fuck away from here" No Trespassing sign.

And then they see someone.

This is no red-herring.

Narratively, neither our couple nor we, the viewers, really know what's out there. Maybe it's the louts from the pub, but MAYBE it's something far more threatening. Maybe it's simply the fear of being caught in a maze of deep woods or maybe it's the fear turning to paranoia about their respective motives and loyalties to and/or for each other.

Maybe, it's just the dark.

For the first half of the film, we're dazzled by Lovering's superb direction, the natural qualities of his actors and the highly skillful mise-en-scene which keeps a good deal of the action in the car. The film is also nimbly shot and cut and there are any number of moments that might require the audience's use of "Depends".

That for a good chunk of running time the antagonist being fear itself works beautifully and points to something that has all the makings of a minor genre classic.

Unfortunately, the narrative takes a clumsy turn in the last half. Some of it works well within the tropes of the genre: there are a few visceral scares, a good amount of jolting violence and one brilliantly, terrifyingly rendered set-piece involving a knife placed to the back of one of the heads of our protagonists as the vehicle careens wildly through the pitch black night on the mud roads during a torrential rain. We're fed several table-spoon-sized dollops of scares, but it doesn't change the fact that the movie cheats us out of a direction that might have truly satisfied.

At this point, it all feels vaguely for nought. The evil, it turns out, seems quite banal and a real letdown. The big surprise reveal is not all that surprising and most egregiously, the film peters out into some kind of existential nonsense that makes little in the way of story comprehension and is certainly a head-scratcher in terms of the film's thematic elements.

In spite of this crashing disappointment, the movie does bode well for future output from its clearly talented director and most importantly, it bristles the scare-nerves in the sphincter. Given that it's a thriller, one cannot argue with that.

In Fear is presented for one special night only as part of Raven Banner's superb cross-Canada monthly Sinister Cinema series of macabre offerings from all over the world.

In Fear takes place Thursday, March 13 at 7:30pm in 28 theatres.

The venues are as follows:

Scotiabank Theatre Chinook - Calgary, AB
Scotiabank Theatre Edmonton - Edmonton, AB
Cineplex Cinemas Saint John - Saint John, NB
Cineplex Cinemas Avalon Mall - St. John's, NL
Cineplex Odeon Victoria Cinemas - Victoria, BC
SilverCity Riverport Cinemas - Richmond, BC
Galaxy Cinemas Nanaimo - Nanaimo, BC
Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas - Vancouver, BC
Colossus Langley Cinemas - Langley, BC
SilverCity Polo Park Cinemas- Winnipeg, MB
SilverCity Sudbury Cinemas- Sudbury, ON
Galaxy Cinemas Regina - Regina, SK
Galaxy Cinemas Saskatoon - Saskatoon, SK
SilverCity Fairview Mall Cinemas - Toronto, ON
Cineplex Odeon Winston Churchill Cinemas - Oakville, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Yonge -Dundas Cinemas - Toronto, ON
Cineplex Odeon Eglinton Town Centre Cinemas - Scarborough, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Queensway and VIP - Etobicoke, ON
Colossus Vaughan Cinemas - Woodbridge, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga - Mississauga, ON
Coliseum Ottawa Cinemas - Ottawa, ON
SilverCity Gloucester Cinemas - Ottawa, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Bayers Lake - Halifax, NS
Cineplex Odeon Forum Cinemas - Montreal, QC
Cineplex Odeon Devonshire Mall Cinemas - Windsor, ON
Galaxy Cinemas Waterloo - Waterloo, ON
SilverCity Hamilton Cinemas - Hamilton, ON
SilverCity London Cinemas - London, ON

Additional screenings for In Fear
have been added to Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas:
March 14, 15, 17, 18 and 19.

Check Toronto local listing for confirmed dates and times.

In Fear is an Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada release. You can buy it (and other great Anchor Bay titles) here by clicking directly on the links below, and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

About Last Night (1986) *
dir. Edward Zwick
Starring: Demi Moore, Robe Lowe, James Belushi, Elizabeth Perkins

Review By Greg Klymkiw

About Last Night is atrocious. In spite of this, it provides a few delights. First and foremost, the film offers ample exposure to Demi Moore’s naked body, which is quite splendid to gaze upon with its lithe, youthful, and pre-boob-job-pre-child-bearing-milk-sack-udder-creation-perfection.

One also gets to eyeball a nude Rob Lowe and marvel at his perfect bum that is, not surprisingly, much nicer than Miss Moore’s and designed to both worship and penetrate. Finally, we are occasionally treated to shots, unexceptional though they are in both composition and lighting, of the great city of Chicago, which, even when poorly photographed, makes us long to make a pilgrimage to the Windy City and stay forever.

Aside from the aforementioned, about the only reason to see About Last Night is to study exactly HOW it could have been a good movie, to longingly contemplate the original source material that is David Mamet’s play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” and imagine a world where something resembling a good movie director, as opposed to the no-talent hack that is Edward Zwick, took Mamet’s words and displayed them cinematically, yet reverentially upon the screen.

Zwick reduces Mamet’s glorious, strangely universal and viciously funny play to a simple boy-meets-girl-gets-girl-loses-girl-and-gets-girl-back scenario aimed squarely at that empty generation that embraced the Brat Pack of St. Elmo’s Fire as romanticized cinematic reflections of themselves. The only thing worse would be to do the same thing with the even more repulsive generation of today. Wait a minute. Didn't Steve Pink do that? Yeah, but at least he did it a whole lot better.

Mamet’s play yielded a dramatic examination of relationships between young and women in a pre-Generation-X world that somehow predicted the Gen-X experience and furthermore proposed the notion that we can apply as many labels as we’d like to various eras, but that ultimately, the differences between men and women do not really change with time. Mamet’s play is universal. Zwick’s film is dated. One is alive. The other is dead.

This is no surprise with Zwick at the helm. In spite of the fact that he was able to pinch out a loaf of decent celluloid with Glory, one could argue that only a complete bonehead would have failed with such stirring subject matter as a Civil War picture focusing on Black soldiers.

Alas, Zwick’s other “accomplishments” are not as stellar as the aforementioned war epic. His big screen efforts are mostly humourless, clunky, turgid costume dramas like Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai and his entry in the Holocaust sweepstakes, Defiance or worse, his dumb socially conscious action pictures like Courage Under Fire, The Siege and the execrable Blood Diamond which prove that even a no-talent can get pictures repeatedly green-lit based solely on subject matter that must appeal to left-leaning studio heads.

Zwick’s primary small-screen accomplishment was the creation of the popular, but annoyingly dated “dramedy” that stills sends shivers down my spine when I think about it, the reprehensibly twee “thirtysomething”.

What this all adds up to is a severe watering-down of Mamet’s delicious savagery. Not only that, it’s incompetent to boot. Zwick takes the opening of the play, a magnificently nasty bit of dialogue between the brutish Bernie (James Belushi) and the slightly more sensitive Danny (Rob Lowe) wherein the former recounts a Penthouse-Forum-styled tale of his sexual exploits. Even now, the language has the power to provoke and entertain. The way Zwick presents the scene is jumpy, confused and frankly, a just plain crude barrage of “guy talk”. Zwick idiotically presents the continuous conversation over a series of different locations. His intent was to obviously “open up” the dialogue – to render it “cinematic” as opposed to leaving it visually intact and (oooohhhhh, dirty word…) “theatrical”. What this does, however, is confuse the focus and detract from the story and conversation’s natural rhythm. Instead of moving the action forward through dialogue which, in and of itself is already action-oriented, Zwick sledgehammers us with unnecessary location changes and, of course, completely unnecessary cuts. All this contributes to destroying Mamet’s great dialogue and curiously, make the characters seem one-dimensional instead of extremely layered.

Uselessly “opening up” theatrical scenes in a movie are the hallmark, knee-jerk touch of true hacks. Rather than trusting the original author’s intent, a buckshot approach to visually presenting the material is used. “Opening up” is extremely unimaginative. In the flawed, but eminently watchable adaptation of Peter Schaffer’s Equus, Sidney Lumet allowed Richard Burton to sit at a desk uttering purple verbal ruminations directly into the lens. This was nothing if not “cinematic”. When Mike Nichol’s adapted Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? he wisely kept most of the action centered on George and Martha’s den of verbal savagery and the only opening up that falls on its face are the few scenes outside of their physical domain – most notably the action in the car and the roadside bar. And of course, one cannot forget James Foley’s simple, effective and extremely subtle opening up of Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.

Nothing so subtle exists in the world of Mr. Zwick. From the abovementioned opening sequence and onwards, the picture simply gets worse. In addition to spotty performances (especially and surprisingly from a forced, bombastic Belushi and the always sickening Elizabeth Perkins), we’re hogtied to a soundtrack score bearing some of the more grotesque 80s pop tunes.

Interestingly, the play’s original title, “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” was dropped when it was discovered that many venues refused to carry advertising with a title like that. So from that point on, it became known as About Last Night.

This must continue to be a blessing for Mamet.

“About Last Night” is available on Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) ****
dir. Louis Malle
Starring: Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, Brooke Smith, Larry Pine, Andre Gregory

Review By Greg Klymkiw
"When we come to die, we'll die submissively. Beyond the grave we will testify that we've suffered, that we've wept that we've known bitterness. And God will take pity on us and we will live a life of radiant joy and beauty and we'll look back on this life of our unhappiness with tenderness and we'll smile. And in that new life we shall rest, we shall rest to the songs of the angels in a firmament arrayed in jewels and we'll look down and we'll see evil, all the evil in the world and all our sufferings bathed in a perfect mercy and our lives grown sweet as a caress." - Sonya's final monologue in David Mamet's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya.

If your idea of a good time is not watching two hours of wasted lives, think again. When those same wasted lives come to the collective realization - almost like a series of epiphanies - of just how much they've failed to fulfill their dreams and/or promise, you'll have been rewarded with a journey that will have enriched your very being.

Vanya on 42nd Street is raw in its emotion and approach. Watching Louis Malle's film of the David Mamet adaptation of the great play "Uncle Vanya" is one of the best ways to experience Anton Chekhov on film.

The final product represents the culmination of Andre Gregory's grand theatrical experiment of taking some of New York's greatest actors and rehearsing Vanya for two years with no intention of ever staging it. Gregory, (the Andre of Malle's My Dinner With Andre) had a dream - to create an ideal opportunity for great actors to intimately dive into the depths of Chekhov's multi-layered work - to get to know the text so deeply that the journey's end would, in fact, never end. The goal was to infuse these actors with Chekhov's genius and, at the same time, for very select audiences - usually in the living rooms of friends' apartments - to experience, from Gregory's vantage point, both the journey of the actors and that of Chekhov's characters.

Malle attended one of these legendary living room performances and immediately decided a film version that captured both Gregory's vision and the truly astounding interpretations of Mamet's adaptation of Chekhov's work was in order. With Malle's unique eye as a cinematic storyteller - blending both his documentary background with his deft and delicate touch for drama, Malle framed a performance of the play as a run-through with the actors - in their street clothes and in the environs of a crumbling old theatre on 42nd Street in New York.

At first, we're quite aware of this conceit, but as the magic of Chekhov overtakes us, it's impossible not to be drawn in by the brilliance of the original play, Mamet's adaptation (more of an edit, or polish - to strip out a few formal tropes of theatre from Chekhov's period), a gorgeously composed, though unobtrusive camera and last, but not least, a cast that includes actors who seem like they were born to evoke Chekhov's universal themes and language.

Vanya (Wallace Shawn, the writer of Malle's My Dinner With Andre and who played the "My" of the title) is the brother-in-law of Serebryakov (George Gaynes), a stuffy academic who acquired an old country estate by marrying his first wife (Vanya's late sister) and has now, left his widowhood behind to marry the unmistakably beautiful Yelena (Julianne Moore). With his niece Sonya (Brooke Smith), Vanya manages the estate and the business affairs of his late sister's blusteringly pretentious husband. The family receives visits from Astrov (Larry Pine), a physician constantly called to tend to Serebryakov's ailments - most of which are of the psychosomatic variety.

Vanya and Yelena are greatly suited to each other in every respect - save for the fact that she finds him physically repulsive. Astrov, along with Vanya, is madly in love with Yelena. She's physically attracted to him, but they clearly do not share the intellect and humour she enjoys with Vanya. Then there's Sonya - who is madly in love with Astrov, who barely notices she's there - hanging on his every move, word and gesture. Serebryakov loves Yelena, but fears he is too old for her. Yelena, clearly has no love for Serebryakov, but she is intent to stay faithful to him.

These roiling passions - all unrequited - come to a head when Serebryakov decides he wishes to sell the estate and move to Finland. This would displace the whole family and housekeeping staff. Vanya is finally, after years of subservience and servitude, forced into action.

Wallace Shawn is a perfect Vanya - a funny, charming, yet occasionally sad-sack nebbish. His lovely performance elicits an equal number of laughs and tears. Julianne Moore is utterly radiant as the object of everyone's affection and Larry Pine as the physician who abandons everything for a love that will never be, is a perfect skewed-reverse-image of Shawn's Vanya. The revelation is the sad, funny and yes, beautiful Charlotte Moore as Sonya - her character creeps about in the background, yet when she exudes a force before unimagined, it instills the overwhelmingly expressive feeling that, "Of course! Her actions and words make total sense!" Moore deliver's Sonya's final speech from the play with such gentle, persuasive force that I can't imagine anyone watching it dry-eyed.

Vanya on 42nd Street is an extraordinary experience. Malle's career was one in which he delivered many great films. This one in particular made me and his numerous admirers wait with baited breath for his next work. Sadly it never came. It was his last film before he died of lymphoma one year after making the picture.

I can't think of a more perfect swan song.

"Vanya on 42nd Street" is currently available on a gorgeous new Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection. In addition to the stunning new transfer, it is accompanied by modest, but at the same time, extremely informative and revealing extra features.

Nim’s Island (2008) **1/2
dir. Jennifer Flacket and Mark Levin
Starring: Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster and Gerard Butler

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Family fantasy adventures based upon bestselling books continue to be cranked out as entertainment-starved parents continue to require motion pictures they can safely take their kids to, but also (presumably) enjoy as much as their progeny. While "Nim’s Island" is far from first-rate, it’s most definitely a solid ride with as much to recommend it to Moms and Dads as the kiddies. However, this recommendation and rating is extended, and I repeat – extended ONLY – to those requiring a family fantasy adventure based upon a book they may (or may not) have already read to their children. All others need not apply.

"Nim’s Island" ambles along pleasantly enough as it spins a yarn involving the cute, perky and (of course) precocious little darling of the title – Nim (Abigail Breslin) – as she and marine biologist Dad (Gerard Butler) live out their idyllic existence on a tiny tropical island in the middle of God-knows-where. Palm trees abound, fresh fruit sprouts from every nook and cranny and Nim’s pals include all the animals of the island including an especially flatulent seal.

When Nim is not gamboling about her island paradise, she reads voraciously. Her literature of choice comes in the form of the seemingly autobiographical adventure tales of the swashbuckling Jack Rover (also Gerard Butler). When her Dad disappears at sea whilst on a mission to survey marine life, Nim – using satellite email – sends cries of help to Rover. Believing the swashbuckler to be real, she suspects he’ll swoop in at some point to answer her pleas.

Unbeknownst to our heroine is the sad fact that Jack is a fictional character who exists – not only exclusively to the written page, but also as an imaginary character in the mind of agoraphobic authoress Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster). Touched by the sincerity of Nim’s emails, the writer with the irrational fear of a world outside her home embarks bravely on a dangerous to take the place of her fictional character in order to rescue both Nim and her Dad.

Two things, and two things only, make this potentially hoary family fantasy palatable.

First of all, the cast is pretty first-rate. Abigail Breslin continues to amaze and delight – she’s an engaging young actress and as she matures and fills out, she’s becoming quite riveting – the camera clearly loves her and she has only one way to go – up, up and up. Gerard Butler, he of the firm buttocked King Leonidas fame in “300”, seems more at home as the Indiana-Jones-styled hero of his dual role duties, but he’s a terrific actor and it’s fun watching him prance about as a Daddy in second fiddle mode to Miss Breslin and her amazing farting seal. Jodie Foster manages to use her annoyingly pinched qualities to exceptional use. This tightly-wound, oh-so-serious actress who is as highly skilled as she is dull seems quite at home in her role as an agoraphobe and even manages to loosen up a tad in order to – you heard it hear first, folks – make us laugh.

The second reason to recommend the picture is its strict belief in family values. While Mr. Butler portrays a single parent, it is not the otherwise usual sort of pathetic baby-boomer characters who've messed up their children’s lives by being selfish and breaking up their families through divorce. No, Mr. Butler’s character is widowed, not divorced. This not only allows us to feel more for him and his child, but rejoice when he and Nim eventually become a full family unit with the appearance of the husband-less Jodie Foster.

If you’re looking for a shred of originality, you won’t find it here, but if you’re looking for a relatively pleasant time to kill time with the child you love, you can do much worse than “Nim’s Island”.

And how about those family values? Family values abound and prosper on “Nim’s Island”, and for that, we can all be just a little bit thankful.

“Nim’s Island” is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

8/6/08

La Dolce Vita (top) and La Grande Bellezza (bottom) - Great Double Bill

La Dolce Vita (1960) ****
dir. Federico Fellini
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Yvonne Furneaux, Anouk Aimee, Anita Ekberg, Alain Cuny, Walter Santesso, Magali Noel, Annibale Ninchi, Nico, Valeria Ciangottini, Alain Dijon, Lex Barker.

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It has been said that in death we all end up alone.

If we are alone in life, bereft of love, is existence itself then, not a living death?

For me, this is the central theme of La Dolce Vita, Federico Fellini’s great classic of cinema – a film that never ceases to thrill, tantalize and finally, force its audience to look deep into a mirror and search for answers to questions about themselves. This is what makes for great movies that live beyond the ephemeral qualities far too many filmmakers and audiences prefer to settle for - especially in the current Dark Ages of cinema we find ourselves in. It’s the reason why the picture continues to live forever.

What makes La Dolce Vita especially great is that Fellini – as he was so often able to achieve – got to have his cake and eat it too.

He created art that entertained AND challenged audiences the world over. Most of all, La Dolce Vita IS cool – cooler than cool, to be frank. The title, translated from Italian into English means "The Good Life", or more appropriately, “The Sweet Life”. The movie plunges us headlong into a spectacular, decadent world of sex, sin and indulgence of the highest order. Against the backdrop of a swinging post-war Rome, the picture works its considerable magic beyond those surface details and Fellini delivers yet another magnificent entertainment that explores the eternal divide between men and women.

Illustrating this divide to me in the most salient manner possible was seeing it with my little girl. My poor daughter; she’s only twelve years old and her Daddy has been showing her more Fellini movies than any twelve year old has probably ever seen anytime, anywhere on God's good, green Earth.

About halfway through La Dolce Vita– after an umpteenth sequence where Marcello Mastroianni indulges himself in the charms of yet another woman whilst his faithful girlfriend waits home alone by the phone, my daughter (who recently watched I Vitelloni, that great Fellini male layabout picture and Fellini Casanova with its Glad garbage bag ocean and endless mechanical copulation) turned to me with the sweetest straight face I will always remember and she said, “Dad, when I get older, remind me never to date Italian men.”

I reminded her it wasn’t only Italian men who behaved this way. (I sure hope to God she NEVER dates a Ukrainian or ANY Eastern European for that matter.) I noted, "After all, don't you remember recently seeing Barry Levinson’s Diner?"

“Okay,” she added, “remind me not to date American men either.”

Happily and halfway through The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza), I'm rather proud to brag that my daughter was able to note the considerable similarities twixt the Sorrentino and the Fellini. Within this context, if you've seen neither, I will allow you to be ashamed of yourself.

For those from Mars (and/or anyone who has NOT seen this movie), La Dolce Vita tells the episodic tale of Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni), a journalist in Rome who covers the society and entertainment beat of a major tabloid newspaper. He spends most of his days and (especially) nights, hanging out in clubs, restaurants, cafes, piazzas and parties covering the lives of the rich and famous with his trusty photographer sidekick Paparazzo (Walter Santesso). (The word paparazzi, used to describe annoying news photographers came from the name of this character.)

Downright ignoring and/or paying lip service to his beautiful, sexy long-suffering live-in girlfriend Emma (Yvonne Furneaux) whilst dallying with an endless parade of gorgeous women he’s writing about, Marcello is as much a celebrity as those he covers. Though he lacks the wealth his subjects are endowed with, he certainly wields considerable power.

It would seem that Marcello is living the sweet life to its fullest – at least on the surface.

It is, of course, the surface details of La Dolce Vita - both its cinematic style and content - that made it one of the biggest Italian films at the box office worldwide.

Of course, though, what audience would NOT be susceptible to the stunning form of one of the picture's ravishing stars, Anita Ekberg? As Sylvia, the Swedish screen sensation visiting Rome to make a movie, Ekberg squeezes her to-die-for curves into a series of fashionable outfits. Ekberg is style personified. From her spectacular entrance from within a private jet, posing willingly for hordes of slavering reporters to her gossamer movements round a huge luxury suite as she throws out delicious quips during a press conference and then, to her lithe, gazelle-like bounding up the endless St. Peter’s staircase until she and Marcello, who follows her avidly to the balcony, enjoy a quiet, magical, romantic interlude, perched in a holy nest towering above the Vatican.

It is the Ekberg sequences that everyone most remembers – possibly because they appear so early in the film and serve as the most sumptuously sexy introduction to Marcello’s world.

Granted, prior to Ekberg’s entrance we’re treated to the famous opening sequence of Jesus Christ in statue form being airlifted into Rome on a helicopter as Marcello and Paparazzo follow closely behind in their own whirlybird, snapping photos and hovering briefly over a bevy of bikini-clad beauties to try and get their phone numbers.

Following closely behind, we’re indulged with the ravishing beauty of Anouk Aimee as Maddalena, the bored heiress who whisks Marcello away from a nightclub, drives him through the streets of Rome in her swanky Cadillac, picks up a street whore, hires her to provide a dank, sleazy, water-flooded basement suite – a sordid love-nest, if you will, for a night of lovemaking with Marcello whilst the whore waits outside for the rest of the night - arguing with her pimp about how much room rent to charge the kinky couple.

To cap off the shenanigans we're further tantalized by Marcello’s gorgeous, heart-broken Earth Mother girlfriend Emma, writhing about from a dangerous overdose whereupon our duplicitous hero races her madly to the hospital professing his love to her all the way into the recovery room until he steps out to telephone Maddalena.

These stunning episodes not only provide insight into Marcello’s stylish rakishness, but also careen us to and fro within a veritable roller coaster ride of pure, unadulterated hedonism. There’s no two ways about it, Marcello’s a cad, but we love him. And seemingly, so does everyone.

By the time we get to the aforementioned Anita Ekberg sequences, it’s as if Fellini had structured the movie to luxuriate us in ever-more potent fixes of pure speed-ball-like abandon:

Jesus flying above Rome; screw it, not enough.

Gorgeous heiress banging our hero in a whore’s sleazy digs; nope, still not enough.

Lonely sex kitten girlfriend pumped on drugs and near death; uh, yeah, we still need more.

What act could possibly follow any of this?

Anita Ekberg, of course.

Fellini ups the ante on overindulgence to such a degree, that as an audience, we’re as hyped up as Marcello and those who populate this world.

As if this wasn’t enough, Fellini manages to get Ekberg to out-Ekberg Ekberg with MORE Ekberg. From airport to press conference to the Everest of Rome above the Vatican, he plunges us from the clouds of Heaven deep into the bowels of a party within the ancient walls of the Caracalla Baths. Here Marcello gets to dance arms around waist, cheek-to-cheek and chest to breast with La Ekberg until all Hell breaks magnificently loose with the arrival of the flamboyant Mephistophelean actor Frankie Stout (Alain Dijon). Marcello is banished to a table with Ekberg’s sloshed, thickheaded beefcake boyfriend Robert (played hilariously by the genuine B-movie idol Lex Barker, RKO’s Tarzan and star of numerous Euro-trash action pictures) while Frankie and Ekberg heat up the floor with a cha-cha to end all cha-chas.

Fellini continues topping himself. The next sequence of Ekberg-mania is cinema that has seldom been matched.

Can there be anything more sumptuous and breathtaking in Rome, nay – the world – than the Fountain of Trevi?

Yes, the Fountain of Trevi with Anita Ekberg in it.

I can assure you this beats any wet T-shirt contest you're likely to see.

As Fellini has incrementally hoisted us to dizzying heights, we are only one-third of the way through La Dolce Vita .

Where can the Maestro possibly take us from here?

We go where all tales of indulgence must go – down WITH redemption or down with NO redemption. Fellini forces us to hope (at times AGAINST hope) that Marcello will see the light or, at the very least, blow it big time and gain from his loss.

What we come back to is what I feel the central theme of our picture is – that if living life to the fullest is at the expense of love and to therefore live life alone, then how can life itself not ultimately be a living death?

For me, one of the fascinating ways in which Fellini tells Marcello’s story is by allowing us to fill the central character’s shoes and experience the seeming joy and style of this “sweet life”. For much of the film’s running time, we’re along for the ride – not just willingly, but as vicarious participants.

The magic Fellini conjures is subtle indeed. The whole business of getting the cake and eating it too plays a huge part in the proceedings. So often, great stories can work by indulging us in aberrant behaviour – glamorizing it to such a degree that we’re initially unable to see precisely what the protagonist’s real dilemma is. Not seeing the dilemma in the early going allows us to have some fun with the very thing that threatens to be the central character's potential downfall.

For Marcello, it eventually becomes – slowly and carefully – very obvious. He is surrounded by activity, enveloped by other people, the centre of attention of those he is reporting on, yet he is, in a sense, an island unto himself.

Marcello is, in spite of those around him, truly alone.

His real challenge is to break free of the shackles of excess in order to love. Alas, to love another and, in turn, accept their love, he must learn to love himself. On the mere surface, Marcello is all about self-gratification, but as the story progresses and Fellini places him at the centre of yet more sumptuous and indulgent sweet-life set pieces, we see a man struggling with the demons – not only of excess, but those ever-elusive opportunities to gratify the soul.

Even the roller coaster ride of Marcello’s relationship with Emma, the one constant person in his life willing to die for love of him, is a story element that keeps us with his journey. When he is annoyed and/or even disgusted with her, so too are we – and yet, we have the ability – one that Fellini bestows upon us by alternately keeping us in Marcello’s perspective and at arm’s length from it to see just how unconscionable and even wrongheaded he’s being. Most importantly, we begin to feel for Emma and understand her love and frustration. We see how brilliant and charming Marcello is also and a part of us craves for him to find peace.

Finally, what is especially poignant and tragic is that Marcello can only admit to both Emma and himself that he does love her when he is alone (or as in one great scene - seemingly alone) with her. Strangely, these are the few times in the movie when Marcello is truly NOT alone.

When Marcello is together with Emma in the presence of others, it's a different story altogether. When he brings her along to cover a Madonna-sighting which turns into a wild carnival of Catholic hysteria, he withdraws from Emma and she finds herself caught up in the craze of this "miracle". The miracle is, however, false. The two young children who have been put up to claiming they can see the Madonna by their fortune-seeking family, run to and fro - hundreds of the faithful following madly in their footsteps - even Emma, who begs God for Marcello to be with her exclusively and forever.

When Marcello seeks solace in his old friend Steiner (Alain Cuny) a man who has filled his own life with art, literature, culture and most importantly, a sense of home and family, Marcello sees a potential way of escape. Alas, further set pieces involving Steiner dash Marcello’s hopes.

During a vicious argument that eventually ensues between Marcello and Emma, Fellini once again proves that – in spite of his excesses as a stylist – he is ultimately a filmmaker endowed with considerable humanity. Though the bile rises and invective is hurled violently from both parties, we are placed squarely in front of humanity at its most raw and vulnerable.

The final sequences in this film are laden with excess, but they’re certainly no fun anymore. Nor is Marcello. After a pathetic failed attempt at instigating an orgy amongst an especially ragtag group of drunks (climaxing with Marcello riding on a woman's back horsey-style), the party goers (included here is a cameo from the iconic rock legend Nico) stumble out in the early morning onto the beach.

Caught in the nets of some fishermen is a dead sea creature - a strange cross between a stingray and coelacanth, its eyes still open and staring blankly into the heavens. It's the first of two images Marcello encounters on the beach which he bores his own gaze into.

This one is dead - surrounded by many, but finally, ultimately and unequivocally alone.

He then encounters, from a considerable distance across the sand and water, the angelic figure of Paola (Valeria Ciangottini), a pure, youthful young lady he met much earlier in the film - one of the few times when beauty and innocence seemed to touch him far deeper than surface fleshly desires. They look at each other - as if they can see into each others' eyes. The stunningly beautiful young woman, with her enigmatic smile, tries in vain to communicate with Marcello, but the wind drowns out her words and Marcello, his eyes at first bright, turn blank like the dead leviathan. He gives up, turns and joins his coterie of losers.

There is, however, hope in Paola's eyes - perhaps even the hope of a new generation.

Finally, though, Fellini offers no redemption for Marcello.

All that remains is the inevitability of a living death in a sweet life lived without love.

The sweet life, such as it is, proves sour, indeed.

"La Dolce Vita" is available on DVD, but sadly there do not appear to be any supplementary screenings of it at TIFF Bell Lightbox where "The Great Beauty" is currently playing.

*NOTE* I couldn't believe how awful this movie was. After I wrote this review, I did a quickie Google and discovered a whole lot of background info that makes me hate this movie even more. I'm especially happy to watch movies without knowing anything (or as little as humanly possible) about them and even happier to not write the pieces with pre-conceived notions (well, as best as one can in this day and age). I'm also happy I don't watch TV or trailers, nor read reviews, puff pieces or press kits before I see movies and write about them. In spite of what I now know about this horrendous excuse for a "major" motion picture, I'm even happier to stand by this review without amending it to reflect any of the ghastly information that now roils about in my brain like some rogue tapeworm bent on total ingestion.

Beneath my Beautiful Golden Tresses is, uh, nothing - reflecting, of course,
the collective total I.Q. of my loyal fans who love me without even thinking
about it, because happily, they can't think. Kinda like me. Tee-hee-hee!!!

Veronica Mars (2014)
LOWEST FILM CORNER RATING:
TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHAR BROIL and DINING LOUNGE
Dir. Rob Thomas, Starring: Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni
Review By Greg Klymkiw

What in Christ's name is this movie? Why was it made? Who is it supposed to please? How can any major feature film be so awful? How can a respected studio like Warner Brothers attach themselves to a feature film that seems, for all intents and purposes, to be little more than a vapid, incompetently crafted television drama stretched out to an interminable length?

I normally would have walked out of something this dreadful after two minutes, but I was, frankly, so utterly agog at the film's wretchedness and inconsequence I girded my mighty loins and nailed my feet to the floor.

The first ten (or maybe longer) minutes of the movie is some of the most ludicrous expositional material I've ever seen in any movie - ever. At least it seemed that way. Incomprehensibly shoehorned and top loaded into the picture is a putrid miasma of horrendously written voice-over that explained a whole whack of information so quickly that all I could really glean from it was that the main character was once a teenage private detective in a small California resort town and now, many years later, finds herself in the big city looking for a job as a lawyer in a high-profile firm.

The voice-over, however, is not only incomprehensible, but so flatly delivered by Kristen Bell, the purported actress in the title role, that when she finally opens her mouth by way of interacting with other characters, her delivery is as fake and vapid as the dialogue implanted in her brain via microchip. It's impossible to believe she could even graduate from the scuzziest community college with a certificate in septic sanitation maintenance, let alone garner a degree in Psychology and then (I guffawed) Law.

When it appears that an old friend (we're supposed to know he's an old friend because the movie tells us in the aforementioned expositional voiceover) is being charged with murder, our heroine hightails it back to her hometown and we're forced to suffer through a lugubrious series of perfunctory TV-style murder mystery machinations, punctuated every so often as Veronica reunites with a myriad of characters introduced to us in the said same aforementioned expositional voiceover and at this point, we still don't really know who anyone is as none of them appear to resemble characters in a movie other than the fact that the movie, via the - ahem - said same aforementioned expositional voiceover - tells us they're characters.

The only thing for sure is that our title character knows who they are.

The movie continues to plod mercilessly through one of the most uninteresting murder mysteries ever committed to film and we're forced to tolerate a hit parade of mostly no-name actors who look like they're delivering lines by rote in an overlong failed television pilot. There are minor appearances - extended cameos - by real actors like Jamie Lee Curtis and James Franco, who all provide ever-so brief oases from the dreadful semi-sitcom-styled acting.

Most egregiously, we have to experience a solid performance, in spite of the horrendous script, from Enrico Colantoni who seems like he deserves a more distinguished career than playing second fiddle to Kristen Bell whose only claim to fame was making poor Jason Segel's life miserable in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and prancing around in her knickers in the kitsch-fest Burlesque. I can't, sadly remember ever seeing Colantoni in any features films of note, but he appeared in a great Canadian short film called Winter Garden from earlier last year. If the Gods are smiling, he might still knock us on our butts with work in a terrific feature with a great role and real writing. In the 70s, he'd have had a decent shot as a leading character star a la Gene Hackman, but nobody makes movies like that anymore other than Quentin Tarantino. Hmmmmmmmmm. If I were Colantoni's agent, I know who's door I'd be knocking on.

As for direction - what direction? Rob Thomas, the no-name first-time feature director (well, I assume it's a first feature since I try to see every feature that opens and I'd remember the name of anyone so bereft of talent) proves that he can direct bad overlong television, but he clearly can't even do it competently. His coverage is so pathetically generated I'd hazard a guess that he might actually be the directorial equivalent to Mr. Magoo.

Earlier I asked who this movie is for. I saw it with a whole mess of tween and teen girls and their mothers. They all seemed to know what was going on and squealed with delight at every character introduction and reference to plot points regurgitated later on in the movie from the ludicrous - you guessed it - said same aforementioned expositional voiceover.

Christ, I felt like I was sitting through those wretched Sex and the City movies. Though Veronica Mars is thankfully without the equine Sarah Jessica Harper braying throughout the movie, I was even more appalled to see such young ladies in the audience shovelling this crap down their gullets. It's one thing seeing bovine forty-something women screeching over Sex and the City, but here we're talking about the next generation.

All I can do is sigh and continue to mourn at the cultural decline of Western Civilization.

"Veronica Mars" is not, it seems, in that wide of a theatrical release via Warner Bros. but mostly available on VOD.

Is the director of these movies
CLINICALLY INSANE?
You be the judge, jury and executioner!

Tokyo Drifter (1966) dir. Seijun Suzuki ***1/2
Starring: Tetsuya Watari, Chieko Matsubara, Hideaki Nitani

Branded To Kill (1967) dir. Seijun Suzuki ****
Starring: Jô Shishido, Kôji Nanbara, Isao

Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw

Nobody. Seriously. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody - and I'm dead serious - NOBODY ever or will ever make crime pictures like the supremely stylish and (quite possibly) clinically insane Japanese maestro of strange gangster shoot-em-ups - Seijun Suzuki. In the span of a decade, Suzuki directed 40 - count 'em - 40 B-movies for Japan's Nikkatsu studios.

Suzuki's favourite setting was against the backdrop of the Yakuza and his pictures just got increasingly delirious as he continued to grind out one after another. He hit his peak with Nikkatsu in 1966 and 1967 with, respectively, Tokyo Drifter and Branded To Kill. The latter picture was so confounding, so over-the-top, so disinterested in narrative logic, that the studio fired him - even though he delivered consistent product that made money for Nikkatsu. He successfully sued the company for wrongful dismissal, but his high ideals and legal victory effectively blacklisted him from making a movie for over ten years.

Tokyo Drifter, shot in lurid technicolor and scope, is a pure visceral rollercoaster ride of violence and - I kid you not - includes musical numbers. Even John Woo in his Hong Kong prime NEVER delivered such inspired nuttiness and nastiness in one fell swoop of a cinematic bushido blade.

The plot, such as it is, involves a loyal hit man, Phoenix Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari) who respects and acquiesces to his mob boss' desire to go straight. However, Tetsu is one bundle of trouble and every rival gang is drawn to creating a nightmare for his boss. Tetsu does the only thing honour will allow - he imposes a strange self-exile and becomes a drifter; a man without a country, so to speak. Loyalty, only goes so far, however, and when he realizes he's been set-up as a fall-guy, there is hell to pay.

One action scene after another is shot in near-fluorescent colour with lurid, yet stunning backdrops. The guns blaze and the blood flows freely. I'm also happy to declare that the climactic shootout ranks way up there with all the greats.

Oh, have I mentioned yet that there are musical numbers?

Tokyo Drifter made absolutely no sense to the top brass at Nikkatsu and they demanded that Suzuki tone it down for his next movie. He agreed.

Then, like all great filmmakers, he lied.

The next picture was the hypnotically demented Branded to Kill. Shot in glorious widescreen black and white with wall-to-wall sex, violence and tons of delectable nudity, it told the tale of hit man Goro Hanada (Jô Shishido) who is currently rated as Killer #3. When he screws up a job, his status in the Yakuza is threatened and soon, he finds himself the target of several hit men and hit ladies (including his mistress and wife). And soon, he is embroiled in a cat and mouse dance of death with the almost-ghost-like Killer #1.

Like Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill has absolutely no need or respect for issues like continuity and narrative clarity. Suzuki can barely acknowledge the plot and in its stead, stages one brilliantly shot and choreographed action set-piece after another. If Luis Bunuel had been Japanese, not even he would have approached the surrealistic heights that Suzuki ascends to so dazzlingly.

Branded to Kill is populated with some utterly delicious babes - all of whom sport guns and remove their clothing a lot. Our hero Goro, is played by the suave, ultra-cool Jô Shishido. With his odd puffy cheekbones and wry expression, Shisedo invests his role with steely intensity. The movie oozes with style like lava chugging out of a roiling volcano. The stunning black and white photography is worthy of John Alton's great noir work and the movie is driven by a terrific score that blends ultra-cool jazz styling with Ennio Morricone-influence spaghetti-riffs with crazed orchestral action genre music as if performed by the Kronos Quartet on crack cocaine.

If the picture has one crowning glory (and frankly, it has many) it surely must be Goro's fetish for the smell of boiling rice. Any excuse Suzuki can give his hero to demand it and then sniff away with abandon he manages to find it. Sometimes, there isn't even a good reason for it. Sometimes, it's just the thing to do. Sometimes, a man's just got to sniff boiling rice.

This, I understand. I hope you do, too.

If not, go to Hell.

"Tokyo Drifter" and "Branded To Kill" have been released with mind-bogglingly stunning Blu-Ray transfers on the Criterion Collection label. Both films are replete with fine added content, but ultimately, it's the movies that count. These are keepers and belong in any self-respecting cineaste's collection.

If you must own Seijun Suzuki, and you must, feel free to order directly from the links below and in so doing, assist directly with the maintenance of The Film Corner.

JUDY GARLAND
Mrs. Norman Maine

A Star Is Born (1954) dir. George Cukor *****
Starring: Judy Garland, James Mason, Charles Bickford, Jack Carson, Tommy Noonan, Amanda Blake

Review By By Greg Klymkiw

The devastating effects of alcoholism have seldom been captured with the kind of force that permeates director George Cukor's 1954 rendering of this classic tale of a star rising, another star burning out and the bond of love between them.

A Star is Born as a much-beloved screen entity began with David O. Selznick's early attempt at R.K.O. Pictures to tell a true-to-life story about Hollywood. Securing Adela Rogers St. Johns to write the story and subsequently employing a myriad of screenwriters, Selznick teamed up with his good friend George Cukor to bring the world What Price Hollywood? in 1932. It's a solid film with an especially great performance from Lowell Sherman as the alcoholic who feels he is holding back the genius of the woman he loves and subsequently commits suicide to "free" her. Constance Bennett in the female role was good, but not great. In 1937, Selznick returned to the material and delivered what would be the first picture officially bearing the title A Star is Born. This fine version, sans Cukor and helmed by the stalwart William Wellman, starred Fredric March as the drunken star and also featured exquisite production value. Alas, Janet Gaynor as its leading lady was simply no match for Mr. March. The film, whilst good, fell short of the greatness it was clearly striving for.

The cinematic marriage made in Heaven for this material occurred when Judy Garland's husband, Sidney Luft, seeking a comeback project for his troubled wife, convinced Warner Brothers to bankroll a musical version of the tale with George Cukor directing and the inimitable Moss Hart writing the screenplay adaptation of Dorothy Parker's 1937 screenplay. The casting of James Mason as Judy Garland's husband was a stroke of genius and for once, the material had two great stars - evenly matched in talent and screen presence.

The simple, well-told tale involves singer Esther Blodgett (Garland) who meets-cute with Hollywood star Norman Maine (Mason) at a ritzy film business fundraiser wherein the completely sloshed actor ends up on stage with a chorus line of performers, one of whom is our heroine. Esther knows who Norman is, and also realizes how drunk he is, but she's both star-struck and charmed and engages him in a fun, silly dance that entertains the audience and, in so doing, allows Norman to retain the dignity of a stalwart performer letting loose (as opposed to being seen as a buffoon).

Eventually, the two becomes friends and lovers and most importantly, Norman becomes Esther's benign Svengali and he uses all his powers to turn her into a huge star. The paternal studio head Oliver Niles (Charles Bickford) gets Esther to change her name to Vicki Lester and further builds her into the studio's most valuable asset.

Alas, Norman's continued drunken antics have made him a huge liability to the studio and his contract is not renewed. People he thought were his friends ignore him, and the slimy studio publicity chief played by the inimitable Jack Carson, tell hims to his face how much he's always hated him and pretended to be his friend because it was his job. This latter blow comes after Norman is off the wagon and leads to him hitting the bottle even harder.

Esther/Vicki rises to the top, and Norman falls further than anyone could have imagined. Loving his wife desperately, but feeling he is holding her back, Norman makes what he thinks is the ultimate sacrifice so she can truly shine.

While there are plenty of musical numbers in the picture - including Garland's knockout rendition of Arlen and Gershwin's great song "The Man That Got Away" - the movie is at its absolute best when Garland and Mason share the screen together. Cukor and his two great actors brilliantly capture the initial attraction, their growing love, the mutual dependency upon each other (positive and negative) - all the ups and downs one expects from characters that are deeply wrought and ultimately, sympathetic because of the simple, delicate humanity with which they're handled.

An extremely interesting aspect to this story is that so many pictures from the Golden Age of Cinema were weepers of the highest order and often used female characters in the position of feeling like a millstone around either their lovers' or children's necks and making huge sacrifices to free those they love from their burdensome presence. "A Star is Born" - especially in this version - is a powerful reversal of this storytelling tradition.

One of the more astounding sequences in the movie is when Esther/Vicky is at the Academy Awards, desperately awaiting to see if she wins, but even more desperate as she wonders and waits where an absent Norman is. Garland's performance here is heartbreaking, but when Norman finally appears at the awards ceremony - completely plastered, Garland's performance reaches stratospheric heights when she deals with how Norman humiliates her.

Mason captures his character's pathetic inner helplessness while Garland displays pure love - not a stalwart attempt at maintaining dignity, but love! A love that means helping her husband at all costs and no matter how much he's made a fool of himself - Garland conveys that it is her love that is stronger than his illness and that sacrifice is perhaps the greatest force of love. In fact, her kind, resolute handling of the embarrassing situation plays as a sacrifice and yet, below the surface, there is the subtext - delivered mostly through Garland's performance - suggesting that for Esther/Vicki, helping someone you love maintain THEIR dignity might be SEEN as a sacrifice, but that she doesn't view it that way. It's what one does when one is in love.

One of the reasons Garland's Blodgett/Lester seems so evenly matched is the juxtaposition between one character's discovery and the other's loss - the latter clearly being the loss of one's way in the world to the point where the only way to move forward is to seek death. Garland discovers, not only her talent, but that she has the capacity for undying love and sensuality while Mason can only empower himself in making a star out of someone even as he has lost all of his lustre.

While there is a certain surface bravery to Mason's sacrifice, there is a cowardice to it as well - a cowardice that is only too human, and in so being, FEELS heroic. His sacrifice, however, pales in comparison to the endless sacrifices Garland makes.

It was my most recent viewing of this film, on the Warner Home Entertainment Blu-Ray Special Edition release where my eyes were drawn almost inextricably to the eyes of both performers. It was, perhaps the clarity of the format itself that allowed me access to the souls of the characters through these two pairs of eyes. Both Garland and Mason express a myriad of emotions and there's never a false note from either of them. And as truly great as Garland is in the film, we once again have a film version of the story where the actor playing Norman - in this case, Mason - is such a compelling tragic figure that it's impossible not to be deeply moved by him to the point where our heroine becomes somewhat muted in comparison.

Thankfully, though, Garland is only occasionally overshadowed by Mr. Mason and is certainly a match for him. At the conclusion of the film, when she proclaims that her name is "Mrs. Norman Maine" - suggesting, of course, how their souls are inextricably connected for an eternity - we realize just how utterly perfect Cukor's handling of this vital love is.

That said, Mason's last scenes in the magic hour of his final day on Earth, come close to ripping one's heart out of one's chest. The little looks and smiles of love and determination he delivers, wrench such pure emotion from an audience, that it's easy to see how Mason comes close to walking away with the picture. As well, anyone who has suffered from alcoholism either directly or indirectly will realize just how great Mason is in the picture.

It's truly a testament to Mason, Garland and Cukor that alcoholism is treated with all the sad truth the subject requires and most of all, that its viewed as it should be - a disease that can rip the lifeblood out of everyone, not just the individual afflicted with the disease.

A Star Is Born is a classic - end of story.

It might well be over fifty years old, but it feels as fresh and vital as if it had been made just yesterday.

"A Star Is Born" is available on Warner Home Entertainement on DVD and Blu-Ray with a restoration that brings the recut 177 minute version - as close to Cukor's original cut (over 180 mins.) before the studio truncated it to 154 minutes soon after its initial theatrical release. You'll also note I have made absolutely no mention of the execrable 1970s film version of the story. The less said about it, the better.

Feel free to order any of the following directly from the links below and, in so doing, contribute to the maintenance of The Film Corner.

Stay (2014) Dir. Wiebke von Carolsfeld *½
Starring: Aidan Quinn, Taylor Schilling, Michael Ironside

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I always liked Aidan Quinn, but he really hasn't had a decent role since Barry Levinson's Avalon almost one quarter of a century ago. As such, I was kind of looking forward to seeing him in this movie - one I knew little about, save for the fact that he was in it and had a starring role opposite Taylor Schilling (an actress of dubious gifts, but not without some screen presence displayed in a clutch of bad movies like The Lucky One, Argo and (Ugh!) Atlas Shrugged). Alas, my heart sank a tiny bit when a head credit popped up which read: "With the financial participation of Telefilm Canada". I thought, oh, perhaps this won't be a real movie after all, but a Canadian movie pretending to be a foreign film with pig-in-a-poke "names" as window dressing to sucker audiences in to see it. Still, I was willing to give this a shot. Unfortunately, the movie's staggeringly stereotypical Canadian preciousness announced itself right at the outset as Quinn kicks a tin can along the ground as he walks along a lovely big-sky aquatic vista.

Great way to open a movie - kicking a can, looking forlorn against a topographical backdrop that might as well have been some Maritime Canadian locale. Luckily, it's not Canada, but Ireland. I recall think, "Well, at least I won't have to listen to Maritime fiddle music or Newfie rugby songs."

Well, maybe luck isn't with me. The soundtrack began to swell with some sickeningly twee folk song with the twittering voice of an Irish lass as Quinn enters his home, prepares a lovely tray of breakfast-in-bed and saunters gently into the boudoir where a gorgeous, young Taylor Schilling sleeps ever-so soundly.

Ack!

The movie then veered into territory I fully expected it to (based upon the initial letdown of the Telefilm Canada credit) and it does so with all the typical, uh, flair of a Canadian movie that values studied, ambrosial flatness.

Based upon a novel I haven't read by Aislin Hunter, I think perhaps I can't heap all my disdain for this flaccid movie and its ho-hum narrative upon screenwriter=director Wiebke von Carolsfeld since she did a perfectly decent job with Daniel MacIvor's Marion Bridge. But damn! This is one rink-dink sojourn into Dullsville that not even the presence of Aidan Quinn can quite save.

Quinn plays a semi-retired Archeology professor who lives in this relatively obscure small Irish community with his best gal, the supple late-20-something Schilling whose cradle he robbed during a trip to nearby Galway. It turns out the lassie is preggers with Aidan's seed and due to a deep, dark secret (revealed later on), he's not too keen on having kids. Schilling, conveniently from Montreal (allowing for a co-production twixt Canada and Ireland for this movie), decides to travel back to La Belle Province to engage in some soul searching with her Dad (Michael Ironside, looking very uncomfortable without automatic weaponry in his arms). Quinn does his fair share of soul searching too. We basically bounce back and forth between the Emerald Isle and French Canada's very own City of Lights as both characters spend a lot of time thinking about their relationship as well as the notion of having a child.

The lion's share of this whole-lotta-ruminating-going-on takes place in the Land o' Leprechauns where we get treated to subplots involving a young lad who is fatherless, a young preggers Momma who is motherless and Quinn learning a few lessons from both of them. Schilling learns a few lessons from friends and relatives in Montreal and even more sickeningly, we discover that her own Momma buggered off long ago because she didn't want a child. Wow! So many people abandoned by their Mamas and Papas. It's no wonder all these conveniently converging plot lines require a fair bit of mulling over.

If any of this had been treated with some good old fashioned passion and panache, it might have been palatable - maybe even, uh, good - but of course, since the movie is ultimately Canadian and not directed with any of the oomph Canadians can deliver (Cronenberg, Maddin, Veninger, the Soska Sisters, etc.), we're treated to little more than a limp, precious meander that doesn't even have the sort of TV-movie watchability that many Canadian dramas are infused with. In spite of some potential for roiling melodrama, all we get is a movie that's not edgy enough to be art, nor narratively competent enough to be entertaining.

Like many Canadian films (and, in fact, resembling much of the country's ethos), Stay sits rigidly on a fence post - the tip of it, and beyond, lodged firmly in that place where the sun don't shine.

"Stay" is distributed by Alliance VivaFilm in Montreal and is enjoying a limited run in that otherwise magical city and the not-so-magical city of Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Antichrist (2009) Dir. Lars von Trier *****
Starring: Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Antichrist is a movie that burns its reflection of pain into your memory like a branding iron – plunging itself through your cranium and searing your brain matter, creating that sickeningly sweet stench that only burning flesh gives off and remaining in your nostrils for (no doubt) a lifetime. The pain and by extension – the Passion – also stays with you.

A first viewing renders you drained, immobile, and numb and yet, paradoxically there are feelings of profound excitement – that you have witnessed an expression of emotion in ways that only cinema, of all the art forms, is capable of delivering. You are also breathless, and in spite, or maybe even because of the horror you’ve witnessed, you’re almost giddy with the desire to recall every beat, every image and every soul sickening moment of the experience. It’s a movie that demands to be seen more than once – it is a movie to be cherished, savored and devoured as ravenously and gluttonously as possible.

There’s simply no two ways about it – Antichrist is a great movie! It will be loved! It will be hated! It will be debated! And it will never be forgotten – neither by those who see it, nor by the sands of time! It’s a picture designed to live forever and will, no doubt, be Lars von Trier’s masterpiece.

Now, I will be the first to admit that my feelings about von Trier used to be mixed. In his early work, he was clearly a serious filmmaker who demanded the sort of regard one lavishes upon great artists, yet in spite of this, I often felt that the art, though dazzling, seemed rooted in spurious posturing. His motives (in spite of his visual gifts) seemed no more serious than any hack machine-tooling a product for the widest consumption possible. I must admit, though, he grew on me and with each subsequent effort I was constantly and increasingly reminded of the fact that all films and certainly most great films ARE exploitation – they exploit subject matter, human emotion and the audience – the best doing so with great panache.

And in this regard, von Trier is a master. The difference, of course, is that rather than working within genre and/or dramatic convention, his is the work of the high-toned, the intelligentsia (if you will) and his genre is that of the “art house film” and as such, he has developed his voice and craft to a sufficient degree that he has earned the right to be called “master” even though I still detest his pretentious early work like The Element of Crime and Epidemic. (Medea's heart is in the right place, but it too, finally stinks.)

This all changed for me with Europa, one of the most indelible screen portraits of post-World War II Germany ever committed to celluloid. Delivering a narrative which, I think, more than ably pointed a finger at America's complicity in the evils of Nazi Germany and in creating a literal act of hypnosis, von Trier plunged us into a nightmarish world that seemed to open the floodgates for one movie after another that brilliantly and entertainingly ripped down the bulwarks of cinema's borders whilst oddly adhering to them as well.

With Antichrist, von Trier has made a horror film – pure, though not so simple.

Alternately fueled by his clear love and respect for Strindberg’s great play “Miss Julie” and the work of filmmaker Carl Dreyer, von Trier ventures into the sort of daring territory we not only expect from him, but frankly, must demand of our greatest artists. As a horror film, however, it might not immediately be in the territory we expect, but certainly as it proceeds on its unrelenting journey, we know all to well that we are ensconced in the genre – not in a traditional manner, but certainly in its use of expressionistic elements.

At the end of the day, Antichrist creates exactly what we have come to expect from the genre of horror and it oozes a creepy quality that not only keeps us on the edge of our collective seats, but inspires the sort of revulsion that dares to make us feel resolutely unclean for having participated in this powerful, foul descent into human suffering. Goose flesh of the most unpleasant kind overtakes us as we watch the picture and when it ramps up to scenes of PHYSICAL torture and violence (the first two-thirds of the picture deal in psychological aspects of the above mentioned), one’s revulsion takes on dimensions that are almost indescribable.

The movie is broken into four parts, or “chapters” as von Trier labels them, which are bracketed by a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue introduces us to the characters of a man (Willem Dafoe) and a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) as they make love – the only sound accompanying their passionate coupling being a haunting aria by Handel. As they reach a pitch of orgasm, we follow their infant child as he wanders about the house and eventually perishes in a horrendous, tragic accident. The four chapters that follow are entitled “Grief”, “Pain” “Despair” and “The Three Beggars” as we experience the couple’s suffering and the man’s attempts to help his wife (he’s a psychiatrist) deal with her pain and in so doing, to assist himself with his own feelings of despair.

Most of this is set against the backdrop of a remote cabin in the wilderness where much of the creepy qualities emanate from the natural world itself. This extended therapy session builds to one of the most sickening extensions of inner pain imaginable – where the internal becomes very external. It’s Strindbergian as all get-out, but von Trier doesn’t merely place a razor in “Miss Julie’s” hand, he takes us into the full-blown horror of the actions, which in Strindberg’s play are only implied.

The epilogue, which follows the orgy of horror, contains some of the most stunning images I have ever seen in a picture – images that are as heart-achingly beautiful as they are grotesque. And while von Trier is definitely in Strindberg territory, he does not separate naturalism from expressionism, but is quite happy to make use of both and, when necessary, blend these elements.

As to the charges of misogyny leveled against the film, I can only hurl out the invective, “Bullshit!” While von Trier does not fully attain a level of spirituality that infuses the work of Carl Dreyer, he is nevertheless playing in a similar sandbox in terms of exploring the subjugation and exploitation of women at the hands of patriarchy and/or organized religion. The relentless analysis forced upon Gainsbourg’s character by Willem Dafoe’s character takes on the creepy hysteria and austerity that Dreyer himself explored in The Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath and Gertrud.

That said, however, von Trier allows a turning of the tables that Dreyer could never have brought himself to actually do, though in fairness, I have some belief that if Dreyer were making films today, he might well have dared to cross into the same territory von Trier does in Antichrist– territory that is as horrific as it is uniquely and profoundly moving.

I reiterate – Antichrist is a great picture!

"Antichrist" is available on an astounding Criterion Collection Bluray and DVD. The picture is a sumptuous high-definition digital master, approved by von Trier and supervised by D.O.P. Anthony Dod Mantle, a FUCKING wonderful commentary track featuring von Trier and Murray Smith, new interviews with von Trier, Dafoe and Gainsbourg, seven mini-docs examining the production of "Antichrist" through interviews with von Trier and others on his creative team, behind-the-scenes footage, "Chaos Reigns at the Cannes Film Festival" - a terrific doc on the film’s world premiere, press interviews with Dafoe and Gainsbourg, Trailers and a brilliant essay by Ian Christie. The picture had its North American premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. This is an ABSOLUTE MUST-OWN title. Feel free to purchase directly from the links below and contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

Europa aka Zentropa (1991) dir. Lars von Trier ****
Starring: Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa, Udo Kier, Eddie Constantine, Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Max von Sydow

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In 1990, Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin was directing his tragedy of the Great War Archangel which told a tale of lovers afflicted with severe mustard gas apoplexy who forget, at any given moment, who precisely they are in love with. To ensure his actors were always in a trance, he secured, with my deft finagling (in the spirit of full disclosure I was the film's producer) the services of a renowned hypnotist (who, due to a binding non-disclosure policy cannot be named) to place Maddin's on-camera charges in a state of waking and walking sleep during the entire shoot of the film. Complete and utter submission was the goal.

Archangel was in black and white, occasionally colour tinted, replete with post-dubbed dialogue (also performed under hypnosis), a cornucopia of in-camera special effects including double (and triple) exposures, matte paintings, rear and front screen projection, as well as a series of optical shots.

At the same time, across the pond from the Dominion of Canada, one Lars von Trier was making Europa (renamed Zentropa for its initial North American release) which, like Maddin's film, was set in a strange never-never land of historical revisionism (though in post-WWII Germany as opposed to Maddin's WWI/Russian Revolution cusp period). It too was in black and white (though with dollops of full-blown colour rather than colour tinting) and was, like Maddin's film, bursting at the seams with wild in-camera and optical effects.

Where they differed, and yet existed in the same zeitgeist, was this: Maddin hypnotized his actors whilst von Trier rendered a movie that literally hypnotized the audience. The results were identical. Much like any living subject of hypnotism, audience-members who opened themselves willingly to both cinematic experiences were, in fact, under the power of suggestion.

Upon first seeing Europa back in the 90s, I was initially coaxed into the alternately pleasurable and disturbing states of waking and walking sleep and as such, became so obsessed with Lars von Trier's vision that I fought hard on subsequent viewings to deflect the hypnotic power in order to fully experience his dazzling, sumptuous genius in all its glory. Twenty years after my initial exposure to his great film, I am not only happy to report that it holds up magnificently, but has deepened for me to such dizzying degrees that I am convinced it is one of the most stunning works of cinematic art I have ever seen.

Maddin and von Trier's films must be seen on a big screen and, when possible, projected in glorious 35mm. This is especially important given the special quality in-camera and optical effects have over the much colder digital approach to rendering screen magic today. It is, finally, the warmth of cinema in the format of its birth that allows us to be enveloped in fluffy white blankets of forgetfulness (in Maddinesque parlance) and the sheer joyful terror of being forced into a unique, trance-like state of both yearning and forgetfulness that is, indeed, TRUE magic. Luckily, both Maddin and von Trier are available in the next best thing - their home consumption via visionary companies like the Criterion Collection and Zeitgeist Films.

Europa begins with the hypnotic tones of a voiceover belonging to Max von Sydow (The Exorcist himself and longtime Ingmar Bergman star), whilst we slowly cascade over train tracks engulfed in darkness, save for the soft light beaming gently over the centre of the frame. Lars von Trier plunges us into the black tunnel that is Germany just after World War II. Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr), an American of German descent has come to his expatriate father's homeland and taken a job as a railway employee under the tutelage of his persnickety, alcoholic Uncle (Ernst-Hugo Järegård). He meets and falls in love with a fetching film-noir-like femme fatale, Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa) who is the daughter of the German rail magnate Max Hartmann (Jørgen Reenberg). He is taken into the family with open arms. Max, in particular, is drawn to the notion of Germany becoming more international and is impressed with Kessler's desire to bring his North American, yet German-influenced know-how to the reconstruction of the country.

This is in vast contrast to the American armed forces occupying the Fatherland. The American commander mysteriously presiding over all matters of a reconstructive variety is Colonel Harris (played by the brilliant, gravel-voiced American expatriate tough guy actor Eddie Constantine, he of Lemmy Caution fame in numerous French movies like Alphaville). Harris knows all too well that Max used his train company Zentropa to transport Jews to concentration camps, but he also realizes that a vast majority of Germany's populace had been, to varying degrees, complicit in the activities of the Nazi regime. He seeks to protect Max since he believes this guilt-ridden rail baron is ultimately important to the American goal of reconstruction. Harris is also embroiled in a secret fight against a mysterious group of German partisan terrorists called Werewolf and while the young American Kessler trains on the railways and romances Katharina, his services are secured to delve into and expose the forces of evil.

Europa is both important and original on numerous fronts. In terms of theme and content, it is one of the most indelible screen portraits of post-World War II Germany ever committed to celluloid. Delivering a narrative which, I think, more than ably points a finger at America's complicity in the evils of Nazi Germany, especially in terms of making it clear how many Americans owned munitions factories IN Germany and did business with the Nazis under the radar. The overwhelming sense that we are in a nightmare world where an occupying force bullies the occupied, yet represents the corporate interests of the occupier is precisely what Lars Von Trier exposes. For all the lip service paid to the needs of assisting Germany with reconstruction, he presents a portrait of American military goons exercising the same sort of encroachment upon basic civil liberties as the Gestapo. While he does not veer away from Germany's rightful guilt in supporting one of the most foul regimes in all of recorded history, his film is not afraid to point a finger at America's military regime and its fascistic defence of America interests - in particular, the corporate interests - using reconstruction as a thin veil over basic greed. Unrestricted sovereignty was not ultimately granted to Germany until reunification in 1990 - a point not lost on von Trier. Both the narrative and mise-en-scène etch a chilling portrait of occupation - juxtaposing the German adherence to bureaucracy with the American adherence to back-door dealing and how both are equally flawed, but also at odds with each other within the context of the political situation.

Mixed into this heady brew of conflicting ideals, von Trier never neglects the thematic elements of complicity, betrayal and redemption. The Americans - in particular, the character of Colonel Harris - are complicit only in their exploitation of the situation while on the German side, complicity is a heavy cross that all the other characters must bear. Betrayal runs rampant throughout the narrative, though von Trier wisely explores this theme within the tropes of film noir elements and melodrama. I place an accent on "wisely" here because at the time the film was made, Germany was on the cusp of reunification and the issues he deals with had repercussions on a world wide scale, but by placing them within this stylized framework, he created a work that is not ephemeral in its power, but is, indeed, truly universal. In this sense, Europa feels less a film of its time, but rather, a film for all times. For example, while I feel the best works of American cinema in the 70s more than adequately capture the overwhelming paranoia of the period WITHOUT feeling dated, these are films directly from the periods of history and culture they represent.

Making a film in any contemporary context and looking back upon a period of history with contemporary eyes, requires an emphasis upon recreating the past world with indelible historical accuracy on as many levels as possible. However, when placing works dealing with historical issues and made during different historical periods - especially a film about the beginnings of occupation in Germany made at a time of German reunification - framing its narrative and themes in an almost post-modern aesthetic allows the artist a context to create a work that's truly visionary. This, is what Lars von Trier accomplishes. Reading reviews from the time of Europa's original release, one sees how even the best of the best acknowledge von Trier's visual gifts, but dismiss and/or outright ignore his narrative and political savvy. This, of course, did not keep the film from finding an audience at the time, but what's phenomenal to me is just how ahead of its time the film actually was, and in a sense, still is. Certainly viewing the film in the context of the current situation we face in terms of the economy, terrorism, the corporate imperialism of America, the domination of the New World Order and the horrendously obvious notion that war is ultimately all about money, Europa is without question a film for our times and, no doubt, will be so in the future as well.

The idea in certain circles, a confederacy of dunces to my way of thinking, that there's something wrong with melodrama is both myopic and elitist. There is, to be sure, good melodrama and bad melodrama, but it is a worthy genre and one that can work quite perfectly when presenting important historical and political themes. I suspect that von Trier and Maddin might well be cinema's leaders in understanding the importance of utilizing melodrama within stories dealing with political, historical and/or humanist subjects. Neither are afraid of filling their work with retro melodramatic devices and doing so, not with tongue in cheek, but playing them straight. When this approach sings ever-so sweetly, it is the humour - both natural and satirical - that comes to the fore - sans the empty spoof-like manner which is the domain of the holier-than-thou, the better-than-that and all the other head-nodding-eye-winking purveyors of mediocrity.

Europa is deliciously blessed with both the crazed big emotions of Douglas Sirk and the humanity of Carl Dreyer. Most amazingly, there are several moments of suspense that even owe their existence to the feverish qualities of D.W. Griffith - notably, several sequences involving the arming of a bomb and the subsequent attempt to disarm the bomb. Von Trier throws in everything including the kitchen sink to extend our dread and anticipation. Our desire for relief to said tension hits stratospheric heights. In addition to the visual flourishes reminiscent of another age, the score is sumptuously derived from a variety of original and pre-recorded pieces - most notably and pointedly from Bernard Herrmann's haunting music from Hitchcock's dreamy expressionistic thriller Vertigo. The stylized performances - aided further with the use of hollow dubbing - are a marvel and in particular, Jean-Marc Barr as the addled protagonist delivers what surely must be one of the bravest performances I've ever seen. He runs the gamut of emotion, but often in a controlled and intentionally stiff manner. He allows himself to be the puppet of Lars von Trier and as such, takes the thankless, but often surprising and engaging task of representing our (we, the audience) point of view. He is our way in to this world and for an actor to expose himself and yield so uncompromisingly to a filmmaker's vision is brilliantly, stunningly, delightfully foolhardy and ultimately, what makes his performance and the film itself so great.

This is razzle-dazzle filmmaking at its best. The bonus is plenty of food for thought and the cherry on the sundae is the occasional laughs and tears von Trier elicits from us. Some have charged that von Trier's approach is, in this, and other films, cold. All I can say to this, ladies and gentlemen, is thus: "I give you - once again - the aforementioned confederacy of dunces."

One of the more extraordinary achievements of Europa is the narration. It works two-fold. First, it is a hypnotic device - literal hypnotism and I'd argue that anyone open to the picture on a first viewing will, indeed, succumb. Secondly, it's a wonderful use of the great, though rare literary tradition of a second person point of view. In contemporary American literature this was popularized by Jay McInerney in his brilliant 1984 debut novel Bright Lights Big City. The book announces its bold style and brash approach in these extraordinary opening sentences:

"You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy."

The idea of a detached voice speaking directly to its central character in order to relay the narrative was, even in the 80s, not a new approach, but it was one that thrust the pelvis of its literary conceit in the faces of readers all over the world and frankly, proved to be an ideal way of telling the story of a young man in the midst of a cocaine-addled phase of his life. As von Trier's central character Kessler is plunged into a similarly opaque world, we constantly hear Max Von Sydow's "you-are-getting-sleepy"-styled hypnotic offscreen orders to both the character and viewer. In 80s New York, it's coke-fuelled headlong dives into nightclubs. In Post-World War II Germany, its the strange, dreamy, addled world of occupation.

Certainly William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! is replete with both second person point of view and narrative techniques and is, in a sense, very close to the territory von Trier explores in Europa. Where Faulkner's novel is rooted in myth, one in which its central character is representative of the myth of the deep South and resulting in his ultimate, almost inevitable demise, von Trier's Europa seems similarly rooted in myth - in particular that of the Greek goddess of Europa who is seduced by a horny, old Zeus. That Europa herself, in mythic terms, was from a long, noble lineage is also a fascinating element in von Trier's film. We have Kessler, for example, seduced by his German roots and his American need to "do good" (or, one might even suggest the deeper American need to "meddle") and his attraction to the female heir to the Hartmann's rail empire.

In Faulkner's words:

"You cannot know yet whether what you see is what you are looking at or what you are believing."

Beat by beat, shot by shot - this is Europa. Images we will never forget rush by - Kessler dashing in silhouette in front of a huge illuminated clock, a scarlet ocean of blood rushing from under a door, a harrowing walk through mysterious cars on the Zentropa train full of caged Holocaust victims, corpses of "werewolf" partisans hanging from knotted ropes round their snapped necks, exquisitely composed Josef von Sterberg-like shots of Barbara Sukowa resembling Marlene Dietrich come-to-life, the desperate flailing of a drowning man as he seeks life and instead finds redemption and finally, the most gorgeous of all - a midnight Christmas mass in a bombed-out cathedral as puffs of snow gently fall upon the devout.

We cannot know yet what we see is what we're looking at, or what we're believing.

Amen.

"Europa" is available on a wonderful 2-Disc DVD that features a restored high-def digital transfer, a commentary featuring director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen (in Danish, with English subtitles), "The Making of Europa” (1991), a documentary detailing the storyboarding to production, "Trier’s Element", a 1991 documentary featuring an interview with von Trier, and footage from the set and Europa’s Cannes premiere and press conference, "Anecdotes from Europa" a 2005 short documentary featuring interviews with film historian Peter Schepelern, actor Jean-Marc Barr, producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen, assistant director Tómas Gislason, co-writer Niels Vørsel, and prop master Peter Grant, 2005 interviews with cinematographer Henning Bendtsen, composer Joachim Holbek, costume designer Manon Rasmussen, film-school teacher Mogens Rukov, editor/director Tómas Gislason, producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen, art director Peter Grant, actor Michael Simpson, production manager Per Arman, actor Ole Ernst, A conversation with Lars von Trier from 2005, in which the director speaks about the “Europa” trilogy, "Europa—The Faecal Location" (2005), a short film by Gislason, a highly improved English subtitle translation, and an essay by critic Howard Hampton. Feel free to order "Europa" and other Lars von Trier titles directly from the links below, and in so doing, contributing to the maintenance of The Film Corner.

The Idiots (1998) dir. Lars von Trier *****
Starring: Anne Louise Hassing, Bodil Jørgensen, Jens Albinus, Troels Lyby - Review By Greg Klymkiw

To spass or not to spass; that, is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of the bourgeoisie, or to take arms against that which is a shallow sea of hypocrisy, and by the spassing, end them. With assistance from the Bard of Avon, I ask you: Hast thou found thine inner idiot? No? Well then, get cracking, fool. In The Idiots, Lars von Trier's only official Dogme film - the movement he founded in 1995 during the 100th anniversary of movies with fellow Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg to create pure, unfettered cinema - we are introduced to a group of young people who stage a perverse form of theatre in the arena of life itself where they enter any number of public places and pretend to be mentally retarded. Drooling, screeching, screwing up their face and engaging in overtly aberrant behaviour, these want-to-be activists engage in a theatre of cruelty. Their nastiness in exploiting those who are mentally ill and/or challenged to expose the nastiness of those they accost is lost on them, until a new member to their group begins to question their motives.

Interview segments of the participants which hint at eventual discord amongst the group punctuate several set pieces wherein our ragtag group spass or, in the colloquial parlance of the politically incorrect - "spazz out", have sex, argue, make up, break up and to spass with abandon.

Few movies have made me laugh as hard as Lars von Trier's The Idiots. There is no question that the wholesale slaughter of sacred cows has always been a hallmark of the brilliant bad boy from Denmark, though I suspect none of his films are as gloriously, unabashedly, delightfully repugnant in rubbing an audience's nose in the putrid fecal matter of their own prejudices and repressions generated by their holier than thou pretence to political correctness. It is a cinematic declaration of war on bourgeois values.

Of course, it cuts much deeper than the surface. Lars von Trier digs his lens like a bayonet into the foul intestines of the bourgeoisie, rips them out and tosses them to the dirt for all to see. That said, those he skewers are also those who believe they are acting in defiance of said bourgeois values, but are as much a part of the problem as they believe they are the solution.

The movie begins brilliantly in an upscale restaurant where a snooty waiter takes an order from Karen (Bodil Jørgensen), a melancholy young woman who scales back her culinary desires due to a lack of funds. Around her are couples and quartets of affluent diners - quaffing expensive wine with their opulent brunch selections and occasionally cleansing their vile bourgeois palates with overpriced mineral water. Karen's eye roams to a corner of the dining establishment where a caregiver tries to control a table of her mentally retarded adult charges.

They spit up their food, whine and grunt, then - much to everyone's dismay, two of them get up and begin wandering around the restaurant. One of the retardates is relatively benign - going up to each table, smiling and saying "Hi!" The other charges about in a fury. Hands are wiped on tablecloths belonging to other diners, baskets of bread rolls are removed from others and the caregiver is quite overwhelmed trying to control her charges. When the snooty waiter insists the caregiver control her group for the sake of the other diners, it simply becomes too overwhelming for her. When the benign retard approaches Karen's table, she is touched by his innocence and purity and accompanies the group as they're forced to leave the restaurant.

Up to this point, one is compelled to laugh quite uproariously - not AT the mentally challenged people, but WITH them in their innocent flouting of bourgeois convention and the stuck-up diners who are shocked by this behaviour.

Once everyone is bundled into the cab, it becomes clear that none of them are retarded - especially when they laugh about how they were all able to dine in a fancy restaurant without paying. As it is finally established that these people are engaging in a big practical joke, the laughs the film elicits are very different indeed. Now we laugh at the darkness of this group's actions. Not only do they spass in public, but do so in private as well. Spazzing-out delivers a sense of inner peace, but also a perverse sense of accomplishment that their actions are affecting a change in society. It's somehow even more viciously funny when we discover they're all lounging about on the family estate of the one member of the group who is much a member of the club he, and the group seek to condemn.

The Idiots is a film which belongs to a long and noble tradition of cinema that seeks to shock and provoke - to downright anger an audience. That said, the real anger should be directed at those who ARE angered BY THE MOVIE ITSELF and, of course, for all the wrong reasons. I think it's safe to say that this tradition exploded in full splendour with Luis Bunuel's L'Âge d'or, the scathing 1930 indictment of bourgeois values and, for good measure, the Catholic church. Since the release of The Idiots in 1998, the great Ulrich Seidl stomped about similar stylistic territory with Dogdays and I'm even compelled to include Tom Green's universally reviled, but stunning and vastly misunderstood bit of nastiness Freddy Got Fingered.

What Lars von Trier and those others prove beyond a shadow of a doubt is that if you're going to eviscerate something, it can't be done timidly, or in half measures. As always, pure disembowelment of the bourgeoisie MUST be bold. That's probably why I love Lars von Trier - he's always about being bold. And that, frankly, is what makes for great cinema!

"The Idiots" is available on DVD. Feel free to order it (and other von Trier works) by clicking the links directly below, and in so doing, support the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) enjoys a sandwich now and again.
WHITE MEAT and DARK RYE is always a special treat for her.

Young Joe (Stacy Martin) prefers her cream
STRAIGHT UP. Coffee not necessary.

Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2014) Dir. Lars von Trier *****
Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Mia Goth, Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The dark is a scary place. For Lars von Trier, it seems to be the only place, but no matter how deeply pitched the black gets, he takes us to places many never want to go, but he does it with the aplomb of a master showman and as such, delivers movies that provoke, annoy, anger and almost always, entertain. Nymphomaniac is nothing, if not an all-out dazzler of a picture. Just don't take your granny to see it.

The picture had me hooked from its opening frames - which, of course, are black with the sound of water splashing. Or is it rain? Or is it someone taking a piss? I have images of an appetizer comprising a golden shower scene - after all, it's Lars von Trier and the movie is called Nymphomaniac. 'Twas, I believe, a reasonable expectation. But no, it's rain spattering onto metal, brick and cement, whilst water forms puddles and/or rushes into drains as the camera now reveals a grungy, dark back alley. In no time, the camera's eye moves towards a literal patch of dark in the wall of an old building. Once we're completely enveloped in the black, von Trier slams us in the face with a series of powerful images and splits our ear drums with the pounding, blistering Rammstein song "Führe Mich" ("Lead Me"). He chooses to cut into the song at the 10-second mark and I have to admit, it jolted me with all the force of any great cinematic shock cut. Have a listen whilst you read on.

As Rammstein slashes our oh-so delicate tympanic membranes to shreds, we're introduced to Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourgh) lying on the wet pavement, bruised, bleeding and clearly a victim of a severe beating. And hell, we'll accept that Von Trier has her positioned like Christ on the Cross because, well, it's a movie by Lars von Trier. We're also introduced to the imposing, hulking Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) as he walks with the determination of a hit man on his way to dispatch his quarry, but is in fact, on his way to a little Kosher convenience store (in an alleyway, no less, or wherever the fuck we are). With a full grocery sack, he discovers the pulverized waif-like Joe on the wet cement. She doesn't want an ambulance or the police. Seligman suggests she come back to his place for a cup of tea.

TEA!!!

Once snuggled in Seligman's guest bed, with tea ('natch), Joe declares that she's a nymphomaniac and as such, is little more than filth. Seligman, a paternal academic, dotes on her and tut-tuts her self-hatred. Joe opens up to our lanky, Swedish Mr. Chips and tells him her life story, as if to support her inner loathing of everything she is. And it's definitely a case of "is", for it didn't take her a lifetime to discover her nymphomania, but that she discovered her "cunt" and its hold over her at age two. With cunt in hand, as it were, Joe takes Seligman through her childhood, adolescence and adulthood of debauchery.

Oh, and what debauchery, what degradation, what defilement. With a combination of real, digital and prosthetic cocks, cunts and assholes, Von Trier doesn't at all hold back on the sexual activity. You name it, you'll probably see it all here. However, there's nothing clinically dull in the hardcore action as you might find in your regular, good old fashioned, garden-variety XXX-picture. The onscreen sex is not only fun to watch, but Von Trier tears a few pages out of the rule books of great genre directors and makes damn sure that every beat of onscreen "action" is rooted (so to speak) in narrative thrust (as it were).

For example, what so many filmmakers who direct action, suspense or horror films don't understand is that the staging and choreography of their thrill-inducing set-pieces must always be rooted in narrative. It's not enough to turn said set pieces into roller coaster rides, and in most cases these days, set pieces that are poorly directed and edited for ADHD-challenged viewers to boot. In fact, what most contemporary filmmakers don’t seem to get is that set pieces must not stop the movie dead in its tracks nor inversely should non-set-pieces of pure narrative feel like a by-rote chore to get through twixt the action.

Great movies, great filmmakers realize that every element is a means to an end. Take any great set piece of action - let's use Sam Peckinpah's final twenty-minute slaughterhouse in The Wild Bunch as a case in point; not one shot, not one cut, not one excruciating slow-motion blood ballet is wasted, nor is it ever there simply for effect. Every element is working in tandem to enhance the thematic resonance, the complexity of character, the reflection of a time and place and, most importantly, the picture's narrative.

Von Trier handles his sex scenes in exactly the same fashion. There is, unlike pure hardcore porn, nothing on display for sheer masturbation-inducing prurience, BUT it is titillating, entertaining and always rooted in narrative, theme and character.

If anything, it's a lot of fun.

Somehow, the more degrading Joe's need to debase herself gets, we're rooting big-time for her to go as far as she needs to go in order to feel something down below. That's okay, though. This is her choice or, at least, the choice Von Trier chooses to give her. There's no morose, humourless, dullsville jack-hammering a la Steve McQueen in his precious toe-dip into sexual addiction Shame.

Besides, shame is just shame for McQueen, but for Von Trier, shame is part of the thrill for both Joe and the audience. It's kind of like the Guy Maddin credo (especially in the film he directed and co-wrote with George Toles, Careful) wherein the closet equals repression which equals shame, but sometimes it's the closet, the repression and the shame - O! THE GLORIOUS SHAME! - that's, well, pretty electrifying, thrilling, dangerously delightful and, if truth really be told, boner-and-wet-pussy-inducing. This is, I think, the thing that spurs Joe's character on and as an audience, it radiates so gloriously that we're carried along her yellow-brick road of need - to FEEL SOMETHING.

The primary element that keeps Nymphomaniac such a joyous and compelling experience is its structure or rather, its coat-hanger. The manner in which Joe's story is told is rooted in the near omnibus style we've occasionally experienced in films like Julien Duvivier's Tales of Manhattan, but best exemplified in the classic Ealing horror film Dead of Night (and a few subsequent 70s offerings from Amicus inspired by E.C. Comics, most notably Tales From the Crypt). For an omnibus-styled film to work best, the thread that hangs everything together is the reason for several different stories to be told and is, in fact, a wrap-around story that provides a story unto itself as well as the final kicker.

Often this style of film is rooted in some literary source, or inspired by the notion of literature. It's the latter that Von Trier has chosen and, in fact, rather enjoys implementing in many of his films. Here though, it works beautifully for several reasons.

The movie is a sprawling epic of fucking. This is fine by me. It's so sprawling that, Von Trier's original 5½ hour cut can't even be seen theatrically - at least not for now. The film is being released in two halves - each carrying a separate admission tag. Von Trier felt obligated to his investors to provide a product that had as much chance to generate a myriad of revenue streams. What we have are two parts that together do not equal 5½ hours. The first half is 118 minutes and the second 123 minutes. We're talking four hours here and they both include lengthy end-title credit sequences. Each part carries a disclaimer that the film doesn't represent Von Trier's final vision, but that he has indeed delivered his blessing whilst not actively participating in this shorter version.

Don't worry, though, Nymphomaniac is ALL VON TRIER ALL THE TIME!!!

Each half is considered a "volume" and within each volume there are 4 stories - totalling 8 official tales over the course of both volumes, but still including a myriad of delightful sidebar meanderings and, of course, the aforementioned wrap-around story. I never once felt the film I saw was incomplete and was thoroughly satisfied. That said, I did want more. I wanted to stay in the cinema much longer and could have practically set up house there. This, however, is the ultimate satisfaction - when I leave a movie wanting more. (I also know we'll eventually get it.) Besides, I hate going to a great restaurant and leaving the place wanting to spew vomit and shit a la Terry Jones in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and such is the case with genuinely great pictures like this. I'm not leaving dissatisfied, but wanting more. My first thought after my inaugural taste was how much I wanted to see the movie - in its current state, even - again and again.

This, for me, is what makes a great picture. (And yes, a second helping was utterly transplendent.)

The wraparound story is, finally, a genuine delight. The conversation between Joe and Seligman is completely nutty. Joe admonishes herself, Seligman tries to appease her with hilarious intellectualizations, which she sometimes accepts and, as is her wont, sometimes rejects. However, the conversations always contribute elements that take us into the next story and, importantly, up the ante each time on the degradation-meter. That the conversations themselves involve fly-fishing, Orthodox Iconography, the fucking Fibonacci Sequence and assorted other topics requiring - NAE! DEMANDING! - rumination, is a constant source of pure euphoria.

The story Joe provides us is always mediated through her perspective, but we always sense a playful quality wherein she picks and chooses elements - sometimes, not always - based on her whims as a storyteller, her opportunity to have an avid listener and, of course, the aforementioned flights of fancy and philosophy imparted by the listener.

Von Trier has populated his movie with a huge cast of stars and name actors. I can't think of a single performance that's any less than outstanding, but in addition to the stalwart presence of Von Trier regulars Gainsbourgh and Skarsgård there are several notable renderings which stand out.

Christian Slater is surprisingly wonderful as Joe's loving, loyal father. This is not only a tremendously moving performance, but it provides the movie's only layer of what seems like genuine love and certainly not drenched in sex - at least not between the two characters. There is, for me, though, an element perfectly in keeping with the film's relentless focus on sex and it makes a fair bit of narrative sense. Joe's Dad is not only an all-out tree-aficionado (he's especially fond of the Ash), he's a lover of trees, he hugs them, seeks them out in any way he can, imparts his thoughts to his daughter about said leafy, tall, knobby trunks jutting ever-so erectly into the awaiting cunt of Heaven itself and yes, like Clint Eastwood in Paint Your Wagon, he even talks to the trees. Unlike Terence Malick's ludicrous The Tree of Life, though, Christian Slater's obsession with trees is not so much preciously spiritual, but ultimately borders on being fetishistic.

A tree fetish? Hey, why not? It's a Lars von Trier picture.

"Don't call me Billy Elliot ever again!"

Another performance in Nymphomaniac that I hope to cherish until I'm six feet under is served up by none other than Jamie Bell.

What his character does to Joe is relentlessly, endlessly shocking, brutal, repulsive and, for some, downright reprehensible. His frosty demeanour is at once scary, but it's also kind of sexy and, in fact, it delivers an element of connection between Joe and another male character not paralleled by any other relationship in the movie.

I also have to admit it's a few wheelbarrows full o' fun seeing the title star of the utterly sickening Billy Elliot, all grown up and administering often unbearable physical pain and torture.

"Look, Billy, I just want you to wear a tutu."

There will, no doubt, be a whack of humourless, pole-up-the-butt namby-pamby types who ask, "How dare Lars Von Trier tell us a story about female sexuality from a female perspective? What in the hell would he know about it?"

Grab a brain, people. There isn't a single character in this movie - man, woman or child - who, in some fashion doesn't represent shards of Von Trier himself. He's crazy, nasty and ugly, but he's a great director and so much of what drives his pictures are his own obsessions. In Nymphomaniac he creates a world unto itself, but within that world, the characters seem true to the film and though I know Von Trier is barfing up a whole mess of his own viscous fluids, he does so with style, wit and intelligence.

Who knows? I kept thinking that Joe is Von Trier. After all, he gives her character's name the male spelling and it's hard not to acknowledge that Charlotte Gainsbourg (who I find really sexy) has that thin, almost teenage-boy body to add a touch of androgynous ambiguity to the proceedings. The bottom line is that he puts Joe through the sort of wringer one suspects Lars puts himself through every single moment of his life.

Finally, though, much as I love cinema more than life itself, movies these days often render me numb. Not so with Von Trier. Like a mere handful of other great living directors, he's happy to smash me in the teeth with a baseball bat, but he does it in perfect rhythm and at always the right pitch so that I keep wanting him to just bring it on and on and on.

Lay it on me, Lars.

Hit me with your best shots, motherfucker.

"Nymphomaniac Vol. 1" and "Nymphomaniac Vol. 2" are in theatrical release via Mongrel Media and are currently playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. I urge all Canadians who care about cinema to hop on a plane, train, bus or in an automobile and hightail it to Hogtown. There is no better venue in the entire Dominion of Canada to see this movie. For further information, visit the TIFF website HERE and now and order up your tickets.

Here's a whack of Lars von Trier movies and a few others you might wish to stock up on. If so, please buy them by clicking on the links below and, in so doing, assist in the maintenance of The Film Corner. In my humble opinion, there isn't a single title here you shouldn't own. So if you don't, get buying, eh.

SNAPSHOTS The Epic Story of My Life. Appendix C (2013) Dir. Brian Stockton *****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In 1982, Regina-born-and-bred filmmaker (of the National Treasure variety), got his first camera and it became his primary eye to capture, in still frame, the world around him. For 25 years this camera took hundreds of photographs until it was laid to rest in 2007. Most of the pictures were looked at only once before being filed away in a box.

Growing up in a prairie town
Learning to drive in the snow - Randy Bachmann, Prairie Town

In 1984, Stockton found himself driving very safely at the modest speed of 100 kilometres per hour during a standard 780 kilometre sojourn from Regina, Saskatchewan to Edmonton, Alberta. On a lonely single lane highway at night he did, like so many of did, fearlessly and confidently continue forward through a massive snowstorm - at night, 'natch. The less-than-zero visibility was enough for any skilled prairie boy to ascertain that huge drifts were forming on the sides of the road, so he made sure not to go any faster, even though the chances of hitting an R.C.M.P. speed trap was unlikely in such weather since the scarlet lawmen would be sitting in donut shops with their radios off as they'd be in no mood to attend any violent, booze-fuelled domestic disputes which might force them to brave windchill temperatures where exposed flesh would freeze in under thirty seconds.

Alas, even for a prairie boy, there's little one can do when a huge drift appears suddenly, a veritable wall of snow from one end of the highway to another. You don't slam on your brakes. That would be suicide. You drive through the motherfucker and pray as your life flashes before your eyes.

Now, as a prairie boy myself, I can assure you that fishtailing in the middle of the night is a whole lot of fun, especially when accompanied by jars of open liquor, but only in empty mall parking lots or the frozen Red River near the asylum in Selkirk, Manitoba - you know the one, the loony bin that still has a huge water tower from which several inmates each year take deadly dives from. But no, you really don't want to go into a fishtail on a prairie highway at 100 kilometres an hour on a lonely prairie highway during a snowstorm in the middle of the fucking night. And make no mistake, young Mr. Stockton was sober and an event of this kind spells the sort of split-second calamity that can take your life.

Luckily, on the prairies, ditches are designed properly, unlike most places in Canada - especially the idiot province of Ontario. On the prairies, whilst fishtailing on almost any icy highway at night, at 100 KMH, in a storm, after you've ploughed through a massive fucking drift spanning the entire road, sitting there like some misplaced coastal breakwater, chances are good - if you don't flip - that you'll happily skid into a gentle pocket of fluffy snow filling the aforementioned properly designed ditch. (On the prairies, where drinking and driving is illegal, but socially acceptable, a party host will always fill you up with a beaker of booze just as you're leaving and offer you the neighbourly salutation, "Here you go, bud. Have one more for the ditch.")

Well, to make a long story short, one which is already much shorter as related within Mr. Stockton's, uh, short film, the filmmaker's car did indeed gently whoosh into the comfy blanket of snow in the prairie ditch where he could sit safely with candles from his survival pack, nibbling on tasty semi-sweet chocolate (from said survival pack) and keeping himself all toasty whilst tuning in some crackling radio station and listening to scratchy music for old invalids drifting over the air waves and then, wait patiently for an R.C.M.P. car to eventually come by so the officers, not leaving the comfort of their vehicle, as they clutch their warm travel mugs of Tim Horton's coffee, bravely call dispatch for a tow truck to come and pull you out so you can continue your journey.

Yes, this is one of two stories Stockton relates in his moving, funny, haunting and important short film. Both stories entail near brushes with death - the kind that cause images of your life to flash before your eyes. As Stockton relates the tales in a delightful deadpan, the aforementioned 25-years worth of photographs from that box, so long-ago shelved and only recently opened, flash profoundly before our eyes.

The first story had particular resonance for me. In the halcyon days of my youth, I ploughed through many a prairie winter storm in my car and gently drifted - usually after hitting an icy patch or snowdrift in around the Trans-Canada Highway near the Elie-Portage La Prairie Township Line and/or up-a-ways in the fine Rural Municipality of Gimli, Manitoba - cascading with the telltale whoosh-whoosh as my car nestled into one of our beautifully designed rural ditches.

The flashing images Stockton assembles from that seldom-touched box of photos also have resonance. I am a prairie boy, too, you see. They're pictures of Stockton, his friends and family over a 25-year period - on the prairies and beyond. There are few shots that don't resemble those sitting forlornly in my own boxes. It's a piece of time, place and history that Stockton encapsulates - one that paints a glorious, nostalgic and elegiac portrait of Canada.

Filmmaker Matthew Rankin is also a prairie boy. His brilliant short film Negativipeg tells a story similar to the second story Stockton relates in Snapshots. Both stories involve blood spilling, violence and a near-death experience in an all-night prairie convenience store. I too, have had a few of those exact experiences. Prairie boys like to spend inordinate amounts of time in all-night convenience stores. The only difference between Stockton's tale and Rankin's is that the former is Stockton's own personal tale, whilst Rankin's is a strange documentary reconstruction of a similar event in the North End of Winnipeg which involved the famed Guess Who lead singer Burton Cummings. Cummings, of course, is a prairie boy too.

Aside from the clear overall artistic merits of Stockton's short film, it is a work of great cultural significance with respect to the Canadian experience. His film was funded, as are so many Canadian films through the generosity and importance of a Canadian government agency called the Canada Council for the Arts. Sadly this organization has been slashed and burned by Canada's Conservative Party. While most countries around the world value the reflection of their unique cultures and provide adequate public assistance - even in these tough times - Canada, especially English Canada, could seem to care less. It's not like important works which are funded by entities like the Canada Council can be financed in the free market. This is not corporate welfare because it's not industry-driven. Ironically, Stockton's film would probably resonate in its own way with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper, you see, is a prairie boy too.

This is a film that speaks to thousands, if not millions of Canadians from this region and probably elsewhere in the country too. Its value is not ephemeral, either. Its cultural significance to living generations of Canadians, future generations of Canadians and the world as a whole should not have a price-tag affixed to it. Even more ironically is that, at least from my experience, cultural support of Canadian artists' endeavours was never stronger than under the most hated administration in the country's history - the Progressive Conservatives under former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The new conservatives, like Harper and his cronies (and yes, even factions within the Liberal Party) have less interest in cultural preservation than a conservative who was (and still is) reviled. Funny, that.

Even more ludicrous are the lack of venues to publicly screen such films. Thanks to the Conservative funding cuts to the National Film Board of Canada, local cinemas housed under the umbrellas of the NFB have been shuttered (and in fairness to those who orchestrated said funding cuts, the NFB ultimately fucked-up the true potential of this cross-country circuit of screening venues). Thankfully, organizations like the Canadian Film Fest exist to provide public vehicles to present Canadian work to Canadians. Even more importantly is that this is a venue with few ties to the kind of Status Quo programming in other venues that repress so many works of Canadian film art by kowtowing to the narrow needs of God-Knows-Who-Anymore.

I wonder if Prairie Boy P.M. Stephen Harper is familiar with the work of another Prairie Boy, Randy Bachmann, lead guitarist of The Guess Who and leader of B.T.O.? I leave him and you one important line from Bachmann's song "Prairie Town". It reflects, so simply, why Canada and its artists and the country's indelible regional cultural history are preserved by our art, just as in Brian Stockton's superb Snapshots.

. . . the prairies made me what I am today. - Randy Bachmann, Prairie Town

You can find out more about filmmaker Brian Stockton and even buy his movies by accessing his website HERE.

A similar scene to the one experienced by Jim Jarmusch and others in New York during the 70s and 80s and captured in the documentary BLANK CITY as well as many other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" series was happening in Winnipeg. A very cool explosion in indie underground cinema that I and many colleagues and friends were involved with was spawned during these halcyon days. This period, coined by film critic Geoff Pevere as Prairie Post-Modernism included the works of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Greg Hanec and many others.

A great selection of early Guy Maddin, many of which that I produced and were written by George Toles, can be secured directly through the following links:

Another great film from Winnipeg during this period is Greg Hanec's extraordinary DOWNTIME which has the distinction of being a parallel cinematic universe to Jim Jarmusch's "STRANGER THAN PARADISE". Both films were made at the same time in two completely different cities and scenes and both Hanec and Jarmusch premiered their films at the same time at the Berlin Film Festival. One's famous, the other isn't - but now that the "lost" and "found" DOWNTIME has been remastered from original elements to DVD, it can now be purchased directly online.

Order DOWNTIME directly from the film's new website by clicking HERE

Perhaps the greatest Canadian independent underground filmmaker of all-time is Winnipeg's John Paizs. It's virtually impossible to secure copies of his astounding work which, frankly, is responsible for influencing the work of Guy Maddin, David Lynch, Bruce McDonald and an endless number of great indie filmmakers the world over. Paizs' great short film SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND is available for purchase in a beautiful remastered edition from a fan website, the inimitable Frank Norman. Norman has Paizs' blessing to provide copies of the film, so feel free to directly make your request to Mr. Norman by clicking HERE.

Visit Frank Norman's CRIME WAVE
fan site by clicking HERE

Alas, it's super-impossible to get a copy of Paizs' masterpiece CRIME WAVE (not to be confused with the super-awful Coen Bros/Sam Raimi film of the same name that was released the same year Paizs' film was NOT released properly by its scumbag Canadian distributor Norstar Releasing, which eventually became Alliance Films (where the boneheads sat on the film and turned down several excellent offers from small indie companies to release the film properly on DVD in super-deluxe special editions because they lazily purported to be negotiating a massive package deal on its catalogue titles with some tiny scumbag public domain company that, as far as I can tell, has neither purchased nor released the film). This truly great and highly influential film is, no doubt, languishing in some boneheaded distribution purgatory within the deep anal cavities of the new owner of Alliance Films, a humungous mega-corporation called E-One. Feel free to repeatedly bug their stinking asses and demand a proper release. In the meantime, VHS copies of CRIME WAVE can still be found with the ludicrous title THE BIG CRIME WAVE. Here's a copy available on Amazon:

BLANK CITY and other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" Series can be accessed here:

9 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Lovely Animated Science Fiction Feature a great buy on Blu-Ray

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Lame Vigilante Jijinx

THE BLIND SIDE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - On the precipice of Sandra Bullock possibly winning another Oscar for an awful movie, perhaps the time is right to look at the awful movie that started it all.

ALAN PARTRIDGE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The corporate branding of radio is the target of justifiable comic jabs in this comedy. Steve Coogan is so funny he makes you forget how mediocre the picture actually is.

THE BANSHEE CHAPTER - DVD Review By Greg Klymkiw - Prepare to crap your pants when you see this movie!

IN FEAR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Raven Banner's Sinister Cinema unveils tense thriller from Ireland

ABOUT LAST NIGHT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - With Steve Pink's re-imagining of the Mamet play taking box-office and critics by surprise, it might be worth taking a look at Edward Zwick's re-imagining of the Mamet play from the 80s. Or, maybe not.

VANYA ON 42nd STREET - Review By Greg Klymkiw - One of the Greatest Chekhov Film Adaptations on Criterion

NIM'S ISLAND - More drab contemporary kid-lit makes for unexceptional, but watchable family viewing. Special FREE screening as part of the Spring Break Family Matinees on March 16, 2014 at the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Bell Lightbox.

VERONICA MARS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Movies are getting so awful that too many feel like bad TV.

TOKYO DRIFTER and BRANDED TO KILL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Seijun Suzuki X 2 on Criterion Blu-Ray

A STAR IS BORN (1954) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

STAY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - No matter how much one tries to gussy it up, twee is twee.

COUNTDOWN #2 TO NYMPHOMANIAC by LARS von TRIER (opening March 21, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox via Mongrel Media). Today's countdown is a review of the Criterion Collection's Outstanding 2-Disc DVD of EUROPA (aka ZENTROPA) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

COUNTDOWN #3 TO NYMPHOMANIAC by LARS von TRIER (opening March 21, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox via Mongrel Media). Today's countdown is a review of Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS on DVD - Review By Greg Klymiw

NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. 1 and NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. 2 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - ***** for new Lars von Trier

SNAPSHOTS The Epic Story of My Life. Appendix C - Review By Greg Klymkiw - a new short film classic by one of Canada's best filmmakers unveils @ CanadianFilmFest2014 in glorious Royal Cinema of Toronto's Little Italy.