The Film Corner with Greg Klymkiw

JENNIFER HUDSON
from American Idol to Dreamgirls to Weight Watchers to Junkie-Whore
Is there anything this girl can't do? It doesn't look like it.

Fo' a pimp I be fly!

The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete (2013) Dir. George Tillman Jr. **1/2
Starring: Jennifer Hudson, Skylan Brooks, Ethan Dizon, Jordin Sparks, Anthony Mackie, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Review By Greg Klymkiw

If you see this movie, and you probably should, you're basically going to be getting a feature-length ABC Afterschool Special where people say "fuck" a lot (including kids) and where everyone's favourite Dreamgirls songstress Jennifer Hudson shoots smack, turns tricks and abandons her child. This alone might be enough to recommend it. The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete is one strange movie. Though much of it felt "been there, done that", there were enough surprising turns in the reasonably compelling story, a clutch of solid performances (great ones from the kids) and relatively smooth direction from the competent George Tillman Jr. In spite of its attempts to be tough-minded, though, the movie finally chickens out with more than enough improbable spoonfuls of sugar to make the medicine go down that it's hard to take it more seriously than the well-crafted trifle it ultimately is.

So, it's summer time and for inner city kids, the living sure ain't easy. Mister (Brooks) and Mom (Hudson) live in the projects. She's strung out on smack most of the time, but she's a good-hearted junkie-whore and takes in Pete (Dizon), the child of a colleague in the junkie-whore trade who's way more strung out than she is. Mister looks upon Pete as an annoying interloper and this surely gets our hero pretty hot and bothered. He doesn't want to hang out with this tiny Asian sissy pants and he sure doesn't want to share what infinitesimal bit of attention he gets from Mom through her glazed eyes.

You know, though, in movies - not so much in life - things have a way of turning around. It takes a bit of doing, but eventually the lads become friends - especially when their respective Mommas are rounded up in a drug raid and incarcerated. Mister and Pete do, however, have a major dilemma on their hands. If they're nabbed by the authorities, they'll wind up in a juvie detention home, fearing they'll be beaten up, corn-holed and/or killed. This, for me, seemed a fair thing to be afeared of. Besides, it allows the movie to move in on Kore-eda turf and pretend to be the 2004 masterpiece Nobody Knows.

I don't actually condemn the picture for this. Believe me when I say there are worse things a movie can pretend to be similar to. That said, someone like Kore-eda sets the bar for this kind of story pretty high, so it's a bit of a case of kinda close, but no cigar for Tillman's efforts. This is not to suggest the movie is a bad one, though. Non-discriminating fans of this type of story will get their fair share of entertainment value and those of the snobby, discriminating persuasion (I include myself here), will not find the experience overly objectionable.

In fact, the movie enjoyably alternates twixt harrowing and fun as the two kids fend for themselves during this section of the movie. There are also a few disturbing elements that add a bit of oomph to the proceedings, though it's a tiny bit disconcerting that the movie introduces, but doesn't really examine them in more satisfying narrative and/or thematically urgent ways.

Please, Sir. We want our Mommas!

One of the kids, it's discovered, has been suffering repeated sexual abuse, but the effects of this are conveniently brushed-off. There are also mixed messages delivered with the film's treatment of a South Asian store owner who responds angrily, though understandably to Mister's initial attitude and eventually resorts to beating the child publicly in the street. While we can't condone the store owner's actions here, there's perhaps a bit too much ambiguity displayed in the store owner's racist views as well as the film's (only slightly) submerged racist attitude towards the store owner.

Most horrendously, the character of a pimp (Anthony Mackie) is also fraught with similar flawed ambiguity. The guy is portrayed a bit too Jekyll-and-Hyde-like for comfort. One one hand, we see a nasty, violent, exploitative and dangerous piece of filth, on the the other he seems like a relatively intelligent and reasonable fella, but then he comes across as a coward who's not going to go the distance when and where it really counts.

If anything, the most egregious element at play is the pat fairytale summation of several story elements that have delivered a great deal of conflict, but upon being tied up ever-so neatly, none of them feel especially earned by the characters. The film's final third congeals into a treacle of feel-good (that some will no doubt welcome), but for me, the shoehorning of oh-so-happy bows and ribbons to placate the audience seems disingenuous to the characters, situations and yes, even the reality the film purports to reflect.

The film ultimately has many worthwhile elements to recommend it, but it does leave one with the overwhelming feeling that it was striving for a kind of greatness it might well have been able to achieve if it had placed far more courage in the convictions of telling this tale.

"The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete" is available on DVD via levelFilm and I recommend purchasing it if this kind of story is up your alley, but the extra features on the DVD alone offer considerable insight into how this film COULD have been great. Even the telling deleted scenes suggest a movie its makers considered far darker than what they wound up with. All this proves is that dampening darkness has resulted in a fencepost experience that didn't really do theatrical business anyway. When will filmmakers, studios, financiers and distributors realize that the best movies need to be true to their inherent ideals. They probably stand a better chance of acceptance into the theatrical marketplace, or at worst, they die on the vine, but attract a much wider, more discriminating (or in many cases, non-discriminating) audience in the home marketplace."

Cheap Thrills (2013) ***1/2
dir. E. L. Katz Script: David Chirchirillo, Trent Haaga
Starring: Pat Healy, David Koechner, Ethan Embry, Sara Paxton,

Review By Greg Klymkiw

You need dough. You need it bad.

If someone were to offer you substantial wads of cold, hard, tax-free cash for your troubles, would you consider any of the following?

- Chop your pinky off, then allow cauterization with an iron?

- Slap a stripper's ass in a club with a no-touching policy?

- Break into a house and take a shit in the living room?

- Kill your friend?

- Eat a pet?

A better question might be, who in the name of Jesus H. Christ would even make such grotesque offers?

The answer is simple - a very generous gentleman (David Koechner, one of the world's greatest living character actors) who merely wishes to give his gorgeous girlfriend (Sara Paxton, the sultry star of The Innkeepers) a birthday celebration she'll never forget. This seems reasonable, mais non? After all, we live in a world sharply divided between the haves and the have-nots. In such a world, anything and everything is possible.

Such is the world of Cheap Thrills, a horrifically funny and terrifying thriller with a great script by David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga, taut direction from E.L. Katz in his feature debut and a cast to die for.

Craig (Pat Healy, intense, funny indie darling co-star of The Inkeepers) seems to have it all - a beautiful wife, a bouncing chubby baby, a nice place to live, a university education, a joe-job at a nearby service station to pay the bills while he tries to kick-start his career as a writer and a kind of geeky charm that makes you think he'd be a cool guy to know. Whilst leaving home for work one fine morning, he finds an eviction notice on the front door. He's in arrears for the amount of 4500 smacks and has 7 days to rectify matters or everyone's going to be booted into the streets. To add insult to injury, he loses his job that day. Times are tough for everyone.

Understandably depressed, he wanders the streets and finds himself in an old neighbourhood where he made a few wrong moves 5-or-so years ago during a not-so-sober phase. He's a recovering alcoholic, you see, and it's probably not the best idea he's ever had to step into a bar he spent far too much time in during those booze-fuelled days. He runs into Vince (Ethan Embry), an old friend he hasn't seen since those seedy days of debauchery. It's a happy reunion, but tinged with a bittersweetness. Craig has moved on with his life, Vince is stuck in the same old rut. Craig admits all is not peaches and cream, while Vince reveals a shade of feeling abandoned by his old pal.

No matter. It's a man's world, and in a man's world, a bud's a bud and you put shit behind you so it's like nothing ever happened. The notion of "so it's like nothing ever happened" becomes an even stronger thematic element as the film proceeds. And proceed it does - our buds meet up with Colin (Koechner), a hip, friendly, funny and boisterous mans man adorned in a cool pork pie hat who asks the guys to be a part of the birthday celebrations for his sultry girlfriend Violet (Paxton).

Soon, he's asking the lads to engage in all manner of naughty and/or downright dangerous shenanigans for wads of dough that he keeps flashing and tossing at them after they've done his bidding. Violet uses her smart phone to capture the tender moments forever (offering politely to email the snaps to the lads if they desire copies). As the intensity of the requests increases, our lads are convinced to hang in for the duration as Colin reminds them that no matter where any of them are in their lives, they will never forget the events of this evening.

The truth of this sinks in, not just for our old pals, but for us too. This is a fantasy worth sticking with and we're almost convinced, as we live vicariously through the lives of our onscreen characters, that we might almost want to experience something like this is real life. Watching people do increasingly nasty stuff for money is fun, but the thought of possibly engaging in such activities ourselves is not only tempting, but makes for an especially thrilling ride.

In many ways, the movie is the ultimate adult fantasy. "Hey, fuck my gorgeous wife in front of me while I jerk off and I'll pay all your back rent." You pretend to go all tut-tut-tut and say this is beyond the pale. Fuck you. I'm going to pull out the Klymkiw Family Motto that goes back to the Old Country when Mongols were raping our ancient Ukrainian grannies' twat-in-skis off: "You can't bullshit a bullshitter." Dearest Reader, seriously, don't get all high and mighty on me here. You'd do it, too. It's a good deal, a shitload of fun and yes, something you'll never, ever forget.

Of course, this is what the clever script of Cheap Thrills is up to. It wants you to face the hard truth about yourself. It does it with morbid, laugh-out-loud humour, total conviction, no annoying tongue-in-cheekness and best of all, no bullshit moralizing. By rendering this all with a straight face, but with the spirit of good, old fashioned American chutzpah instead, say, that of Michael Haneke (or recent Cronenberg) preciousness, ephemeral mindless studio-styled roller coaster rides with no subtext or worse, Canadian indie twee-ness mixed with Toronto Presbyterianism. This team of filmmakers and actors hand us our innards on a silver platter and we scarf the fuckers down with relish and abandon.

This is blistering movie-making at its finest. If I'm gypping the movie out of half a star (yeah - using "gyp" is pejorative, I'm not fucking stupid), it's only because I kind of saw the genuinely shocking (as if the movie wasn't shocking enough) denouement coming from a few miles away. I'll chalk that up to being a sick-fuck and/or just seeing way too many movies, reading too many fucking books and just being a smart-ass son of a bitch.

In the meantime, don't miss this on a big screen (or at least on Blu-Ray) - it's too damn good to simply V.O.D. (Though if you must, it's better than not seeing it at all.)

Raven Banner Entertainment's Sinister Cinema presents CHEAP THRILLS March 27, 2014 at 7:30pm all across Canada. Additional showings in Toronto will be featured at the Yonge-Dundas Cinemas (formerly the AMC) on Mar 27, 28, 29, 30, Apr 1, 3, 2014. Check Toronto listings for confirmed dates and times. The cross-canada showings on March 27 will be at the following venues:

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

CHEAP THRILLS is distributed through Pacific Northwest Pictures, currently playing in select Canadian cities and will be released theatrically in the US via Drafthouse Films.

For further info on Raven Banner and Sinister Cinema, Click HERE.

You WILL believe you can clone your dead wife in the Dining Room.
"Only in Canada, you say? A pity."

Now this is my idea of a cool
no-budget Canadian indie comedy!

A Brand New You (2014) ***½
Dir. Kathryn Palmateer, Shawn Whitney
Starring: Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz, Clinton Lee Pontes, Freya Ravensbergen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A Brand New You is a refreshing approach to the mismatched ménage a trois - a kind of contemporary Canadian Jules et Jim on lithium (with a crack chaser), then fused to a mad-scientist-knee-slapper-fest a la Abbott and Costello. Here one will find sharp writing, good performances and solid economical direction. These go a long way to buoy the film's subversions of the usual tropes of quirky indie laugh-fests. Whatever glue the filmmakers were sniffing to concoct this perversely dark, occasionally (and happily) vulgar and surprisingly sweet romantic comedy was imbued with premium potency.

Look, "quirky" comedies are not necessarily my thing, BUT, this one rises above so many of them by not indulging in horrific, bile-inducing whimsy (a big problem with French, Belgians and Canadians). Its writer-director team and an extremely accomplished cast trust the perverse material enough to keep it on an even keel so that it avoids horrendous twee-ness and unlike so many no-budget indie comedies, especially those of the Canadian persuasion, it never feels like a glorified CBC situation television comedy with a dash or two of mild irreverence. The movie is, in fact, irreverent as all get-out and manages to even veer into occasional Harold and Kumar-like multicultural gross-out comedy.

The movie is, frankly, all over the place but NOT in a bad way. It's endowed with a kind of controlled everything-but-the-kitchen-sink quality or rather, it throws caution to the wind, sometimes to its detriment, but mostly in its supreme favour by often including the kitchen sink. By generating characters and situations we NEVER see in the movies is one of the ways the picture succeeds.

A morose, fussy suicidal widower (Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz) leaves his abode of former nuptial bliss and moves into the squalid surroundings of a proverbial mismatched couple. The man (Clinton Lee Pontes) of the house, such as he is (a man, that is) and such as IT is (a home that is), might well have been a contender for "Filthiest Person Alive" in John Waters'Pink Flamingoes. He's Oscar Madison of The Odd Couple magnified infinitesimally with a foul mouth to rival the sailors in The Last Detail, a dirt-bag mind, scatological, unwashed and obsessed with merely existing as lazily and slovenly as possible. Oh, and he's a brilliant scientist - though disgraced and fallen due to his illegal dabbling in cloning. (One of the funniest things in the movie is an eventual parade of science geeks who worship the ground he walks on and seek him out for counsel on their own illegal experimentation with cloning.)

The woman of the house (Freya Ravensbergen) deserves a whole lot better - in every respect, but her sense of self-worth is often so low that she continues to maintain a mere existence also. In some ways, she feels like an underwritten character, but as the film progresses, she takes on several perverse layers which, in their own unique way, rival that of there male characters.

Our widower, is not only suicidal, but his obsession with the ex-woman-he-loved ("ex" as in six feet under, 'natch) reaches unhealthy proportions. He not only forced his dying fiancé to act out a series of scripted home video conversations before her death, he spends an inordinate amount of time watching them repeatedly on his iPad.

Yes, all three of these people have, uh, problems. But it's the movies and as such, they're allowed to have found each other. When the widower, the slob and the lassie-of-potential-avoidance get to knocking their noggins together, it doesn't take long for experiments of the Dr. Frankenstein variety to unfurl in the dining room. With the scientist's genetic genius, a willing surrogate (she's promised a whack of dough) and the widower's engineering savvy, the trio sets about to clone the dead wife.

While there are some vaguely familiar benchmarks in the narrative, it's everything in-between that proves freshly funny. The movie is often overwrought, but more often than not, in all the right (funny) ways and what takes it into genuinely entertaining territory is that it avoids trying to pathetically be a low-budget version of a mainstream movie. Too many low budget indie comedies sadly infuse themselves with indie-style deviations from the norm that are poorly integrated with all the salient elements that make a satisfying picture and as such, sloppily subvert the material.

This almost never happens here. The movie is completely and often hilariously insane. It's also Canadian in all the right ways. It's completely out to lunch, but lunch turns out to be a sumptuous gelatinous buffet table of sweet, sour, garish and, of course, the delightfully and delectably gilded.

A Brand New You has its World Premier during the 47th annual Worldfest Houston, Sunday, April 6, 7:00pm in the Flagship AMC Studio 30 Theatres at 2949 Dunvale in SW Houston. Here's hoping Canuck audiences will see it soon.

HERE'S A WHACK OF CANADIAN MOVIES WORTH BUYING:

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:

Taras Bulba (2009) **
dir. Wolodymyr Bortko
Starring: Bohdan Stupka, Ihor Petrenko, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Magdalena Mielcarz, Sergei Dryden

Review By By Greg Klymkiw

In light of the recent events in Ukraine, it seems appropriate to turn our attention to one of the more egregious displays of cinematic propaganda I have seen in a long time. The charge of disinformation is, for once, not levelled against Hollywood, but Russia. This is not the Russia of the butcher Joseph Stalin, but that of contemporary Russia, a country rife with the sad, evil remnants of Stalin in the guise of its leader Vladimir Putin who, in his previous career was a nasty little KGB spy who specialized in rooting out those who opposed the supposed glories of Communism and prior to that, when he, as a teacher and academic, disgracefully used his position to carry out surveillance on students.

The film on view is Taras Bulba, a relatively recent and expensive (by Russian standards) screen adaptation of the legendary Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol’s great novella of the same name and a film that chooses to use Gogol’s pro-Russian version as its base rather than his original manuscript. Gogol bowed to the will of Czarist Russia and delivered a revised product more in keeping with the country’s own version of Manifest Destiny throughout Eastern Europe.

Propaganda in the cinema is nothing new. In fact, many knee-jerkers will look for any excuse to trash Hollywood for this very thing. Since its very beginnings, a common charge against Uncle Sam’s cinema has been the preponderance of propagandistic elements to extol the virtues of truth, glory and the capitalistic American way in terms of cultural/political superiority and to defend the country’s constant need to engage in warfare. One cannot disagree with this common assertion; however, America ALONE has not propagated the myths of their “superiority” using the most powerful medium of artistic expression – the cinema.

The most common example of this would be the vicious work of Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who utilized cinema to spread anti-Semitism with The Eternal Jew, a foul “documentary” that goes so far as to trace and equate the spread of Judaism with that of rats and the spread of the Black Plague. Of course, no mention of Nazi propaganda would be complete without referring to the work of the brilliant Leni Riefenstahl – a truly great artist who delivered one of the most stunning, yet reviled works of the 20th century, her stirring document of the Nuremburg Rallies, The Triumph of the Will.

Strangely, the work of Russian propagandists has not seen the same kind of vitriolic bile heaped upon it and yet, Sergei Eisenstein, (surely as brilliant a filmmaker as Leni Riefenstahl) was happy enough to wear extremely comfortable knee-pads as he knelt before the dictatorial powers of Russia to continually afford him the opportunities to make movies. Eisenstein delivered one film after another that not only propagated the myth of Communism and the notion of Russian superiority, but eventually even extolled the virtues of an even bigger butcher than Hitler, Joseph Stalin. (For more on this, see my review of the Kino DVD release of Battleship Potemkin by visiting HERE.)

This new version of Taras Bulba received a substantial portion of its financing from the Russian Ministry of Culture and while it may bear the trademarks of typical old-Soviet-style propaganda, it is hardly a work that bears the hallmarks of superior filmmaking. At least Eisenstein, Riefenstahl and any number of American directors who generated similar propaganda (Steven Spielberg with Saving Private Ryan is a good example) are great artists who created landmarks of cinema that expanded the boundaries of the medium. The mediocre, though clearly competent television director Wolodymyr Bortko (who prefers the Russian transliteration “Vladimir” in spite of his Ukrainian heritage) serves up some sumptuous production value, elicits some fine performances and seasons his celluloid broth of borscht with all the clichés of epic cinema, but none of the depth one might find in the work of masters of the elephantine genre like David Lean. Bortko’s screenplay adaptation unimaginatively catalogues, almost by rote, the events of Gogol’s Russified version of the novella, but somehow manages to completely miss the spirit of the original writing.

Telling the classical tale of a Cossack Chief, Taras Bulba (majestically portrayed by the great Ukrainian actor Bohdan Stupka) who sends his beloved sons Andriy (Ihor Petrenko) and Ostap (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) to the Polish-ruled university in Ukraine’s capitol city Kyiv to not only get a well rounded education, but to acquaint them with the “enemy”. He eventually takes his sons to the legendary Cossack “Sich” (fortress) of Zaporozhia to train them in the skill of Cossack barbarism.

Bulba’s hatred for Poland flares even more intensely when he learns that his farm has been destroyed and his wife is murdered by the Poles. He manages to get the Cossack nation to march against Poland and soon the Ukrainians are wreaking havoc and decimating their Polish rulers. Things come to a head when Bulba and the Cossacks attack the Ukrainian city of Dubno which is under Polish rule. Unbeknownst to our title character, when Bulba’s most beloved son Andriy was at school in Kyiv, he fell in love with Elzhbeta (the eye-poppingly stunning Magdalena Mielcarz) a member of Polish royalty. As bad luck would have it, her father is now the governor of Dubno and Andriy realizes that he is laying siege to the city of his beloved. Love, it would seem, becomes the ultimate enemy as Andriy betrays his country and father to be with her.

It’s a great story! One of its biggest fans was Ernest Hemingway who proclaimed its genius whenever he could. Too bad, then, that this film version is so by-the-numbers. That said, even a mediocre rendering such as this one is no match for the power of Gogol’s literary prowess and for this we are dealt some tender mercies. Finally though, the movie is a bit of a slog – plodding along its way, but without any of the spark of the original writer. In fact, the tone of the movie is resolutely dour. This is no surprise since screenwriter-director Bortko has chosen to amplify the Russified version of the novella. Without that glorious spark of Gogol’s wonderful sense of boys’ adventure and his delightfully, deliciously and resolutely Ukrainian sense of humour (so beautifully captured in J. Lee Thompson's 1964 Hollywood version), the movie has all the spark of a funeral dirge.

By over-emphasizing the Russification of the original text what we have is a brutal glorification of Russian superiority. This grotesque mockery of a story that, in actuality is a rousing depiction of Ukraine’s never-ending fight for freedom from subjugation leaves us with a very foul taste in our mouths. We are handed one ultra-violent set piece after another – all in the service of boosting Russia’s own notion of might as right. By appropriating this very Ukrainian story by one of its great writers and turning it into grotesque Russian propaganda to try and suggest that the Cossacks and in turn, the Ukrainians, consider themselves little more than barbarians doing the bidding of those who would subjugate, exploit and even perpetrate genocide against them (as Stalin did) is thoroughly reprehensible.

Historically, even the occasional guarded loyalty the Zaporozhian Cossacks paid to the Russian Empire was betrayed by both Czar Peter I and Catherine the Great, the former forcing them to scatter or face death, the latter ordering a full-on genocide of the Zaporozhian Sich. None of this would have been lost on Gogol - especially with his first, but suppressed edition of the novel and even within the Russified version, this healthy distrust of the Empire boils just below the novel's surface.

Bortko’s mediocrity as a director reaches its nadir, however, in his lame handling of the fighting, action and battle scenes which is, in a word, dull. With fabulous locations, thousands of extras and impeccable production and costume design, he cannot direct action. His shooting style is cudgel-like, but it never has the thrilling and freewheeling quality the action needs. Bortko appears to have everything that money can buy – everything that is, except the genuinely distinctive artistic voice that would allow him to rise above his own mediocrity.

I do reiterate, though, that such propagandistic shenanigans would ultimately not be as problematic if this was actually a good movie, but it isn’t. Saddled with a clumsy flashback structure, a lazy use of prose narration from the novel and a dull television-mini-series mise-en-scene, Taras Bulba might stir the loins of Putin-lovers-and-apologists, but it doesn’t come close to mining the stirring potential of the story.

Let’s not forget that Gogol came from Cossack stock and that he was inspired by the very moving Ukrainian nationalist “dumy” (folk ballads) of the Cossacks themselves. Also, one of Hohol/Gogol’s chief literary inspirations was the great Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott and that “Taras Bulba” was conceived as a Ukrainian version of those swashbuckling tales of Scottish Highlanders battling their British oppressors/occupiers (especially notable in "Rob Roy"). A cool historical footnote is that Cossacks themselves might have had some roots in Scotland at a much earlier historical juncture. Another interesting correlation between Scott and Gogol is that both portrayed strong, sympathetic Jewish characters in their respective swashbucklers - Scott created Rebecca in "Ivanhoe" and Gogol gave us Yankel in "Taras Bulba". (The latter character seems to fit the fact that Catherine the Great effected a genocide upon the Ukrainian Cossacks whose administrative power was actually presided over by Ukrainian-Jews - all the record-keeping discovered in archeological digs at the Sich was found to be written in Hebrew.)

Not surprisingly, the best film version of Taras Bulba is the fabulous aforementioned J. Lee Thompson epic from Hollywood in the 1960s. It captures the derring-do, the humour and the stirring, romantic nationalism of the story by adhering the book’s Ukrainian roots as opposed to Bortko’s ill-conceived attempt to please Vladimir Putin. The American treatment of the character of Andriy, the son who betrays father and country is far closer, I think to the spirit of what Gogol intended. Ihor Petrenko’s portrayal of Andriy is so dull and serious. It especially lacks the boyish charm that Tony Curtis with his swarthy Hungarian-Jewish looks and magnificent sense of humour brought to the role.

The other idiotic attempt to Russify this story is how Bortko has commissioned a musical score so lacking in any spirit whatsoever. At least in the Hollywood version, legendary composer Franz Waxman based his entire score on traditional Ukrainian music and delivered a score that was cited by even Bernard Herrman as one of the great scores of all time. (For my full review of the Hollywood version, feel free to visit HERE.)

In fairness to Bortko, however, his screenplay, unlike the Hollywood version restores the odd symbiotic friendship from Gogol’s novella between Bulba and the Jewish money lender Yankel (yielding a stellar performance by Sergei Dryden) and, most importantly, he includes the whole aftermath involving the capture, torture and execution of Ostap at the hands of the Poles and Bulba’s revenge and final noble sacrifice. These are all stirring story beats and while I am grateful for their inclusion, I am less grateful that they are present almost solely to provide Russian propaganda.

This version of Taras Bulba no doubt has poor Gogol spinning in his grave. I’m sure he never would have imagined that so many generations later his work would be bastardized as a piece of propaganda for the country that even now seeks to consume his Motherland whole and tries continually to repress its spirit, culture, language and people.

Worse yet, that it should be a version that reeks of Made-for-TV miniseries mediocrity.

FEEL FREE TO ORDER THE FOLLOWING TARAS BULBA ITEMS DIRECTLY FROM THE LINKS BELOW AND YOU WILL BE CONTRIBUTING TO THE ONGOING MAINTENANCE OF THIS WEBSITE:

"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.

Solo (2013) **
Dir. Isaac Cravit
Starring: Annie Clark, Daniel Kash, Richard Clarkin,
Stephen Love, Alyssa Capriotti

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A teen babe with "issues" takes a job as a summer camp counsellor. Part of the required initiation is for new employees to spend two nights alone on a remote island. The island in question was the site of a tragedy many years ago. It is purportedly haunted. Weird shit happens. Those whom you think are psychotic are not. Those whom you think are nice are psychotic. Confrontations occur. Good people die. Some good people are rescued. The evil entity is killed. The teen babe is safe. Movie Finished. 83 precious minutes of your life that you'll never get back.

There you have it. Solo in a nutshell. There's no real reason to see it now.

You see, debut feature films like Solo put me in a really foul mood. Some of these first long form efforts are blessed with an immediate, explosive announcement to the universe that we are dealing with a filmmaker who is endowed with the greatest gift a director can bestow upon the world of cinema - a voice, a distinctive style, an unmistakeable point of view, a sense that this is who the filmmaker really is. Then there's a second category - debut features so awful you might as well have shoved a gun into your mouth and pulled the trigger instead of watching it.

Solo, the debut feature film written and directed by Isaac Cravit is in neither of those categories. It holds a very special place in the pantheon of celluloid dreams - it's bereft of dreams. It has neither an original voice nor one of mind numbing ineptitude. Both have their virtues since both make an audience feel something. Not so for Solo (and so many, many others of its ilk). These are movies which allow you to leave their meagre clasp feeling absolutely nothing. It is the third and perhaps most horrendous category of all debut features. Solo, joins this unenviable pinnacle of competence with all the eagerness of a dog about to get a Milk Bone.

When filmmakers enter the fray with a first feature that actually excites you - not only because of the film itself, but what you sense this director will deliver in the future. Their declarations feel like the following:

The Soska Sisters (Dead Hooker in a Trunk):
"We're going to fuck your ass with a red-hot poker, but you'll enjoy it. We promise."

John Paizs (Crime Wave):
"Laughs derived from silence are golden."

David Lynch (Eraserhead):
"In Heaven, everything is fine..."

John Carpenter (Dark Star):
"I love movies more than life itself - have a fuckin' beer."

Guy Maddin: (Tales From The Gimli Hospital):
"I'm a dreamer, aren't we all?"

Kevin Smith: (Clerks):
"Fuck."

All are unique declarations (mediated through my own interpretive imagination, of course) and I could spend a few hundred more words doing the same for a myriad of debut features that declare themselves with complete originality on the part of the filmmaker.

There is, however, one declaration that depresses me even more than whatever the aforementioned incompetents of the second category of debut works might declare via their sheer inability to make movies. It is a declaration I see and hear far too often these days - especially since filmmaking has been embraced by so many marginally talented, though competent, by-the-numbers types as an - ugh! - career choice (as opposed to a genuine calling). Every single one of these filmmakers in the dreaded third category announces the same thing. They never waiver from it. They are presenting to the world their - double ugh! - calling card.

With Solo, Canadian director Isaac Cravit joins the club of voice-free directors when he declare (by virtue of his debut film):

"Look. I can use a dolly. Look. I can shoot coverage. Look. I am ready to direct series television drama and straight to V.O.D. and home video product for indiscriminating audiences looking to fill their worthless lives with content as opposed to something exceptional."

There's absolutely nothing new, surprising or exciting about this pallid genre effort save for its competence. Solo is blessed with some superb production value, to be sure. The locations are perfect, they're nicely shot by Stephen Chung and the combination of on-location sound and overall mixing and design seems much more exquisite and artful than the movie deserves. The cutting by Adam Locke-Norton, given the dullness of the coverage, manages to keep the proceedings moving at a nice clip. The score by Todor Kobakov is especially superb - rich, dense and one that enhances the film - again - much further beyond the movie's narrow scope. (There's one four note riff in the score that should have been excised by the filmmakers at a very early juncture, but save for that, it's a winner in all respects.)

The small cast is also superb. Thank God they're in the film since they're really one of the few things that do make the otherwise forgettable affair worth seeing.

The camera loves leading lady Annie Clark and she's clearly a fine actress - she makes the most of a hackneyed been-there-done-that babe-in-peril role. Two of Canada's finest character actors - Daniel Kash and Richard Clarkin are always worth looking at. They've got expressive, malleable mugs and like the best of the best, they rise well above the dull competence of the movie.

I especially enjoyed Stephen Love's performance and hope to see more of him - he's got very nice offbeat good looks, a sense of humour, a touch of malevolence and he frankly looks and feels like a young Canuck James Franco.

Is the movie well made? Hell yes! Is it anything special? Will you leave the theatre soaring? Will you even remember it two minutes after you see it? The answer to all those questions is a resounding "No."

Are we all supposed to rejoice and dance a jig just because someone got a movie made?

I'll let you answer that yourself.

"Solo" begins its limited theatrical run February 28 via Indie-Can at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinema in Toronto. Daily showtimes at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Q&A's with Directer Isaac Cravitt and Cast following the Friday and Sat 7:00 p.m. and Sunday 2:00 p.m. shows.

Here are direct links to purchase books about great Canadian low budget films and then, find a selection of direct links to a bunch of terrific low budget Canadian feature films that you can also purchase directly from this site.

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

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

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

RUN RUN IT'S HIM (2010/2014) ****
Dir. Matthew (Matt) Pollack, Co-Producer/Cinematographer: Jamie Popowich

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is the real DON JON. The real thing.

It's the straight-up cum-shot to the face that Joseph Gordon-Leavitt could not nor would not do, even if he had a loaded gun shoved up his ass demanding he wipe that annoying smirk off his face whilst making the theme of obsessively wanking to XXX hardcore so horrendously false and, dare I say it, palatable.

RUN RUN IT’S HIM is an obsessive, hilarious, shocking, touching, imaginative, inventive and altogether astonishing personal portrait of a young man’s addiction to pornography and masturbation. It’s a genuine underground film about WANKING that’s delectably imbued with plenty of WANK qualities. Any obsessive will respond to this, not in spite, but BECAUSE of the picture’s meandering, borderline structure and roughness - its HONESTY! Pollack’s film touches the soul (and a few other, uh, personal places) because it's so goddamn, heart-achingly real. (Oh, and you don't have to be an obsessive to enjoy the movie, but it sure ups the ante if you are a bit out of your fucking gourd on the addictive personality front.)

And make no mistake when you watch this film - this is an underground movie. It's no dull TV-style doc, no slick feature aimed at a wide theatrical market and it is most certainly not some overpriced, earnest National Film Board of Canada documentary about children with learning disabilities who find teachers they can really relate to. It feels grotty, grainy and filthy. It looks like it was shot with a Hi-8 camera from the late 80s and is even framed in one of my favourite aspect ratios - good, old fashioned, square box standard frame. Sometimes the sound is so muddy, the filmmaker needs to affix subtitles to it. Does this mean the movie is badly made or amateurish? Not in the least. It's gorgeously shot. It employs the aesthetic of the very kind of film its director is obsessed with.

This is a dirty movie; not in the usual sense of one's notion of "dirty movies", though it is about dirty movies and the dirty business of seeking out images - almost always degrading and most often infused with sexual violence and subjugation of women. That the movie is about its director's lifelong addiction to an activity that shuts him out of genuine relationships with the opposite sex, is what channels it into very brave places.

Pollack and his small, but dedicated team charted his addiction for 7 years. What we experience is a genuine insider view. We see Pollack's DAILY routine of travelling all across the Toronto streets in search of XXX porn at his favourite purveyors of whack material. He recreates actual whack-off sessions in the privacy of his home. He interviews a porn-shop clerk who turns out to be a veritable Heidegger of porn philosophy. Most hilariously, sadly and entertainingly, he visits with old girlfriends, female friends and women he's long had crushes on and selects his favourite scenes of pornography. It's this latter sequence of footage that is absolutely astounding. We watch the women as they watch the porn, respond and discuss it with him.

This is a wonderful picture. It's at once all over the place and completely whole. The movie might seem structurally thin, but only on the surface since the picture's fierce, personal independence is such that one spends less time admiring (like most terrific pictures) its adherence to all those elements contemporary audiences (especially) have been spoon fed into needing. What we respond to is the experiential journey of a brilliant, funny and honest filmmaker laying the truth before us - no matter how dirty it gets.

RUN RUN IT'S HIM is not available on ANY traditional delivery source. It is available via VOD/download via its own website via Big Doll House. This seems wholly appropriate. For a measly 10 smacks, visit HERE and see the movie. I'm hoping some cool Canuck cinemas have the balls to play this movie theatrically with personal Q and A appearances by its director AFTER the launch. Come on Royal Theatre, come on Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, Come on Tiff Bell Lightbox. DO IT! Display thine aesthetic cojones!

Paycheck To Paycheck: The Life and Times Of Katrina Gilbert (2014) **1/2
Dir. Nick Doob, Shari Cookson, Prod. Maria Shriver, Starring: Katrina Gilbert

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I can't help it, but trying to remove the taste of bile in my mouth is near-impossible when super-rich White People manage to weasel their way into arts and culture, based primarily upon their wealth, blue-blood family pedigree, celebrity and all the luxuries afforded to them and then make films about poor people. Such is the case of this latest production by Maria Shriver, daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver (hence, JFK's niece) and ex-wife of the nanny-defiling movie-star-body-builder-former-California-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Still, I'm happy enough to assess the 75 minute feature film Paycheck To Paycheck: The Life and Times Of Katrina Gilbert on its own terms since co-director Nick Doob has the distinction of being a real filmmaker and a longtime member of the unimpeachable Pennebaker Hegedus Films team, though his directorial partner Cookson, has a somewhat more dubious, albeit prolific c.v. which, includes the soft-hard-core spurious doc series "Real Sex".

Doob and Cookson had a whole year to dip into Shriver's access to O.P.M. (said access applied, in fairness, to her many charitable activities) and follow around a Chattanooga, Tennessee nursing assistant to examine the life of the working poor - most specifically an example of America's most vulnerable and largest targets of poverty, single mothers.

Katrina Gilbert has three children and toils for 9 bucks an hour in an extended care facility. It's back-breaking, flat-footing work, but Gilbert genuinely seems to enjoy the daily human contact she has with the old and infirm. Still, she'd prefer to "better herself" and continue her post-secondary studies in the health care field, but in spite of her meagre salary and needing to support three kids, she is turned down - shockingly and inexplicably - for financial aid to further her education and perhaps get a better paying job.

Welcome to America.

Gilbert also has on-going medical conditions which, could well eventually morph into something life-threatening, yet when she goes to get an overdue check-up, she's hit with a doctor bill for over $300 as opposed to the $120 she was initially quoted. In America, there is no socialized medicine - it's big business in the Land of the Free and most people, including the working poor, have to cough up. (Obama Care doesn't appear to be in full implementation during the shooting, but even if it were, it's such a mess I can't imagine it would really help her.) Even more horrifying is that the list of medications she requires to keep her health on the up-and-up are so ludicrously expensive, she needs to make the decision of what drugs she can afford during a last-minute tabulation at the pharmacy.

Welcome to America.

She has three kids to feed, but since her ex is unemployed and often in arrears with his childcare payments, she not only has to lend him gas money to visit the kids, but her ration of food stamps to actually feed her progeny is shockingly and inexplicably cut-off.

Welcome to America.

The film itself is pretty compelling stuff and as a subject, Gilbert is pleasing, kind-hearted and smart. That being said, the movie presents her story in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get style, but I did find a few editing choices somewhat dubious - perhaps even downright unfair to her struggle.

For example, after discovering she doesn't qualify for educational assistance AND forced to choose what drugs she can actually afford, the filmmakers follow her into a beauty parlour so she can "do a little something" for herself. When she drops a healthy whack of dough for her new hair-do, I began to wonder, uh, lady - you have no money for drugs, yet you're dumping 70 or so smackers on what looks to be s not-especially flattering makeover. Given how much we feel for this woman, I felt this choice - no matter how "true" - was simply cruel (intentional or not). Maybe it's the filmmakers' desire to make viewers have a similar response to the salon scene and intentionally plant a seed that grows into guilt for even having such a thought.

Whatever the reason it somehow feels out of place, just as a breakfast scene in the family's squalid home is shot and included wherein we watch the kids scarf down grease-laden plates of bacon and eggs, then guzzle-back bottles of pop. Yeah, we know that nutrition-choices are, for the poor, dictated by their poverty, but by continually including such sequences, one occasionally suspects there's a deeper agenda at play here - even if there isn't.

The choice to do this kind of thing might be true to the filmmakers's adherence to a direct cinema approach, but it's almost to the detriment of the film's forward trajectory since you, as a viewer, almost waste more time thinking about the rather mean-spirited approaches than what really counts.

When Gilbert finally gets a raise at work, it's in the amount of a few cents. Chances look good she'll continue living in a trailer park. With one pen-stroke upon a check book, Executive Producer Shriver (who lives in a $10 million dollar Brentwood mansion) could make this woman's life turn around. Instead, Shriver made this movie. On other people's money.

Welcome to America, indeed.

Paycheck To Paycheck can be seen on HBO Canada. For Dates and Times, visit the HBO Canada website HERE.

You'll see green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
You're never gonna see no unicorns - The Irish Rovers, The Unicorn Song

"Oh shit, it's black fly season and I've got lockjaw."

"I need BERRIES. Got any?

Noah (2014) *
Dir. Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Nick Nolte

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Four words.

Anthony Hopkins IS Methuselah.

Phew! Who cut the fuckin' cheese? Man, oh man, when great directors fail, it's nice to see them crap-out as spectacularly as Darren (Pi, Requiem For a Dream, Black Swan, The Wrestler) Aronofsky has done with the swirling sea of salt water pickle brine that is Noah. Yes, the movie is dreadful, but it's at least a rip-snorting hoot for most of its running time and if you've a hankering for a multi-million dollar Sun Classic International-styled Ed Wood-directed biblical epic, have I got a picture for you.

"I plan to skewer chipmunks upon my 'stache."

In case you don't already know the plot, we're talking Noah of the Ark fame here, the fairytale Old Testament servant of God. To quote from the angel Gabriel in Green Pastures: "Gangway! Gangway fo' de Lawd." And I've gotta tell ya', de Lawd sho' do be right royally pissed off with Man for all his sinning ways - so much so that he entrusts his loyal earthly servant Noah to build an Ark to house the "innocent" during the Great Flood. The innocents He wishes to save are God's non-human animals - excepting of course, the unicorn. God just wants to bless the beasts with life and start all over again. Can we blame him?

God declares, not unlike Travis Bickle: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets." Though He doesn't come right out and say it, de Lawd be thinkin', "All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal."

And I feel for Aronofsky on this. It's not much of a story. God tells Noah to build an ark and fill it with animals while everything and everyone else will die in a flood. Noah builds the Ark, the animals board the Ark, the rains comes, the rains go. End of story.

So one of our great directors decides to add a revisionist twist to the piece and couch it as a tale of man's environmental assaults upon the Earth and how drastic measures must be taken to achieve a new beginning. The same, said director decides there's also an interesting way to tell a tale of religious zealotry through Noah who feels charged with the desire to fulfil God's Word even if it means murdering the children of his eldest son. Aronofsky also dabbles in presenting a rivalry twixt Noah and Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), the former being someone who blindly accepts a potential misinterpretation of God's Word and the latter who believes God created in His own image to place a species at the top of the food chain and to control his own destiny.

These very interesting elements are there, but the movie is just so Good-Godawful in pretty much every other respect. Noah and his wife are portrayed as some manner of eco-hippies, but they're equally presented as positively insufferable cliches. Anthony Hopkins munches ham to portray the 900-year-old Methuselah as a doddering idiot who's mostly obsessed with being able to find and eat berries before he dies. I kid you not. There's even a scene with Hopkins on all fours whilst maniacally trolling the ground for fucking berries.

And, of course, I shit myself laughing when a little girl asks Noah to sing. I was gobsmacked, actually. Crowe sings!

As if this weren't enough, Aronofsky even goes all Ray Harryhausen on us when we're introduced to humungous stone creatures called "The Watchers" who rise up out of the ground to offer assistance to Noah to both build the Ark AND do battle - yes BATTLE! - with the armies of Tubal-cain. Worse yet, The Watchers are essentially identical to Transformers - yes, rock-hewn Michael-Bay-style Transformers.

This might be one of the biggest follies of all - CG Transformers made of rock aside, the most ludicrous element is just how much of the film is generated via CG. Using real animals would have lent a sense of "humanity" to the proceedings, but no matter which way you slice it, God's non-human animals have about as much warmth as a witch's tit.

The levels of idiocy in this movie know no bounds, frankly. They are all, however, knee-slappingly funny. Yeah, the laughs are unintentional, but they are as pure as those achieved by Edward D. Wood Jr. in his straight-faced Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space. I mean that with absolutely no condescension towards the late Mr. Wood. I genuinely love the guy. Just, as I genuinely love Aronofsky. They're both filmmakers with a voice, and that ain't something to be sneezed at.

Uh, did I just compare Aronofsky to Ed Wood?

Noah is in massive worldwide release via Paramount Pictures

John Leguizamo's Ghetto Klown (2014) **
Dir. Fisher Stevens, Starring: John Leguizamo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's no denying the fact that John Leguizamo is one of the most versatile and accomplished character actors in the movies. For many years, since his humble beginnings in the theatre, he's presented several live autobiographical one-man shows that have generated great reviews and solid box-office on the New York stage and beyond. His most recent work has been shot by Fisher Stevens, the Academy Award winning director of The Cove. He handles the proceedings of capturing last year's live performance at the New Jersey Performing Arts Centre in lovely Newark, New Jersey, and does so with stout yeoman work. It's strictly camera jockey shot-calling, though, and certainly doesn't have the cinematic force of Spike Lee's helmsmanship of one-man show Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth.

Alas, it's really the material here that does in John Leguizamo's Ghetto Klown. Seeing as Leguizamo wrote the material, the finger of blame points in his direction.

This latest Leguizamo dive into his past life is often very funny, but much of it feels self-indulgent in all the wrong ways and its mere 93 minutes breezes along nicely only during its first half, but by the second half, the piece feels like it's running out of steam and/or spinning its wheels.

What works, of course, is Leguizamo when he's cooking. He begins with his childhood, relating a handful of knee-slappingly hilarious tales of avoiding bullies by using his humour, charming his teachers with his talent and driving his Mom and (especially) Dad, utterly round the bend with his hyper antics. The focus, ultimately, are his early years when he discovered acting, studied with famed coach Lee Strasberg and graduated to the big leagues of Hollywood. The funniest tales are his gigs with Brian DePalma - notably opposite Sean Penn in Casualties of War, the harrowing war drama about the gang rape and murder of a young Vietnamese woman at the hands of American soldiers and then, his villainous turn opposite Al Pacino in the Cuban gangster thriller Carlito's Way.

Leguizamo's impersonations of DePalma. Penn and Pacino are right on the money and the most hilarious tale involves his run-ins on the set with Pacino. Given the subject matter of the former DePalma title, Leguizamo holds back wisely and saves his anarchic style for the latter title.

His stories revolving around old pals, early girlfriends and family are often delightful. Though he overdoes a kind of shrill, borderline sexist impersonation of the female characters, his tales of Mom are pretty genuine and loving. It's his impersonations of his father who, by Leguizamo's account was a nasty, abusive sonofabitch, that begin to take on a sour tone and border on creepily uncomfortable. So too are his stories of early relationships with women.

As the movie progresses, Leguizamo and his material both take on a kind of macho bitterness that loses its punch. The show feels often cruel and condescending. Cruel, by the way, is almost always a good thing, but toss in condescension without the right balance and you just sit numbly as the whole Tower of Babel crumbles under the weight of an almost immoral form. Leguizamo's overwrought reminiscences get mean-spirited and worst of all become just plain unfunny. Perhaps there's something missing in the transition from live performance to how it's captured up close by the camera that's at fault here. The jockeying is competent enough, but the mix of mediums doesn't do the material a whole lot of favours. Witnessing Leguizamo's ugly, sneering tone just plain wears you down, though the audience in the theatre is lapping it up. The distance of one's ocular perspective probably accounts for the divide, though I tend to think my own response to a genuinely live version might, due to the material alone, not veer to0 far from that of the film.

What becomes almost intolerable is when he self indulgently focuses upon his bouts of depression - many segments of which have him blaming his Dad. Here he veers from whining, to simpering, to full-on roar-of-a-lion (as rendered in pipsqueak fashion) - back and forth to beat the band. By the time Leguizamo recreates an encounter with his father showing up unexpectedly backstage during a performance wherein he's been especially cruel in depicting Dad, I pretty much felt like throwing in the towel. A portion of this encounter is supposed to be moving, but given how cruel-minded his jabs at Dad have been throughout the proceedings, one actually sides with an alleged abuser over this nasty, self-indulgent knob.

Given that Leguizamo spends good chunks of time relaying his drug use, booze guzzling and exhaustion from the toils of performing live, one keeps wondering if his depression and memories aren't being coloured by substance abuse. This might not be an especially fair response, but it's a whole lot more honest than Leguizamo is being with himself and the audience.

The production is clearly not without merit, but it's also seriously flawed. One wants to commend Leguizamo for exposing his occasional foibles and deep feelings of resentment towards his Dad, but after awhile it dives mercilessly into self indulgence of the most egregious variety.

Soon we begin to see that this talented "Ghetto Klown" had quite a few people encouraging him along his path to success - one which came pretty quickly and relatively painlessly. It doesn't take too long before you're wondering, "Who is this dick-wad and what's he got to complain about?" Leguizamo seldom takes the fall for his failings and is quick to blame others in his life for bad decisions. Even his depression, which is a real medical condition, loses its potential to move us.

Instead, I just wanted to punch the Klown in the face and send his ass back to the Ghetto.

John Leguizamo's Ghetto Clown can be seen on HBO Canada. For dates and times, visit the website HERE.

Can someone explain to me how America, the supposed bastion of freedom in Western history and culture, continues to be little more than a borderline Third World country that preys on the weakest amongst its own populace to enrich, uh, nobody? I use the word "nobody" only because the country's ruling elite - the rich - really ARE nobody. Even more appalling is the country's systemic racism and frankly, its ongoing genocide of its people of colour. "The University of Sing Sing" offers hope, but for me, it also demonstrates how despicable the ruling elites of the country truly are. Read on...

Harlem
By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

The University Of Sing Sing (2014) ***1/2
Dir. Tim Skousen, Starring: Joel Jimenez, Denis Martinez, Dewey Bozella, Douglas Duncan, Harry Belafonte, Ice-T

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In the span of 40 minutes, you will see a group of men learn and graduate from university. They're no ordinary students. They're all prisoners of Sing Sing, the notorious New York state maximum security prison for violent offenders. They are enrolled in Mercy College through a charitable program called Hudson Link which operates a campus onsite and offers the same rigorous academic program that runs concurrently at their nearby university beyond the walls of the prison. At least half of Sing Sing's prisoners return after they're released. A mere 2% of the program's participants find themselves back behind bars.

This sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Good for the prisoners, good for society and, as much as they might not be able to admit it, it's good for the victims of the crimes perpetrated against them by the men who graduate.

Several things knocked me on my ass while watching this picture.

There isn't a single man enrolled in the program who is anything less than intelligent, personable, deeply ashamed of the horrendous crimes they committed to get themselves in prison, genuinely repentant, sensitive beyond words and such exceptionally gifted human beings one wishes they could be released in order to serve the world in ways they could have if not forced into making the kind of mistakes in their youth that, frankly, have more to do with America's (and society's) treatment of its most vulnerable members of the human race to place them in positions wherein they made the very wrong decisions in the first place.

I'd be happy to break bread with these guys anytime, anywhere.

Another element that struck me is that I did not notice a whole lot of men in the program and, for that matter, amongst the general population of Sing Sing, who weren't people of colour - Americans of African, Mexican, Puerto Rican and among other hues of the rainbow, Asian, dotted the landscape of this world. If Whitey exists within the prison's walls, I can only assume they were on view every time I blinked. This doesn't surprise me, the stats on this are pretty clear.

I was also agog to learn that the program exists with no government support. This is easily the most moronic thing I've ever heard. Sure, it's probably not politically popular, but who gives a shit? Supporting endeavours like this only helps EVERYONE. Luckily, the funding comes from the aforementioned Hudson Link which was founded by several former prisoners who benefitted so greatly from this education that they decided to give back. Thank God for people as opposed to the automatons in government.

The truly inspirational thing about the picture is probably the biggest force that had me off the chair and buttock-clinging the ground is having the whirlwind opportunity to witness the progress of a select group of prisoners in their educational journey - in class, doing homework and finally, graduating with a full-on ceremony under the harsh glare of Sing Sing's fluorescent lights. Along the way, we meet family, friends, teachers, former grads and a number of the philanthropists involved in the program.

Most importantly, we get a chance to the know the men, see their fine work in the program, hear their stories, get a taste of their hopes and dreams and in one far-too-short scene we get to sit in on a round circle chat between the prisoners and rapper Ice-T. I'd have given anything to be a fly on the wall for the whole session. Maybe if it was shot in its entirety this is something we'll get as a bonus extra on a DVD/BluRay release. It's also cool that Ice-T is a big supporter of this program. The tough-minded musician/actor still gets my undying admiration for his powerful "Body Count" album blending rap and heavy metal, which addresses the systemic racism in the crime prevention and justice system. His anthem "Cop Killer" (the uncensored version) is still a work that raises gooseflesh.

Speaking of a DVD/BluRay version, I kind of hope this is a possibility. The film is only 40 minutes long and within the context of the story it tells, it's certainly well structured and edited for maximum impact on television, BUT, I wanted more. Wanting more is probably the best thing any filmmaker can hope for in an audience response, IF the film is working (which this one most certainly is). That said, it feels like the material is worthy of a feature length version with added scope and possibly even a re-think with the available footage to bring an even more personal style to a longer version that the clearly talented director Tim Skousen is more than capable of doing.

In recent years, the bar was significantly raised by the brilliant auteur Alan Zweig for the genre of documentaries about the prison system; why it exists, what led to incarceration and what hopes and dreams guided its inmates to lives outside of the box (as it were). The film Zweig gave us was his feature length A Hard Name, a picture with a specific mise-en-scene and tone that placed its audience into an almost poetic rhythm which delivered a structure to place us squarely within the notion of pain and forgiveness. The bar for documentaries dealing with the racism involved in keeping those of colour down was set by Angad Singh Bhalla's Herman's House the alternately tragic and uplifting tale of the late Herman Wallace.

And look, I don't expect Skousen to make something out of his material that's already been done, but I do suspect he's got a different film in him to make about this program and these men. Here's hoping that happens. In the meantime, we all have a chance to experience this fine picture thanks to the vision of its subjects, filmmakers and broadcaster to make it a reality in the first place.

The University of Sing Sing will air in the Great White North via HBO Canada. For more info, visit HERE.

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) ***
Dir. Frank Pavich
Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, H.R. Giger, Chris Foss, Brontis Jodorowsky, Nicolas Winding Refn, Richard Stanley, Gary Kurtz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

If we imagine a world without Star Wars, we can probably imagine a world where cinema was no longer being driven to the slow, painful death it is suffering now. More importantly, if we imagine a world where Alejandro (El Topo, Holy Mountain) Jodorowsky, the mad, obsessed/obsessive visionary director had been able to make his film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune - beating Star Wars to the punch and laying the groundwork for a new and different kind of spectacle in the cinema rather than the empty state of the art blockbusters of the 80s - we can imagine a far greater world than we live in now (especially those who love and care about movies).

Frank Pavich's fascinating feature documentary is as close as we're ever going to get to seeing what might have been one of the greatest movies of the late 20th Century - a film that was a mere five million dollars short of becoming a reality, a film that would have starred Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali and Orson Welles, storyboarded by Moebeius, with effects by Dan O'Bannon, costume and creature designs by H.R. Giger and, of course, the legendary Jodorowsky at the helm.

To see this documentary is to be caught up in the creative excitement that went into every second of preparing this epic motion picture. Jodorowsky himself transports us to a time, place and state of being that captures every thrilling story beat in the development of this insane, passionate and mind-blowing film.

As the story proceeds, we're caught up in the fervour - nay, the fever pitch that never abated over several years of trying to make Dune a reality. And of course, as things start taking turns for the worst and we experience the whole enterprise crumble under the weight of cheap, vision-bereft studio chiefs who all eventually turned the movie down for the last financing piece of the puzzle. we feel like we're being dragged through the coals of sheer decimation of a staggering work of art - one that would have clearly changed the way we see movies.

Even more depressing, but almost strangely uplifting, is seeing storyboard and art designs from Dune that were outright stolen copiously by a who's who of Hollywood's artistic power brokers. There isn't one single mega-hit from a period of over 30 years that doesn't owe a debt of gratitude to the movie that now only exists on paper. It's also kind of cool to discover that not even Jodorowsky knew just how long his movie was going to be. All he knew was that it would be as long as it needed to be.

One of the more maddening revelations is how studio heads loved everything about the film, but hated it's director and yet, it was that same director who rallied the talent, guided the vision and drove the creation of the very materials the bean counters were in love with.

An all star cast of artisans, filmmakers and pundits join Jodorowsky in this tale of the movie that was never made. Best of all we are able to experience the sheer joy and twinkle in Jodorowsky's eye as he launches into one passionate tale after another about the making of the film, but also the film itself. Most extraordinary of all we experience his pride in being able to influence several generations of filmmakers from the fruits of his labours that led at once to a heartbreaking end and to another, seeds for the future greatness of others.

His pride and happiness about this is ultimately what makes him one of the great artists of cinema history.

"Jodorowsky's Dune" from Mongrel Media is playing theatrically in Toronto at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
For tickets and further info, visit the TIFF website HERE Director Frank Pavich will participate in a Q & A via Skype, following the 6:45 pm show of Jodorowsky’s Dune this Friday, April 4, at Bell Lightbox, 350 King St. West.The film will also open April 4 in Vancouver (International Village) and Montreal (Cinéma du Parc)! Programmed by Colin Geddes, the film premiered in the TIFF Docs series during the 2013 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival.

"I'm not quite as stupid as I look. The people who made this movie and gave me a nice fat paycheque are far more stupid than I could ever be.

Ice Soldiers (2013) 1 Pubic Hair - Second Lowest Rating
Dir. Sturla Gunnarson, Starring: Dominic Purcell, Adam Beach, Michael Ironside, Gabriel Hogan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Cuban Missile Crisis is in full swing whilst up in the Canadian Arctic, a bunch of Americans at a military outpost go out onto the Tundra to investigate a mysterious crash. Here they find three gentlemen with identical blonde haircuts who all bear a resemblance to Dolph Lundgren in his prime. They're encased in pods and appear to be dead. The biggest of them (Gabriel Hogan) opens his eyes.

Cut to: The Military outpost. Dolph Lundgren Lookalike #1 (DLL#1) is strapped down in a metal containment area. One of the characters TELLS US how dangerous DLL#1 is. He TELLS US he lost half of his men. He TELLS US they needed to plug several high-power tranquilizers in the Hairless Aryan Beast.

So, a quick question. How then do we know we're watching a Canadian movie? Any thoughts? Give up? Okay, for those dim bulbs out there who can't quite get it, the answer is simple. The movie is set in Canada, with a bunch of Canadian actors playing Americans and there clearly wasn't enough money to actually shoot the spectacular carnage - even though it's the beginning of the movie and you'd probably want to open with a bang, not a whimper. But it's a Canadian movie, so a whimper it will be and instead of seeing the wham-bam, we must be told about it.

Another clue is that the outpost's scientist is a babe-o-licious French gal from La Bell Province. The sultry Quebecois brunette looks sadly upon the blonde, super-ripped, manacled DLL#1 and makes it clear her only interest is his well being. He eyes her lasciviously. Hmmmm.

When the 3 DLLs break free, they kill all the men - quite unspectacularly. After all, this is a Canadian movie pretending to be an American movie and as such, there's no money to deliver-up the goods. Our brunette French gal is spared, but not before being raped off-screen by DLL#1. It has to happen off-screen because - come on, guess! Oh, okay. I'll tell you. It's a Canadian movie and Canadians are far too civilized to put a rape scene up there for all to see. God knows, if they did that, they might also violate the content conditions placed on them to receive taxpayer money to finance a good chunk of the film via tax credits and/or investment.

Up to this point, the movie's pretty much been a washout in the action, suspense and gratuitous rape scene department, but because the film is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we get to see the soldiers watching a live telecast of JFK during some of the tenser moments with the threat to America from the Russkies. By default, this old news footage wins a Kewpie Doll for being the most suspenseful stuff thus far.

So, let us flash forward 50 years later. A group of soldiers for hire (led by Michael "What the fuck am I doing in this piece of shit?" Ironside) and a Blonde Babe-o-licious scientist are there on behalf of an oil company to do whatever it is they're supposed to do. They have another mission: to assist Malraux (Dominic Purcell) a beefy, BRUNETTE Dolph Lundgren lookalike SCIENTIST from La Belle Province who is there to search for the bodies of the mysterious DLLs who wiped everyone out in the backstory.

At this woeful point, I did the math and frankly, it was of the 1 + 1 = 2 variety. A mysterious dark haired Dolph Lundgren lookalike scientist with a French surname is really interested in finding the three Blonde Dolph Lundgren lookalikes who murdered everyone on the base 50 years earlier and raped (demurely off-screen) the French woman scientist who was brunette and left alive. Add to the equation, a really stupid piece of dialogue where the Blonde Babe scientist states how young looking Dominic Purcell looks and that she expected someone who was 50 years old and voila! The supposedly shocker ending comes about 20 minutes into the movie. (Oh, and anyone who couldn't figure this out by this point is a moron, so you do not have my sympathy for what you might call a "spoiler".)

Okay, the movie is pretty awful by this point anyway, but any hope it would get better was dashed when I realize that the good guy is the biological son of the main bad guy. And yup, the bad guys are superhuman clones developed by the Russkies during the Cold War with a mission to destroy New York City in a terrorist attack and the good guy is the bastard child of one of them and seeks to stop their deadly mission AND get payback for the rape of his mother.

Oh, I kid you not.

The stupidities don't end there. Purcell eventually finds the bodies of the Lundgren Boys all by his lonesome. He knows damn well who they are, but he has them moved to the outpost to do tests on them just to make sure. Good idea. This gives them a chance to break free, kill everyone (boringly and with no genuine action movie flourish) and head to the nearest town (in the fucking Arctic!!!!?????) to kill everyone, including the strippers (in the fucking Arctic? Just around the corner from Santa's workshop????) and hijack a plane to New York. Why these clowns decided to take a rest in the snow and stay frozen for 50 years instead of continuing their mission in the first place is beyond me.

I guess if they did, there wouldn't be a movie. That, however, wouldn't be the stupidest idea I've heard in awhile since there really is no reason for Ice Soldiers to exist. That this film was made takes the prize for that.

Look, a whole lot of nothing happens in this purported movie until the final confrontation. There are a few poorly directed action scenes, a lot of really stupid dialogue, and more anachronisms and inaccuracies than one would find in the absolute worst Grade Z 50s science fiction films. When the final confrontation comes, it's a washout since the film's director has no idea of how to direct action scenes and, in fairness, probably didn't have the budget for it since, one imagines, a good chunk of that change went into someone else's pocket.

On the plus side, there's some fine outdoor photography by one of Canada's best cinematographers Stephen Reizes. If there'd been something resembling a script and a director, this could have been a decent low-budget action thriller. (His individual shots during the action scenes are fine - what goes on in them and how lamely they're cut is the problem.)

I'm a great actor, but a paycheque
is a paycheque, even if I have to
play a stereotypical Aboriginal
trapper who guides the hero
through an Arctic forest
above the tree line.

I certainly hope the great actor Adam Beach got a good chunk of change for wasting his life doing this picture. He's a breath of fresh air in the last half hour, to be sure, but alas, he is saddled with the role of an offensively stereotypical Aboriginal Cree trapper (in the Arctic!!!!!?????) with a booze problem.

He's also skilled in the ways of the Arctic. Even though there are no trees in the Arctic, he manages to guide Dominic Purcell through a thick forest to find the bad guy.

Our movie draws to a close with Adam Beach setting up a Native funeral pyre as he and Purcell watch the Dolph Lundgren lookalikes burn until Purcell utters the knee-slappingly hilarious lines:

"He was my Father! He raped my Mother!"

These are lines worthy only of a screenwriter who penned dumb dialogue for the real Dolph Lundgren. Oh, mercy me! That's the case. Screenwriter Jonathan Tydor wrote the crappy 1990 Dolph Lundgren movie I Come in Peace.

Oy! Only a Canadian would be pathetic enough to shake the dust off someone like Tydor to write a script for their movie. About the only thing that can really be said in this picture's favour is that it's better than Passchendaele, the worst Canadian movie of all time.

Ice Soldiers is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from levelFilm.

NOW HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS, I HAVE ON OFFER, ONE FREE DVD COPY OF ICE SOLDIERS TO THE FIRST PERSON WHO SENDS IN THEIR ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING TRIVIA QUESTION. IN ICE SOLDIERS, THERE IS A LAME CROSSING THE ICE FLOE SUSPENSE SCENE. NAME THE DIRECTOR AND TITLE OF THE FAMOUS SILENT MOVIE FROM BIOGRAPH PICTURES THAT HAS SUCH A SCENE AND NAME THE DIRECTOR AND TITLE OF THE RUSSIAN FILM WHICH FEATURES A BATTLE SCENE ON ICE FLOES. SEND YOUR ANSWERS TO klymkiwfilmcornerATyahooDOTca AND IF YOU HAVE THE CORRECT ANSWER FIRST, YOU WILL WIN!!!!

The Unknown Known (2013) ****
Dir. Errol Morris
Starring: Donald Rumsfeld

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Ace master documentary filmmaker Errol Morris is back in familiar territory with this one-on-one exploration of the life and times of George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the clearly gifted master of political doubletalk, misinformation, disinformation and perhaps one of the most dangerous, despicable and evil Americans of the past decade. Much like The Fog of War, Morris' exploration of Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary during the Vietnam War, Morris hits his new subject with tough questions. Blending archival footage, graphs, charts and an assortment of Rumsfeld's memos (numbering over 20,000 he issued during a six-year period) the veteran documentarian attempts to paint as honest a portrait as possible of a political mastermind of legal mass murder, or, if you will, the war against terror. (The only thing missing is a Philip Glass score - inexplicably replaced with a so-so Danny Elfman score.) McNamara was a different beast, though. He at least seemed to be telling the truth. None of that - truth, that is - appears to be on display here.

With a malevolent grin, Rumsfeld makes you think he's letting the cat in the bag slip out, but in the same breath, he's letting you know the cat's still in the bag and that his final word on the matter will always ensure that the bag's indeed, in the river. In fact, we never get a clear picture of anything from Rumsfeld. It always seems clear, but never feels truthful. In several contexts, Rumsfeld is caught completely contradicting himself and hilariously ignoring and/or talking his way out of his obvious falsehoods and/or contradictions

The film delivers a good deal of personal and historical detail on Rumsfeld, the most fascinating of which is his keen interest in and study of history - especially, not surprisingly, in terms of war. When he discusses America's past, one gets a clear sense of how his own decisions are colored by his analysis of past American failures and triumphs. For example, he refers to America's unpreparedness for the attack on Pearl Harbor as "a failure of the imagination". Of course, he prides himself on his own imagination and how it leads to a constant state of "worry" - one which he maintains is the ultimate state of preparedness. He goes so far as to suggest that great nations must never accept the notion that peace can ever be achieved.

"If you wish for peace," Rumsfeld maintains you must immediately begin to "prepare for war."

Morris usually keeps his cool as the off-screen interviewer, but on occasion, his utter incredulity with respect to Rumsfeld's delectable twisting of the truth is genuinely entertaining. We're witness to one magnificent turn of phrase after another. The man is a master spin doctor and even more astoundingly, he might actually be the best generator of juicy sound bites in the world - ever. Here's a tiny, but choice grocery list of a few of them:

"All generalizations are false, including this one," he proclaims.

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," he opines on weapons of mass destruction or lack thereof in Iraq.

Of course, Rumsfeld treats us to one of his astounding humdingers (which Morris uses for the film's title): "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we don't know we don't know. The unknown known, however, is a thing that we know, but are unaware of knowing."

And there are even some sound bites that feel genuine, almost moving, such as his response to 9/11 and an explanation for his subsequent actions: "Something terrible happened on my watch."

If Rumsfeld seems less up-front in this film than McNamara was in The Fog of War, it doesn't make him any less fascinating and Morris expertly presents us with a movie that might have even more obvious entertainment value. The almost-easy-to-swallow nature of The Unknown Known in terms of how engaging it is as a movie, also doesn't make it any less an important record of contemporary American history - and by extension, world history.

The whole movie, in fact, is a hoot from beginning to end, but what we're ultimately presented and left with is 96 minutes of lies - or, at the very least, what Rumsfeld wants us to hear, even if we don't believe a word.

The man has no shame. None. He could have been a President.

"The Unknown Known" plays theatrically at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. For dates, showtimes and tickets visit HERE.

If you're sick of the crap getting government support in Canada, the people
who made these COOL movies can make MORE cool movies with YOUR help.

GIVE THESE PEOPLE YOUR MONEY TO MAKE MORE GREAT MOVIES!

FORTUNATE SON is one of the most moving feature length personal documentaries ever made in Canada. Directed by independent Greek-Canadian filmmaker Tony Asimakopoulos it's an important work that tells a brave and identifiable story about love, loyalty and family that touches the hearts and minds of all who watch it on a number of diverse and emotional levels. Here's a quote from my original review:

The journey Asimakopoulos takes us on makes for a compulsive, sad, funny and profoundly moving experience. We hear about his parents' life in Greece, their immigration to Canada, their life in the New World. We become privy to the story of their roller coaster ride marriage, Tony's childhood, his troubled adolescence and eventual struggle with heroin addiction. We experience his current relationship with his Mom and Dad while also exploring life with his beloved fiance Natalie. We hear and see his parents' patterns of behaviour, both past and present - the laughter, love, tears and conflict. So too do we experience Tony's own love story - fraught with the same emotional challenges that his parents faced and his fear that he is merely repeating the patterns of his life before heroin addiction or worse, the sins (as it were) of his Mother and Father. Asimakopoulos renders this tale with a skilfully edited blend of archival footage, old home movies, scenes from his student films, experimental work and his first feature film. We get up close and personal shots of his life and that of his parents - deftly interwoven with head-on interviews. We see the hopes, dreams and lives of a family which, finally, remind us of our own experiences.

Legendary producer Colin Brunton (ROADKILL, HIGHWAY 61 and the best works out of CFC Features, CUBE and RUDE) and his talented, young protege Kire Paputts kicked our asses with the astounding epic feature documentary about the early days of the Toronto Punk Scene, Here's a quote from my original review:

THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN is a thrilling epic journey into Toronto's legendary punk rock scene. It's a Joseph-Conrad-like boat ride into some kind of Hell that always feels like a Heaven as imagined by Anton LaVey. Directors Colin Brunton and Kire Papputs are the two halves of Willard on a mission that seems to have no real end. And if there is a heart of darkness on display, a Kurtz, if you will, it feels like every Status Quo fuck-wad that ignored this exciting music scene. I embraced the crazy, scrappy, downright dangerous insanity of this terrific documentary and fully accepted its body, its blood - like an unholy sacrement drained and scourged from the everlasting soul of Sid Vicious himself who died, NOT for OUR sins, but for his own and for the rest of us who were willing to commit our own - no matter how heinous or benign. This downright wonderful picture by Brunton and Papputs is a sacrament and I accept its fuck-you-filmmaking-moxie as much as I allow its people, places and music into my very soul as if they were my very own. On the surface - this is a movie that shouldn't work - at least not by the standards of many un-cool fuck-wads who make cultural decisions in this country at both the public and private sectors - propped up comfortably on the nests they feather atop the podiums they take their dumps-a-plenty from as if they were showering the Great Unwashed with gold. It shouldn't work, but it does.

AND THESE ARE THE NEW MOVIES THEY WANT TO MAKE

A Walk in Park Ex & The Rainbow Kid - Asimakopoulos, Paputts & Brunton NEED YOUR DOUGH to make these movies. THEY NEED THE DOUGH NOW!

FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP "A WALK IN PARK EX"HERE

FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP "THE RAINBOW KID"HERE

The Great Flood (2012) ***1/2
Dir. Bill Morrison, Music: Bill Frisell

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In the few years since the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, there is considerable merit to be found in Bill Morrison's poetic examination of the great 1927 flood along the mighty Mississippi River. From top to bottom, the river and its innumerable tributaries surged past breakwaters and covered the land with a force that must have felt like the legendary fairy tale flood Noah erected his Ark for. The Great Flood is no fairy tale, though and nor, thankfully, an overblown, unintentionally funny Biblical epic pretending not to be a Biblical epic. Morrison has painstakingly scoured the archives and retrieved a wealth of eerily beautiful, standard frame black and white footage of the flood and cut together this compelling history of a seldom paralleled destructive force.

The sheer magnitude of the flood is virtually unimaginable, but no more. In fact, the movie skillfully and artistically presents the power of such a disaster in a manner in which it symbolically represents all such disasters. We get a sense of the genuine scope of how overwhelming a force of nature can and will be. Yes, seeing such footage in bits and pieces is not without power, but the manner in which Morrison assembles his material is no mere middle of the road TV doc interspersed with gravely intoned narration and a parade of talking heads.

The movie - first and foremost - is an artistic rendering of this historical event using existing footage in a most unique fashion. The narrative arc, from beginning to end is very clear. We get a taste of the flood's scope and eventually, the film narrows in on life before the disaster, preparations for the flood, the devastation once it hits full force, the vast migration of a huge population - mostly of African Americans from the delta to points far north. However, there is no narration, no interviews, no spoken word of any kind - just the superbly wrought storytelling of silent footage, all scored by famed jazz guitarist and composer Bill Frisell.

There is, beyond the story of the flood itself, a subtextual tale of how the culture and music of the south was forced to physically migrate north and create movements and styles that were rooted in one place, but influenced and modified by others. Both the surface narrative and its subtext walk hand in hand beautifully and deliver yet another compelling argument as to how cinema itself is an art form like no other and is, indeed a great gift that both reflects upon our world and can, in fact, change it too.

My only annoying speed bump throughout the picture was Frisell's music. It's simply a matter of taste here. His clearly gifted ability to musically accompany the narrative is without question, but I personally did not always respond to his jazzy riffs and occasional dissonant tones and tempos. Given the subtext, I was often forced to recall feature docs like Philippe Mora's groundbreaking 1975 archival footage feature about the Great Depression, Brother Can You Spare a Dime?, which wrought its poetic tale using music from the period.

This is not to say I'd hoped Morrison would ape Mora's approach, but it would be remiss of me not to mention that at several points during The Great Flood that I'd be hearing early Mississippi Delta Blues and Chicago jazz styling from the 30s wafting in and out of my imagination, mingling, but mostly in collision with Frisell's music. I will say, though, that it was this very collision of an imaginary score drifting across my cerebellum and actual score emanating from the film's soundtrack that, in combination with the haunting images, did have me soaring in ways I'd wished could have happened throughout the picture (rather than the fits and starts I personally experienced).

This, of course, might be an unfair response, but it's one I genuinely felt while watching the film. However, in retrospect it is the very thing that makes me admire it. Go figure. Chances are good, this is what Morrison wanted exactly. If so, he delivered big time. If not, it's still a pretty cool movie and that's what ultimately really counts.

The Great Flood is currently playing theatrically at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto.

Once a major route between
Canada's largest city, Toronto
& Canada's Capital city, Ottawa,
this stretch of the Trans Canada
is one endless Ghost Town.

The Lost Highway (2013) ***½
Dir. Neil Graham, Derreck Roemer
Review By Greg Klymkiw

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart,
But I'm stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can't get it out of my heart!
Not this heart ... -- from "South Pacific"
the hit musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein

Canada is overflowing with communities like Arden, Ontario. These towns, villages and hamlets are replete with piles of refuse, old abandoned vehicles, shuttered, rotting storefronts, eateries, motels, gas stations, homes and an almost cavernous, echoing cornucopia of other deader-than-a-doornail businesses and structures. Dolloped like mounds of waste matter along long stretches of abandoned highways and byways of our great country, they seem even more depressing to the naked eye than urban blight. We expect blight in larger urban cesspools, but not amidst the natural beauty resting beyond the borders of our deceptively genteel Gotham Cities. Our eyes see waste and decay in this rural paradise, but our hearts and minds are with those who once thrived in these locales. Sometimes, we even turn our thoughts to those who do manage to carve out a living in such places and we like to positively think that it might not be so bad. We imagine it might be a warm, restful and comfortable place to live, work and thrive. For all of us, who've had such thoughts, filmmakers Neil Graham and Derreck Roemer aim their camera-eyes upon one tiny slice of an alternately literal and figurative wasteland in their compelling, revealing and downright informative 74-minute documentary The Lost Highway.

The results prove to be less than positive once we meet the people. Sure, good intentions, good ideas and a kind of cockeyed optimism are the order of the day, but optimism, much less cockeyed optimism, doesn't put bread on the table and certainly doesn't point towards the healthiest of futures.

Once the main route from Canada's largest city, Toronto, to the nation's capital, Ottawa, Highway 7 has long been supplanted by larger highways and a once bustling two-lane-blacktop might well be the country's largest, longest strip of ghost town. Curiously, I've taken the route myself and have always found it to be a far more pleasant alternative to the supposed super highways that are so often wall-to-wall traffic jams, but there's no accounting for humanity's lemming-like behaviour, especially Torontonians who are infused with an almost pathological desire to lineup for everything.

The movie focuses primarily upon two families. One is Howard Gibbs, an 80-year-old owner of a gas station that's been part of his family for close to a century. His dream is to keep the business in the family. His daughter is a single mom and she decides to move to the old homestead and take a shot at it. Howard's a wily, irascible old coot - kind of like Bruce Dern in Nebraska, but with a decidedly Canadian timbre in his voice. He's a former local politician and full of the delightful corn-pone double-speak so many rural politicians are endowed with (and unlike some, he's not a crack user). It doesn't take us too long to realize there might be more than a few secrets Bill's keeping from us and by extension, his daughter. Alas, it seems to take her a longer time to figure that out and contributes mightily to the narrative thrust of the picture.

In fairness to the cracker-barrel-funny Howard, he's facing a disaster of monumental proportions. Some idiot bureaucrat (is there any other kind?) demands he sell off his remaining gas and shut his gas station down until an environmental assessment can be undertaken, the result of which will most certainly involve replacing the tanks. Bureaucrats demanding such things are always the sort of losers to target people who can't afford to properly fight them and the costs associated with these demands are extremely usurious. Howard assumes the idiot government doesn't want to discourage business and that if they're especially concerned about the environmental issues surrounding the state of the station's tanks, that they'll provide some form of financial relief. We wait, like Howard and his daughter, with baited breath to see if this will be so. In the meantime, Howard is forced to clear cut his acreage and sell off the trees as timber to make ends meet. So much for the environment. Fucking idiot bureaucrats!

The other family is a couple from the "big city" who move to Arden with a dream to build a swanky upscale lodge. This isn't the craziest idea in the world - if they can market to people who already use the route as an alternative to the superhighways or even institute a marketing plan that includes persuading people to consider the alternate route, they might just make it. Unfortunately, business doesn't boom. They were properly capitalized to setup, but don't necessarily have the capital to weather the usual early storms new businesses face.

Add to this, marital strife.

And yes, there's certainly even strife on display of a different kind between Howard and his daughter. He's either intentionally or naively withholding truths from her. The film takes on an added and harrowing dimension of parallel narratives involving family conflicts. (There's also a - I know, it shouldn't be funny, but it is - sequence where Howard just up and mysteriously disappears. Turns out, he's been on some wild shack-up with a friendly lassie.

In addition to the aforementioned, there's a nice subplot involving the remaining residents of Arden and their attempts to get people to stop in the town. Close, but no cigar, folks. There's really nothing in Arden to attract anyone to stop. Even if they did, what would they spend money on? What would they do? Patronize the one craft store that's not even open all year round? And no offence, but almost everyone living there seems ready for respite. Youth and plenty of it is what's needed, but in places like Arden, those not in their dotage are in short supply.

Directors Graham and Roemer have great material on their hands and within the slight, but perfectly pleasing 74-minute running time, they weave a tale that on the surface is exquisitely simple and direct, but just below the flesh, the movie reveals several layers that run deep to the core. There's also something very special and uniquely Canadian about the film and this version of the film would, no doubt, be of considerable interest to communities outside of the major centres. In a perfect world, it's the kind of picture that should be touring rural areas from coast to coast. The problems facing the town and subjects of the film are universal and not unlike those many communities face across the country. I daresay the film's universal qualities could even translate into rural areas throughout America's heartland. That the movie also presents a very real human element in terms of deception and strife amongst families, is a very luscious cherry on the hot fudge sundae.

And who knows, maybe the movie will even inspire a few lemmings from Toronto to take Highway 7.

The Lost Highway, at least for now, can only be seen in the manner its filmmakers intended, at one show, in one theatre, in one city: Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 4:00pm at the lovely community cinema The Revue at 400 Roncesvalles in the heart of Little Poland and High Park in Toronto. Rural viewers should be pestering the TIFF Film Circuit HERE about arranging screenings of this feature length cut. A version that appears to be less than one-hour-long will be playing on TVO's Doc Studio HERE, so Ontario viewers can watch this short version, or instead, start harassing the PUBLIC BROADCASTER to play the real version. A very nice lady who might be amenable to your desires is the Doc Studio's Commissioning Editor. She can be reached by emailing her HERE

The Great Beauty (2013) *****
Dir. Paolo Sorrentino, Scr. Umberto Contarello
Starring: Toni Servillo, Sabrina Ferilli

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I have a hard time imagining how anyone could not worship the exquisite perfection of Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty, but then I try to think how I might have responded to it as a very young man. Is it possible I'd have responded to it the same way I actually did in my late teens and early 20s to Hitchock's Vertigo and Renoir's The Rules of the Game? These two pictures I admired, almost grudgingly, but respectively and highly preferred other seminal works by their directors like, say, Rear Window and The Grand Illusion. The latter titles offered easy ways in to their brilliance by opening their doors ever-so widely for me to respond more viscerally to them. But then, a funny thing would happen on my way to enlightenment: subsequent viewings of the former titles would come and go, yet with each passing year ever-accumulating waves of life experience would wash over me and allow me to begin responding evermore openly to the films.

Finding my own way through a Knossos-like maze, my maturation became the ball of string I'd left along the trail that would lead me back towards the films themselves and to discover their inherent greatness as art. Eventually, a screening of each would occur that'd hit me with the force of a gale wind and I'd achieve an explosive, near-orgasmic epiphany once the works' obsessions nestled perfectly in tandem with my combined years of sorrow, happiness, heartache, gains, losses, triumphs and failures. And indeed, this is what happened to me with Vertigo and The Rules of the Game. I suspect then, that I would indeed have a similarly fractious on-again-off-again relationship with The Great Beauty. The difference now, however, is that I experience Sorrentino's picture having already acquired the necessary life experience so that my first helping hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks and subsequent screenings spoke to me as loudly as any great movie I'd ever seen.

Each subsequent screening, several of them on a big screen at The Toronto International Film Festival 2013 proper, then during a theatrical engagement at TIFF's Bell Lightbox, would each peel back layer upon layer so that every viewing was as intensive as the last one, and then, more so. And now, the film exists on an absolutely perfect home video format thanks to the Criterion Collection: complete with one Blu-Ray and two DVDs - the emphasis initially being on the stunningly meticulous digital transfer to both formats and finally with the seemingly modest, but ultimately rich bonus features - detailed, inspirational and meticulously shepherded 30-40 minute interviews with director Sorrentino, star Servillo and writer Contarello.

This Criterion volume, then, is an object of both desire and perfection - a special edition if there ever was one and a great, beautifully designed box that serves to preserve the film for subsequent viewings and added features that enhance and enrich an already monumental experience and achievement. The Criterion Collection edition of The Great Beauty is a must-own item for anyone who cares about great cinema. And now, allow me to present a slightly expanded version of my original take on the film during its initial TIFF offering and eventual theatrical release via Mongrel Media, but now guided and influenced by my near-obsessive study of The Criterion Collection Director Approved edition.

* * * * *

Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty opens with a bang - literally. A cannon blasts right into our faces - its explosive force signalling the beginning of the greatest party sequence - bar none - in movie history. Not a single screen revelry comes even close. The first few minutes of this movie throbs and pulsates with the most gorgeous, dazzling, opulent images of triumphant excess ever to strut and swagger before our eyes. This polychromatic orgy of beautiful people and their devil-may-care debauchery is the kind of sordid, celebratory saturnalia that the movies seem to have been invented for.

The party isn't just debauchery for debauchery's sake (though I'd settle for that), but the sequence actually builds deftly to the utterly astounding entrance of the film's main character. On just the right hit of music, at just the right cut-point, our eyes catch the tell-tale jiggle of the delectable jowls of the smiling, long-faced, twinkle-eyed and unequalled sexiest-ugly movie star of our time. We are dazzled, delighted and tempted to cheer as his presence comes like an explosion as great as the aforementioned cannon blast.

Playing the former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, Toni Servillo knocked us on our collective butts in Sorrentino's Il Divo. Here, Servillo continues to electrify - this time etching a very different "Il Divo" - Jep Gambardella, the crown prince of Roman journalism. Jep is a one-novel-wonder, resting on the literary laurels of a single work of genius from his youth, who now, at this august stage of existence, has earned celebrity as a hack scribe of gossipy, sardonic puff pieces for one of Italy's most influential rags.

Jep is surrounded by a seemingly infinite number of losers who think they're winners, as well as a veritable army of the rich and famous and their hangers-on. We find Jep at the epicentre of the aforementioned on-screen party - one we wish would never end. Alas it must - at least until the next one. Rest assured there will be plenty more revelries, but between the indulgences, we follow the powerful and bored-with-his-power Jep as he reaches a crisis point in his 65th year of life. He knows he's not lived up to his promise, but he's still a master wordsmith and puffs himself up with his dazzling prose and his expertise at self-puffery.

He's surrounded by worshippers, but their adulation means nothing to him. Gorgeous women throw themselves at Jep, but he doesn't even much enjoy sex. He longs for a love that escaped him in his youth and tries to find it in the rapturously beautiful daughter of a pimp. His best friend, as best a friend that someone like Jep could ever hope for, is desperate to make a mark for himself as a literary figure but can only think of using Jep as a subject for a book.

Most of all, Jep seems happiest when he's alone. That said, even when he's surrounded by slavering hangers-on, he appears even more solitary than when he's by himself, but at least his private brand of emptiness is more palatable than the sheer nothingness of those in his ultimately pathetic coterie of nothingness - the nothingness of a ruling class who take and take and take all the excess there is to be had, and then some. Italy is on the brink of ruin, but the ruling class is in denial so long as they can cling to celebrity - even if that celebrity is in their own minds.

With The Great Beauty, Sorrentino is clearly paying homage to Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (with dollops of 8 1/2), but this is no mere nod to cinematic mastery (one which might even be working at a subconscious level) - he explores a world the late maestro visited half-a-century ago and uses it as a springboard into contemporary Italy and most importantly, as a flagrantly florid rumination upon the decline of culture, the long-ago loss of youthful ideals and the deep melancholy that sets in from Jep seeking answers to why the woman he loved the most left him behind to his own devices. Set against the backdrop of a historic Rome in ruins, the empire that fell so mightily, we're plunged into a dizzying nocturnal world as blank and vacant as the eyes of a ruling class that rules nothingness.

Finally, it is Jep's moments of introspection when he is alone most mornings, slightly hung-over and bleary-eyed, washing his face in public fountains, then casually strolling through the Rome he loves and where he observes simple beauty, often for the first and possibly only time. He clings to these moments as passionately as he clings to his memories of his one great love - the love that inspired his great novel and only novel. His odyssey is partially to discover and acknowledge the beauty and purity of that great love so that maybe, just maybe, he will write something again - something that matters, like the Great elusive, yet omnipresent Beauty.

Jep is clearly set upon an odyssey by Sorrentino - one that might have been avoided if he could only recognize what he sees in a mirror. Men like Jep, however, have a hard time recognizing the clear reality that stares them in the face and the final third of Sorrentino's masterpiece plunges Jep and the audience through a looking glass in search of a truth they (nor, for that matter, we) might never find.

But the ride will have been worth it.

DOWNTIME

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are friendly & inviting.

Downtime (1985) *****
Dir. Greg Hanec, Scr. Mitchell Brown
Starring: Maureen Gammelseter, Padraic O'Beirn, Debbie Williamson, Ray Impey

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It always seemed perversely appropriate that Greg Hanec and Mitchell Brown's extraordinary 1985 film Downtime should be so unjustly neglected, forgotten and lost to the windy vagaries of imagined memories of time and place. Not that great art deserves to neglected, but cream, no matter how long it takes, always rises to the top. The richness of the picture is how it is a product of its time and reflective of the period it actually represented from conception through to its completion. If the movie was met with the sort of indifference that eventually blots work out, obliterating its very being from a collective consciousness of great regional DIY independent cinema, then Downtime is, I think, on the verge of having the last laugh (so to speak) since now, more than ever, almost thirty years after it was born, it's due for rediscovery and serious consideration.

DOWNTIME - In Winnipeg,
people can be seen on the street.

This is not just because it's an important film, but because, like a lot of great art, it was so ahead of its time. A vivid, haunting portrait of twenty-something ennui, crafted and sprouted right from the bitter depths, the very bowels if you will, of that horrendous period first coined by the legendary photographer Robert Capa and later popularized in contemporary parlance by Canadian author Douglas Coupland in his iconic book "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture", Downtime is, perhaps the first genuine Gen-X picture from the North American consciousness so iconically represented in that monumental international bestseller. (*NOTE* In 1987, the Canadian prairies yielded the second genuine Gen-X feature Wheat Soup by Brian Stockton and Gerald Saul of Regina.)

That Hanec and Brown's picture was made and set in Winnipeg during the heyday of the Prairie Post-Modernist phase, coined and identified by film critic Geoff Pevere in "Cinema Canada", is what makes the movie even more ripe for rediscovery. Made the same year Guy Maddin directed his first film, the hauntingly grotesque short The Dead Father and as legendary Winnipeg Film Group auteur John Paizs was embarking upon his emblematic first feature Crime Wave, Hanec as a filmmaker was also forging his own unique style - a kind of deadpan neo-realistic portrait shot in gloriously grainy black and white, presented in lovely standard frame tableaux, complete with blackouts between shots from a mostly fixed camera position.

DOWNTIME - Winnipeg provides nice views through windows.

Timing, they say, is everything, but for those living in Winnipeg during those weirdly lithium-infused days, the rest of the world just didn't matter. It DID, however, matter in the case of this particular film. Once it was complete and about to enter the world, the Zeitgeist of the mid-80s delivered another film in black and white, shot tableau style and equipped with blackouts between scenes, Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise. Though there are stylistic similarities, they're ultimately very different films. The world, however, can be extremely short-sighted.

DOWNTIME - Young Winnipeg Women are Vibrant.

Jarmusch's film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, then platformed and eventually widened out theatrically as Hanec was in the process of sending his film out to be considered for festival play. Talk about having the rug pulled out from under your film.

That said, Hanec and Brown's movie was invited to participate in the 1986 Berlin International Film Festival's prestigious Forum of New Cinema section. The Berlinale was a perfect place for Downtime to greet the world with its own special howdy-doody from Winnipeg. Hanec journeyed to the festival and found himself surrounded by some of the best in World Cinema: Derek Jarman's Caravaggio, James Foley's At Close Range and Alan Rudolph's Trouble in Mind were amongst the Official Competition entries.

The Panorama section was unveiling Clint Eastwood's Honkytonk Man, Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche and Lasse Hallstrom's My Life As a Dog. In the Forum of New Cinema, Hanec's Downtime unspooled alongside the likes of Peter Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts, Jouis Malle's God's Country and Claude Lanzmann's Shoah.

Not bad company for a 65-minute mid-length feature film by a nice, young Ukrainian Boy from Winnipeg.

Downtime was, however, swallowed to a good extent in the shadow of Stranger Than Paradise and as surprisingly as its original take on contemporary youth culture was, Hanec's picture promptly and summarily disappeared.

Until now, that is.

Recently and lovingly restored for home consumption on DVD, Downtime is out in the world now and appropriately, it's not too long after the major "Forgotten Winnipeg" music and film retrospective presented by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's Festival of New Music in collaboration with SPUR. The film might have been forgotten for nearly three decades, but it only makes sense since Winnipeg, named from the Cree words "muddy" and "water" is a city hidden beneath fluffy snowflakes of forgetfulness, swirling about under dark waters of time, the city's amnesiac qualities emanating throughout the world and oft-inspiring repression of that which should not be repressed. Repression is Winnipeg and it rubs off in the strangest places.

And so it is, that Winnipeg is indeed featured front and centre in this graceful ode to slacking when slacking was actually happening big time and no more big time than in Winnipeg, the North American Centre of slacking. Focusing on a quartet of lonely young Winnipeggers, Hanec renders Mitchell Brown's evocative and superbly constructed screenplay using each individual scene as a single shot in tableau. Much of the film plays like a still life, each frame teeming with a kind of laconic intensity as Brown's script deftly confounds all expectations.

DOWNTIME - In Winnipeg, people like to party, eh.

We meet a young woman (Maureen Gammelseter) working day shift in a depressingly claustrophobic variety store, its windows thick with dust on the inside and outdoors, filmy grime clinging to the same windows - the result of Winnipeg winds pelting springtime dirt from poorly-cleaned streets, piled high with sand laid down in winter to temper the almost sub-actic ice on the roads. Though it seems like the sun is shining outside, it's filtered through the store's glass windows of misery and neglect.

The young woman manning the cash register doesn't even have a name.

Why should she? It's Winnipeg.

As one of the city's sleepwalking denizens, she's pretty much as inconsequential as humanity gets, though she is alive and appears to have some manner of survival instinct within her.

DOWNTIME - In Winnipeg, there is plenty to think about.

A young man (Padraic O'Beirn), also bereft of a name, enters the store to buy a carton of milk. Though his face bears a kind of Buster Keaton countenance, his eyes have the slightest light in them, which suggest he might not only be a nice guy, but a well-humoured one as well. The film puts this to the test immediately as it leads up to the promise of the kind of classic moments one experiences in the movies, especially those in which lonely young people find each other in the unlikeliest circumstances. He dawdles about the store until nerving-up enough to ask the young woman out. Will she accept? Really? Truly? Madly? Deeply? Why not? Her countenance of blankness suggests she probably has little else to do in her downtime from work.

Alas, she declines and our young man leaves. When she finally gets off work, she retires to her spartan, greyish-walled apartment and sits on a chesterfield. She's been on her feet all day. It must surely be a relief to sit. And sit. And sit.

And - wait for it - sit.

DOWNTIME - Winnipeg Fine Dining at Salisbury House

As twilight fills the big prairie skies over the drabness that is Winnipeg, we follow our young man as he begins his challenging night shift as a janitor in a school: mopping, draining, mopping, draining and, when it seems like something else awaits, he attentively mops, then skillfully drains, emptying grey water into the properly chosen receptacle within a dank, dark hovel identified on its door as the "Sink Room".

Yup, it's a barn-burner of a night in Winnipeg.

The young woman does what all single young women in Winnipeg do. She saunters down the street and, with not-so baited breath, enters the Coin Laundromat. The plot thickens. Here, under the pulsating fluorescent lights, a kooky elfin waif with a NAME, Debbie (Debbie Williamson), strikes up a friendly, but almost painfully inconsequential conversation with our heroine. Eventually, the young woman accepts Debbie's invitation to go to a party later in the week.

And what a week doth unfurl. The young woman goes to work. The young man spends his days wandering aimlessly or staring from behind his blankets at the blank walls of his apartment. The young woman stands rigidly at her post behind the counter of the variety store as an occasional customer graces it with their presence. Her conversations with these customers are automaton-like and perhaps even more blankly-stock than those uttered by McDonald's counter servers. At night, she goes home. She boils up the contents from within whatever tin can is handiest to reach within her cupboard.

Meanwhile, the young man is, of course, mopping - mopping floors in the dead of a Winnipeg night.

It doesn't take too long to assume he really needs to go out on a date or something. He'll try to charm the young woman again and one of his attempts truly confounds expectations. (To my knowledge, the wooing attempt employed is perhaps the first time it's ever been unveiled in movie history.) You'll want to give the young man points for this one, but he carries it off so pathetically, you'll be forced to dock a whole whack o' points from his highly original, but utterly botched approach.

On the night of the party, Debbie brings along a friendly, laconic young man who - lo and behold - has a name. Ray (Ray Impey) seems like he's perhaps got the stuff to sweep our heroine off her feet, but she really seems to have eyes for nobody and the plot, as always, must thicken.

And I assure you, it does.

Though this is, ultimately, a movie about slacking, the slacking is completely without aim of any kind. I fondly recall my own slacking period during the mid-80s when goals included randomly stalking young women or going to flea markets in search of Zippo lighters. Not so with the Downtime Winnipeggers. They are truly aimless. Boredom is what ultimately rules the day and even when a male-female coupling eventually occurs, it seems rife with the kind of bliss that can only be derived when propelled to Mount Olympus heights of boredom. If you're looking for a sound-barrier-breaking level of dull inactivity, you ain't seen nothing until you've seen Downtime.

To say Hanec and Brown's film is titled appropriately is probably the understatement of the New Millennium. Our good friends at Oxford Dictionaries, for example, define the word/phrase "downtime" thusly:

1. Time during which a machine, especially a computer, is out of action or unavailable for use.

1.1 A time of reduced activity or inactivity.

Oxford defines, with the aforementioned, the central dramatic action that fuels Greg Hanec's exquisite film - a $15,000 feature that's stood the test of time and that now, seems a perfect movie, for today.

POSTSCRIPT: Greg Hanec finally met Jim Jarmusch during the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival in January 2014. In fact, Hanec, an accomplished musician and composer in addition to his filmmaking talents joined up with Jarmusch as part of his backup band when he performed a special gig at Winnipeg's Union Sound Hall with Lea (Sonic Youth) Ranaldo. Jarmusch now owns a DVD of Downtime.

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

IF YOU LIVE IN WINNIPEG, YOU CAN SEE DOWNTIME WITH AN AUDIENCE:
OCC presents "Downtime"
Tues. April 21 - Doors at 8:30 - Show at 9pm
Dir. Greg Hanec | Canada 1985 | 66min.
$5 suggested donation
Fundraiser for WUFF 2014

SORCERER
*****

(1977)

Dir. William Friedkin

Starring

Roy Scheider

Francisco Rabal

Bruno Cremer

Amidou

Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw

In 1977, my virginal plunge into the sweaty, nerve-wracking maw of this insane jungle thriller about four desperate men transporting nitroglycerine across the most treacherous topography imaginable, was, for me, an epiphany. During a myriad of subsequent viewings, and now, with this brand new digital restoration overseen by director William Friedkin, Sorcerer was always, still remains and always will be a movie that repeatedly whacks you with a two-by-four across the teeth.

My review of this new restoration can be found in my column "The Colonial Report on Cinema from the Dominion of Canada" in the ever-so-cool UK-based movie mag "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema".

My full review of SORCERER can be read HERE.

The Toronto International Film Festival’s TIFF Bell Lightbox will be screening the all-new digital restoration (supervised by director William Friedkin) of the 1977 remake of The Wages of Fear, Sorcerer on 12, 15 and 18 April 2014 as a TIFF Cinematheque Special Screening. This is part of a grand spring series that includes a new 35mm restoration of Joseph Losey’s The Servant, new 35mm prints of Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped, Nagisa Ôshima’s Boy, Alain Resnais’s Je t’aime, je t’aime, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, a new digital restoration of the 248 minute ‘roadshow’ version of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra, new 4K digital restorations of Roberto Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House/Hausu, John Sturges’s The Great Escape, Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion, and 35mm Archival prints of Humberto Solas’s Lucia and most excitingly, H.G. Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear.

Anyone planning to be in Toronto for these screenings is well advised to order seats in advance. For dates, tickets and further information, please visit the TIFF website HERE.

THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER AND PETE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - After-School Special with Balls

CHEAP THRILLS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Raven Banner's Sinister Cinemapresents first-rate sicko thriller!

A BRAND NEW YOU - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cloning Dead Wife in Dining Room: My Kinda Canuck Comedy

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.

SOLO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Competence rules the day. Low budget Canuck thriller opens theatrically.

RUN RUN IT'S HIM - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Underground doc on Porn Addiction the real DON JON

Isn't it nice when rich people produce films about poverty in America? Kudos to Maria Shriver for this one. Greg Klymkiw watches TV (HBO CANADA) - PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF KATRINA GILBERT

NOAH - Review By Greg Klymkiw - In search of berries in the land of theSmurfs and Vikings

Klymkiw Watches TV (HBO Canada) - JOHN LEGUIZAMO'S GHETTO KLOWN - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Klymkiw WatchesTV (HBO Canada) - THE UNIVERSITY OF SING SING - Education=Salvation, not the systemic genocide America continues to penetrate upon its people of colour - Review By Greg Klymkiw

JODOROWSKY'S DUNE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Doc about the spectacular movie that should have been made, but wasn't, opens theatrically via Mongrel Media at TIFF Bell Lightbox

ICE SOLDIERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Dreadful Canadian 80s Throwbackto Straight-to-VHS Action Films

THE UNKNOWN KNOWN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Moe Does Rum Real Good - Opens Bloor Hot Docs Apr. 4

Some of the BEST Independent Filmmakers in Canada are on the cusp of making two NEW FILMS and I think you need to give them as much support as you can. God knows, Telefilm Canada and their ilk save most of their dough to support mediocre movies, so why not support some COOL SHIT!!!

THE GREAT FLOOD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - B/W footage of 1927 Mississippi River flood antidote to NOAH

DOWNTIME - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The forgotten, neglected 1985 Prairie Post-Modernist Classic of Canadian Cinema, sprung from the same asbestos-tainted waters of Winnipeg that yielded the legendary John Paizs and Guy Maddin has been lovingly restored and remastered for Home Viewing on DVD.

SORCERER (New Digital Restoration of the 1977 Classic, Supervised By Director William Friedkin) - Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw in his Colonial Report on Cinema from the Dominion of Canada in the super-cool movie mag in the UK, "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema".