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L'IL QUINQUIN (aka P'tit Quinquin) - TIFF 2014 - (Contemporary World Cinema) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

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Ah, the bucolic lives of rural inbreds.
L'il Quinquin (aka P'tit Quinquin) (2014)
Dir. Bruno Dumont
Starring: Alane Delhaye, Lucy Caron, Bernard Pruvost, Philippe Jore

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I pretty much can't stand Bruno Dumont. His oh-so ironic plunges into northern French rural culture have always been rendered with a heavy enough hand that I've found it almost impossible to respond on any level but contempt. I especially hated his inexplicably acclaimed L'Humanite which involved an investigation of an especially brutal act of violence punctuated by scenes of cops actually taking weekends off to go to the seaside, eat cheese and sip wine. The non-thriller exploration of character and culture grew tiresome and just made me long for some of the more straight-up Gallic policiers I'd come to love over the years.

Though L'il Quinquin also involves an investigation of a series of serial killings in a similar setting as the aforementioned, I was shocked to find myself sufficiently intrigued to sit all the way through its mammoth length of 200 minutes. Focusing primarily upon a group of kids living in a seaside resort, the film is an all-out comedy and as such, works moderately well.

Focusing upon the pug-ugly title character and his friendship with a pretty little girl, one gets a sense of how mundane their lives are in the tiny one-horse village they live in and their antics are not without amusement value. Dumont's social observations seem less heavy-handed than usual and within the commitment to laughs, I daresay he's crafted a pretty darn successful outing this time round.

The boy and girl, in addition to a few local kids, happen upon the strange sight of a murder scene being investigated by the local police chief (who makes Inspector Clouseau look like a Rhodes Scholar) and his even stupider partner. The murders are curious. The victims have been hacked up and their body parts appear to be shoved deep into the assholes of cows lying dead in a variety of unlikely locales. (I have to admit I appreciated blood, viscera and fingers spilling out of a cow's ass.) Quinquin, strictly through his boredom and powers of observation proves to be an unwitting partner in the investigation (though the chief inspector has taken an intense dislike to the little rascal).

The movie is often knee-slappingly hilarious and its stately pace takes on a kind of clever deadpan that allows for it to never inspire looking at your watch to see when you can safely vacate the cinema. The performances of the kids are delightfully natural and the adults are all suitably bumbling or ignorant. Though this all could have proven intolerable, it's imbued with something resembling heart. This was probably a stretch for Dumont, but he pulls it off. The movie is sufficiently engaging that I'm actually looking forward to his next film. When it comes to directors I have no use for, that's quite an accomplishment.

L'il Quinquin is distributed by Kino Lorber and is playing in the Contemporary World Cinema series at TIFF 2014. For tix, times, dates and venues, visit the TIFF website by clicking HERE.

IN THE CROSSWIND (aka RISTTUULES) - TIFF 2014 (CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

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In the Crosswindaka Risttuules (2014)
Dir. Martti Helde
Starring: Laura Peterson, Mirt Preegel, Tarmo Song, Ingrid Isotamm, Einar Hillep

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Those who are not familiar with the refrain "a terrible beauty is born" in William Butler Yeats's immortal poem "Easter, 1916" are best advised to seek it out and hold it dear. Those who are familiar with it need, in these dangerous times, to rediscover it and also hold it dear. Those who see Martti Helde's haunting film In the Crosswind will experience a heartbreakingly evocative piece of cinematic poetry that not only has the potential to bring Yeats's poem to mind, but in and of itself, is a film of uncompromising hope, sadness and horror. It is indeed a clarion call that we must also hold dear.

In 1941, the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were besieged by Russians intent upon ethnic cleansing. Thousands upon thousands of innocent people were rounded up and shipped to Siberian concentration camps. Given that Russia (the "Soviets") had annexed these states by force a year earlier, their goal was to remove all anti-Soviet "elements" from these countries. Russia's experience and intent has never known restraint in such matters. Only a decade earlier they butchered ten million Ukrainians during the mass genocide of ethnic cleansing known as the Holodomor. Given the smaller numbers of Balkan "agitators" than in countries like Ukraine, the Russians chose mass deportation, incarceration and forced labour - a much better deal for Russia than going to the trouble of mass murder.

As Helde's stunning film proves, though, Russia orchestrated a different form of genocide here - one that was both cultural (targeting many intellectuals and artists) and cruel in that it imposed a mass-living-death upon these people. Using the actual diary of one survivor of this outrage, Helde tells the story of Erna (Laura Peterson) who is separated from her husband and forced to live in foul, unsanitary and exploitative conditions with her daughter. Using the moving words from the diary, we experience happier times, inner thoughts and poetic ruminations of our lead character. Conversely, the film, via the same diary entries, recounts the horrendous rounding up and separation of families, the crowded boxcars, the sickness, the starvation and the exploitation/coercion/rape of women ("fuck me and you'll get bread for your child"). These entries are so rich and beautifully written that we get a strong sense of what has precisely been removed from these countries by the dictators intent upon Russifying those are left as well as parachuting in Russian immigrants to take the places of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians.

Visually, Helde makes the extremely brave decision to render everything in sumptuously photographed images with delicate lighting, astounding compositions, fluid camera moves and bathing it all in black and white - sometimes high contrast, but more often than not, allowing for shades of grey, white and lovely, almost fine-grain detail in the blacks. Making suffering "beautiful" is the ultimate ironic choice, but it goes much further than that - the visual beauty allows us to experience the indomitability of the human spirit and is finally the thing that gives the film its heart, which is in sharp contrast to that spirit decidedly lacking in the Russian oppressors.

Braver still, Helde tells his story using living pictures of the narrative events. Sometimes intimate, at other times sweeping and expansive, the principal actors and background extras are all positioned in still life renderings of the physical actions as the off-camera words and both source and background music carry the internal movements of this piece. Using tableaux to tell a story cinematically is not only indicative of sheer bravery on the part of an artist, but it also serves to capture the participants. There's a notion amongst many cultures that photographs have the power to steal one's soul and metaphorically, the power of this notion is not lost on us as we watch the film about a whole generation that was captured by Russians in order to break their spirit.

The other important element of the film's visually gorgeous qualities brings us back to the poem by W.B. Yeats who wrote about the dichotomy of Irishmen slain by their British oppressors and how this tragedy was indeed the clarion call needed to keep the struggles going at any and all costs. In this sense, Helde's film is indeed reflective of the terrible beauty of the images he has captured.

Furthermore, this film is - as a film - a similar clarion call. One only needs to look at the 20th Century history of Ukraine in relation to its recent history. Russia is under the thumb of a dictator as foul as any of its Czars and the butcher Josef Stalin. Vladimir Putin is determined to restore Russia to its former glory. This time, though, there will be no pretense of a "Soviet" state. His goal is to create a "NovoRussia". Putin is starting with Ukraine, but if it's not stopped, it will not end with Ukraine. Many of the Eastern European countries, including the Baltics, are populated with huge numbers of ethnic Russians. Putin has declared that ALL Russians, no matter what country they live in are Russia's responsibility.

Watching Helde's terrific film, we're not only reminded of Russia's past assaults, but forced to acknowledge the reality that it can happen again.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

In the Crosswind is playing at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014 in the Contemporary World Cinema programme. For tickets, times, dates and venues, be sure to visit the TIFF website HERE.

THE CONNECTION aka LA FRENCH - TIFF 2014 - TIFF GALA - Review By Greg Klymkiw

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A whole lotta spiffy-dressing
Frenchmen in spiffy cars,
living in spiffy digs
and being spiffy,
adds up to a whole lotta nothing.
The Connection (aka La French) (2014)
Dir. Cédric Jimenez
Starring: Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche, Céline Sallette, Benoît Magimel

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In 1971 director William Friedkin knocked the world on its ass with The French Connection, a film that even now has few equals in the genre of crime and cop thrillers. Based on the real-life adventures of New York detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, Friedkin brought the hard-hitting grittiness of a documentarian and the sheer kinetic virtuosity of a razzle-dazzle showman to detail one of the biggest drug busts in American history for the silver screen. One would think, based on Friedkin's great film and the solid, but unexceptional John Frankenheimer sequel French Connection II, that on the other side of the pond in Marseilles, our Gallic law-enformement officials were doing little more than eating cheese and drinking fine wine. Well, it's over forty years later and a new motion picture has come along to prove that there were indeed law enforcement officials on the French side who did a little something to break the case.

The Connection (known in France as La French) might as well be about eating cheese and drinking wine. At 135 plodding minutes, this is one of the most dull crime pictures made in, well, let's say over forty years. Focusing upon the spiffy, snappy dresser of a prosecuting magistrate (Jean Dujardin) and his attempts to nail an untouchable drug kingpin (Gilles Lellouche), director Cédric Jimenez mounts a slick, but empty cat and mouse affair that places most of its emphasis upon back room dealings and occasional forays into the drug trade underbelly. Jimenez tosses a whole lot of herby-jerky handheld camera work and occasionally quick cutting to let us know we're not watching a movie about well-dressed Frenchmen eating cheese, but it's all for nought. The Connection is an endlessly talky, convoluted and predictable low-key policier that only proves one thing - Americans did it first and better and if anything interesting or exceptional happened in this case on the French side, other than the ingestion of curds and grape, this is not the movie to prove it. If anything it puts a blight on an otherwise noble tradition of French crime pictures by being so boring.

THE FILM CORNER rating: * One-Star

The Connection is a Seville/eOne/Drafthouse release playing the Gala slot at TIFF 2014. Visit the TIFF website HERE for further info.

[REC]4 APOCALYPSE - TIFF 2014 - TIFF MIDNIGHT MADNESS - Review By Greg Klymkiw

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A babe and bloddletting. Not much else.
[REC]4 Apocalypse (2014)
Dir. Jaume Balagueró
Starring: Manuela Velasco

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The terrific Spanish horror franchise [REC] has proven to be a consistently entertaining regular dose of zombie-infection madness since the first instalment burst upon the scene in 2007. The simple premise had babe-o-licious reporter Manuela Velasco and her crew following a rescue team into a decrepit Barcelona apartment complex where they're beleaguered by crazed zombies. The found footage conceit made perfect sense and worked beautifully. Though the second instalment was decent, it felt like more of the same until the terrific third feature in the series which transposed us to a yummy blood spattered wedding that cleverly utilized wedding video footage. Alas, [REC]4 is the supposed final chapter, but it's a pale shade of what preceded it.

This time round we find ourselves stuck on a research ship with a whack of scientists conducting gruesome experiments to find an antidote for the infection. Onboard is Velasco, plucky and kick-ass as per usual, plus we get a few laughs out of the Dementia-afflicted matriarch from the [REC]3 wedding. Our heroine, it seems, is carrying the gloopy-gloppy slithering parasite which is the infection's host. Complications predictably set in and the antidote is far from ready to go. Needless to say, the infection begins to afflict crew members and in no time we've got an all-out zombie-fest aboard ship. There's also the threat of a ticking time-bomb in the form of the ship's possible destruction in case the experiments go completely out to lunch.

It's a fair enough premise for this sort of thing, but the movie feels worn and tired-out. There's plenty of gore, but the scares and tension never adequately materialize since the movie is afflicted with a been-there-done-that "quality". Worse yet, the found footage approach has been pretty much jettisoned, but for some reason, the whole movie is shot in the annoying and unjustifiable shaky-cam-herky-jerky ADHD-afflicted editing for absolutely no reason. The style feels sloppy and not-well-thought-out, resulting in plenty of yawn-inspiring moments.

Those looking for gruesome violence will not be disappointed, but anyone seeking genuine thrills and chills will feel they're simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The movie bombards us with so much sound and fury that it finally adds up to much ado about nothing, save for bloodletting and not much more. The only positive note is the wonderful Velasco who is, as always, gorgeous and certainly worth eyeballing for ninety minutes.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two-Stars

[REC]4 is unspooling at TIFF 2014 in the Midnight Madness series. Visit the TIFF website HERE.

CRIME WAVE by John Paizs & THE EDITOR by Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy make perfect TIFF bedfellows!

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Crime Wave by John Paizs & The Editor by AdamBrooks/MatthewKennedy is the IDEAL Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2014) Double Bill. Too bad nobody thought of scheduling them back-to-back in the same venue. No matter. See Crime Wave on Friday, Sept. 12 @ 9pm in TIFF Bell Lightbox #4, then see The Editor on Saturday, Sept. 13 @ 6:15pm in Scotiabank #4 and PRETEND you watched them back to back. Read my review of Crime Wave HERE and my review of The Editor HERE and go see BOTH great films from God, the Father of Prairie Post-Modernism and His only begotten Sons.

CRIME WAVE - TIFF 2014 - TIFF CINEMATHEQUE 2K RESTORATION - Review By Greg Klymkiw

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CRIME WAVE is the best cult film you've never seen. Before you read my review, it might be interesting for you to peruse the following history as to why you might have never seen this masterpiece.

After its triumphant 1985 world premiere at TIFF, a Canadian film distribution company called Norstar Releasing signed the film for world wide sales. The deal came with a $100,000 guarantee which would be payable no later than 18 months after the first date of the film's theatrical release. This was just the impetus director John Paizs needed to redress something that was nagging at him. In spite of the accolades, he didn't like the ending and knowing $100K would eventually be paid, he rewrote, reshot and recut the entire final 20 minutes and fashioned the film into what we all know and love today.

Months, then years, passed by. Norstar Releasing was making money on the film in the home video market via a poorly transferred, retitled VHS American version, as well as substantial pay-TV and free-TV broadcast sales. NO theatrical release was forthcoming. As it turned out, there was no specific clause in the contract which guaranteed ANY theatrical release. The result? There was NO LEGAL NEED to pay the $100K until such a release would trigger the said payment.

In my then-capacity as Director of Distribution and Marketing for the Winnipeg Film Group, I poured over the deal made long before my tenure there began. I engaged in the aggressive move to visit the Norstar offices in Toronto and examine their books. Sadly, all was on the up and up - save for the scumbag deal its filmmaker signed in good faith. This was long before the days of VOD and digital downloads. If you signed a distribution deal, you automatically assumed there would be a theatrical release. At this point, I aggressively lobbied an independent movie theatre in Winnipeg, where the film was made, to secure a theatrical playmate. Even then, Norstar tried to dissuade the movie theatre from showing the film, but luckily, perseverance won the day and the film was slated for release - in ONE THEATRE.

18 months passed. The trigger to pay had come and gone. Though the money was due, Norstar was still not coughing up. I called the Toronto office of Telefilm Canada, the national film financing agency which, at the time had a distribution program that actually funded Canadian distributors to offer guarantees to Canadian films. The head of distribution at Telefilm at the time was Ted East, a film distributor and producer who provided a very sympathetic ear when I explained how a Canadian company fucked over John Paizs. Mr. East poured over his agency's policy and discovered he could put money into Norstar's pocket to pay the filmmaker who was deeply in debt for a film that many loved, but most had not seen. The money was finally paid. The debts were erased.

Still, the film languished. Norstar eventually sold all its titles to Alliance Films. When Alliance Films became Alliance-Atlantis, the library simply moved over. When the "Atlantis" portion went the way of the dodo, Alliance Releasing continued to maintain the library. At one point, a great indie home video company in the United States, known for its small, but very cool catalogue of cult items, contacted Paizs. They wanted to release a super-deluxe DVD version of Crime Wave. When Paizs contacted Alliance, he was given the run-around. The company fucked the dog on the generous Fantomas offer until eventually, they rejected it. Alliance, it seems, was planning to dump huge swaths of its catalogue into a package deal with some dubious entity in the United States. Sadly, the Fantomas deal was not the only offer made to handle Crime Wave over the years to both Norstar and Alliance. All offers were rejected.

Eventually, Alliance was swallowed up by eOne Entertainment. This is where Crime Wave currently languishes. Thankfully, Steve Gravestock from the Toronto International Film Festival was able to provide funding for an all-new 2K digital restoration of Crime Wave and it is now being premiered at TIFF 2014 in conjunction with the launch of Jonathan Ball's new scholarly book about the film.

This is great news! Still, something was nagging at me. Given the film's reputation, would it still be sitting in the vaults? I sent a note to President of E1 Films Canada, Bryan Gliserman, and asked the following questions:

1. As your company inherited the rights to this film, what are e-One's plans to redress the wrongs perpetrated upon this masterpiece of Canadian Cinema by the previous companies holding the rights?

2. What are your feelings about the recent TIFF-initiated-and-funded 2K restoration?

3. Will there be a proper theatrical platform re-release in Canada?

4. Are there any discussions about a deluxe, extras-packed commemorative Blu-Ray?

He has yet to respond. He's a busy man.

Here's the bottom line:

Companies all over the world have tried to cut a deal with the right-holders prior to eOne, but continually hit brick walls as those Canadian conglomerates sat on it. The irony is that the Canadian taxpayers, via the aforementioned kind and magnanimous gesture on the part of Ted East when he was an official with Telefilm Canada, contributed a whack of dough to pay the filmmaker a guarantee that the original company tried to screw Paizs out of. If this hadn't have happened, Paizs would still be on the hook for finishing funds rightly owed to him.

Bryan Gliserman is a mensch.

I doubt, HE, as the president of a company as powerful as e-One, and the Canadian branch, no less, would ever think about screwing over a masterpiece of Canadian Cinema. He's one of the true pioneers of distribution in Canada and it might be the best thing in the world for this picture that it's found a home with someone like him. He's the real thing. I personally never put faith in any government or corporate entity, but from time to time, INDIVIDUALS within them step up to the plate - like Ted East when he was at Telefilm, Geoff Pevere when he first supported Paizs in the early years of TIFF and Steve Gravestock in TIFF's current era - there have always been human beings who all had faith in this film.

So too, I believe, will Bryan Gliserman. I have faith that he'll do something about the woeful state of affairs that's beleaguered this film for three decades. Crime Wave, with a mensch like Gliserman manning the control panel, will no doubt soar to the heights it deserves.

In the meantime, feel free to read my review. I've never written about Crime Wave before and frankly, I doubt anyone will be able to top Geoff Pevere's brilliant piece (pictured above) that he originally wrote many years ago in Cinema Canada, but for what it's worth, here's my take.


HARK! Your script doctor might wish to sodomize,
murder and in so doing, teach you the real MEANING
of the word, "TWISTS!"
Crime Wave (1985)
Dir. John Paizs
Starring: Eva Kovacs, John Paizs, Neil Lawrie, Darrell Baran, Jeffrey Owen Madden, Tea Andrea Tanner, Bob Cloutier, Donna Fullingham, Mitch Funk, Angela Heck, Mark Yuill, C. Roscoe Handford

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In 1985, Jay Scott, the late, great Toronto Globe and Mail film critic, renowned and beloved the world over, wrote in his review of Crime Wave after its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (then called the Festival of Festivals):

"...if the great Canadian comedy ever gets made, John Paizs might be the one to make it.”

We're one year shy of thirty years later and nobody has yet made the "great Canadian comedy", though writer-director-star John Paizs gave it a damn fine run for the money with his drawer-filling, knee-slapping, near-heart-attack-inducing, Campbell Scott-starring 1999 satire of 1950s science fiction Top of the Food Chain (aka Invasion!). No matter, though. Scott never did review Paizs's 1986 version of Crime Wave. Still, taking mild criticism in Scott's review to heart, Paizs completely rewrote, reshot and recut the entire last half hour of the film.

If Jay Scott had been given the chance to review this version, if the film had actually been released, I suspect Scott's line would have been: "John Paizs has made the great Canadian comedy!"

There's no doubt about it.

Some Quiet Men are Nice! Others are INSANE!!!
You know, I can't begin to count the number of times I've seen Crime Wave. Has it been 40, 50, 60 times? Have I seen it 100 times?

Even more, perhaps?

Whatever the final tally actually is, and it is way up there, the fact remains that each and every time I see the film, I'm not only howling with laughter as hard as I did when I first saw it, but absolutely floored by how astoundingly brilliant and original it is. This is a movie that has not dated and will probably never date. It's a film that has inspired filmmakers all over the world and not only is it the crown jewel in the "prairie post-modernist" crown - coined and bestowed upon it by film critic Geoff Pevere - but it's a film that paved the way for Guy Maddin, Bruce McDonald, Reg Harkema, Lynne Stopkewich, Don McKellar, Astron-6 and virtually any other Canadian filmmaker who went on to blow the world away with their unique, indigenous cinematic visions of a world that could only have been borne upon celluloid from a country as insanely staid and repressed as Canada.

Borrowing from all his favourite childhood films - sleazy, garish crime pictures, technicolor science fiction and horror epics, weird-ass training/educational films, Roger Corman, Terence Fisher, Kenneth Anger, the Kuchar Brothers, Elia Kazan, Orson Welles, Walt Disney, Frank Tashlin, film noir, Douglas Sirk, John Ford (!!!) and yes, even National Film Board of Canada documentaries - John Paizs made one of the most sought after, coveted and beloved cult movies of the past thirty years.

Taking on the lead role of Steven Penny, Paizs created a character who is hell-bent upon writing the greatest "colour crime movie" of all time. He boards in the attic above a garage owned by a family of psychotically normal Winnipeg suburbanites whose little girl Kim (Eva Kovacs) befriends the reclusive young man. Every morning, she rifles through the garbage where Penny has disposed of his writings and as she reads them, we get to see the gloriously lurid snippets of celluloid from the fevered brain of this young writer. These sequences are scored with gusto, dappled with colours bordering on the fluorescent and narrated with searing Walter Winchell-like stabs of verbal blade thrusts. Via Kim's gentle, non-colour-crime-movie narration, Steven is innocently described by her like all those serial killers who people say after their capture, "Gee whiz, he was a really nice guy."

Indeed, Steven Penny inhabits Kim's words like a glove:

THE TOP!!!! FEW MEN REACH IT!!! WILL YOU?
"He was a Quiet Man."

As the film progresses, we see more and more of the film Steven is trying to write, but his creative blockages become dire. He even locks himself up for weeks, his room becoming so foul and fetid that rats are even scurrying upon his immobile depression-infused carcass. Kim must take the bull by the horns and indeed finds salvation in the back of a magazine ad in "Colour Crime Quarterly". It seems that one Dr. Jolly (Neil Lawrie), a script doctor, exists in Sails, Kansas.

He, Kim insists, is what Steven needs. Dr. Jolly himself provides comfort to burgeoning young screenwriters that what they really need are the one important thing he can provide:

TWISTS!!!

Unbeknownst to anyone, Dr. Jolly is a serial killer who lures young screenwriters into his den of depravity to sodomize and murder them. Dr. Jolly's goal is to truly show young men the meaning of the word:

TWISTS!!!

As a filmmaker, Paizs leads us on an even more insane journey than we've been on and the final twenty minutes of the film delivers one of the most brilliant, hallucinogenic and piss-your-pants funny extended montages you'll ever experience. John Paizs then teaches us the meaning of the word:

TWISTS!!!

Twists indeed, You'll see nothing like them in any film. Crime Wave is one of the most dazzlingly original films ever made. If you haven't seen it, you must. If you have seen it, see the picture again.

And again, and again and yet, again.

That's why they call them cult films.

THE FILM CORNER RATING:

***** 5-Stars


Crime Wave, not to be confused with the Coen Brothers/Sam Raimi debacle with the same title from the same year has been lovingly restored in a 2K digital transfer courtesy of Steve Gravestock and the Toronto International Film Festival.

You can see it at Tiff 2014, For tickets, date and time, visit the TIFF website cy clicking HERE.

Hopefully, if a proper home entertainment deluxe Blu-Ray is ever made, the "original" 1985 Crime Wave will be included on it. I love that version for very different reasons. It's perverse, extremely DARK and most delightfully of all, it features backwoods inbreds bearing the names "Ol' Mum" and "Ethan". The original version also has a much better shot of the young, hogtied screenwriter in Dr. Jolly's motel room. The scene is meant to be a taste of what's in store for Steven Penny when he meets up with the sodomy-loving script doctor. The actor in the original version, Jon Coutts, one of Paizs's best friends and part of the production team, has such a beautiful, pert ass and baby-flesh skin that many people thought Jolly had a very young, teenage boy hogtied and ready for Hershey-pronging. Mostly, it was the idiot distributor who screwed Paizs over who objected the most strenuously. The "new" version, alas, replaces the sweet, silky, lithe young NAKED body of Mr. Coutts with only his bare back and a pair of jeans. I know what I preferred. You?

Finally, SHAME on the TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL for not doing a major profile in conjunction with this special TIFF initiative. If only to honour the late Jay Scott, this could have been an amazing opportunity for it to provide the kind of content any important newspaper of record would be pleased to report on.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I produced John Paizs's early short films. I also appear in Crime Wave as a Dog Breeder with the great line of dialogue: "I come a hundred miles to breed this here bitch!" as I mistakenly point to my wife instead of the dog. Enjoy!

DOG BREEDERS:
C. Roscoe Handford & Greg Klymkiw

MAIDAN - TIFF 2014 (TIFF WAVELENGTHS) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

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Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovitch the corrupt puppet of Russia (pictured bottom left with blood of Ukrainians on his face and conferring with the pig Putin), inspired the massive revolutionary actions in downtown Kyiv's Independence Square ("Maidan"). The war continues, but for several months, the spirit of the Cossack Brotherhood was gloriously rekindled, rising up in defiance to lead the charge against a scourge as evil as the Nazis. The early days of revolution are captured vividly in Sergei Loznitsa's great film MAIDAN.
To see Maidan is to see a great film.
To see Maidan as a Ukrainian is to
experience a series of epiphanies.
Maidan (2014)
Dir. Sergei Loznitsa

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Part of me wishes I could just respond to this great documentary as, one supposes, it should be - as a stunning, stirring work of film art that adheres to the tenets of direct cinema by simply focusing upon three key months of the revolution in Ukraine from late 2013 to early 2014. And make no mistake, Maidan, by Sergei Loznitsa is a grand achievement of the highest order. Other than occasional inter-titles describing the historical context in a simple, fact-based manner, Loznitsa allows his exquisite footage to speak for itself.

Using long takes, beautifully composed with no camera movement, the film captures key moments, both specific historical incidents and deeply, profoundly moving human elements. As such, the film evokes stirring and fundamental narrative, thematic and emotional sensations which place us directly in the eye of the storm.

The storm, ultimately, is of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovitch's doing. After all, it was he who refused to align Ukraine with the European Union and instead, as a corrupt puppet of Russia, cut a deal Ukraine did not want - to align itself with the pig Vladimir Putin and his desire to swallow Ukraine into Russia.

The film simply records the actions of thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians as they protested in revolt against Yanukovitch and Putin. In the background we hear stirring speeches, but in the foreground we see the real Ukrainian people as they set up camp in the Maidan of Kyiv, Independence Square.

It is in the Maidan that Loznitsa captures moments of peace - often those individuals who are strenuously volunteering to provide warmth, shelter and food to those protestors in need of it - as well as moments of friction and violence as we see Yanukovitch's Gestapo-like police inching ever closer towards the people. One of the most stirring moments is seeing ordinary people smashing the cobblestone in the streets to be hurled towards the heavily armed pro-Russian forces. Most sadly, we see Kyiv burn. And, then there are the shots fired and the public funerals of simple folk who have died as heroes. There is very little in this film that does not evoke tears of both joy and sorrow.

Though some might argue this approach eschews a political perspective, I'd argue strenuously that its direct cinema approach cannot help being political given the subjects and subject matter. That Loznitsa chooses three separate sequences involving groups of people ranging from huge to intimate as they sing the Ukrainian National Anthem and in each case bracketed between highly charged moments detailing the events of the revolution, there is clearly not only a political subtext, but one which feels like it's a choice the filmmaker has indeed made to accentuate the need and importance of this revolution.

The lyrics of the anthem Shche ne vmerla Ukraina have always been translated as "Ukraine Has Not Yet Died", but in recent years, slight modifications from the early 2000s to the original verse written by Pavlo Chubynsky in the 19th Century provide the somewhat more hopeful "Ukraine's Glory has not yet Perished." It is this latter version which we hear within the film and yet, to anyone who grew up singing the original lyrics, there's a sense that no, Ukraine has not yet died.

This brings me to my aforementioned desire to respond to Loznitsa's film solely on an aesthetic level, but the fact remains that it's virtually impossible for me to do so.

As a Ukrainian-Canadian raised within a strongly Ukrainian Nationalist culture, the film's qualities as cinema are accentuated in ways that go much deeper. Anytime I hear the anthem, I soar, but maybe most importantly my own feelings about Ukraine take on an added intensity when I see the events Loznitsa has chosen to capture based upon the following key personal elements:

1. Though I was born in Canada, the first time I set foot on Ukrainian soil infused me with a sense of finally "belonging" to something, some place I'd always imagined, but had not yet experienced fully. This only intensified as I spent more time in the country - including, I must add, Eastern Ukraine, where much of the current strife now exists.

2. My apartment in Kyiv was a mere half-block away from the Maidan. Seeing all the locations I'd become so intimately acquainted with and have such fond memories of (including the McDonald's with its strange cyrillic menu items pronounced as "Beeg Mek" or "Da-bl Chees-boorgoor"), forced me to experience Loznitsa's film with the added emotions of one who lived there for an extended period and had come to recognize and love something that became all too real.

Witnessing these events as captured by Loznitsa is a moving document of human solidarity in the face of corruption. Witnessing them as a Ukrainian, however, is to experience every beat, word and action as a series of epiphanies. Maidan is a film that places the revolution in the broader context of what is happening in Ukraine now, but in its simple, beautiful and staggering way, it is a film of considerable importance as it expresses how we must all choose revolution when the criminal actions of very few affect the lives of the majority.

Maidan screens at the Toronto International Film Festival in the Wavelengths series. For further information, visit the TIFF 2014 website by clicking HERE.

TERROR AT THE MALL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - HBO Canada Documentaries - Klymkiw Watches TV

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Terror at the Mall (2014)
Dir. Dan Reed

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In a strictly Orwellian sense, the preponderance of closed circuit surveillance footage is not only creepy, but it's clearly the very thing which proves how little privacy any of us have. There's something very wrong with being monitored by camera from every vantage point no matter where we are. Then again, public spaces are not private and as such, none of us have anything we can object to if we choose to avail ourselves of such spaces. At least this is how the proponents of said Big Brother eyeballing of our every move will always argue. The greater public good, they say, will always trump personal desires for privacy - especially in terms of both crime detection and prevention. However, when the perpetrators of said crimes have no intention of surviving, how necessary is it?

Such must certainly be the case with the scumbag cowards of the Somalian terrorist group Shabab who, one year ago, marched into the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya and began to gun down innocent civilians in the name of Allah, or whatever screwy reason they had to do so. Caught on over 100 mall surveillance cameras in addition to cel phone cameras, the amount of footage which exists with respect to this act will never be a deterrent to such mindless acts of violence and it's doubtful there's even a good reason for its existence in terms of crime solving. These idiots continue to dive into these sickening, moronic actions dreaming of virgin conquest in an afterlife or whatever dopey, boneheadedly ignorant belief systems they've allowed themselves to swallow in order to justify their brutal violence.

Without this footage, however, we would not be privy to filmmaker Dan Reed's harrowing HBO documentary Terror at the Mall which is clearly an important document of this heinous event. On one hand, Reed's film superbly blends the existing surveillance (and private cel phone) footage with post-event interview footage of survivors identified in said footage. On the other, it feels like a carefully mediated testament.

First and foremost, though, the film is a document of incredible acts of heroism, sacrifice and an examination of the thought process of normal human beings under the duress of armed assault in the unlikeliest of places. Surely for this reason alone, the existence of such footage has served an important historical purpose. In spite of this, does not such footage profane the memory of those caught digitally who are seen cowering in terror, running madly in panic and/or cut down by the bullets of the terrorists? Is this stealing of their images somehow not, as many cultures believe, a theft of the souls, the spirits, the inherent humanity of the victims?

These are worthwhile questions.

Reed appears to have no interest, at least overtly, in answering or at least addressing them. This will probably be a far better approach for a completely different film, but that Reed's work inspires these questions suggests it had to have been an element he chose to play with - perhaps not at the forefront, but always there in the background.

One other element with respect to the "creep factor" of surveillance footage is the specific aesthetic of it. There's nothing especially human and most often, not mediated by the perspective, or, if you will, the hearts, hands, eyes and minds of humans. The footage is raw. It is what it is - cameras perched, usually from God's eye view (the notion of which is especially creepy). It's an otherworldly perspective - a purely digital mapping of events. Reed clearly understands this and if anything, his superbly chosen juxtaposition of real-life interviews with the surveillance footage does apply a sense of humanity to the proceedings - one that is as humane as it is clearly the work of a genuine film artist. If I had one minor quibble, it's that the scope of this film is so large that I almost didn't want it to end. This, of course, is probably a compliment rather than a quibble, but the fact remains that the film could well have survived a substantially longer length, yet still delivered the goods with the same power.

What finally remains for us in Terror at the Mall is the horrific experience of knowing we are seeing actual footage of terrorism and that what Reed is most interested in, is ultimately, courage. There is fear, to be sure, but in many ways, true courage can only be borne out of fear and one ultimately must salute Reed and his team for giving these people a voice in light of actions that will be seared upon them forever.

And perhaps, that very thing emblazoned upon the minds of the victims is the very thing that will never leave our consciousness so that we might all be ready and prepared to face the worst this mad world has to offer us and, in turn, to realize it's okay to be scared.

For out of fear, comes courage and from courage, comes life.

The importance of this production cannot be stressed enough. Terror at the Mall is, finally, must-see viewing for everyone - adults and children. (My own little girl was deeply moved by this experience in ways that only kids can be moved.) So screw whatever crap you were planning to watch on TV as this terrific film is being broadcast. Nothing that's on can come close to how your life and those you love will be touched by the subjects, events and themes of this picture. It'll be an hour out of your life, but one that will contribute a lifetime of thought and consideration.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Terror at the Mall premieres on HBO and HBO Canada in North American broadcast territories. Check your local listings for dates and times.

MYNARSKI DEATH PLUMMET, THE WEATHERMAN AND THE SHADOWBOXER, THE UNDERGROUND: 3 SHORT CANADIAN FILMS at the Toronto International Film Festival - TIFF 2014 (TIFF Short Cuts Canada) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

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Canada's Great War Hero, Andrew Mynarski VC,
Shooting Star of Selfless Sacrifice, a man of Bronze.
Mynarski Death Plummetaka Mynarski chute mortelle (2014)
Dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Alek Rzeszowski, Annie St-Pierre, Robert Vilar, Louis Negin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The true promise, the very future of the great Dominion of Canada and La Belle Province lies beneath the soil of France and Belgium. Between World Wars I and II, Canada lost close to 2% of its population, the vast majority of whom were the country's youngest and brightest from the ages of 16 to 30. Canadian lads bravely served on the front lines, well ahead of the glory-grabbing Americans, the Yankee Doodle mop-up crew that dandily sauntered overseas after all the hard work was paid for by the blood spilled upon European soil by the very heart and soul of Canada's future and that of so many other countries not bearing the Red, White and Blue emblem of puffery. As a matter of fact, any of the best and bravest in Canada came from Winnipeg and if you had to pick only one hero of the Great Wars from anywhere in the country, Andrew Mynarski, a gunner in the famed Moose Squadron, would be the one, the only. He is the subject of Matthew Rankin's perfect gem of a film, the one, the only genuine cinematic work of art to detail the valiant sacrifice, the one, the only, the unforgettable Mynarski Death Plummet.

Played dashingly in Rankin's film by a real, live, honest-to-goodness, in-the-flesh, Goralska-Sausage-Slurping Polish-Canadian actor, Alek Rzeszowski, Mynarski himself was a fearless Polish-Canadian kid born and raised in the the North End, the only neighbourhood in Winnipeg (alongside St. Boniface, 'natch) that bears any real historical significance in Canada's keystone to the west, the former "Little Chicago" perched majestically on the forks of the mighty Red and Assiniboine Rivers. In 1944, Mynarski flew an Avro Lancaster bomber into the heavy action of northern France. After taking out his fair share of Nazi Pigs, the plane was aflame. He ordered the other lads aboard to drop the Polski Ogórki from his Mom, grab their chutes and bail. They did so with pride in a job well done.

Mynarski was last to leave. Or so he thought until he realized that Officer Pat Brophy (Robert Vilar) was trapped in the tail gun compartment. Our North End Hero did everything possible to save his friend until Brophy demanded Mynarski save himself. The lads exchanged salutes and the Polish Prince of King Edward and Isaac Newton schools, his chute now sadly in flames, took a fateful plunge from the plummeting Avro. His fire-engulfed body shot itself over the fields of France, mistaken as a bomb by some, including a rural mayor (Louis Negin, Canada's greatest actor - like, ever), but was correctly identified by a ravishing, babe-o-licious, though simple country girl of France as 100% REAL MAN, his body melted to bronze as the woman shot beams of love and gratitude from her heart into the spirit of the eventual posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross and honoured by Winnipeg's citizenry with a legendary North End Junior High School in his name.

This is such a great film. I could have watched all seven minutes of it if they'd somehow been elongated to a Dreyer-like pace and spread out over 90 minutes. That said, it's perfect as it is. The fact that you don't want it to end is a testament to director Matthew Rankin one of the young torchbearers (along with Astron-6) of the prairie post-modernist movement which hatched out of Winnipeg via the brilliantly demented minds of John Paizs and Guy Maddin. Blending gorgeously arcane techniques from old Hollywood, ancient government propaganda films with dollops of staggeringly, heart-achingly beautiful animation - bursting with colour and blended with superbly art-directed and costumed live action - Mynarski Death Plummet takes its rightful place alongside such classic Canadian short films as John Martins-Manteiga's The Mario Lanza Story, John Paizs's Springtime in Greenland, Guy Maddin's The Dead Father and Deco Dawson's Ne Crâne pas sois modeste / Keep a Modest Head.

In many ways, Rankin's film is history in the making of history. Most Canadians of my generation know Andrew Mynarski's story by heart, but even still, Rankin's film is so compelling, I kept hoping it wouldn't end as tragically as it did. Thankfully, Rankin infuses his tale with the sumptuous, wildly romantic image of the French babe looking longingly into the night sky and her magical explosion of squid-like polyps from within her big heart, allowing them to sail into the black Gallic atmosphere and plunge into Mynarski's very soul before he transforms into the likeness of the bronze memorial statue erected in Ottawa, the capital of our fair Dominion.

The other part of the story that all Canadians of my generation know is that Officer Brophy actually survived the crash. He was not only able to recount Mynarski's bravery and sacrifice, but he was kept alive by the strength and just-plain brick shithouse qualities of the Canadian-invented-and-manufactured Avro Bomber - an incredibly moving moment Rankin recreates in his film. (And sadly, the AVRO corp and its eventual superior aircraft, including "The Arrow", were decimated by the Americans into smithereens when Uncle Sam couldn't hack the fact that Canada had actually created something, uh, better than they could.)

A final important thought about Rankin's astonishing film. There is so much ludicrous, politically correct lip service paid to the new "face" of Canada and the need to represent the histories and stories of the said "new face". I'm all for that, but the problem is that Canadian Cinema has not even properly addressed its own history prior to the "new face of Canada". Until that happens, I think it might not be a bad idea to begin recounting and mythologizing Canada's true heroes as Rankin has done with Mynarski Death Plummet.

I hope this film is shown everywhere - especially in schools, especially to our "new" faces. It's bad enough Canadian History is so poorly taught in our schools, but maybe, just maybe, a super-cool new masterpiece of cinema is a good first-step to begin writing wrongs that the past century has wrought upon our great Dominion. When I say our future was decimated in the World Wars, I'm not exaggerating, but there's more to it than that. Our country has long been besieged by a cultural colonialism that has stifled genuine creativity and placed far too much emphasis on staid approaches to the cultural industries decided mostly by unimaginative bureaucrats who seek either the Status Quo of dull-edged blades or worse, hang pathetically onto their jobs by promoting "diversity" rather than genuinely looking to find ways of dramatically and artistically render a history and stories that have sadly been neglected.

Mynarski Death Plummet is a mere seven minutes long, but its impact and lasting value can be multiplied to the power of the infinite - a fine equation, if you ask me.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Mynarski Death Plummet is part of TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.


A maze that begins in childhood and never ends.
The Weatherman
and the Shadowboxer
(2014)
Dir. Randall Okita

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of Canada's national filmmaking treasures, Randall Okita (Portrait as a Random Act of Violence), takes the very simple story of two brothers and charts how a tragic event in childhood placed them on very different, yet equally haunted (and haunting) paths.

Mixing live action that ranges from noir-like, shadowy, rain-splattered locales to the strange, colourful (yet antiseptically so) world of busy, high-tech, yet empty reportage, mixing it up with reversal-stock-like home movie footage, blending it altogether in a kind of cinematic mixmaster with eye popping animation and we're offered-up a simple tale that provides a myriad of levels to tantalize, intrigue and finally, catch us totally off-guard and wind us on a staggering emotional level.

Okita's cinematographer Samy Inayeh is more than up to the challenge of attacking a variety of visual styles with superb compositions and gorgeous lighting. Editor Mike Reisacher knocks us on our proverbial love-buns with his thrilling slicing and dicing.

As per Okita's mise-en-scene, Reisacher's challenge is to maintain the film's avant-garde nature with its equally profound narrative and thematic elements. He's more than up to the challenge and cuts a picture that we're unable to ever look away from and follow a trajectory that wends its way like a complex maze between two different characters and lands us to a spot that kicks us in the solar plexus and wrenches our hearts.

Unbelievably for some, this was produced by the National Film Board of Canada, but it appears to have been seeded and birthed out of the Montreal offices which still manages to consistently escape the often dour safety-zone prevalent in much of the Board's English Canadian output.

As for Okita, he's delivered yet another roundhouse for the ages. This is what cinema should be. Screw ephemeral needs. Immortality is, uh, like, better, eh.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer is in TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.


We're all cockroaches. Don't forget it.
The Underground (2014)
Dir. Michelle Latimer
Starring: Omar Hady

Review By Greg Klymkiw

What's especially fine in this slice-of-life/slice-of-consciousness dramatic cinematic tone poem is how it presents a contemporary political and social reality that's seemingly the exclusive domain of a very specific segment of our population. Through its careful mise-en-scene, that comes close to overplaying its metaphorical hand, but pulls back in time to maintain the necessary poker face (as it were), The Underground deftly creates feelings that can, indeed, be universal.

Inspired by Rawi Hage's novel "Cockroach", the film feels all of a piece rather than some horrendous calling card for an eventual feature length adaptation. If, God forbid, it's supposed to serve this purpose, it would be a tad disappointing to know, but at least it has a singular integrity that allows it to work as a piece of film art unto itself. Cleverly rooted in simplicity to yield complexity, we follow a young refugee from some Middle Eastern hell hole as he lives out his lonely life in Canada within the isolation of a filthy, cockroach-infested slum apartment.

Part of the reason for the cockroaches could be his fascination with these seemingly vile creatures and his penchant for capturing them and setting up strange domiciles in glass jars. He spends much of his time on the floor of his filthy suite intently examining his "pets", but also experiencing flashbacks to the horror of what must have been his incarceration and torture. When a notice is slipped under his door to prepare for a visit from a pest control company, the film truly takes on the feeling of a living nightmare.

We become immersed in paranoia through a cockroach-eye-view and indeed, the images of hooded pest-control guys take on the same kind of creepy horror so prevalent in David Cronenberg's very early genre features that featured similarly-masked and/or accoutred killers/exterminators. There's a truly sickening and recognizable sense of fear, paranoia and loneliness so acute one wants the protagonist to scream. He won't, though. His is a silent scream.

And though we might all not be or can even fully comprehend what it's like to be a political refugee in a strange land, the film does make us feel and believe that at some point in our lives, if not for always and for ever, we are all little more than cockroaches in a world hell-bent upon weighing us down. We cower, hugging our floors as if we were a fetus in a blood-lined belly of viscous fluids and we wait for the secret police to drag us out of our home, or our cell, to be ripped from the safety of a womb we've made for ourselves.

And then, and only then, are we plunged into sheer horror.

The Film Corner Rating: ***½ Three-and-a-half Stars

The Underground is in TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.

METRO MANILA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Sundance award-winning crime thriller opens TIFF Bell Lightbox

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Loyalty, poverty, corruption, prostitution.
A few flavourful items in any crime thriller.
Metro Manila (2013)
Dir. Sean Ellis
Starring: Jake Macapagal, John Arcilla, Althea Vega

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Metro Manila sucks you into the soul-crushing, borderline neo-realist tale of Oscar and Mai Ramirez (Jake Macapagal, Althea Vega), a poverty-stricken rural couple in the Philippines with two kids and another on the way. They back-breakingly harvest their crop of rice and are paid so little for it that the likelihood of being able to afford seed for the next growing season is nigh impossible. Faced with ruin and starvation, they pack what few belongings they have and move to Manila in search of work and a better life.

Though the city teems with hustle and bustle, work is scarce. Desperate to avoid living on the fetid, filthy mean streets, the family are duped lickety-split into shelling out all their money to an unscrupulous con man for a squalid apartment which, they're summarily tossed out of by the real landlord. They're forced to squat in even more repulsive surroundings, a ramshackle slum on the outskirts of the city.

Oscar takes a labour intensive job and discovers it doesn't pay cash, but merely a single meal for each of the men slaving away. Mai is forced to work in a brothel run by a fiery Dragon Lady mama-san type. It has a grotesque in-house daycare service presided over by a surly old Granny and we eventually discover that some of the little girls are pimped out to pedophiles with the full agreement of their desperate mothers.

Things can't get any bleaker than this.

Thank God for a surprising shift in fortune for the family and an even happier, skilfully rendered shift in genre (which frankly, the film has been subtly rooted in from the start). At the end of his tether, Oscar applies for one of the most dangerous, life-threatening, unenviable jobs in Manila, but damn, it's steady and it pays really well. Douglas Ong (John Arcilla), a senior officer in an armoured security firm takes a liking to the earnest country boy. Oscar seems a perfect candidate; he's served in the armed forces, knows his weaponry, has a strong work ethic, needs the dough and comes across as supremely pliable.

Crime in Manila is so insane that armoured trucks are almost constantly held-up by scumbags hopped up on drugs (and poverty). Very entertainingly, the movie takes us through anything and everything one would want to know and/or experience in this high-tension job. Attempted hijackings, dubious scumbag clients, corruption and double-crosses become the order of the day. The writing by Ellis and Frank E. Flowers is sharp and for the most part, the adrenalin-charged narrative thrust comes on with the force of a Tsunami.

The film's writing sadly falters in its final twenty-or-so minutes and the movie nose-dives into a tried-and-true heist picture with a con that feels a bit too close to comfort to something like The Sting (but, delightfully, with extreme macho violence and not much in the way of feel-good). Sean Ellis's direction throughout is nothing less than exemplary - his eye for the varied locations and topography is first-rate, his compositions and coverage of all the dramatic beats are handled with the skill of a master and moments of suspense and action are delivered with considerable aplomb.

Loyalty, betrayal and sacrifice are the real order of the day though, and as such, it's no surprise the film has picked up numerous accolades including a prize at Sundance and two British Independent Film Awards. While some might idiotically condemn Ellis for representing a British colonial attitude to the proceedings, they'd be full of shit. It's a crime picture, for Christ's sake. The rural districts of the Philippines look anything but bucolic and Manila itself feels as mean as any overpopulated metropolis would be. Most of all, aside from the disappointingly conventional and somewhat lazy turn the story takes at the end (and for many it might feel quite satisfying), the movie crackles with the sort of grim, gritty stuff anyone would want from a crime picture.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three-and-a-half Stars

Metro Manila plays theatrically at the TIFF Bell Lightbox via Juice Worldwide. Hopefully it will widen out in the rest of the country and if and when it gets to home video, let's hope it comes equipped with a gorgeous Blu-Ray transfer and what I'm sure would be an incredibly informative commentary track from its director.

ALTMAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The legendary Ron Mann serves up adoc on the legendary Robert Altman

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The idea that there are people who have not seen all or most of 
Robert Altman's films fills me with sadness and, if you will,
emptiness.
Altman (2014)
Dir. Ron Mann
Starring: Robert Altman, Christine Altman, Kathryn Reed Altman, Robert Reed Altman, Stephen Altman, Michael Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robin Williams, James Caan, Keith Carradine, Elliott Gould, Philip Baker Hall, Sally Kellerman, Julianne Moore, Lily Tomlin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's the most, about the most, by the most. Allow me to elucidate. Robert Altman is one of the ten greatest American directors of all time. I furthermore insist that Robert Altman is one of the ten most important American artists of all time.

If anyone has any doubts about my lofty proclamations, they need to view Altman, the new picture by one of the ten greatest doc directors in North America, Ron Mann, who's also the most astonishing archivist-as-storyteller-as-director in the world - of, like, all time. If you don't believe me, just eyeball Mann's dazzling array of cooler-than-cool contributions to the art of cinema like Comic Book Confidential, Twist, Tales of the Rat Fink, Grass and Go Further.

Mann's herewith delivered a genuinely important bio-doc of the genius maverick director and I'll, uh, go further (pun only intended upon rereading this piece for editing) and happily admit that Altman is a picture that exceeded all my expectations by being the most perfect film biography of Robert Altman that I could ever want. You see, there are three things that always drive me up a wall in most bio-docs about artists and Mann avoids all of them.

They are as follows:

1. No eggheads telling me why Altman is important. I know already.

2. No bullshit celebrity interviews with adoring actors being actors and acting out their feelings about why they loved, or even hated, working with Altman. Who needs it? Besides, Mann gives us something a hell of a lot better.

3. The movie includes just enough biographical information that doesn't have to do with his filmmaking career. What's included on this front is there, to be sure and from the most ideal perspective. What isn't, is inadvertently, or perhaps, intentionally addressed by virtue of how Mann has so exquisitely sculpted the film. And you know, if I wanted to know more about Altman's non-film-related life, there are plenty of places to find it. There's no reason for any such details to clutter this sleek, impactful 96 minutes.

Mann has always been a master of research and he continues this tradition by painstakingly scouring every available visual and audio interview that Altman ever gave and ingeniously selecting just the right nuggets so that we get his biography in his own words. Mann supplements the filmmaking journey with poignant interviews with Altman's family (and private home movie footage) to reveal the more intimate aspects of Altman's life. He takes us through Altman's entire filmography from early screenwriting efforts, short films, industrial films, his first feature film (that I genuinely love, but Altman professes to hate), his brilliant television directing career (wherein he addressed issues of import that drove his sponsors and bosses crazy) and then, through each and every film he ever made - replete with generous film clips and terrific tales of butting heads with the studios, inventing whole new cinematic storytelling techniques and ultimately settling into a variety of independent modes of production which eventually yielded one of his richest periods prior to his honorary Oscar and death.

One of the most inventive aspects of Mann's approach is to offer up a definition of the word "Altmanesque" and then assemble what might be one of the most impressive lineups of guest stars for any such film and present each and every one of them in exquisitely composed and gorgeously lit shots, reminiscent of the Vittorio Storaro-photographed "witness" sections of Warren Beatty's Reds. Instead of submitting us to tried and true interviews with his witnesses, Mann asks each and every one of them one question - to define "Altmanesque". The answers range from almost-predictably mundane or obvious to exquisitely ideal and in the case of the late, great Robin Williams, short, sweet and perhaps what might be the ultimate final word on what it means to be "Altmanesque."

Each one of these sequences are astutely inserted throughout the picture as intros to the various segments of Altman's life as a filmmaker and indeed, act as marvellous bookends to each section.

The biography proper begins, ever-so briefly, with Altman's life in the military. It is here where I'd hoped the film might elaborate and, indeed, occasionally touch upon throughout the recounting of his filmmaking life. While it's not a hard and fast rule, I've always felt that some of the greatest American films and filmmakers have brought a wealth of life experience to their work, and none more so than those who experienced the horrors of war.

Given Altman's early Jesuit education (nothing can beat this in my humble opinion), his turn in military school and, at age 18, flying in over fifty WWII bombing missions seems to fit his talent for filmmaking like a glove - especially in terms of the subject matter he was drawn to and the various techniques of naturalism he either outright invented or expanded upon.

I've often placed Altman in the same sphere as John Ford, George Stevens, Frank Capra, Sam Peckinpah, Samuel Fuller and Oliver Stone, et al - those men who were directly exposed to the horrors of war in a wholly American context. It's an experience that led to films, from all of them, that will not only last forever, but continually broke with cinematic storytelling conventions. While these thoughts occasionally crossed my mind in the early going of Altman, they soon dissipated as Mann began taking us through Altman's filmography, including, but not limited to MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, The Long Goodbye and Nashville. These are films that will live forever because they capture the essence of humanity in ways that most pictures never do and it's not just Altman's groundbreaking techniques at play here, but something far deeper and rooted in a perspective that's very personal and wends its way in to the work itself.

At the end of the day, the very structure of Mann's film addresses this in a subtle, but very real way.

Though I'd not like to dissuade anyone from seeing Altman for any reason whatsoever, I do think it's important, if not even incumbent upon its viewers to have experienced Robert Altman's important canon. To think that anyone has not seen all, or most of his work fills me with a strange kind of sadness, and, if you will, emptiness. Altman is a film that will no doubt inspire whole new generations to seek out the man's films. This can't be discounted in any way, shape or form.

I will declare, though, that knowing, loving and feeling like my own life would have been incomplete without the joy of growing up with Robert Altman, is the kind of added value that allows the deepest core of Mann's film to move me beyond words.

In that sense though, Mann's film is, in and of itself, the true added value.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Altman is in limited theatrical release in Canada via FilmsWeLike, including a run at Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox. In America, it can currently be seen via Epix. It will eventually be broadcast in Canada via TMN and Movie Central.

HONEYMOON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - One of the best horror films you're likely to have seen in some time

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Honeymoon (2014)
Dir. Leigh Janiak
Starring: Rose Leslie, Harry Treadaway

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's an urban legend that goes thusly: A man coughs so violently that a thick rope of dark, gooey, sputum jettisons from his mouth. This is not a case of said sputum yet depositing itself on the floor, wall or any such surface, but rather, continues to hang from the man's mouth in a manner more physiologically commensurate to that of a drooling mastiff in severely hot, humid weather. With every cough, one rapidly following the other, the man continues to release several more inches of the gelatinous goo which, refuses to separate from within. The man grabs onto the foul rope of viscous saliva with both hands, clenching and squeezing for dear life, his eyes popping in terror like Mantan Moreland in a haunted house. The man begins to resemble a church bell-ringer on bennies, tugging vigorously as he extricates more, and more, and yet, more of the bilious, glutinous cordage from his dank, sopping maw. There is no end to the glistening, pus-ridden copulae of meaty, bloody phlegm. He keeps yanking upon it with deranged abandon and it still continues to gush forth, forming finally, a sausage-link-like coil on the floor. It becomes plainly obvious to the gent that this bilious cascade is no simple, garden variety discharge.

To his sheer and utter horror, the man realizes that he's somehow managed to dislodge a hideously diseased lung that surges from his chest cavity, up through his esophagus as it indelicately streams over his tonsils and tongue, grazing his lips and plummeting to the ground.

There is a scene, a major two-by-four-to-the-face horror setpiece in Honeymoon, Leigh Janiak's auspicious feature length directorial debut that brings the aforementioned urban legend immediately to mind. It is, however, no mere diseased lung being extricated, it's something far more disturbingly insidious and downright disgusting. Most of all, Janiak (who co-wrote the clever script with Phil Graziadei) doesn't utilize an orifice as quaint as a mere mouth, but instead violates an opening of far more indelicacy, one which inspires, not only horror, but deep shame.

The picture opens innocuously enough. We meet Bea (Rose Leslie) and Paul (Harry Treadaway), a young, mid-twentysomething newlywed couple who drive straight up north to the former's legacy cottage for what will be a private getaway for our lovebirds to more officially consummate their union that's just been held before friends, family and God, the Holy Father.

For a good, long time we share the couple's giddy, loving abandon - getting to know them as people, but also gaining insight into their relationship. At the same time, we experience the subtle shifts in mood and honest human emotion that any newlywed couple will encounter, even at this early juncture in their relationship. As life will oft have it, there are, then, a few cracks in the fortification of their lifelong commitment to each other, but nothing out of the ordinary and certainly nothing to raise alarm.

For the most part, they're almost insufferably in love and we explore the most intimate details of their new and happy life together. (Yes folks, plenty o' sex twixt our attractive, talented actors.)

This is until, one night. As the couple sleep deeply after one of many vigorous sessions of coitus with no interruptus, a mysterious light begins to shine through their bedroom window. This is no ordinary incandescence and it passes over the bodies of Bea and Paul in a slow, deliberate manner. Rather than bathing them in a warm glow of peace and comfort, we feel like an entity is taking something dear and precious from them and that it will take all their fortitude to keep their love alive.

That, however, isn't the only thing they'll need to keep alive and it's from this point onwards that a slow, creepy crawly horror takes over and indeed intensifies. There's something in them thar' woods that's going to change their lives forever.

And it ain't pretty.

Honeymoon is one of the best horror films you're likely to have seen in quite some time. It is first and foremost a love story, but like many couplings in this genre, the threats on every front are going to mount exponentially. There will be times when they as characters and even we, as the audience, will begin to question our own sanity. Janiak displays a surprising command of the medium and her gifts to scare the living shit out of us are pitched to a very high, but sophisticated degree. Working in the grand tradition of the masterful Val Lewton, Janiak hits all the necessary marks of the RKO horror chief's checklist for great genre films: Focus upon the contemporary, focus upon humanity, focus upon the foibles of society, focus upon the insidious reality of the horror and if there's to be an otherworldly element to the picture, make sure it stays rooted in the relationships, dynamic and interplay between the characters.

And, of course, never, ever, ever forget that the best horror is rooted in atmosphere, so beware!

Beware the forest. Beware the night. Most of all, beware the light.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3 and-a-half Stars.

Honeymoon is a VSC release that plays theatrically at Toronto's Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas and that will soon be available on a multitude of home entertainment platforms.

COHERENCE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Dinner party discomfort descends into terror @TiffBellLightbox

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The stunning Emily Foxler
leads a superb ensemble cast.
Coherence (2013)
Dir. James Ward Byrkit
Starring: Emily Foxler (aka Emily Baldoni), Nicholas Brendon, Maury Sterling, Elizabeth Gracen, Lauren Maher, Alex Manugian, Hugo Armstrong, Lorene Scafaria

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When Mike (Nicholas Brendon) hosts a dinner party amongst his coterie of attractive thirty-something friends, an emotional cloud hangs over things, threatening the gathering to go slightly awry when the current beau (Maury Sterling) of beautiful Emily (Emily Foxler) brings his ex-girlfriend (Lauren Maher) along as a gesture of kindness/pity to this woman who's recently been shut out of activities she was once a part of. Mild discomfort, however, slowly descends into terror when a passing comet knocks out the power and opens a creepy door into a parallel universe.

James Ward Byrkit's directorial debut from his fine screenplay, cleverly focuses on the characters and their interplay so that by the time the astronomical event occurs, we're not only invested in these people, but the threat of their immediate universe colliding with a parallel doppelgänger universe takes on implications of the most malevolent kind.

There's little need to reveal more of the actions as they unfold since a great deal of the shivery fun are the occasional revelations of jigsaw pieces that seem to connect, but never quite do until the harrowing climax.

Even then, you'll be tempted to partake of repeat helpings, since what you think you do know, nags at you long after as perhaps, not being what you know at all. This is an especially admirable element of Byrkit's writing. Ambiguity is fine, but it's so much better when it creeps up on you after you see the film than while you're watching it (where said ambiguity risks being annoying).

Much as this is an original, keenly observed picture with a superb ensemble cast and sharp writing, I was a trifle distracted and disappointed with the directorial preponderance upon handheld camera work. None of the shots or selections are bad, all the compositions are first-rate and certainly rooted in the dramatic action, BUT, I longed for way more static shots so that the handheld would have far more impact in terms of the picture's suspense.

The mise-en-scene occasionally loses its power. Given that there's no specific reason for the handheld since (thank Christ!) this isn't a found footage piece it's especially distressing. One assumes that exigencies of budget and schedule might have contributed to this decision, but the interior lighting is often so effective that it feels like there were options to either mount the camera on sticks or deliver more subtle floaty-cam-styled handheld.

Hopefully this approach will only mildly detract from one's enjoyment of this piece, as there's so much to genuinely respond to and it's definitely a film that's guaranteed to raise the hackles and instil mega-goooseflesh.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

Coherence is a D Films release in Canada which begins its theatrical run exclusively at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Oscilloscope is releasing the film in the USA.

WILLOW CREEK - BluRay/DVD Review By Greg Klymkiw - A Home Entertainment Product That Defines "Keeper"

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BIGFOOT LIVES!
YOU WILL BELIEVE!
BUT DON'T GO CAMPING
WITHOUT A GUN!
NO FUCKING KIDDING!
Willow Creek (2013)
Dir. Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Alexie Gilmore, Bryce Johnson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Willow Creek is such a terrific horror film - original, funny and superbly directed by the incomparable Bobcat Goldthwait that it demands a big screen experience, so much so, that failing the opportunity to see it theatrically, it's the kind of picture you want to OWN on a format that's going to deliver maximum impact - not only on a first viewing, but subsequent helpings as well.

For my money. nothing less than Blu-Ray will do (or if you absolutely must, I grudgingly acknowledge DVD). The film is such an immersive experience, it might even be better seeing it at home. There you won't have to deal with, uh, people. Though I will admit, in the case of Willow Creek, it's kind of fun listening to people jump, scream and then feel that collective winded silence when the movie ends.

You can, however, get that at home too. I screened the movie for my little girl and it was a blast having her respond with utter terror. In fairness, she also responded to the humour, commented on how much she liked "how the movie was made" and then wanted Dad to do Google searches after the movie that dealt with the Gimlin-Patterson bigfoot footage and as much stuff out there that I could find on the bigfoot/sasquatch phenomenon. In any event, you want the best picture and sound to experience this film, not just to terrify your 13-year-old daughter, but yourself and anyone you choose to show it to.

Thankfully North Americans will have that opportunity with the Anchor Bay Canada and Anchor Bay Entertainment Blu-Ray release of Willow Creek which not only comes replete with a gorgeous high-def picture and sound transfer, but an amiable, insightful commentary track that includes writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait, stars Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson.

If you're planning to see the film at home on Blu-Ray (or, if you must, DVD), here is how you must watch it. (This is how you should watch ALL films at home, but especially films like Willow Creek.

1. Turn off all telephones.

2. Make sure everyone has expunged ALL waste matter. No pausing of the film is allowed. No ingestion of solids or fluids that will inspire a need to expunge waste matter.

3. ALL blinds must be drawn, ALL lights must be off.

NO LIGHT PERIOD.

Now, you're ready to watch and now, my review of the film proper:


* * * * *

In the wilderness, in the dark, it’s sound that plays tricks upon your eyes – not what you can’t see, but what your imagination conjures with every rustle, crack, crunch, moan and shriek. When something outdoors whacks the side of your tent, reality sinks in, the palpability of fear turns raw, numbing and virtually life-draining.

You’re fucked! Right royally fucked!

There were, of course, the happier times – when you and the woman you loved embarked on the fun-fuelled journey of retracing the steps of Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin who, in the fall of 1967 shot a little less than 1000 frames of motion picture footage of an entity they encountered striding through the isolated Bluff Creek in North-Western California.

Your gal was humouring you, of course. She was indulging you. She was not, however, mocking you – she was genuinely enjoying this time of togetherness in the wilderness as you lovebirds took turns with the camera and sound equipment to detail the whole experience. You both sauntered into every cheesy tourist trap in the area, chatted amiably with numerous believers and non-believers alike and, of course, you both dined on scrumptious Bigfoot burgers at a local greasy spoon.

Yup, Bigfoot – the legendary being sometimes known as Sasquatch or Yeti – a tall, broad, hairy, ape-like figure who captured the hearts, minds and imaginations of indigenous populations and beyond – especially when the Patterson-Gimlin footage took the world by storm. And now, here you both are in Willow Creek, California, following the footsteps of those long-dead amateur filmmakers.

All of us have been watching, with considerable pleasure, your romantic antics throughout the day. When night falls, we’ve joined you in your tent and soon, the happy times fade away and we’re all wishing we had some receptacle to avoid soiling our panties. You’re probably wishing the same thing, because in no time at all, you’re going to have the crap scared out of you.

We have, of course, entered the world of Bobcat Goldthwait’s Willow Creek. Goldthwait is one of the funniest men alive – a standup comedian of the highest order and a terrific comic actor, oft-recognized for his appearances in numerous movies (including the Police Academy series). He’s voiced a myriad of cartoon characters and directed Jimmy Kimmel’s TV show and subsequent concert flick.

In addition to these achievements, Goldthwait has solidified himself as one of the most original, exciting and provocative contemporary American film directors working today. His darkly humoured, satirical and (some might contend) completely over-the-top films are infused with a unique voice that’s all his own. They’ve made me laugh longer and harder than almost anything I’ve seen during the past two decades or so.

Even more astounding is that his films – his first depicting the life of an alcoholic birthday party clown, one involving dog fellatio, another about an accidental teen strangulation during masturbation and yet another which delivered a violent revenge fantasy for Liberals – ALL have a deep current of humanity running through them. His movies are as deeply observational and genuinely moving as they are nastily funny and often jaw-droppingly shocking.

God Bless America, for example, is clearly the most perverse vigilante movie ever made. Goldthwait created a wonderful character in Frank, an average American white-collar worker who suffers noisy neighbours, endless hours of TV he hates but watches anyway, loses his job for sexually harassing a dumpy co-worker who’s been coming on to him, is estranged from a wife who left him for a hunky, thick-witted cop, only gets to see his daughter by promising to buy her things he can’t afford and has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. When this beleaguered schlub begins a spree of mass murder, doing what all Liberals must do when civilization is on the brink of collapse, we’re with him all the way. When he teams up with a like-minded 12-year-old girl, the two of them a veritable Bonnie and Clyde, blasting away at America’s most vile entities, Goldthwait’s movie goes ballistic and so do we, cheering on these very cool birds of a feather who kill people – not because they’re necessarily criminals, but because they are horrible human beings contributing to society’s downfall.

I actually thought Goldthwait was going to have a hard time following that one, but I was wrong, of course. Willow Creek is a corker! It forces you to emit cascades of urine from laughing so hard, then wrenches sausage chubs of steaming excrement out of your bowels as it scares you out of your wits.

It’s a ‘found footage’ film, but I hesitate to use the almost-dirty-word to describe it, because Goldthwait, unlike far too many boneheads, hardly resorts to the sloppy tropes of the now tiresome genre. He’s remained extremely true and consistent to the conceit and in so doing, uses it as an effective storytelling tool to generate an honest-to-goodness modern masterwork of horror.

His attractive leads are nothing less than engaging. Lead actor Bryce Johnson has a naturally comic and commanding presence. As a bonus, he reveals a scrumptious posterior that the ladies will admire (and, of course, gentlemen of the proper persuasion). Alexie Gilmore is so attractive, sharp, smart and funny that it would be a shame if stardom wasn’t in the cards for her.

Goldthwait’s clever mixture of real locals and actors is perfection and the movie barrels along with a perfect pace to allow you to get to know and love the protagonists, laugh with them, laugh with the locals (not at them) and finally to plunge you into the film’s shuddering, shocking and horrific final third. The movie both creeps you out and forces you to jump out of your seat more than once.

Goldthwait is the real thing. If you haven’t seen his movies up to this point, you must. As for Willow Creek, I’d urge everyone to see the film on a big screen with a real audience if they can. When things get super-terrifying, you can feel that wonderful electric buzz that can only happen when you’re at the movies. Sure, it will work fine at home in a dark room with your best girlie snuggled at your side on the comfy couch, but – WOW! – this is a genuine BIG SCREEN EVENT. Try to see it that way, first! The movie is so good that it holds up nicely on subsequent viewings, allowing you to appreciate the full nuance of Goldthwait’s direction, his expert use of sound, the delectable humour (black and otherwise shaded) and then, there’s the bravura with which Goldthwait gives you the willies before he delivers several moments of cinematic cold cocking roundhouse blows.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Willow Creek is now available in North America via Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada and Anchor Bay. In the Uk, it's available released on DVD via Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment. If you don't own it, buy it by clicking directly on the links below and in so doing, you'll be supporting the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.



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2014 VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - The Film Corner Guide to VIFF14

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The Vancouver International Film Festival, VIFF 2014, Sept. 25 - Oct. 10, 2014 is the best and largest event of its kind in Western Canada. Here are some capsule reviews of previously published pieces with links to the full reviews. By section and alphabetical order within each section, you'll find my reviews on:

VIFF 2014 ALTERED STATES: THE EDITOR

VIFF 2014 ARTS AND LETTERS: ART AND CRAFT

VIFF 2014 CANADIAN IMAGES:
THE BOY FROM GEITA
JUST EAT IT A FOOD WASTE STORY
MYNARSKI DEATH PLUMMET
OCTOBER GALE
THE WEATHERMAN AND THE SHADOWBOXER

VIFF 2014 NON-FICTION FEATURES:
MAIDAN
RED ARMY

VIFF 2014 SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS: FOXCATCHER

VIFF 2014 SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE: L'IL QUIN QUIN

Enjoy!


VIFF 2014 ALTERED STATES:

Great giallo must have babes screaming.
The Editor (2014)
Dir. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy
Starring: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Paz de le Huerta, Udo Kier, Laurence R. Harvey, Tristan Risk, Samantha Hill, Conor Sweeney, Brent Neale, Kevin Anderson, Mackenzie Murdock, John Paizs
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Okay, ladies and gents, strap-on your biggest vibrating butt-plugs and get ready to plop your ass cheeks upon your theatre seat and glue your eyeballs upon The Editor, the newest and most triumphant Astron-6 production to date and easily the greatest thrill ride since Italy spewed out the likes of Tenebre, Inferno, Opera, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Beyond, Strip Nude For Your Killer, Don't Torture a Duckling, Hitch-Hike, Shock, Blood and Black Lace, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Kill Baby Kill and, of course, Hatchet for the Honeymoon. You will relive, beyond your wildest dreams, those films which scorched silver screens the world over during those lazy, hazy, summer days of Giallo. But, be prepared! The Editor is no mere copycat, homage and/or parody - well, it is all three, but more than that, directors Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy have done the impossible by creating a film that holds its own with the greatest gialli of all time. It's laugh-out-loud funny, grotesquely gory and viciously violent. Though it draws inspiration from Argento, Fulci, Bava, et al, the movie is so dazzlingly original that you'll be weeping buckets of joy because finally, someone has managed to mix-master all the giallo elements, but in so doing has served up a delicious platter of post-modern pasta du cinema that both harkens back to simpler, bloodier and nastier times whilst also creating a piece actually made in this day and age.

What, for example, can anyone say about a film that features the following dialogue:

BLONDE STUD: So where were you on the night of the murder?
BLONDE BABE: I was at home washing my hair and shaving my pussy.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars
Read the full review HERE

VIFF 2014 ARTS AND LETTERS:

The Good Father prepares...
Art and Craft (2014)
Dir. Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman
Co-Dir/Editor: Mark Becker
Review By Greg Klymkiw

For thirty years, Mark Landis travelled the highways and byways of the United States of America in his big, old red cadillac, donating priceless works of art to innumerable prestigious galleries. In return, he asked for nothing. He wanted neither recognition nor money. Hell, he didn't even want tax breaks. All Landis wanted was to give. And damn, he gave! He gave, in the Red Cross parlance, ever-so generously. Curators, administrators and various art mavens were happy to accept his donations and mount the works of art in their galleries. Everything from Picasso to Matisse to Charles Courtney Curran graced their walls. The list, it seems, goes on and on. And on. And on. And on. But here's the rub . . .

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars
Read the full review HERE

VIFF 2014 CANADIAN IMAGES (in alphabetical order):

Adam and Peter.
One is Tanzanian.
The other is Canadian.
Both have albinism.
One's called a ghost,
The other's a businessman.
TOGETHER they're a formidable force AGAINST
IGNORANCE, HATRED and PREJUDICE.
The Boy From Geita (2014)
Dir. Vic Sarin
Review By Greg Klymkiw

In Tanzania, if you're born with albinism, a rare genetic condition that severely lightens the pigmentation of your skin and renders you susceptible to dangerous, damaging effects from the sun's rays, you are less than zero. You're considered a living ghost and the only thing you're good for is what can be extricated from you in death by witch doctors who make use of your body parts for all manner of good luck potions . . . The legendary cinematographer and filmmaker Vic Sarin presents a story that is, at once appallingly grotesque, yet also, out of the dark side of the human spirit is a tale of profound and deep compassion.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars
Read the full review HERE




Idiot Food Stores Reject Edible Food
Because Idiot Customers want the food
to LOOK aesthetically pleasing. All of it
goes to a landfill because there are simply
too many STUPID PEOPLE in the world.
Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story (2014)
Dir. Grant Baldwin
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Vancouver residents Grant Baldwin and Jenny Rustemeyer seem like your normal garden variety bourgeois couple, replete with a fix-it-upper older home with trendily remade/remodelled interior design/decor, so why, you might ask, do they eat from garbage bins?

Well, to make this film, of course.

And what an eye-opener it is!!!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars
Read the full review HERE


Canada's Great War Hero, Andrew Mynarski VC,
Shooting Star of Selfless Sacrifice, a man of Bronze.
Mynarski Death Plummet (2014)
Dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Alek Rzeszowski, Annie St-Pierre,
Robert Vilar, Louis Negin
Review By Greg Klymkiw

The true promise, the very future of the great Dominion of Canada and La Belle Province lies beneath the soil of France and Belgium. Between World Wars I and II, Canada lost close to 2% of its population, the vast majority of whom were the country's youngest and brightest from the ages of 16 to 30. Canadian lads bravely served on the front lines, well ahead of the glory-grabbing Americans, the Yankee Doodle mop-up crew that dandily sauntered overseas after all the hard work was paid for by the blood spilled upon European soil by the very heart and soul of Canada's future and that of so many other countries not bearing the Red, White and Blue emblem of puffery. As a matter of fact, any of the best and bravest in Canada came from Winnipeg and if you had to pick only one hero of the Great Wars from anywhere in the country, Andrew Mynarski, a gunner in the famed Moose Squadron, would be the one, the only. He is the subject of Matthew Rankin's perfect gem of a film, the one, the only genuine cinematic work of art to detail the valiant sacrifice, the one, the only, the unforgettable Mynarski Death Plummet.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars
Read the full review HERE


A great movie for steno-girls, retail clerks
and 70-year-old women looking for
cheap thrills on cable TV.
October Gale (2014)
Dir. Rubba Nadda
Starring: Patricia Clarkson, Scott Speedman, Tim Roth,
Aidan Devine, Callum Keith Rennie
Review By Greg Klymkiw

I went to see this movie knowing only the title and that it was starting at a time when I had nothing else to see. Usually, this is perfect. Knowing nothing about what you're going to see at a film festival is what yields the greatest treats. However, I knew I was in for trouble when the picture started in black with one sole, sombre note plunked on a piano.

Ugh!

When this happens, I usually think, "Oh fuck, another Canadian movie with a crappy piano score." No sooner did the next plop on the keyboard resonate in my auricular cavities when the soul-sucking credit "Produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada" did spew, like a spray of chunky regurgitate onto the screen. Though the opening score continued with a bit more variety of piano plunking, it sounded like something rendered by a Ferrante and Teicher tribute artist on a HiFi LP in the $1 bin at a used record store.

THE FILM CORNER RATING:
"TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND
HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE"
(LOWEST RATING: Below One-Star and One Pubic Hair)
Read the full review HERE



A maze begins in childhood & never ends.
The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer (2014)

Dir. Randall Okita
Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of Canada's national filmmaking treasures, Randall Okita (Portrait as a Random Act of Violence), takes the very simple story of two brothers and charts how a tragic event in childhood placed them on very different, yet equally haunted (and haunting) paths. Mixing live action that ranges from noir-like, shadowy, rain-splattered locales to the strange, colourful (yet antiseptically so) world of busy, high-tech, yet empty reportage, mixing it up with reversal-stock-like home movie footage, blending it altogether in a kind of cinematic mixmaster with eye popping animation and we're offered-up a simple tale that provides a myriad of levels to tantalize, intrigue and finally, catch us totally off-guard and wind us on a staggering emotional level.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars
Read the full review HERE

VIFF 2014 NON-FICTION FEATURES:

Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovitch,
the corrupt puppet of Russia
(pictured bottom left with blood of Ukrainians on his face
and conferring with the pig Putin), inspired the massive
revolutionary actions in Kyiv's Independence Square ("Maidan").
The war continues, but for several months,
the spirit of the Cossack Brotherhood was
gloriously rekindled, rising up in defiance
to lead the charge against a scourge
as evil as the Nazis. The early days
of revolution are captured vividly
in Sergei Loznitsa's great film MAIDAN.
Maidan (2014)
Dir. Sergei Loznitsa
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Part of me wishes I could just respond to this great documentary as, one supposes, it should be - as a stunning, stirring work of film art that adheres to the tenets of direct cinema by simply focusing upon three key months of the revolution in Ukraine from late 2013 to early 2014. And make no mistake, Maidan, by Sergei Loznitsa is a grand achievement of the highest order. Other than occasional inter-titles describing the historical context in a simple, fact-based manner, Loznitsa allows his exquisite footage to speak for itself. Using long takes, beautifully composed with no camera movement, the film captures key moments, both specific historical incidents and deeply, profoundly moving human elements. As such, the film evokes stirring and fundamental narrative, thematic and emotional sensations which place us directly in the eye of the storm.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars
Read the full review HERE

Red Army (2014)
Dir. Gabe Polsky
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Gabe Polsky’s feature length documentary Red Army is as much about the propaganda machine (of Cold War Russia) as it is pure American propaganda unto itself, by placing undue emphasis upon the rivalry between America and the Soviet Union on the blood-spattered battleground of ice hockey competition during the 1980 Olympics. Polsky has fashioned a downright spellbinding history of the Red Army hockey team, which eventually became a near-juggernaut of Soviet skill and superiority in the world. In spite of this, many Canadians will call the film a total crock-and-bull story. A Canuck perspective on the propagandistic gymnastics of of this American-centric film that makes no reference to the 1972 Canada-Russia series, not to mention the numerous Team Canada bouts with the Soviets throughout the 70s and 80s, will inspire more than just a little crying foul over Polsky’s film.

Greg Klymkiw's RATING: *** 3-Stars

Read the FULL article in my Colonial Report column at in the ultra-cool British film mag Electric Sheep - a deviant view of Cinema by clicking HERE which examines the film within the context of an essay entitled: Canada vs. America: The Politics and Propaganda of Sports in Gabe Polsky’s Red Army and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.

VIFF 2014 SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS:

Foxcatcher (2014)
Dir. Bennett Miller
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Foxcatcher, one of the most exciting American movies of the year, very strangely employs propagandistic elements within the narrative structure provided by screenwriters E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, which, in turn, the director Bennett Miller superbly jockeys in his overall mise-en-scène. Astonishingly, the filmmakers manage to have their cake and eat it too. By offering a detailed examination of propaganda within the context of American history and society, as well as a mounting an ever-subtle critical eye upon it, Miller might continue to add accolades to his mantle in addition to the Best Director nod he copped at Cannes.


Greg Klymkiw's RATING
****
4-Stars

Read the FULL article in my Colonial Report column at in the ultra-cool British film mag Electric Sheep - a deviant view of Cinema by clicking HERE which examines the film within the context of an essay entitled: Canada vs. America: The Politics and Propaganda of Sports in Gabe Polsky’s Red Army and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.

VIFF 2014 SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE

Ah, the bucolic lives
of rural inbreds.
L'il Quinquin (aka P'tit Quinquin) (2014)
Dir. Bruno Dumont
Starring: Alane Delhaye, Lucy Caron, Bernard Pruvost, Philippe Jore
Review By Greg Klymkiw

I pretty much can't stand Bruno Dumont. His oh-so ironic plunges into northern French rural culture have always been rendered with a heavy enough hand that I've found it almost impossible to respond on any level but contempt. I especially hated his inexplicably acclaimed L'Humanite which involved an investigation of an especially brutal act of violence punctuated by scenes of cops actually taking weekends off to go to the seaside, eat cheese and sip wine. The non-thriller exploration of character and culture grew tiresome and just made me long for some of the more straight-up Gallic policiers I'd come to love over the years. Though L'il Quinquin also involves an investigation of a series of serial killings in a similar setting as the aforementioned, I was shocked to find myself sufficiently intrigued to sit all the way through its mammoth length of 200 minutes. Focusing primarily upon a group of kids living in a seaside resort, the film is an all-out comedy and as such, works moderately well.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars
Read the full review HERE

FOR TICKETS AND FURTHER INFO, VISIT THE VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WEBSITEHERE

ALL THAT JAZZ - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Classic Fosse showbiz musical get full CRITERION treatment

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Bye Bye Life, Hello Emptiness
All That Jazz (1979)
Dir. Bob Fosse
Starring: Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking, Deborah Geffner, Ben Vereen, Cliff Gorman, Erzsébet Földi, John Lithgow, Keith Gordon, Sandahl Bergman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

To my knowledge, All That Jazz is the only musical that is completely fuelled by self-destruction and death. Though Herbert Ross's joyously bleak 1981 Pennies From Heaven (from Dennis Potter's 1978 BBC mini-series) is equally infused with self-destruction and death, none of it is at all intentional as it is in this thinly-veiled autobiographical belly flop into the mind of Broadway choreographer/director Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider), standing in for director and co-writer Bob Fosse.

In the course of one year during the mid-70s, Fosse directed three major undertakings - the original Broadway stage production of Chicago, the harrowing motion picture biopic of doomed comedian Lenny Bruce with Dustin Hoffman in the title role and the massive live-to-tape television special Liza with a Z starring his original Sally Bowles from the Oscar-winning Cabaret. Anyone who has directed even one of the aforementioned knows how energy-draining and soul-sucking the process can be. Fosse did all three at once. He also suffered from epilepsy, smoked five packs of cigarettes per day, popped scads of uppers, drank like a fish, slept with at least one different woman every night and was "unexpectedly" hit with heart disease, which, subsequently led to Fosse undergoing open-heart surgery.

They don't make 'em like Bob Fosse anymore.

All That Jazz is the borderline avant-garde, semi-realist, semi-fantastical, and dazzlingly Fellini-esque musical rumination upon the aforementioned period of Fosse's life. Call it self indulgent if you will, but it's one hell of a great show.

Opening with a massive audition sequence with hundreds of dancers on the stage, slowly weeded out by Gideon to the strains of George Benson crooning "On Broadway", punctuated by early morning rituals of Vivaldi on his tape deck, squirting drops liberally into his bloodshot eyes, popping dexedrine and washing it down with fizzy alka-seltzer and then, ever-gazing at himself in the bathroom mirror as he utters his "It's showtime, folks!" mantra, we're privy to an insider's look at showbiz unlike any other. Whether Gideon's driving his dancers to tears - especially a leggy clodhopper (Deborah Geffner) he's recently bedded down - obsessively cutting his movie to get the performance of his leading actor (Cliff Gorman) 110%, being a super-cool dad to his daughter (Erzsébet Földi) and privately tutoring her in dance, commiserating with his wife (Leland Palmer) whom he still loves but can't live with (or rather, in all truthfulness, vice-versa), loving but not committing to his long suffering-girlfriend (Ann Reinking), tossing all his choreography out the window and re-jigging it with a hot blonde (Sandahl Bergman) as lead dancer in a piece drenched with nudity, sex and every conceivable carnal coupling, Fosse fashions a veritable kaleidoscope out of Gideon's life - and by extension, his life.

As if this wasn't enough to keep our jangled eyeballs glued to the screen, Fosse delivers a series of fantastical flash forwards with Gideon recounting his life and philosophies to Death (Jessica Lange). Yes, I kid you not, DEATH. And what a babe Death turns out to be. This is Lange's second film just after the 70s Dino De Laurentiis King Kong and Fosse's got her dolled-up head to toe in pure popsicle licking-and-sucking ice-goddess-white.

Of course, some of the most delightfully engaging and sexy conversations in the movie occur twixt the two characters. Gideon knows he can't bullshit Death and Death is rather charmed and amused by Gideon's antics. Besides, the more insanely self-destructive he is, the sooner she can claim Gideon to walk towards the white light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps the most telling exchange between them is when Death (or Angelique as she's listed in the credits) asks if he believes in love and his response is a very forthright: "I believe in saying, 'I love you.'"

And oh, does Gideon profess his love to all the women in his life: left, right, centre, up, down and sideways. At one point, as he's rushed down a hospital corridor on a gurney, he imagines his wife on one side of him and his girlfriend on the other. To his wife, he says, "If I die, I'm sorry for all the bad things I did to you." To his girlfriend he says, "If I live, I'm sorry for all the bad things I'm going to do to you." For Gideon, love hurts - just so long as he's not the one being hurt. After all, he only really loves one person, himself, and he's more than happy to hurt himself. In Gideon's eyes, Self-destruction doesn't count. Though he's a liar, cheat, bully, braggart and son of a bitch, we can't help but love him (and neither, of course, can he). As played by the super-manly-man tough guy Roy Scheider, Gideon's allowed to be artistic in what some might consider an effete profession - but good, goddamn, he's all MAN!!! Fosse gives us plenty of reasons to like Gideon. It's as if we're given permission to like this charming, chain-smoking, sex-charged prick.

Gideon, you see, is the ultimate choreographer. Not only does he choreograph his Broadway shows, he choreographs every aspect of his life, his friendships, his collaborations and his love relationships. They're all choreographed to satisfy him. He assumes, nay - demands - that what gives him pleasure is pleasure enough for all. Of course, since he has the self-appointed (anointed) power to choreograph his life, it stands to reason he's ultimately going to choreograph his ultimate production.

Speaking of which, the musical production numbers in the film, whether they're within a rehearsal context or eventually in full-blown movie-musical splendour during Gideon's open-heart-surgery reveries (yup, his hedonism leads to the Big One), Fosse continually enchants the eye and keeps one's toes a tapping. And nothing in recent decades has been quite as spectacular as the aforementioned "ultimate" Joe Gideon production - the man gets to choreograph his own death.

And what a death Gideon gives himself - a stunning showstopper of a number that includes a full band onstage, lights to trip fantastic to, agile chorus girls (and boys) spinning and gyrating with abandon, a full house including everyone and anyone of any consequence in his life, some of whom he dashes madly into the aisles to personally say farewell to and if that's not enough, the whole thing is set to a crazily funky rendition of the Everly Brothers'"Bye Bye Love", sung and danced by the astounding Ben Vereen with the word "Love" replaced by "Life". Hell, Gideon even gets a shot at crooning and engaging in pelvic whirligigs atop a glittery pinnacle with master showman Vereen.

"Bye Bye Life, Bye Bye happiness. . . Hello emptiness, I think he's gonna die. . . Goodbye your life, Goodbye. . . I think I'm gonna die!"

Bye, bye life, indeed.

Fosse won his directing Oscar for the phenomenal Cabaret, but it's here (and his subsequent Star 80, still begging for a proper home video release), where he really outdid himself. His direction of his own choreography is especially revealing. If one thinks, if even for just a moment, about any of Fosse's choreography in the film, it becomes readily apparent that all the numbers are staged in ways that would never work in a traditional proscenium context. This, ironically, is in marked contrast to the abysmal direction of the inexplicably-lauded film version of Fosse's Chicago wherein the boneheaded Rob Marshall directed choreography that might have worked on a stage, but is respectively, pathetically and laughably shot and cut with tin eyes and big old ham-fists.

Fosse is a filmmaker - the real thing! Like a few greats before him, most notably Busby Berkeley, Fosse directs and choreographs all the numbers for the camera - it's pure, joyous, unadulterated cinema. It also doesn't hurt that Fosse's cinematographer is none other than frequent Fellini lenser Giuseppe Rotunno. A canny-enough choice given some of the resemblance All That Jazz has, in homage, to 8-and-a-Half.

It's a marvel watching All That Jazz again on a superior format like Blu-Ray. It's not only as sumptuous and exciting as it was when it first unspooled on film in 1979, it's probably the next best thing to owning your own pristine 35mm print. In a contemporary context, Fosse's great picture feels even fresher and bolder today than I imagined it to be 35-years-ago.

And save, for all the endlessly delightful scenes showing doctors, including heart surgeons (!!!), chain smoking cigarettes, that's about the only thing in the film that feels even remotely dated.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

And WOW! The Criterion Collection continues to outdo themselves. This gorgeously transferred dual-format (Blu-Ray AND DVD) home entertainment package in an all-new 4K digital restoration, with 3.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, has OWN ME written all over it. The extra features are an absolute bounty. The 40-minute scene-specific commentary by Roy Scheider really knocks this one out of the park. He offers considerable insight into his role, the working relationship he had with Fosse and even the filmmaking process. I can't imagine anyone not enjoying this added-value feature, but it's an absolute must for actors to cherish (burgeoning or otherwise).

There are numerous interview segments with editor Alan Heim, Fosse biographer Sam Wasson, actors Ann Reinking and Erzsebet Foldi, plus an astonishing episode of the talk show "Tomorrow" from 1980, featuring Fosse and legendary choreographer Agnes de Mille. There are also two superb in-depth interview with Fosse from the 80s, one of which, conducted by Gene Shalit, is shockingly well done.

As if that's not enough, there are two full length documentaries on the making of the film, on-set footage, featurettes on the film's music (including one with George Benson) and a lovely booklet with a decent essay. The only mild disappointment is the feature length commentary by editor Heim who is either far too silent through most of the film, far too anecdotal (delivering information we already know from the added documentaries) and when it comes to discussing the cutting, he's far too general and not very specific. A minor quibble, though. There's plenty here to keep you engaged for a lifetime.


DON'T FORGET, YOU CAN ORDER ALL THAT JAZZ AND THESE OTHER CRITERION COLLECTION TITLES DIRECTLY FROM THE LINKS BELOW, AND IN SO DOING, CONTRIBUTE TO THE ONGOING MAINTENANCE OF THE FILM CORNER.

THE CAPTIVE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Creepy Egoyan Thriller NOT @TIFF14, but in Real Movie Theatres

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The fetishization of our greatest fears
The Captive (2014)
Dir. Atom Egoyan
Script: David Fraser & Egoyan
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Scott Speedman, Rosario Dawson, Mireille Enos, Kevin Durand, Christine Horne, Alexia Fast, Peyton Kennedy, Bruce Greenwood, Aaron Poole, Jason Blicker

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Spanning eight years in the life of Cassandra (Alexia Fast/Peyton Kennedy), a child kidnapped from her father Matthew's (Ryan Reynolds) car while he pops into a roadside bakery to bring home a treat, The Captive focuses upon both the Stockholm-Syndrome-like effects upon the girl and the devastation her disappearance wreaks upon the family and cops looking for some closure (positive or negative) to the mystery. It's subject matter that hits all the chords most of us want to eradicate from our world and as such, perfect material for the masterful Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan.

Egoyan's meticulously complex films have almost always been tinged with creepy thriller-like elements, darkly droll humour and deep humanity buried beneath layers of existential disconnect and deliberate puzzle-like manipulations of time and space. His superb 1999 adaptation of William Trevor's novel Felicia's Journey is still one of the best serial killer movies made in the last two decades. I'd even place it far above such fake "A"-picture studio exploitation items making thrills palatable to the mainstream like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en. Featuring Bob Hoskins' finest performance (ever) as Hilditch, the gastronomically-obsessed and even somewhat banal psychopath, Felicia's Journey struck me as being a kind of demented play on Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy as if that 70s classic had been pumped full of deliciously near-lethal doses of lovely lithium. It was sickeningly terrifying and oddly, deeply moving. I longed for Egoyan to make another thriller and even now wish he'd do nothing but thrillers or maybe even a flat-out horror.

The Captive is nothing if not downright shudder-inducing. Set against the overcast snow blanket of Southern Ontario's Niagara region, the film taps directly into every parent's greatest terror - the disappearance of a child without a single, solitary trace. It's a surefire starting point, but Egoyan and David Fraser's twisted, ominously fetishistic screenplay provides a solid framework for the film to go well beyond merely tapping into the fear everyone harbours. It's as much a genre picture of the highest order as it is a harrowing exploration of faith, family and the soul-sickening sense of hope that drives all those touched by the horrendous violence perpetrated against children.

The Captive's potential to anger audiences (especially, it seems, quite a few boneheaded, know-nothing film "critics") is not unlike that of Lars von Trier's AntiChrist (sans, of course, that film's genital mutilation). I feel strongly, though, that neither film seeks to intentionally raise ire, but rather, to dive into all sorts of places that most people simply don't want to go, places that are so necessary and vital to confront, grotesquely dark corners of existence to reflect upon and/or expose.

The Captive achieves this in two brilliant ways. First of all, Fraser and Egoyan set up a number of familiar narrative tropes of the thriller genre and give them a decidedly shaken, not stirred, quality. What's structurally mundane becomes extraordinarily abhorrent, creepily unnerving. Inherent in both the narrative and the aesthetic are the especially horrendous fetishistic qualities of perspective which place us as observers in the pain of the film's victims/subjects.

Visually and stylistically, Egoyan's rich compositions, supported by cinematographer Paul Sarossy's delicate shadings and painterly dappling of light capture the very essence of white-grey exteriors and the (mostly) clinical interiors. When the visual palette includes warmth, it comes in the unlikeliest of places like the psychopath's lair, the victim's prison, Nicole the cop's (Rosario Dawson) office and, of course, the roadside bakery which is where the horror really begins.

There's so much I admire about this movie. Ryan Reynolds continues to prove he's one of the great living actors and here he taps emotional depths he's yet to uncover - his despair is so palpable we can't help but walk in his shoes. Mychael Danna's score is a marvel - tapping both the moving power and jangling force of Bernard Herrmann. Witness the opening movements of the score - so lushly bucolic, but as the camera slowly reveals more and more snow and bush of the isolated setting, we hear ever-so slight tinges of unease. Then, of course, during moments of pulse-pounding suspense (two sequences during the film's climactic moments in particular had me rendering my fingertips to bloody, pulpy stubs), Danna slams us with everything he's got and then some.

Kevin Durand as the full-on sicko ringleader of an online community of pain-fetishists is slime-incarnate and there isn't a moment he's onscreen that we don't feel like vomiting. His performance is bravely in sharp contrast to Hoskins from Felicia's Journey where the late British bombast actually tapped into human aspects that allowed us to care for him. Durand does something even more difficult, he taps into humanity - and yes, it IS humanity - that we never hope to experience, but indeed exists. This is no Snidely Whiplash villain, but the kind of sick, venal, mind-numbingly banal and even pretentious evil that's finally more the reality of these sick freaks.

Though the film has its share of universal qualities, the manner with which Egoyan explores the dark-net subculture of predators is also rooted in truly indigenous qualities of Canadian culture. The country has long had a history of monsters infused with the vapid desires of such empty vessels as Bernardo-Homolka, Clifford Olson and, amongst many, many others, Dennis Melvin Howe. Unlike Hannibal Lecter, serial criminal psychopaths are not brilliant, they're petty, pretentious and boring.

This, for me, might be the scariest, most sickening element of The Captive. So much pain and wasted time in the lives decent people comes from the actions of a trite, haughty dullard. Thank Christ Egoyan shoves our faces in the faecal matter of this reality. Doing so manages to expose terrible truths and give us one hell of a thrilling ride.

The Captive is in theatrical release across the country via eOne.

FRONTERA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Contemporary Border Hopping Western in limited Theatrical via VSC

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Frontera (2014)
Dir. Michael Berry
Starring: Ed Harris, Michael Peña, Eva Longoria, Aden Young, Amy Madigan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Frontera has the misfortune of being a watchable drama about the dangers facing "illegal" Mexican migrant workers crossing over the border into America. I say "misfortune" because the huge number of similar films has yielded several with which the bar has been set extremely high, one that Michael Berry's superbly acted and gorgeously photographed film is simply unable to reach due to its middling script (co-written by Berry with Louis Moulinet). If a picture can't come even remotely close to Robert M. Young's groundbreaking neo-realistic-styled Alambrista, Tony Richardson's stunning, existentialist-male-angst thriller The Border and the more recent docudrama Who is Dayani Cristal?, it's pretty much going to be the cat in the bag, with said bag in the river.

This is what befalls Frontera, a modest drama which offers us a multi-character narrative full of by-the-numbers story beats, that are not without some merit, but cumulatively add up to something feeling a lot more made-for-cable than a theatrical feature. Peña plays a Mexican who gets railroaded into a murder rap after he crosses the border into redneck Arizona territory on land, too coincidentally belonging to retired ex-lawman Harris. Peña's pregnant wife, Longoria, knowing her husband is a good and decent family man follows his path, but gets kidnapped by unscrupulous Mexican smugglers who are little more than ransom-seekers.

Adding a standard TV procedural sub-plot to the already-crowded proceedings, Harris smells a rat and begins investigating the murder all on his lonesome, butting heads with new sheriff Aden Young who is, in fact, trying to cover up the identity of the real killers. Alas, all these connected threads proceed predictably, since from the beginning, there's no real mystery as to who's who and who's done what. It all feels like a matter of running time before everything's sewn up in favour of the disenfranchised over the corrupt.

What's finally served up here is something that Ed Harris and/or Michael Peña admirers might enjoy if they're in a laid-back channel-flipping or V.O.D. mood. Those simply drawn to the subject matter, might be less enthralled. The political and social implications of America's ludicrously two-faced and corrupt border policies are all touched-upon, but frustratingly take a back seat to familiar melodramatic turns.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **½ Two-and-a-half Stars

Frontera is in limited theatrical release via VSC and currently screens at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas in Toronto. It's availability on home entertainment platforms is inevitable.

My reviews of Alambrista can be found HERE and Who is Dayani Cristal? is HERE.

MOEBIUS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - South Korean Maestro Delivers Ultimate Date Movie via VSC @TheRoyal

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Moebius (2013)
Dir. Ki-duk Kim
Starring: Jae-hyeon Jo, Eun-woo Lee, Young-ju Seo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Moebius is my idea of a perfect date movie because, frankly, any date who storms out of it in disgust is, quite simply, not someone you want to spend any time with anyway. Good riddance, I say! You don't like Ki-duk Kim? Find some loser who'll suffer through dinner at The Keg followed by a screening of The Fault in Our Stars.

Life's too short! Hasta la vista, baby! Granted, you might have to see Moebius by yourself, but that's just fine. Why see it with anyone unless you can see it with someone you truly love?

Love, by the way, is what this picture is all about. Love between a husband and wife, a husband and his mistress, a husband and his son and, well, in addition to a few other love couplings, each getting more perversely intense than the last, Moebius is ultimately focused upon the greatest love of all, love for a penis. Not just any penis, mind you. When a disgruntled wifey attempts to slice the penis off her philandering hubby, she's thwarted in her efforts by not quite being, uh, on the ball enough to do it properly. In frustration, she does the next best thing, she slices off the penis belonging to her teenage son. An aghast hubby thinks the penis might be salvageable, but wifey does what any Mother would do, she stuffs it in her mouth and eats it.

A teenage lad without a penis is a pitiful thing. He sprays urine all over his shoes in public washrooms, is teased by classmates and he can't even indulge in a gang rape properly. Dad teaches the lad how to make use of extreme self-inflicted pain as an erogenous zone and eventually does what any good father would do. Dad sacrifices his own penis so his Son can be a man again.

Alas, the penis truly belongs to Dad and can only give pleasure to those who received pleasure from it and can only receive pleasure from those who once pleasured it. Uh, Mom? We think you're needed in Sonny's boudoir.

To say Moebius might not be appreciated by everyone is probably an understatement, but it's a dazzlingly sickening and funny exploration of family, fidelity, love and, ultimately, the notion of anatomy taking on personal properties rooted (so to speak) in the spirit from whence it came.

The only guarantee I can ultimately offer, however, is that you'll have not quite seen anything like Moebius. The film is pitched to levels of extremity seldom matched and director Ki-duk Kim tells his perverse tale with no dialogue and plenty of over-the-top pantomime. This is nothing to discount. It's pure cinema!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three-and-a-half-Stars

Moebius is in limited release via VSC and is on display at Toronto's majestic Royal Cinema.

THE NOTEBOOK (aka "A nagy füzet") - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Harrowing Hungarian Boys-during-WWII Drama

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The Notebook (AKA "A nagy füzet")
Dir. János Szász (2013)
Starring: László Gyémánt, András Gyémánt, Piroska Molnár, Ulrich Thomsen, Ulrich Matthes, Gyöngyvér Bognár, Orsolya Tóth, János Derzsi, Diána Kiss

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Films depicting the horrors of war take on added resonance when they focus upon the innocence of childhood and, like Rene Clement's Forbidden Games or Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, they're especially horrific when they focus upon the sort of insanity which grips children within the fevered backdrop of combat.

János Szász's The Notebook (AKA "A nagy füzet"), based upon the late Agota Kristof's award-winning 1986 novel, is replete with Eastern European rural repression as well as the inevitability that "freedom" from Nazism will lead to yet another form of Totalitarian rule. As such, it's a film that delivers several added layers of pain which represents a reality that all children have and will continue to experience so long as war is as much a part of human existence as breathing is.

The Notebook takes place during the final years of WWII in Hungary and focuses upon a seemingly inevitable decision a family must make that affects their children forever. With war still raging, a mother (Gyöngyvér Bognár) and father (Ulrich Matthes) decide it might be best to remove their sons (László Gyémánt, András Gyémánt) from the city.

Dad is a soldier and is especially adamant the boys be separated as they're twins and stick out more than most siblings. The mother will hear none of that since the boys are inseparable and instead transports them deep into the countryside to stay with her long-estranged and widowed mother (Piroska Molnár) who is placed in the position of being their reluctant Grandmother.

The boys are devastated to be left behind with this abusive, nasty-spirited old woman (referred by the those living in the nearby village as "The Witch"). She makes it clear to the lads that they will be forced to work her farm and earn their food and lodgings. In addition to beating them on a regular basis, referring to them only as "bastards", she tops off her cruelty towards the boys by leaving them locked outside in the cold.

Soon, the twins realize they will have to learn to survive at all costs.

They perform their chores with the same rapt attention they pay to their studies (from an encyclopaedia and Holy Bible) as well as the detailed writings of their experiences in a notebook supplied by their father who previously asked them to recount their lives in his absence. Survival, though, means learning to steal, withstand physical pain and eventually, to kill.

Especially moving, though in a odd and unexpected way, is the mutual love and respect that develops between the twins and their grandmother. They admire her tenacious survival mode and she, in turn, their steely resolve (and inherent nastiness), which she comes to grudgingly recognize in terms of their blood ties (and in spite of hating her daughter for abandoning the village so long ago).

The boys befriend a variety of locals, all of whom contribute in some way to their knowledge, survival and/or experience. An S.S. commandant (Ulrich Thomsen) from a nearby concentration camp takes a liking to them and becomes their unlikeliest protector, a facially disfigured teenage girl the boys cruelly call Hairlip (Orsolya Tóth) teaches them how to steal, a Jewish shoemaker (János Derzsi) who takes pity on them outfits the boys with winter boots and finally a maid (Diána Kiss) bathes the filthy, lice-ridden lads and even considers the possibly of introducing them to the pleasures of the flesh - these are but a few of the primary individuals whose paths the boys cross.

Amidst this strange world, the twins face adulthood through the skewed perspective of war and gain maturity long before they should. Sadly, it's a demented maturity, influenced by the horrors around them. They discover love of family where they least expect it, they reject another aspect of family love they'd never have imagined doing before the war and indeed, they kill and kill willingly - not because they especially want to, but because the circumstances demand it. (They do, however, want to kill one person and succeed in facially disfiguring this person in retaliation for giving up the Jewish shoemaker to the Nazis.)

The Notebook is an extraordinary experience. Screenwriter-Director János Szász elicits a series of performances that sear themselves into one's memory and he delivers a stark, haunting and devastating film by presenting some of the most horrendous acts of inhumanity in an oddly straightforward way, adorned only by the straight, unemotional narration through the boys' voiceover as written in their notebook.

Horror in this world, seen through the eyes of children, is presented as a simple matter of fact and this might be the most moving and disturbing thing of all. It's about children forcing themselves to not feel pain, to suppress all emotion and to never, ever cry. It's a film that might well be set in World War II, but it's as vital to the horrific world we now live in as if the events recounted were happening now. Most shocking and telling is the portrayal of Russian soldiers as the "liberators" of Hungary - marching in after the Nazis flee, but then, as Russians are won't to do, achieving little but stealing from the Hungarian farmers, hunting down anti-communist Hungarians as if they were war criminals and at one point, gang raping a young woman and murdering her for pleasure.

Not only do the boys learn there's no room for tears, but "liberator" is just another word for "oppressor".

The Notebook is a Mongrel Media release currently unspooling at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
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