VLADISLAV ENJOYS, uh, IMPALING, or rather, POKING.

1. A Fine Mess 2. Erotic Dance 3. Big Grumpy Pants 4. Impaling is always Fun

I should have hated this movie, but I couldn't. It's too good-natured and funny not to like. We're talking mockumentary, here. The subjects are vampires in New Zealand in the modern world. Just imagine a slightly broader This is Spinal Tap with blood-sucking before you go in and you're going to be just fine. I went in expecting nothing, mind you, but was rewarded with consistent laughs and often found myself soaring with joyous ebullience.

The set-up is pretty basic. A documentary crew (who always stay behind camera and don't ever appear as characters a la Rob Reiner in Spinal Tap) is granted permission to capture the daily lives of vampires (with a solemn oath that they'll never be attacked).

We're introduced to a "family" of four bloodsuckers and unlike our traditional notion of the undead living solitary lives in out-of-the-way castles, these fellas live in a sprawling dwelling in Wellington, New Zealand as - get this - flatmates.

Viago (Taika Waititi) is a bit frilly and foppish and takes on the role of fuss-budget den mother - always reminding his co-habitants of their household duties (sweeping, dusting, doing dishes and not leaving bloody spinal columns on the floor).

Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) is a long-haired, moustachioed satyr who hails from an Eastern European tradition of impaling, though he prefers to call it "poking".

Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) is the youngest and hence, most immature of the bunch, complaining about having to lift even the slightest finger to fulfil his responsibilities as a flatmate.

Deep in the bowels of the basement lives the eldest of the group, Petyr (Ben Fransham), a grumpy, 8000-year-old Max Schrek (or depending on your cup of Nosferatu, Klaus Kinski) lookalike.

The camera crew conducts one-on-one interviews with the oddball assortment of vampires in addition to capturing their day-to-day activities. The lads especially enjoy nights on the town (save for Petyr, who seldom leaves the basement, preferring victims to be dragged downstairs for him) and we get to enjoy our sidewalk-sashaying nocturnal undead buds roaming about, making like Dion and the Belmonts'The Wanderers.

Vampire Jam Session

Alas, these oddly-attired "nerds" are refused entry to all the hottest clubs and usually end up in the same joint, a decidedly uncool watering hole full of others of their uncool ilk. Here they usually meet up with their human "slave" Jackie (Jackie van Beek) who not only cleans up their messes, but most importantly, procures victims for them to dine upon. Poor Jackie is infected with the vampire bug, but only enough to do the fellas' bidding.

Nick - Master Clubber

She longs for eternal life and wants it sooner rather than later. She feels she's in her prime and wants to stay that way forever. How long can a girl be expected to procure? One of the victims she does indeed appropriate for the lads is the youthful Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer). Rather than decimating him entirely, he's drained completely of blood and turned into a vampire himself, thus becoming a new flatmate. Good thing too.

Nick's quite the man about town and gets his pals into all the hottest nightclubs.

IT-whiz Stu introduces our vampires to the INTERNET!

The only thing that troubles Nick, though, is not having the company of his best friend, the computer geek Stu (Stuart Rutherford). He cuts a deal with the other vampires to bring Stu into his confidence and into their private world - unmolested. This turns out to be the best deal ever for the fellas since Stu's an IT-whiz during his day job and soon has the vampires hooked on YouTube, Skype, FaceBook and all manner of cyber-shenanigans.

There's a tiny bit of conflict that creeps into the movie involving their natural rivals, the werewolves of Wellington and Nick's less-than-discrete bad habit of telling everyone he knows (or barely knows) that he and his buds are vampires. This brings far too much unwanted attention upon them including a genuine vampire hunter and visits from the local constabulary.

The film eventually builds to an absolutely insane climax when the lads attend an annual ball of vampires, witches and zombies which furthermore spills over into a potentially deadly conflict with the werewolves. None of this, however, is ever scary, though there's a decent amount of tension and plenty of surprises to be had.

All in all, this group of bloodsuckers prove to be genuinely charming and likeable fellows and the movie injects all the tropes and lore of vampirism into the proceedings to keep genre fans constantly delighted. The running time is mercifully short and the picture never overstays its welcome. Happily, the camera crew do capture more than a few chases and kills, but they're never offensively complicit in their actions like, for example, the filmmakers in the vaguely reprehensible Man Bites Dog. The mock-doc is true to the genre and we're never presented with the sort of gaffes that can, in lesser examples of the ilk, takes us completely out of the forward thrust of the piece.

WHOOPSIE-DAISY: A BLEEDING MESS!

Though I might have preferred some of the performances to be slightly less over-played, nobody is ever egregiously tongue-in-cheek. Surprisingly, the movie is full of moments that are genuinely sweet and, I kid you not, rather touching. God knows, mock-docs and vampire pictures have been done to death, but What We Do In The Shadows always feels fresh, funny and yes, occasionally original. The movie is also blessed with a terrific song score (including weird recurring themes of klezmer-like Romanian foot-tappers) wonderful makeup, digital and wire effects, plus some dazzling stunt work.

My only major quibble is that there are simply not enough babes in the movie. Yes, there are a few, but they take a major back seat to the fellas and what red-blooded genre-geek doesn't want a good amount of babe action?

Well, this writer, for one, but even I had to concede that my grumblings about the dearth of babes eventually fell upon my own deaf ears. These guys are a riot!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

What We Do In The Shadows is currently in theatrical platform release throughout Canada via VSC (Video Services Corp). Upcoming playdates include:

February 13 opening:
TORONTO - Scotiabank Theatre
MONTREAL - Cinema Cineplex Forum
VANCOUVER - Cineplex International Village

February 20 opening:
OTTAWA - SilverCity Gloucester
CALGARY - Select CINEPLEX Locations

February 27 opening:
WINNIPEG - SilverCity Polo Park

Just in time for Valentine's Day long weekend is the DVD release via FilmsWeLike of Sweden's FORCE MAJEURE. It's a perfect film for young lovers (especially those considering marriage) and certainly, it makes for fine family viewing since it presents a superb mirror image for Moms, Dads and the little nippers of their own lives. At press time, I was unable to assess the Blu-Ray, but the DVD (especially if you play it on a Blu-Ray player with a high-def monitor) will look absolutely gorgeous - the snowy whites of the Alps, blasting your eyeballs and the well composed and apportioned dollops of glorious colour will massage your oculi to put you and those you love in a state of blissful complacency before the film's inner, roiling power explodes into the true savagery inherent in love. Added bonii include a superb interview with  writer-director Ruben Östlund and star Johannes Bah Kuhnke in addition to an AXS TV featurette: A Look At Force Majeure. Below is the full review of the film and ordering information - you can conveniently purchase the picture directly from this website via Amazon.

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder. Disaster, however, is always looming.

Force Majeure (2014)
Dir. Ruben Östlund
Starring: Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A perfect nuclear family from Sweden - gorgeous, physically fit and full of smiles - pose for holiday snaps on the slopes during a ski vacation in the French Alps. They appear, for all intents and purposes, to have a perfect existence.

Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) and Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) are such peas in a pod they perform nightly ablutions together with vigour and their two children actually get along with each other, happily playing like little piggies in a mud pen.

All four of them even wear stylish matching pyjamas as they nap together after a few hours of exercising their ludicrously lithe bodies in out-of-doors family-fun-frolics. How could anything go wrong?


From the very opening frames and onwards, filmmaker Ruben Östlund has us believing that nothing could be this perfect. His miss-en-scene is rife with gorgeously composed, almost perfectly symmetrical shots with long takes and very judicious cutting. The pace is so meticulous, so strangely mannered, that something, anything, could happen. Sure enough, whilst they all happily dine on an outdoor terrace, a huge avalanche crashes down and everyone in view of the fixed position of the camera disappears in a spray of snow.

False alarm.


As the fog of snow dissipates, it's clear the avalanche fell with considerable force, but at a great distance away. Ebba and the children, still at the table, gather their wits about them. Tomas enters the frame and the four sit down to eat. Little does Tomas know, but he's in big trouble - or rather, his actions during the false disaster have placed a seed in Ebba's mind that's only going to grow - a seed of doubt. It's going to produce a sharp thorn in Ebba's craw that she's going to rip out and then, repeatedly plunge into Tomas with until she creates open wounds that will fester into gooey, viscous clumps, like some rapid flesh eating disease.

Does Tomas really love his family? Does he love Ebba? Does he care about anyone other than himself? If he did, why would he leave his family behind and run like a coward when disaster seemingly struck?

These are questions that come up again and again and yet again. Hell hath no fury like a woman who believes she's been scorned - it's usually worse than if she had been genuinely decimated. Ebba not only casts aspersions upon her husband's manhood, but begins to construct a belief that their marriage is in serious jeopardy.

If she'd only keep it between them, it would be one thing, but she hurls her accusatory doubts in front of the children, strangers and even close friends who join them on the trip. Her construct becomes an inescapable reality and over the next five days in the Alps, Östlund serves us domestic fireworks - Swedish style, of course - as things get intensely, harrowingly and even hilariously chilly.


Force Majeure is, for most of its running time, a tour de force of domestic drama dappled with mordant wit amidst a snowy backdrop. With sharp writing, gorgeous, controlled direction and performances that are quite perfect, it's too bad Östlund's screenplay hands us a major copout during the final third when he manufactures a false, forced symmetry to the aforementioned situation - one that's so predictable we can't actually believe it's happening.

When it does, indeed, unfurl, the almost inept balancing of the conjugal power dynamic feels painfully didactic. In a movie where we're normally on the edge of our seats, wondering what could be lurking round every corner, we do suspect Östlund could well take us in this particular direction, but we assume he never would.

We assumed ever-so mistakenly.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

Force Majeur is currently available on DVD from FilmsWeLike. Feel free to order directly from the Amazon links below and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

Framed (1975)
dir. Phil Karlson
Starring: Joe Don Baker,
Gabriel Dell, Brock Peters,
John Marley, John Larch,
Paul Mantee, Roy Jenson,
Warren Kemmerling,
Connie Van Dyke

Review By Greg Klymkiw


In contemporary cinema, when all or some of the properties that normally characterize the genre (or, if one prefers, movement) of film noir are present in the work, pains always appear to be taken by those who write their analyses of said pictures to use phrases such as “noir-influenced”, “noir-like”, "neo-noir" or “contemporary noir”. Seldom will you see anyone daring to refer to Sin City or its ilk as film noir, but will instead utilize one (or variations of) the aforementioned.

During the 1970s, a number of pictures burst on the scene that – aside from their contemporary settings and dates of production – bear considerable traces of the properties attributed to film noir. Arthur Penn’s Night Moves, Francis Coppola’s The Conversation, Michael Ritchie’s Prime Cut, Peter Yates’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia and numerous others could all be characterized as film noir – especially with their emphasis on such properties as: hard-boiled heroes, the power of the past and its unyielding influence upon the present, the unique and stylized visuals (even those emphasizing visual “realism” have style to burn with their harsh lighting and mega-grain), post-war and/or wartime disillusionment and, amongst others, an overwhelmingly hopeless sense of time lost (and/or wasted).

One picture from the 70s that could also fit the noir tradition permeating that oh-so-rich-and-groovy decade of dissent is one that has largely been forgotten. Since it was neither a hit, nor critically regarded in its year of release, Phil Karlson’s grim, violent crime melodrama Framed is a movie that’s long overdue for discovery, or, if you will, re-discovery.

JOE DON BAKER NUDE SHOWER SCENE

Produced and written by Karlson’s creative partner Mort Briskin (they previously delivered one of the hugest box office hits of the 70s, Walking Tall), the world of Framed resembles a cross between Jules Dassin’s Brute Force and virtually every other revenge-tinged noir fantasy one can think of including Karlson’s 50s noir classics like Kansas City Confidential and the utterly perfect, deliciously mean-spirited Phenix City Story. In fact, Framed comes close to being a remake of Kansas City Confidential, but where it definitely departs is in the permissiveness of the 70s and the levels of wince-inducing violence it ladles on like so many heapin’ helpin’ globs o’ grits into the bowls of hungry Tennessee rednecks patronizing the greasy spoons of the Old South.

And indeed, Tennessee is where Framed was shot and is, in fact, set (not unlike the Karlson-Briskin Buford Pusser shit-kicker Walking Tall). While this down-home haven for rednecks seems “a might” incongruous for a film noir thriller, it’s actually in keeping with the sordid backdrops of numerous noir classics – many of which are set against the small mindedness of middle America. Not all noir was in the big cities – the sleepy suburbs, seedy tank towns and just plain wide-open spaces – could all provide ample atmosphere for any number of these dark crime classics. Not that Framed qualifies as a classic, but it’s damn close and delivers the kind of goods one expects from a kick-butt director like Phil Karlson.

CONNIE VAN DYKE IS MANHANDLED

His grim, brutal picture recounts the gripping saga of Ron Lewis (Joe Don Baker) a beefy, semi-amiable (albeit semi-smarmy) gambler and club owner who arrives home with a satchel-full of cash he’s just won in Vegas. His lover and partner in the club, platinum ice-queen country singer Susan Barrett (frosty, sexy Connie Van Dyke) begs him to stop gambling and quit while he’s ahead. If he did, there’d be no movie. Instead, beefy-boy takes his satchel and enters a high-stakes poker game and cleans up even bigger.

On his way home, someone tries shooting at him and when he pulls into his garage a redneck deputy harasses him. A brutal fight ensues (with eye-gouging – yeah!) and the lawman dies, whilst our hero, a mangled heap o’ beef, slips into a coma. Ron wakes up to find that he needs to plea-bargain his way out of a sticky situation wherein he faces life imprisonment for murder. He also discovers that his money has been stolen and that he’s been set-up big-time. (Granted, he DID actually kill the redneck lawman, but it was in self-defense.) Adding insult to injury, Ron’s ice queen is beaten, then raped by some bad guys and soon, our hero is sent up the river to a maximum-security prison.

Luckily, once he’s firmly ensconced in the Big House, he hooks up with a friendly hitman (former Bowery Boy– I kid you not – Gabriel Dell) and an equally amiable mob boss (John Marley, The Godfather producer who wakes up to find a horse’s head in his bed). Time passes with relative ease, and soon, our beefy hero – with a little help from his new prison pals – is on the loose and on a rampage o’ sweet, sweet revenge.

Loaded with violence and plenty of dark, seedy characters and locales (and a few welcome dollops of humour), Framed is a nasty, fast-paced and thoroughly entertaining crime picture. Joe Don Baker is a suitably fleshy hero and Gabriel Dell a perfect smart-ass sidekick. What’s especially cool about the movie is just how amoral a world ALL the characters move in and frankly, how their shades of grey don’t actually confuse things, but work beautifully with the noir trappings of the story and style.

And DAMN! Phil Karlson sure knows how to direct action. No CGI here. The utterly insane car stunts and hand-to-hand fight scenes are astoundingly choreographed and captured with his trademark brute-force aplomb. What an eye! What a MAN! They don't make filmmakers like Karlson anymore nor, frankly, do they make crime pictures like Framed.

If nothing else, the movie features a nude Joe Don Baker shower scene. That alone offers plenty of titillation.

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

Framed” is available as a barebones DVD release from Legend Films. As well, other terrific Phil Karlson pictures are available and can be ordered directly below.

Night Nurse Stanwyck holds her own against thug Gable

These images from NIGHT NURSE clearly provide many good reasons as to why the pre-Code period in old Hollywood had a whole lot going for it.

Night Nurse (1931)
Dir. William A. Wellman
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell, Clark Gable, Charles Winninger, Ralf Harolde

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Things are tough for a young lady in the big city. They're especially difficult for a night nurse. If you're Barbara Stanwyck, things tend to be a little easier, but still mighty challenging. William A. Wellman's 1931 pre-Code (when Hollywood was at its most provocative) melodrama Night Nurse, crackles with wit, sex, sentiment and thrills, serving up a genuine minor classic reflecting the age of gangsters, bootleggers and single, young women trying to make a way for themselves in the world, whilst making the world a better place for others. The picture blisters with a zippy pace, entertaining us and delivering a sophisticated window into a bygone era, feeling as fresh and resonant today as it must have felt in the 30s.

After a rip-snorting ambulance P.O.V. ride through the city during the opening titles, Oliver H.P. Garrett's screenplay (along with Charles Kenyon's razor-sharp additional dialogue) doesn't waste any time plunging us into the world of the hospital via Lora Hart's (Barbara Stanwyck) perspective. She applies unsuccessfully for a position as a student nurse to a nasty old harridan who chides the lass over her lack of education. Luckily, on her way out, Lora collides with kindly, old Dr. Bell (Charles Winninger) who dives to the floor to retrieve all of our heroine's personal goods which spilled out of her purse. This allows the codger a good view of Stanwyck's gams which, is not lost on our gal at all. One friendly, provocative smile in the doc's direction is all it takes to get Lora back in the hospital and hired.

Lora is hooked up with wisecracking Nurse Maloney (Joan "Hubba Hubba" Blondell) who'll be her roommate in the weird hospital boarding rooms for nursing students (a hint of orphanage and/or women's prison here). Maloney gives Lora the lay of the land, including a tip or two about how to make the job work to her best advantage. First and foremost, Maloney warns against taking-up with the drooling, always-on-the-prowl interns. "Take my tip, sister and stay away from them," she cracks. "They're like cancer. The disease is known but not the cure." However, Maloney's most cogent advice to Lora is thus:

"There's only one guy in the world that can do a nurse any good and that's a patient with dough! Just catch one of them with a high fever and a low pulse and make him think you saved his life. Trust me, sister, you'll be gettin' somewhere."

Lora, however, connects with Mortie (Ben Lyon) a friendly bootlegger with a gun wound that she patches up without reporting it to the police. This endears him to her immediately and he becomes a helpful ally when she finds herself in a jam with some seedy criminal types.

Lora lands what should be a coveted spot as a private night nurse offsite. Unfortunately, she finds herself helplessly watching over two children being intentionally starved to death (for a whopping trust fund) by their alcoholic mother in cahoots with her seedy chauffeur lover (Clark Gable) and presided over by the sleazy quack Dr. Milton A. Ranger (a brilliant Ralf Harolde who not only oozes slime, but twitches ever-so madly with an obvious cocaine addiction). Lora tries to appeal to Ranger by threatening to go to the authorities, but he snidely reminds her she'll be washed up if she does.

"The successful nurse is one who keeps her mouth shut," he intones menacingly.

Even kindly old Dr. Bell can't help, citing "ethics" as being in the way of his interfering with another doctor's case. She fires back, as ONLY Barbara Stanwyck can with that unique blend of vulnerability and tough, no-nonsense moxie: "Oh, ethics... ethics... ethics! That's all I've heard. Isn't there any ethics about letting poor little babies be murdered?"

Poor Lora's in a major bind: a drunken gangster has tried to rape her, the children's mother lollygags about in a drunken stupor, the nasty chauffeur belts her out cold and, adding to her frustration, she's forced to stand by idly as murder is being committed before her very eyes.

"I'll kill the next person that says 'ethics' to me," she says to Maloney (again, as only Stanwyck can).

Her wiseacre pal retorts, as only Joan Blondell can, "Hah! Says you!"

But then, tweaking on to the notion that she's the only one who can take charge and make things right, Lora fires back (with Stanwyck's distinctive Brooklyn twang), "Yeah, SAYS ME, in a BIG WAY, sister."

Lora grabs the reins with a vengeance.

A big storm's a brewing and she's the one brewing it. Along the way, though, she does get some help from her friendly bootlegger pal. Burgeoning romance and rescuing children make for perfect bedfellows.

The film ends with another rip-snorting ambulance ride through the city, depositing a stiff for the morgue. It turns out, the stiff's been hit by some thugs, but happily we learn it's a thoroughly justifiable homicide.

Stanwyck gloriously delivers a final hardy-har over that news and we're all the better for it. Both her performance and the film have us soaring in a movie that provocatively and joyously kicks the kind of butt only a 30s pre-code picture can. Night Nurse is a glorious blend of melodrama, social consciousness and heroism against the biggest odds of all. It extols the virtues of ordinary folk over high society and places more ethics in the hearts and minds of a dame who never finished high school and her good-hearted bootlegger boyfriend over all those who had the money and opportunities to move up the ladder of success and where reaching the top only really meant adhering to ethics supporting an old boy's club over those who do most of the real living and dying.

It's impossible to argue with.

Night Nurse plays Saturday, February 7 at 3:30 p.m. at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in James Quandt's amazing series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". The film is presented in GLORIOUS 35MM. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE. The film is also available on DVD via Vol 2 of the TCM Archives Forbidden Hollywood series.

Sure, she's a goodtime gal, but she's a great Mom, too!

Unfit to be a MOTHER? Says WHO?

Stella Dallas (1937)
Dir. King Vidor
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neill, Alan Hale, Marjorie Main, George Walcott, Tim Holt

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Yes, Barbara Stanwyck can suffer, but she suffers like no other Grande Dames of the Golden Age of Cinema.

Sure, I can probably imagine Bette Davis in the title role of Stella Dallas, but Madame Davis would have taken the galumphing flamboyance of the role to such extremes that one's response to the character might well have been a belly flop into a vat of pure bile as opposed to a floridly, gleaming receptacle of marshmallows and sauerkraut. Not that the former (if not even the latter) idea isn't appealing, but I suspect the palatability of such a picture, or lack thereof, might have proven far too repulsive (no matter how delectable for hardcore Davis fans) to have been green-lit by any studio, never mind accepted by the general public.

Joan Crawford, however, another great silver screen sufferer, just simply would have never accepted the role, nor would she have been suited it. Even when Madame Crawford played characters below the social station one normally associates with everyone's favourite child abuser, she somehow managed to float far above them in some kind of stratosphere of sheer, almost ethereal black widow elegance.

No, the role of Stella would have not done for Crawford, either.

But Barbara Stanwyck is a completely differently kettle of fish (albeit with the most astonishing gams in movie history). The role of Stella Dallas requires someone who is sexy, funny, frilly, frumpy, plain-spoken and able to run the gamut of social climbing amidst the most provincial of climates and this is precisely what we get with the magnificent King Vidor wash-tub of extra-frothy soap suds.

Stella (Barbara Stanwyck) lives in a relatively sunny, innocuous provincial backwater when she catches the eye of high-class, big city Stephen Dallas (John Boles). She's clearly funny, sharp and gorgeous, seemingly far above the station of her decidedly grotesque working class family (her Mom is played by an extra-haggard Marjorie Main of "Ma Kettle" fame). She wants a swanky hubby like there's no tomorrow and she does everything in her power to reel Dallas in.

They eventually marry, but it's clear the couple, on both sides of the equation, find they've plumb gotten themselves into a pig-in-a-poke partnership. Stephen is devoted and kind-hearted, but a major league dullard who has no desire to cavort with the town's upper-crust. Stella, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to dine, drink and dance up a storm with the same-said highfalutin nouveau-riche of the provinces. And this is the problem; the upper crust in this burgh hovers as close to the lowest class imaginable, only with more money than Stella's former social stratus. Stephen genuinely comes from old money and he has little in common with these yahoos.

The couple does manage to spawn one lovely bit of progeny who grows up into the winning and oh-so comely young lassie Laurel (played by the star of the old Hollywood Anne of Green Gables movies who had her name legally changed to that of L.M. Montgomery's immortal Anne Shirley). Of course, there's no two ways about Stella's devotion to her daughter. She's a great Mom and Laurel loves her dearly.

Alas, Dallas moves to New York to take on a high-end corporate position and while separated, he hooks up with an old upper-crust (and now widowed) sweetheart Helen Morrison (Barbara O'Neill). As Laurel makes more and more visits to be with her Father, she begins to get a taste of what "upper-class"really means - and it ain't the loud, brash, colourfully-dressed, cheaply-perfumed good time gal from the provinces who spends far too much time cavorting with the town drunk Ed Munn (Alan Hale).

When Stella discovers that her daughter might be rejected by high society because she's so "low-class", she's devastated and forced to consider the ultimate sacrifice. And believe you me, the sacrifice is substantial and Stella Dallas proves to be a picture that more than lives up to its stellar reputation as one of the greatest tear-jerkers of all time.

It's Stanwyck, of course, who's primarily responsible for wrenching globs of glistening liquid matter from our oculi. From beginning to end, she creates a character who is as warm as she is frustratingly clueless, as devoted as she is devoid of decorum and as conflicted about her station in society as she is determined to make a sacrifice as bold, selfless and just this side of Jesus H. Christ Almighty.

Stella Dallas is a great picture. You certainly won't be seeing anything like it in this day and age (Yes, please skip the loathsome 1990 Bette Midler remake Stella). Then again, it'd be hard to duplicate the genuinely original approach to telling an immortal mother-daughter story as is told here by the great stalwart studio wizard King (The Big Parade, The Crowd, Northwest Passage, Duel in the Sun) Vidor, the top notch screenplay adaptation by Sarah (Golden Boy) Mason and Victor (Little Women) Heerman of the ludicrously over-ripe Olive Higgins Prouty (Now, Voyager) novel and last, but not least and frankly, first and foremost, the utterly magnificent and one-of-a-kind Barbara Stanwyck.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** 5-Stars

Stella Dallas plays Sunday, February 8 at 3:45 p.m at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in James Quandt's amazing series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". The film is presented in GLORIOUS 35MM. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE. The film is also available on DVD via Warner Brothers Home Video with a transfer that gorgeously maintains all the magnificent grain in the picture. As well, there are many other Stanwyck films from this TIFF series which can be ordered directly below and, if so, you'll be contributing to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

Matt Shepard
is a Friend of Mine (2015)
Dir. Michele Josue

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Michele Josue manages to pull of the near impossible. She not only tells us a very personal story about her friendship with the sweet, brilliant young man named in the film's title, she constructs a biographical documentary of his life, whilst etching an indelible cinematic portrait of his unique spirit and character. Josue is so successful juggling these elements that I left the cinema wanting to be Matt Shepard's friend too. In fact, I can't imagine anyone seeing this film and not feeling likewise.

What a great guy!

In spite of the fact that this is a film, it uncannily manages to do what only the best cinema can do by using all the gifts and wonders the medium can bring to bear upon a subject and plunge us deep into its very essence. Matt Shepard might well be Josue's friend, but she's neither self-tub-thumping the fact, nor is she hoarding this beautiful human being all to herself.

Matt Shepard is, indeed, a friend to all of us.

First and foremost, because he is a human being and we're given this opportunity to get to know him. Granted, it's a mere ninety minutes of running time, but Josue expertly weaves home movies, photographs, interviews with friends, family and teachers, Matt's private writings and his vast correspondence with all those dear to him. It seems, no stone is left unturned.

Sadly, none of us will ever really get to know him, but Josue's created the next best thing.

Josue begins with what ended Matt's life. On Oct. 12, 1998 in Laramie, Wyoming, the 21-year-old Matt Shepard was beaten, tortured, tied to a fence and left for dead. For all intents and purposes, he might as well have been. He died soon after in hospital. A young life, so full of promise, was cut short by a senseless act rooted in hatred.

Matt Shepard was murdered by two hate-filled young men because he was gay. Even harder to believe is the news footage of supposed Christians parading homophobic, hate-spewing filth on placards and hurling anti-Gay invective from their mouths when Matt Shepard's life was being celebrated at his funeral.

In death, however, Matt Shepard became a symbol, an emblem, a trademark if you will, for the anti-hatred lobby. Josue's film does not ignore this important element of Matt's legacy and weaves it into the fabric of the film superbly. Still, though, we come back to what Josue does so well - she gives us Matt in as much glory as possible.

We learn about his charmed childhood, his loving family, his delightful antics in childhood like leaving pretty stones in the mailboxes of his neighbours, dressing up as Dolly Parton for Halloween and always being the centre of attention - not that he demanded it at all, but rather, he was such a dazzling, compelling young man that he naturally commanded it. We're privy to his private struggles with coming to grips with his sexuality, to be sure, but that's merely one element of seeing a young man blossom as he searches for everything he's all about. His love for family, friends and travel seemed limitless. His sense of humour and sensitivity unparalleled. His time during an American boarding school in Switzerland becomes almost magical. Sure, we're in the Alps. That's damn magical, just as it is when we follow him on trips with his friends throughout Europe. However, what is magic, real magic, is his love for his friends and theirs for him.

If anything, the magic of this film is love and most of all, the love Matt Shepard gave.

There is darkness in his life. Vacationing with his school chums in Morocco turned into a nightmare that never seemed to leave him when he was beaten and gang-raped in a dark Marrakesh alleyway by six thugs. Here, his life did indeed change. He began to carry himself inwardly, like a victim. He kept his pain to himself. He stopped his activities in the theatre and became a haunted shell of who he once was.

Most of all, he wanted to come home. This meant returning to his home state of Wyoming where he enrolled in college in the small city of Laramie. Here, he seemed to begin to find himself again. Here, he was at home. Here, was where Matt Shepard was kidnapped, beaten and tortured to death for being gay.

The anger and frustration one feels just watching this play out seems almost incalculable - even as a mere viewer of a film. One can't even begin to imagine the feelings of Matt's family and friends and by extension, the whole community of mankind that expressed and felt the deepest shock over someone being murdered simply out of hatred. Josue nails it here, though. She introduces an element into the film in its final third that presents a deeply harrowing, haunting, moving and finally spiritual sequence which forces all who watch it to look into the mirrors that reflect their own souls.

This is one great documentary. Try to see it in a movie theatre with the fellowship of other human beings. You'll all be soaring.

Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine begins its theatrical Canadian run via VFRPR at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas in Toronto February 20th, 2015, with additional cities and screens to follow across the country. Judy and Dennis Shepard, Matt Shepard's Mom and Dad to host select opening weekend screenings. If it's not yet playing in your city, DEMAND IT! Matthew's memory has been enshrined in the good work of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and in the passage of the The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. Be sure to read Remarks by President Obama at a Reception Commemorating the Enactment of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act by clicking HERE.

This is a perfect time to take another look at two films about war by the late Ukrainian filmmaker Larisa Shepitko (a protege of Dovzhenko and the wife of acclaimed director Elem Klimov). Ukraine has been at war with Russia since the Maidan revolution in Kyiv just over one year ago which ousted the Putin-backed gangster-President Yanukovitch. Since that time, Russia illegally annexed Crimea and organized an army of terrorists to take control of two provinces in Eastern Ukraine. In recent days, Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea have suffered massive discrimination and even death, all Tatar and Ukrainian books in a historical Crimean library have been chucked into the streets and publicly burned, Putin is rallying his nation to publicly protest Ukraine's freedom and just yesterday, during peaceful rallies in Ukraine to celebrate freedom from Russia, Moscow-backed terrorists exploded a bomb in Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv which killed and wounded many innocent people. The farcical and cowardly EU-backed-and-negotiated truce might only instigate the break out of a large-scale war. Here are my reviews of The Ascent (Christian allegory set in WWII) and Wings (examination of post-war female soldiers) by Larisa Shepitko.


The Ascent (1977) *****
dir. Larisa Shepitko
Starring: Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Sergei Yokovlev, Anatoli Solonitsin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Is there an antidote to the perennial seductiveness of war? And is this a question a woman is more likely to pose than a man? (Probably yes.) . . . No photograph, or portfolio of photographs, can unfold, go further, and further still, as does The Ascent (1977), by the Ukrainian director Larisa Shepitko, the most affecting film about the horror of war I know." - Susan Sontag, "Looking at War: Photography’s view of devastation and death", The New Yorker

Survival and sacrifice are at the forefront of Larisa Shepitko’s harrowing World War II drama The Ascent– only fitting since the film, at once simple, at the next complex, is ultimately an allegorical portrait of Christ and Judas in a world turned topsy-turvy by the senseless strife and slaughter during the German invasion and occupation of Belarus. That notion of faith, extracted as it is from the New Testament and applied to such issues as love and betrayal of country are completely at home within the context and backdrop so vividly and evocatively portrayed.

For the Ukrainian-born Shepitko, herself a student of Master Ukrainian filmmaker Olexander Dovzhenko, it is clear why this story resonated with her and why she applied such staggering Dovzhenkian compositions to the picture. Coming from Ukraine, a country and culture that had been under the yoke of occupation and suppression almost from its very beginnings and having been mentored by a brilliant filmmaker who himself had been repressed and censored by Joseph Stalin, the mixture of frank political material coupled with a story and central relationship derived from the opiate of the masses, is illustrative of Shepitko’s artistic bravery at such a relatively early stage of her career in the repressive Soviet regime that frowned upon anything that deviated from the State disavowal of all things based in faith.

The story is a simple one. It is also both tragic and compelling. Ultimately, however, it is the simple narrative backbone that allows Shepitko to inspire an audience’s engagement in the proceedings as well as opportunities for contemplation and reflection both during and after seeing the film.

Following a rag-tag band of partisans through the snowy steppes and forest of Belarus, we are introduced to our pair of mismatched protagonists, the hardened, practical Rybak (Vladimir Gostukhin) and the physically weak, but thoughtful Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) as they volunteer to journey through the bitter cold of the dangerous, Nazi-infested region to find food for the tired and starving freedom fighters. The journey begins to take, almost from the beginning, a series of increasingly disastrous and dangerous detours as Sotnikov becomes sicker with bronchitis and a bullet wound while Rybak becomes so intent upon survival that he begins to question all the sacrifices he is enduring. They both find themselves face-to-face with having to make the ultimate sacrifice for each other, those around them and most importantly, home and country.

Given that most of us are more than aware of the relationship between Jesus and Judas, it is also a testament to Shepitko’s cinematic storytelling prowess that we are still gripped by the proceedings in spite of having a good inkling of where the story will go. In fact, it is the inevitability of where things are headed that keeps us glued to the screen – we keep hoping against hope that the inevitable will be circumvented and, of course, Shepitko plays the portent with harrowing assuredness and style.

Interestingly, The Ascent is not dissimilar to another great Soviet war picture, Grigori Chukrai’s Ballad of a Soldier. On the surface, both pictures deal with soldiers who have a specific goal, but on their journey they face a series of obstacles and detours that painfully keep them from reaching their ultimate destination. The difference, however, is that Chukrai’s film (also full of lush, gorgeously composed exteriors in the Dovzhenkian mold) involves detours routed firmly in sacrifice wherein the central character is kept from visiting his destitute mother because he is continually sidetracked by being duty-bound to helping other people with their own challenges. In The Ascent, it is both betrayal and survival that provide the obstacles. This basic difference highlights why one picture feels romantic and the other is overwhelmingly tragic.

That said, The Ascent is equally powerful and perhaps even more so since the will to survive – at any cost – becomes so poignant. Sacrifice, which involves principles rather than that of the plight of individuals, takes The Ascent into (ironically) political territory that mirrors the struggles of everyone living within the Soviet system. As an audience we are forced to confront a system of repression (Soviet-ruled Belarus) that is also being occupied and repressed by a foreign aggressor (Germany). The enemy is sadly, from within and outside so that our characters are surrounded – almost in futility. The domestic collaborators with the Nazis are at once evil and altogether human. We understand the need to collaborate while condemning it at the same time.

Living in a system of repression like Belarus and under the yoke of a madman like Stalin, the Nazis provide a way out of the madness – an alternative to Stalin. Two of the supporting characters in this narrative are perfectly emblematic of this. One is a village elder (Sergei Yakovlev) who is a reluctant collaborator while the other is a local Nazi interrogator (Anatoli Solonytsin), a cold, practical bureaucrat. The former is a man who seeks safety in collaboration for his family and friends, while the latter is a pure opportunist – someone who is just as happy serving the dictator du jour (Hitler) as he would be engaging in a Stalinist purge. These dichotomous personalities brilliantly mirror Rybak and Sotnikov – especially since their journeys and the inevitable outcomes are so similar: suggesting, of course, that notions of sacrifice and betrayal, collaboration and resistance, good and evil are almost always grey areas in war, and in particular, within repressive regimes.

What is not a grey area in The Ascent is suffering – represented not only by the physical pain and death of violence, but by the land itself. Here is where Shepitko’s kino-eye is especially evocative. The bitter cold and the endless, bone-chilling whiteness of snow overwhelm all the exterior shots. One of the more intensely powerful moments involves Rybak dragging a sick and wounded Sotnikov through the snow – for what seems like forever – as Nazi bullets fly at them. Shepitko’s camera is like a mad pit bull’s jaws clenching at its quarry – it seems to never let go of these two men as they painstakingly make their way through the snow.

Throughout the film we see the actors enduring literal physical hardships. Seeing The Ascent again, I was reminded of the genius of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, a movie that has suffered unnecessarily over the years due to the hype surrounding the mad German (and ethnically Slavic) director’s decision to force his own cast and crew to drag a riverboat through the jungle and over a mountain. When writing at an earlier juncture about Shepitko’s Krylya/Wings I was also reminded of Herzog – in that case, it was the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. Visually, Herzog and Shepitko are very different. Herzog’s visuals in drama and documentary, while stunning, have the immediacy of cinema vérité while Shepitko is rooted in the classical, sumptuously composed imagery her mentor Dovzhenko was known for. What Shepitko and Herzog share, however, is an unflinching search for truth in image, and in particular, the use of truth in image in the telling of stories cinematically.

Speaking of sharing, it is also worth noting that some of the finest war films of all time were made under the Soviet system – many of which put the best American examples of this genre to shame. That said, Ukrainians appear to have directed the very best Soviet war films. Olexander Dovzhenko (Arsenal, Schors and his WWII documentaries), Sergei Bondarchuk (Destiny of a Man, War and Peace), Grigori Chukrai (Ballad of a Soldier, Cold Skies, The 41st) and Shepitko have powerfully and evocatively portrayed the horrors and even glories of war and share Ukrainian ethnicity. Perhaps it is coincidence, or perhaps it is worthy of further study. In any event, it is certainly worth noting. It is also worth reiterating that all the abovementioned filmmakers come from a country that has always been dominated and repressed by other powers. With The Ascent, it is finally survival and sacrifice that drives the picture and makes it a film that is haunting, unforgettable and tragic.

Ukrainians, it seems, and others who have lived under repressive regimes, have always known something about survival, sacrifice and war.


Wings (1966) dir. Larisa Shepitko
Starring: Maya Bulgakova

*****

By Greg Klymkiw

The romance of war has seldom been so heartbreaking than in the hands of the great Ukrainian-born director Larisa Shepitko who made this first feature after a few short films and studying under the watchful eye of fellow countryman and master film artist Oleksander Dovzhenko. What’s especially bittersweet is that Wings is set in a post-war Soviet world where the lead character Nadezhna (Maya Bulgakova) struggles to settle into a life of seeming normalcy and, compared to her career as a fighter pilot, complacency. Now in her fortieth year, she works as a schoolmistress and goes about her daily tasks with professionalism and commitment on the surface, but always yearning and dreaming of the days when she soared above the normal world – touching Heaven, surrounded by the billowy clouds and racing through the air, dipping and swooping like a bird of prey.

Shepitko, part of that breed of Soviet filmmaker that rejected the occasionally overwrought montage-heavy storytelling of the likes of Eisenstein, tells her delicate tale with the same kind of editorial restraint common to her generation. Favouring gorgeously composed tableaus and a stately pace, Shepitko aims her lens at the realism of Nadezhna’s life, but with such a keen eye that the commonplace becomes extraordinary.

And what is it about the “normal” that nags at Shepitko’s central character?

The bottom line is this: The girl just wants to fly high. But alas, it is not to be – Nadezhna’s place in servitude to the Soviet ideal is now in the shaping of minds – youthful minds that live in a peaceful world that cannot even begin to comprehend the horrors of war. Nor are her students (and most others – adults AND children) equipped to fathom the mad, youthful rush accompanying Nadezhna’s idealism which led her into the cockpit of a bomber and into the arms of a fellow high-flyer, a dashing young man who eventually dies in a fireball before her very eyes – an image that haunts her constantly.

Shepitko expertly juxtaposes the romance and tragedy of Nadezhna’s life during the war with a series of poetic flashbacks that always help move the story forward when the drabness of her current existence reaches its nadir. One of the more moving sequences has our protagonist watching as a group of schoolchildren in the local museum are shown a display devoted to her heroism during the war. With the love of her life long dead and a schlubish museum director vying for her attentions – Nadezhna’s own life has become a literal and figurative museum piece.

Her daughter Tanya, a ravishing beauty, has married a much older man and Nadezhna can only think of her long-lost lover and how this prissy egghead who cohabits with her progeny can only pale in comparison. While Tanya has married for love, Nadezhna’s lover died for love – not necessarily for romantic love, but for the romantic ideals and love of flying that he shared with her.

With such a pedigree, can anyone ever be good enough for Nadezhna’s daughter?

While Wings shares much in common with Dovzhenko and Grigori Chukrai (Ballad of a Soldier), this is, unlike the work of her male colleagues, a relatively contemporary film by a woman and about a woman, which builds towards a conclusion as soaring and heartbreaking as the one that ends Nadezhna’s story. Werner Herzog’s astounding 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly still can evoke tears when one recalls the final images as the title subject has a dream come true. A similar and extraordinary sequence occurs at the end of Wings and delivers the kind of impact that only movies can bring when a dream comes true.

In both cases the wish fulfillment is endowed with both elation and heartache.

Shepitko firmly roots her character in a past that seems so far away and yet, truth and redemption are found in the reclamation of that past – albeit a reclamation that embraces the present and includes an acceptance of the future.

Shepitko only made three features following this debut. Her life was tragically cut short in a car accident while on a location scout for what would have been her fifth feature.

Like Nadezhna’s dashing flyboy lover, Shepitko died while doing what she knew and loved best.

Great art and life are never that far apart, are they?

Wings and The Ascent are available in one set on Criterion's Eclipse DVD label

Prince Charming, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Howard Hawks/Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett-Style

Ball of Fire (1941)
Dir. Howard Hawks
Scr. Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall, Tully Marshall, Leonid Kinskey, Richard Haydn, Aubrey Mather, Dana Andrews, Ralph Peters, Dan Duryea, Kathleen Howard, Allen Jenkins, Gene Krupa

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Yes, I love him. I love those hick shirts he wears with the boiled cuffs and the way he always has his vest buttoned wrong. Looks like a giraffe, and I love him. I love him because he's the kind of a guy that gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. Love him because he doesn't know how to kiss, the jerk! " - Sugarpuss O'Shea

In this day and age, how hard would it be for movies to include characters with colourful monickers like Sugarpuss O'Shea? (Accent on "like" since there can only be one Sugarpuss O'Shea as portrayed by Barbara Stanwyck.) Seriously, it's not as if anyone in real-life during 1941, when the great screwball comedy Ball of Fire was made, actually sported sobriquets (officially christened or not) like Sugarpuss O'Shea, anyway. So, hell, 2015 is as good a year as any for screenwriters and directors to embrace similarly delectable appellations in their motion pictures.

And dialogue? What's with movies today? Come on, get with the programme, dudes! (AND dudettes!) Really! Does anything in the 21st Century come close to the magnificent banter as wrought by those esteemed Ball of Fire scribes Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett? Check out this gloriously sexy, funny and eminently romantic repartee twixt Sugarpuss (Stanwyck) and Professor Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper):

Sugarpuss: You think we could sort of begin the beguine right now?

Potts: Well, it's nearly one o'clock, Miss O'Shea.

Sugarpuss: Oh, foo, professor. Let's get ourselves a couple drinks, light the fire maybe, and you can start working on me right away.

Potts: I wouldn't think of imposing on you at this hour.

Sugarpuss: I figured on working all night.

Yes, it's always important for a gentleman to start working on Barbara Stanwyck tout suite! Imposing, indeed, if you ask this fella'.

Like any first rate romantic comedy, we've got a seemingly mismatched couple whom we desperately desire to get un-mismatched by getting together for an eternity of blissful whoopee by coming to appreciate and love each other's differences and in so doing, discover a few things or two about their own charming selves.

We begin with the introduction of a most unlikely Prince Charming in the form of Bertram Potts who, along with seven bookish codgers (Henry Travers, Oscar Homolka, Tully Marshall, S.Z. Sakall, Leonid Kinskey, Aubrey Mather and Richard Haydn), live and work in a stuffy old domicile branded the Totten Foundation by their late benefactor who has charged the men with writing a brand new encyclopedia bearing his surname and, of course, a decent entry within the A-Zs of all human knowledge.

Though our gents are well behind schedule and over budget (they're still working on the letter "S"), Potts is especially obsessed with his dictionary of contemporary American slang. After a conversation with the local garbageman (Allen Jenkins), our tightly-collared leading man discovers he's only begun to scratch the surface of the vulgar verbal vernacular of the modern American. He drags his coterie of stuffy old gents to a nightclub, hoping to connect with the beat of the country's au courant argot.

And WHAT a beat they connect with.


Legendary drummer Gene Krupa and his Orchestra are playing to a packed house and it's here where Potts encounters the woman of his dreams (only he doesn't quite know it yet). Krupa and his boys are blasting through a blistering rendition of "Drum Boogie" which gets even hotter with a closeup of a gorgeous hand clasping a curtain, its slender, titillatingly provocative finger tapping in rhythm to the beat until the hand clutches the fabric, wrenches it open and the sensual digit's owner, none other than hot chanteuse Sugarpuss O'Shea parades onto the floor and sexily croons along to the mirthful stylings of the orchestra.

Now, allow me please, an interjection not unlike the queries I opened my review with. Why, Oh Why, do we never see nightclubs in contemporary movies like the one on display here? Probably, because nightclubs like this don't exist anymore. Well, GOD DAMN IT, they should!

Before reading on, check out this clip from Ball of Fire and tell me afterwards you're not salivating at the prospect of such a nightclub appearing in a modern movie and on every bloody street corner on the North American continent.

Gene Krupa Orchestra -Drum Boogie-1941by redhotjazz

And now try telling me that wunderkind director Damien Chazelle shouldn't have included repeat helpings of this clip in his otherwise perfect motion picture Whiplash.

But, I digress. Here's where Ball of Fire kicks into full gear. Sugarpuss is hooked up with mob boss Joe Lilac (a slimy Dana Andrews) and the District Attorney wants to subpoena her to testify against him. It's perfect! She needs a hideout and Potts needs an ideal guide to the lexicon of the savages. Lilac's henchmen Duke Pastrami (an even slimier Dan Duryea) and Asthma Anderson (the bumblingly slimy Ralph Peters) dispatch her into the lair of Prince Charming and the Seven Dwarfs of the esteemed Totten Foundation.

Here's where they fall in love (though they don't know it yet). Here's where the seeds of betrayal are sown. Here's where Ball of Fire delivers laughs and romance aplenty until its stirring climactic chicanery involving guns-a-blazing, mad-dashes and lovers destined to be together being ripped apart and brought back into each other's arms for some very hot Yum-Yum-Yum.

And if you want to know what a yum-yum-yum is, you're going to have to see the movie. I'm not spoiling that one for you.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** 5-Stars

Ball of Fire plays Thursday, February 12 at 9 p.m. at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in James Quandt's amazing series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". The film is presented in a GLORIOUS 35MM ARCHIVAL PRINT. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE. As well, there are many Barbara Stanwyck films from this TIFF series which can be ordered directly from the following links: Buy Barbara Stanwyck movies in Canada HERE and/or Buy Barbara Stanwyck movies in the USA or from anywhere in the world HERE. You can even click on any of these links and order ANY movie you want so long as you keep clicking through to whatever you want to order. By doing so, you'll be contributing to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

So here's the deal, two of those delightful Winnipeg Astron-6 sickos who brought you MANBORG are teaming up on a scary-ass new horror movie called THE VOID. The boys promise there will be no tongue-in-cheek with this one. This is going to be the straight-up scare-the-faecal-matter-out-of-you horror picture. Kostanski and Gillespie are hooking up with producer Casey Walker of Cave Painting Pictures (A LITTLE BIT ZOMBIE) on their original horror film, THE VOID. What we're told about the picture is that it's about a whole whack of monsters in a derelict rural hospital that are being single-handedly fought by a small-town police officer. No word yet on the babe count. There better be plenty. Also, no word on babe-on-babe action (of both the sapphic variety and, most importantly, the cat-fight variety). There better be plenty (of both). Also, though the fellas are adamant about no tongue-in-cheek (theirs or anyone else's), there's no word on the humour content. There better be plenty. Great horror films always have some element of humour and it actually makes things scarier when the humour is rooted in the drama. (In fact, I've never really found too much tongue-in-cheek in the Astron-6 features - they're often played so brilliantly straight that they veer far closer to very twisted satire.)
In any event, it appears we're promised gore galore and mega-monster-action. The F/X will be, as per Kostanski's persuasion and bountiful talents - ALL NATURAL (kinda like the breasts on view in alt.binaries.breasts.all_natural), meaning of course, no, uh enhancements of either the digital, or in the case of the aforementioned breasts, bolt-on variety. “It’s important to start building our film's creatures immediately to ensure we can realize them practically,” says Kostanski. “And with that we have launched an IndieGoGo campaign that will ensure we have the necessary resources to do so.” You can get more info on all this by visiting THE VOID's website HERE. In the meantime, sit back, relax, take your shoes off and enjoy the following mega-Astron-6-Greg-Klymkiw-Review-Maraton of MANBORG, FATHER'S DAY and THE EDITOR. (Lots of new tidbits buried in here for those who might have encountered these pieces before.) Oh, and yeah, there's that exciting news about THE EDITOR, but you won't find anything about it here as I do not favour being ass-raped and torched.

CONOR SWEENEY AND DOLPH LUNDGREN SEPARATED AT BIRTH. BELIEVE IT, BABY, BELIEVE IT!!!

SUCCUMB TO THE GREATNESS THAT ISMANBORG OR DIE!!!

PROSTRATE YOURSELF BEFORE MANBORG! DINE GREEDILY AND GRATEFULLY UPON THE KUBASA PROTRUDING FROM HIS HOLY ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT SPHINCTER OR DIE LIKE THE DOG YOU ARE!

MANBORG enjoyed one hell of a hootenanny at the 2011 Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Not long after, Toronto's Jesus H. Christ Almighty of Edgy, Cool and Just Plain Insane Cinema, Colin (TIFF'S "Mr. Midnight Madness" Himself) Geddes strapped on the powerful dildo that became a Co-Executive-Producership of Manborg and fudge-packed this puppy into a Midnight Movie hit at Toronto's Royal Theatre as well as spearheading (as it were), a variety of home entertainment deals throughout the universe.

Up in the Great White North, the powerhouse partnership of Raven Banner and Anchor Bay Canada have placed this masterwork of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror onto the grand pedestal of DVD immortality for all to cherish and enjoy. With a superb looking transfer magnificently magnifying every analogue and digital artifact known to technology in addition to the extremity of every garishly gorgeous colour spewed like so much fresh Mandarin Buffet regurgitate upon a cathode-ray screen, this superlative entry in the canon of the Winnipeg-spawned Astron-6 is directed within an inch of its ever-loving life by the Shit-Stompingly Stellar Steven Kostanski.

Yes, now you can own your own copy and goddamn all to hell, fuck me blind over a month of everlasting Sundays, this fab DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada is - no kidding - one of the best DVD packages you are likely to ever buy, own and cherish. The DVD is co-produced by Manborg's other Executive Producer Peter Kuplowsky and it is crafted with all the loving attention to detail that one normally expects from the Criterion Collection and not on a DVD for a zero-budget film that brilliantly recreates (and transforms into its very own original hybrid) all those cellar-dwellar straight-to-home-video SF pictures from the 80s.


First and foremost, this is a DVD that every burgeoning young filmmaker must own - especially Canadian filmmakers. Why Canadians especially? Well, in all my years as an independent producer I worked with filmmakers who were artists, loved movies more than life itself and did anything and everything they had to do to make movies - such born filmmakers like John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Bruno Lazaro Pacheco, Cynthia Roberts and Alan Zweig.

Every so often as an indie producer, and then during my 13 years as a senior creative consultant and Producer-in-Residence at Uncle Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre, I'd meet Canuck filmmakers who wanted to replicate the kind of success generated by many of the pictures I produced or, at the very least, they had some notion that making movies in a no-to-low-budget fashion would still afford them the opportunity to make ANY movie they wanted and to pave their own road to Oz with bricks of gold.

How wrong they were. Many outside the coterie of what I'd become used to working with had this perverse sense of entitlement that made me sick to my stomach. They all immediately wanted huge crews, union actors (almost impossible in the old days, but somewhat more manageable as the years progressed) and every single one of the poseurs in the bunch yammered on about "excellence" and (ugh!) "production value". These to me were the sort of buzz words that signalled one thing - THESE PEOPLE WERE NOT FILMMAKERS. At least, not REAL filmmakers. They were spoiled entitled Canadians living in a bubble of taxpayer financing who were choosing filmmaking as a career the same way one might choose to be a fucking dentist - the only difference being that filmmaking is cooler than being a dentist and THAT is the only reason they were choosing it.

What many of them didn't realize is that the international successes of Canadian filmmakers within this bubble often came from the fact that the product was generated by real artists - many of whom employed slow, steady, exponential gains in budget levels. What a lot of the poseurs really wanted was a job. Most of them ended up doing shitty television for that. Television these days is the perfect medium for most directors who are not real filmmakers and Canadian television is usually the lowest of the low. Thirdly, they believed one could CHOOSE to become filmmakers. WRONG! Filmmaking in its purest form CHOOSES YOU!

Worse yet, these losers, not being REAL filmmakers, needed all the bells and whistles that "real" movies had. What's especially pathetic is that the "support" they were asking for would have - within their desire to make a movie for no money - rendered pictures that looked, for lack of a better description, Canadian. Up to a certain budget level, most Canadian films made for no money, but attempting to adhere to "industry standards", end up looking cheaper and uglier than most real low budget films made by real filmmakers.

Some people ask me: What does a Canadian film look like? Well, the colour blue is almost always used to represent night. I call it "Canadian Blue" and it is appalling. The other thing a Canadian film of this ilk looks like is television. CANADIAN television at that! Believe me, it's ugly.

Kostanski and the entire Astron-6 team make movies that look gorgeous. Like some of the best filmmakers before them - like Paizs and Maddin in particular, the Astron-6 boys LOVE movies to death and make movies using whatever is at their disposal to render wildly entertaining AND original cinema. No money? No problem. Paizs often replicated odd training and corporate films from the 60s and B-movies from the 50s, Maddin dove into the crude cusp period between silent and sound motion pictures with dollops of German expressionism whilst Astron-6 embraced the movies they loved as kids and young adults. Here's the key difference between the Astron-6 guys and virtually every other Canuck filmmaker who first discovered movies in the 80s (unlike say, Paizs or Maddin, who had a few years on these guys and looked further backwards for inspiration).

I have had people who first discovered movies in the 80s referring to - I kid you not - the "classics" by the likes of John Hughes or - God Help Us - The Goonies. Fuck that shit! The movies Astron-6 embraced were ultra-violent, ultra-sleazy, ultra-cheesy, ultra-retro and mega-entertaining genre pictures from such fine purveyors of Grade Z straight to video fare as Cannon, Vestron and other now-forgotten companies.

No-budget movies that put real filmmakers on the map do not come from sickly sweet retreads of John Hughes movies - they come from filmmakers making their lack of funds a virtue and delivering product that's unlike anything else. David Lynch (Eraserhead), John Waters (Pink Flamingos) and Kevin Smith (Clerks) - to name a mere three filmmakers who blasted onto the filmmaking scene with no-budget movies - and did so with movies about deformed babies, dog-shit-eating transvestites and foul-mouthed convenience store losers.

Astron-6 in one year delivered two features: Father's Day (a serial killer who fucks Dads in the ass and sets them on fire) and Kostanski's Manborg wherein an alien demon from Hell takes over the Earth and does battle with a Robocop-style superhero who's aided by three martial artists of the higher order - amidst, of course, some of the most grotesque makeup effects and gore this side of supernatural gialli from the likes of Bava, Lenzi, Argento, et al.

The Manborg DVD is the best film school any young filmmaker can get - because the movie comes from people who know movies, love movies and know how to assemble all the elements to deliver a rocking good time to their audiences.

Here's some of the highlights of the Manborg DVD: Not one, but TWO genuinely GREAT commentary tracks.

The first track is from Kostanski himself and it's a masterpiece of what one wants from a director. Most directors are useless at doing these and end up telling us what we already know (usually by literally describing the action on the screen - duh!) or worse, filling our ears with way too much useless anecdotal crap. Not Kostanski! He gives us the straight goods - HOW he made the movie. His commentary is right up there with some of the best purveyors of these things like Norman Jewison and Martin Scorsese. The second commentary track is again Kostanski, but he's joined by one of the film's Executive Producers Peter Kuplowsky and actor, writer, fx designer and composer Jeremy Gillespie. There's a tiny bit of anecdotal stuff here, but most of it is rooted in the filmmaking process and we don't get a mere repeat of the other track, but one that works to enhance our appreciation of how the movie was made.


My only quibble with this second commentary track is when the guys start to SHIT TURDS FULL OF UNDIGESTED CORN NIBLETS AND STREAKS OF BLOOD FROM THEIR ANAL FISSURES all over my original review of Manborg which was one of the earliest raves of the movie online. FOUR FUCKING STARS I gave these assholes! I spewed bucket-loads of ejaculate all over their faces (so to speak). I wrote about the film - NOT ONCE, NOT TWICE, BUT THREE TIMES (and here I'm writing about it a FOURTH TIME, and next month, I'm writing about it a FIFTH time in the legendary Joe Kane's super-fab genre mag from south of the 49th parallel, "Phantom of the Movies VIDEOSCOPE" and a SIXTH time for a cool UK-based film mag).

So what do these fuckers do? They single out my review. They don't mention my name because I'm older than 30 and they, being young people, don't know or remember anyone's name over the age of 30 (save, perhaps, for their Moms and Dads). However, I know they're referring to my review because they use the phrase "one review even complained...". Well, goddamn it, you are fucking right I complained - one complaint and for good fucking reason.

The movie stars two mega-babes. BABES!!! Babes, I tell you! And my complaint was so minor, but one I thought these assholes might take to heart for their next film. All I wistfully opined on was that they didn't adequately exploit some good girl-on-girl action of the catfight variety. I wasn't asking for LESBO ACTION, though that might have been good too. Nope! All I wanted was at least one or two or maybe even three more babe-on-babe catfights.

Who doesn't enjoy seeing babes kick the shit out of each other?

Haven't these clowns ever seen any women in prison pictures or Russ Meyer movies or Doris Wishman exploitation items? That's it. One complaint. More catfights. What do these whiners do on their commentary track? They shit on me for complaining about this.

What Astron-6 EXPUNGED Upon My Very SOUL!!!

So that, is now my second complaint. Maybe these fuckwads will scarf down some Mexican food (real Mex food from TJ, washed down with E-Coli-infused tap water) before their next commentary track and release their excremental floodgates all over me for complaining that they complained about my minor complaint that they needed more babe-on-babe fight action. So before I continue raving about the genius of this DVD - FUCK YOU!

What else do we get? We get two - count 'em - TWO phenomenal short films. One is a completely, insanely and deliciously inspired extended trailer for a feature I hope they're making for real called Bio-Cop (with one of the best lines in movie history - so great, I won't ruin your experience by reprinting it here) and an astoundingly sweet AND grotesque short called Fantasy Beyond, about a little girl in a strange art gallery where the pictures start to attack her and she's rescued by some fucked-up-looking heavy metal dudes with electric guitars that double as ray guns.

We get some supremely cool Visual Effects and Stop Motion Montages that are so good they almost feel like standalone short films. There's the requisite Behind the Scenes footage, but this stuff, in addition to the great commentary tracks, is not only entertaining, but earns the right to be included in the finest DVD accolade one can bestow - it's all the film school you'll need.

There are Bloopers, which I usually hate seeing and these don't really change my mind, but if you, God Forbid, you do like this sort of thing, you won't go wrong with anything included here.

The Deleted/Alternate Scenes are de rigueur on extras-packed DVDs and these do NOT disappoint in the least.

A whole whack of community cable TV-inspired Mackenzie Murdoch interviews featuring Adam Brooks (Dr. Scorpius, Draculon, Voice of Dying Soldier) who thrills us with his obvious verve, Andrea Karr (one of the babes in the movie who should have been given a chance to do more catfighting and, was dating director Kostanski), Conor Sweeney (eating), Jeremy Gillespie (interviewed by Peter Kuplowsky in some whacked out surreal shit involving an escalator), Ludwig Lee (a martial artist who appears attired as if he works in a Bay Street brokerage), Matthew Kennedy (Manborg himself with a puppet and the best quotation in all the interviews: "Steve uses his actors like marrionettes - 'fuck you I'm a fucking actor, not a puppet'!!!"), Meredith Sweeney (the film's other mega-babe who is short changed by not being given enough catfight opportunities and has some deliciously foul responses to Murdoch's line of questioning. When he mentions she resembles 80s anime chicks, she responds: "I have no fucking idea what you're talking about. What kind of a fuckin' question is that, anyway?" and Mike Kostanski (shilling his rock band).

The other great extra is a videotaped Q and A at the Royal Theatre premiere and features Kostanski's wisest observation wherein he mentions the shitty expensive movie Van Helsing as having the cool concept of all these great monsters, but how in the same breath he says how disappointing the movie was. His response to seeing the movie was to make the brilliant Manborg for about $2000 (Canadian funds) and anyone who complains that his movie doesn't have enough monsters is a total asshole. (Anyone who complains about a lack of chick-on-chick catfights would not be an asshole, but would, in fact, be me.)

And now, in its pure, unexpurgated form (including my catfight reference) is my original review of MANBORG.


MANBORG (2011)  ****
dir. Steven Kostanski

Starring: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Ludwig Lee, Conor Sweeney, Meredith Sweeney, Jeremy Gillespie, Andrea Karr

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The time will come when we are dominated by a One World Government. This will be no mere conspiracy theorist's idea of a New World Order. Art Bell won't be predicting this one!

In fact, the Illuminati are pussy-whupped-momma-boy-teat-sucklers compared to what waits for us just round the corner. As dramatically postulated in the latest production from the kubassa-stuffed-to-overflowing loins of the Winnipeg-spawned hit machine Astron-6, be afraid - be VERY afraid of the future.

Straight from the jaws of Hell comes Draculon (Adam Brooks), a crazed totalitarian infused with a slavering desire to inflict pain. He makes the Dictator combo-platter of Adolph Hitler (former German Chancellor), Joe Stalin (former butcher of ten million Ukrainian garlic eaters), George W. Bush (annihilator of Islam) , Stephen Harper (current Il Duce of Canada) and Michael Bay (Brain Sucker Extraordinaire) look like your kindly Granny Apple Cheeks knitting her umpteenth doily and churning butter.

As brilliantly rendered in the opening minutes of this 70-minute masterwork, you will cringe as our pitiful armies do their best in battle with the demons of Mephistopheles, but even the best of the best of the best of mankind will be no match for the foul, pus-oozing Satanic beasts.

When a brave young fighting man hits the turf and pushes up the daisies, he is mysteriously and miraculously transformed by the mad genius Dr. Scorpius (Adam "Fuck me and a month of Sundays, this guy gets around!" Brooks) into the next best thing to Jesus H. Christ Almighty (or Robocop - take your pick!).

He is, and always will be:

MANBORG!!!

Blending cutting edge technology, Frankensteinian alchemy, Einsteinian science and the mind of mankind's leanest, meanest fighting machines, Manborg (Mathhew Kennedy) has, alas, retained the heart and soul of humanity. Instead of serving Draculon and his evil henchman The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie), he joins forces with three superHUMAN heroes in the struggle to free Earth from the clutches of Hades.

This trio of badass mo-fos includes the wildly pompadoured kick-butt-Kiwi (or Aussie, or Brit, or what-the-fuck-ever-his-deliciously-delightful-accent-is) played by Conor Sweeney, a blade-o-licious platinum-tressed kick-butt, delectably-racked, red-grease-painted-faced babe (Meredith Sweeney) and a melt-in-your-mouth, magnificently buff kick-butt Asian martial artist (Ludwig Lee) dubbed into English by someone who sounds like the offscreen voice artist who dubbed all of Steve Reeves's lines into English in his numerous Italian sword and sandal epics of the 50s and 60s (in spite of the fact that Steve Reeves actually, uh, spoke English).

JESUS, JOSEPH AND MARY? THINK AGAIN!

Needless to say, our heroes save the world. (Yeah, I just released a wet fart of a spoiler.)

The movie is replete with mega-martial-arts, chase scenes on what appear to be ATVs without wheels that fly, Tron-like arena jousts and plenty of shit that blows up real good. Oh yeah, have I mentioned yet that the movie was made for about a thousand smackers, shot on glorious DV-CAM and includes tons of in-camera and rudimentary effects that resemble early 80s community cable blue screen? No? Well, I have now and there's not one damn thing in this movie that looks awful.

In fact, it is endowed with the kind of visual splendour that can only come from filmmakers who love movies and movie-making. Special effects that LOOK like special effects, have always held a humungous soft-spot in my heart. I love knowing that I'm watching a MOVIE. I love knowing the effects are - uh, just that - effects. I love to be reminded that I am in a world that only exists up on a big screen. For me, this IS magic.

The ultimate magic in the movie comes when two babes square off for a cat fight supreme. When one of the babes morphs into a demon, all my hopes and dreams momentarily diminished. Sure, it's fine to watch a babe kick a demon's butt, but for Christ's sake, babe-on-babe fight action always takes precedence.

But I digress.

As rendered by Steve Kostanski, MANBORG is a fairy tale of cosmic proportions for geeks and freaks the world over. It makes perfect sense that this, and the other Astron-6 works of consummate film art come from the recesses of Winnipeg.

In addition to the asbestos-lined water pipes, an insane need to tear down heritage buildings to build parking lots when the entire city is a fucking parking lot and a bowling alley bearing the name of the late, great Billy Mosienko (who, prior to his death, would man the counter and rent you bowling shoes), the 'Peg (my own former winter city) is not only the geographical-near-centre of North America, but boasts a grand tradition of what film critic Geoff Pevere dubbed as Prairie Post-Modernism.

Filmmakers like John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Noam Gonick, Lorne Bailey and Matthew Rankin forged a path that few in the 'Peg have been able to follow as memorably (though Regina-based cousins like Brian Stockton, Brett Bell and prairie-boy-at-heart Richard Kerr HAVE, in their own demented ways). Kostanski, by the way is a brilliant effects artist and his most recent makeup design is on view in the terrific Xavier Gens sci-Fi thriller The Divide.

Make way, now, for a new generation of mad geniuses from Winnipeg.

They are Astron-6. And though some from this collective of total filmmakers have temporarily (one hopes) left the world capital of napping and Salisbury House Mr. Big Nips for bigger locales, the snug blankets and Icelandic sweaters of the prairies sprouted their grand vision that are and will continue to take the world by storm.

That said, I do expect that MANBORG II will have plenty o' babes catfighting.

MANBORG is available on Anchor Bay Canada. Buy it! NOW! You can even buy it an other Astron-6 titles here. Just click on the Amazon links below and you'll be helping me get royalties to assist with the ongoing maintenance of this site.

In Canada BUY the Astron-6 Short Film Collection HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY the ASTRON-6 Short Film Collection - HERE In Canada BUY Astron-6's FATHER'S DAY - HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Astron-6's FATHER'S DAY - HERE In Canada BUY Astron-6's MANBORG - HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY ASTRON-6's MANBORG - HERE

Father's Day (2011) dir. Astron-6 (Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Steven Kostanski) Starring: Conor Sweeney, Adam Brooks, Matt Kennedy, Brent Neale, Amy Groening, Meredith Sweeney, Kevin Anderson, Garret Hnatiuk, Mackenzie Murdoch, Lloyd Kaufman

****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Death ends a life. But it does not end a relationship, which struggles on in the survivor's mind. toward some resolution which it may never find." - Robert Anderson from his play, I Never Sang For My Father

A father's love for his son is a special kind of love. As such, Dads the world over face that singular inevitability - that peculiar epoch in their collective lives, when they must chauffeur the apple of their eye from a police station, for the third time in a month, after said progeny has undergone questioning upon being found in a motel room with a dead man covered in blood, après le bonheur de la sodomie, only to return home after dropping said twink son on a street corner, so the aforementioned offspring of the light-in-the-loafer persuasion, can perform fellatio on old men for cash, whilst Dad sits forlornly in the domicile that once represented decent family values and stare at a framed photo of better times, until he succumbs to unexpected anal rape and when doused with gasoline and set on fire as he weeps, face down and buttocks up, frenziedly tears out into the street screaming and collapsing in a charred heap in front of his returning son who reacts with open-mouthed horror as the scent of old penis wafts from his twink tonsils.

For most fathers, all of the above is, no doubt, a case of been-there-done-that - not unlike that inevitable fatherly attempt at understanding when Dad gently seeks some common ground with the fruits of his husbandly labours and offers: "Look son, I experimented when I was young, too."

So begins Father's Day - with the aforementioned, AND some delectable pre-credit butchery, an eye-popping opening credit sequence with images worthy of Jim Steranko and a series of flashbacks during an interrogation with a hard-boiled cop.

This is the astounding feature film (the second completed feature this year) from the brilliant Winnipeg filmmaking collective Astron-6 (Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Steven Kostanski) who have joined forces with the legendary Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz of Troma Entertainment to generate a film that is the ultimate evil bastard child sprung from the loins of a daisy chain twixt Guy Maddin, John Paizs, early David Cronenberg, Herschel Gordon Lewis and Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer. Father's Day combines the effects of asbestos-tinged drinking water in Winnipeg with the Bukkake splatter of the coolest artistic influences imaginable and yields one of the Ten Best Films of 2011.

It is the seed of depraved genius that's spawned Astron-6 and, of course, with the best work in Canadian film, it has been embraced by an entity outside of Canada - that glorious aforementioned sleaze-bucket nutter who gave the world The Toxic Avenger.

This collective of five (not six) brilliant filmmakers (including Steven Kostanski, the F/X wizard, writer and director of Astron-6's MANBORG) are part of a new breed of young Canadian filmmakers who have snubbed their noses at the government-funded bureaucracies that oft-eschew the sort of transgression that normally puts smaller indigenous cultural industries on the worldwide map (including its own - Canada only truly supports such work grudgingly once it's found acceptance elsewhere).

In this sense, Astron-6 has been making films under the usual radar of mediocrity and steadfastly adhering to the fine Groucho Marx adage: "I refuse to join any club that would have someone like me for a member."

Imagine, if you will, any government-funded agency (especially a Canadian one), doling out taxpayer dollars to the following plot: Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdoch), is a serial killer that specializes in targeting fathers for anal rape followed by further degradations, including torture, butchery and/or murder.

Our madman, Fuchman (substitute :k" for "h" to pronounce name properly), turns out to be a demon from the deepest pits of hell and a ragtag team is recruited by a blind infirm Archbishop of the Catholic Church (Kevin Anderson) to fight this disgusting agent of Satan. An eyepatch-wearing tough guy (Adam Brooks), a young priest (Matthew Kennedy), the aforementioned twink male prostitute (Conor Sweeney) and hard-boiled dick (Brent Neale) and a jaw-droppingly gorgeous stripper (Amy Groening) follow the trail of this formidable foe whilst confronting all their own personal demons.

This frothy brew of vile delights includes some of the most graphic blood splattering, vicious ass-slamming violence, gratuitous nudity, skimpy attire for the ladies, 'natch (and our delectable twink), morality, evisceration, hunky lads, delicious babes, compassion, rape, fellatio, chainsaw action, wholesome content, cannibalism, hand-to-hand combat, gunplay, family values, sodomy, immolation and monsters. It's all delivered up with a cutting edge mise-en-scène that out-grindhouses Tarantino's Grindhouse and delivers thrills, scares and laughs all in equal measure.

The film's sense of humour, in spite, or perhaps because of the proper doses of scatology and juvenilia is not the typical low-brow gross-out humour one finds in so many contemporary comedies, but frankly, works on the level of satire, and as such, is of the highest order. It stylistically straddles the delicate borders great satire demands.

Too many people who should know better, confuse spoof or parody with satire and certainly anyone going to see Father's Day expecting SCTV, Airplane or Blazing Saddles might be in for a rude awakening. Yes, it's just as funny as any of those classic mirth-makers, but the laughs cut deep and they're wrought, not from the typical shtick attached to spoofs, but like all great satire, derive from the entire creative team playing EVERYTHING straight. No matter how funny, absurd or outlandish the situations and dialogue are, one never senses that an annoying tongue is being drilled firmly in cheek. Astron-6 loves their material and, importantly loves their creative influences. Their target is not necessarily the STYLE of film they're rendering homage to, but rather, the hypocrisies and horrors that face humanity everyday - religion, repression, dysfunction - all wedged cleverly into the proceedings.

Clearly a great deal of the movie's power in terms of its straight-laced approach to outlandish goings-on is found in the performances - all of them are spot-on. Adam Brooks IS a stalwart hero and never does he veer from infusing his role from the virtues inherent in such roles. Hell, he could frankly be Canada's Jason Statham in conventional action movies if anyone bothered to make such movies in Canada on any regular basis.

Conor Sweeney as Twink is a marvel. Not only does he play the conflicted gay street hustler "straight", he straddles that terrific balance between genuinely rendering a layered character, but also infusing his performance with melodramatic aplomb. Not only is this perfect for the character itself, but it's perfectly in keeping with the style of movie that is being lovingly celebrated.

Anyone who reads my stuff regularly will know my mantra: Melodrama is not a dirty word - it's a legitimate genre and approach to drama. There is good melodrama and bad melodrama, like any other genre. Luckily, the Astron-6 team has the joy of glorious melodrama hard-wired into their collective DNA and Sweeney's performance is especially indelible in this respect.

Brent Neale as the hard-boiled cop is, quite simply, phenomenal. Will someone out there give this actor job after job after job? The camera loves him and he knows how to play to the camera. He is clearly at home with the straight-up and melodramatic aspects of his role and most importantly, he is imbued with the sort of smoulder that makes stars - he's handsome and intense.

Astoundingly, not a single actor in this film feels out of place. Whether they're emoting straight, slightly stilted, wildly melodramatic or, on occasion (given the genre), magnificently reeking of ham, this is ensemble acting at its absolute best.

The entire movie was made on a budget of $10,000 and once again, for all the initiatives out there to generate low-budget feature films, Father's Day did it cheaper (WAY CHEAPER) and better. The movie uses its budgetary constraints not as limitations, but as a method to exploit what can be so special about movies. The visual and makeup effects as well as the art direction ooze imagination and aesthetic brilliance and it's all captured through a lens that puts its peer level and even some big budget extravaganzas to shame. Imagination is truly the key to success with no-budget movies. The Father's Day cinematography is often garish and lurid, but delightfully and deliciously so - with first-rate lighting and excellent composition. The filmmakers and their entire team successfully render pure gold out of elements that in most low-budget films just looks cheap - or worse, blandly competent (like most low budget Canadian movies). It's total trash chic - trash art, if you must.

I attended this spectacular event in France many years ago called the FreakZone International Festival of Trash Cinema which celebrated some of the most amazing transgressive works I'd ever seen. When I expressed to the festival director that I was surprised at the level of cinematic artistry, he just smiled and said, "You North Americans have such a limited view of trash culture - for us, trash is not garbage, we use the word to describe work that is subversive." This was so refreshing. It felt like a veil had been lifted from over me and I realized what EXACTLY it was that I loved about no-budget cinema - as a filmmaker, a teacher, a critic and fan.

Making a movie for no money that is NOT subversive on every level is, frankly, just plain stupid. What's the point? And Father's Day is nothing if it's not subversive. Besides, I've seen too many young filmmakers with talent galore ruined by initiatives that purported to celebrate the virtues of no-or-low-budget filmmaking but then forced the artists to apply the idiotic expectations of "industry standards" - whatever that means, anyway. This has been especially acute in Canada where bureaucrats make decisions and/or define the rules/parameters of filmmaking.

Father's Day and the entire canon of the Astron-6 team should be the ultimate template for filmmakers with no money to seize the day and make cool shit. That's what it should always be about. And in this case, it took the fortitude of the filmmakers, their genuinely transgressive gifts as artists AND an independent AMERICAN producer to ensure that they made the coolest shit of all.

What finally renders Father's Day special is just how transgressively intelligent it all is and yet, never turns its proverbial nose up at the straight-to-video-nasties of the 80s, the grindhouse cinema of the 60s and 70s and the weird, late night cable offerings of the early 90s. It works very much on the level of the things it loves best. This is real filmmaking - it entertains, it dazzles, it makes use of every cheap trick in the book to create MOVIE magic and finally, it's made by people who clearly care about film. They get to have their cake and eat it too by having as much fun making the movies as we have watching them.

Father's Day was unveiled at Toronto's premiere genre film event, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2011 where it won the grand prize of Best Film - voted on by the thousands of attendees of the festival. It was released theatrically in early 2012 by Troma Entertainment and is now available on glorious Blu-Ray and DVD. You can buy it from the links displayed below (which assists greatly in the ongoing maintenance of this site.

In Canada BUY the Astron-6 Short Film Collection HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY the ASTRON-6 Short Film Collection - HERE In Canada BUY Astron-6's FATHER'S DAY - HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Astron-6's FATHER'S DAY - HERE In Canada BUY Astron-6's MANBORG - HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY ASTRON-6's MANBORG - HERE

Udo Kier, tender lovemaking and a virgin bending over in the triumphant new Astron-6 production that presents more than a few things you don't see everyday!

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'll 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! Directors Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy have created a modern work that holds its own with the greatest gialli of all time.

Great giallo MUST HAVE babes screaming.

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.

Well, let me tell you what one can say to this sampling of dialogue thats's indicative of the film's approach to all things irreverent and original:

HALLELUJAH!!!

A TRUE Giallo Hero MUST sport a stylish FRANCO NERO moustache

To the uninitiated, Giallo is the Italian word for "yellow". Its cultural significance is derived from pulp novels published in Italy with trademark yellow paperback covers. Giallo films are the cinematic expression of this literary tradition. The stories usually involve a psychopath (often wearing black gloves and other costume-like elements to hide his, and sometimes her, identity) who stalks and murders babes. All other kills are strictly of the opportunistic variety and usually include anyone who gets in the way (expected or not) of the killer's motives/quarry.

The movies are splashed with globs of garish colour, replete with cool jarring camera moves like quick pans, swish pans, zany zooms and a delightful abundance of shock cuts. The narrative ingredients will almost always include a hero whom everyone thinks is guilty, a few red herring suspects, disloyal and/or uppity wives, sweet young things to tempt cuckolded hubbies and detectives who are almost always on the wrong trail (some are decent-enough dicks), others well-meaning and others yet, are boneheads rivalling the Order of Clouseau. Studs and babes are de rigueur. Nudity and sex are almost always the norm. This is a world we ALL want to live in. (If "we" don't, "we" are dullards.) Into this time-honoured tradition comes The Editor. Its deceptively simple plot involves Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks, with the greatest Franco Nero moustache since Franco Nero). A once-prominent film editor who accidentally chopped four of his fingers off and now sports four hooks in their stead, covered by a stylish flesh-coloured, finger-shaped slipcover-like glove. His handicap, more often than not, forces him to edit with one hand.

Working for a sleazy producer, our title hero eventually becomes the prime suspect in a series of brutal murders perpetrated one-by-one against the members of the film's cast. The salient detail is that all the victims have had four of their fingers chopped off. If any of them had actually survived, they, like Rey, would suffer the indignity of being referred to as "the cripple".

To complicate matters, Rey has fallen head over heels for his beautiful, young assistant editor, but he tries to resist seducing her, even though at one point she demands, "Make me a woman." Rey, however, points out their age difference: "You are just a little girl. Play with the boys your own age."

Besides, he's locked into an unhappy marriage with a sexy, but spiteful has-been actress (Paz de le Huerta) - a harping shrew who openly cuckolds Rey. At one point, she admits to having eyes for one of the lead actors in the film Rey is editing. Our hero snidely quips, "What would you do if he died?" Wifey is outraged by his mind games and responds: "I would cry. I would cry. I would cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry," and then adds, ""I would cry. I would. I would never, ever stop crying, you stupid cripple!"

Detective Peter Porfiry (Matthew Kennedy, also sporting a Nero 'stache), is hell-bent on finding the killer and upon first laying eyes on Rey, he suspiciously asks, "Who's he?" The sleazy producer makes a most gracious introduction: "That's the cripple, the editor." Porfiry, a lusty swordsman with a penchant for slapping his eager women on the face when they talk back, dogs poor Rey at every step. This is not the ideal situation for our hero since he has to keep editing around all the actors who keep getting murdered. Still, he handles the stress as well as could be expected and when he inadvertently lets an amusing comment slip out, the Producer happily announces: "Good one, Ray. I knew it would be fun having a cripple around."

As bodies pile up, Porfiry slaps together a brilliant undercover idea and manages to get his junior detective (Brent Neale) onto the film as the editor. Hapless Rey is being replaced by an Italian version of Jethro Beaudine. The producer tries to let Rey go graciously. "Honestly Ray," he says, "I thought it would be fun to have a cripple around, but I was dead wrong."

The Editor has all the makings of a horror classic. The writing is always sharp and delightfully mordant, the cinematography is first-rate - capturing all the near-fluorescent colours of gialli, the special effects are outstanding (and wonderfully over-the-top), and the musical score is a marvel of aurally rapturous 70s/80s-styled sleaze. Though the film appears to have a bigger budget than previous Astron-6 titles like Manborg and Father's Day, it's lost none of those pictures' independent spirit.

FUCHMAN, (from "Father's Day") is up to his old shenanigans.

Hell, we even get teased with a cameo by Mackenzie Murdock in the role of Fuchman ("ch" naturally pronounced like "k") the Daddy-Sodomizing serial killer of Father's Day. And speaking of actors, the cast of The Editor is to-die-for. Brooks is a terrific schlubby hero, Kennedy is suitably, sexily smarmy, the gorgeous Tristan Risk is a Giallo scream-queen incarnate, Brent Neale is galumphingly hilarious as the junior cop, Conor Sweeney (as per usual) dazzles us with his stunning pretty boy looks and utterly astounding ability to play a terrible actor and among many other astonishing thespians delivering spot-on work, the movie features Udo Kier, the greatest actor of all time, as a demented psychiatrist.

Giallo fans will recognize the source of these specific images in "The Editor".

Finally though, the importance of this film in terms of Canadian Cinema, and cinema period, is that it's a genuine contemporary contribution to the exciting wave of prairie post-modernism that was spawned out of Winnipeg by the brilliant John Paizs (whose classic Crimewave has been given a gorgeous, TIFF-funded 2K restoration which will premiere at TIFF 2014 as well as The Editor).

John Paizs' CRIMEWAVE the FATHER of Astron-6

Among other Winnipeg practitioners of the art of paying homage to genres and being the thing itself, the crazed Guy Maddin (Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Archangel, Careful, My Winnipeg) is also part of this tradition. Consider John Paizs as God the Father of Astron-6 and Guy Maddin as the collective's Uncle Jesus Christ.

Chainsaw VS. Conor Sweeney, Axe VS. Tristan Risk Who will Survive? What will be left of them?

Brooks and Kennedy via the Astron-6 collective in Winnipeg have joined the ranks of the very best filmmakers to smash through the traditional boundaries of the medium and create work of genuinely lasting value. Best of all, though, The Editor is probably the coolest film you'll see this year and one you'll want to partake of again and again and yet again.

Cult classics never die. They get better and better.

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

The Editor enjoys its World Premiere in the Midnight Madness series programmed by the brilliant Colin Geddes at the 2014 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2014). For tix, times, dates and venues, visit the TIFF website by clicking HERE.

HEY YOU! If you want to buy any of the following movies, click directly onto the Amazon links below and keep-a-goin' until you checkout. All sales and ad-clicks on this site assist greatly with the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

In Canada BUY the Astron-6 Short Film Collection HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY the ASTRON-6 Short Film Collection - HERE In Canada BUY Astron-6's FATHER'S DAY - HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Astron-6's FATHER'S DAY - HERE In Canada BUY Astron-6's MANBORG - HERE In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY ASTRON-6's MANBORG - HERE

A similar scene to the one experienced by Jim Jarmusch and others in New York during the 70s and 80s was also happening in Winnipeg at the same time and captured in the documentary BLANK CITY as well as many other works which appeared in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" series during the early winter of 2014. A very cool explosion in indie underground cinema that I and many colleagues and friends were involved with was spawned during these halcyon days. This period, coined by film critic Geoff Pevere as Prairie Post-Modernism, included the works of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Greg Hanec and many others.


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

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

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

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

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

Here be a real knee-slapper from CORNER GAS THE MOVIE Nyuck. Nyuck. Nyuck. Are you be laughing yet? It be real funny, eh? It be Canadian, eh. Come on! Laugh, goddamn ye! LAUGH! Ah, fuck you, gimme a beer, eh.

Corner Gas The Movie (2014)
Dir. David Storey
Scr. Brent Butt,
Andrew Carr, Andrew Wreggitt
Starring: Brent Butt, Gabrielle Miller, Fred Ewanuick, Eric Peterson, Janet Wright, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Lorne Cardinal, Nancy Robertson, Don Lake, Reagan Pasternak, Karen Holness, Cavan Cunningham, Graham Greene

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Canadian TV series Corner Gas was an undeniable smash. For six seasons, its ratings kicked everything off the charts, including big American programs. Its worldwide sales have also been through the roof. The show could probably have gone on for a few more seasons, but its creator Brent Butt bravely decided to pull the plug on a high note. The final episode drew a staggering three-million-plus Canadian viewers.


The ubiquitous billboards, ads, the content of said promotional materials and the general water cooler babble about the show amongst the Great Unwashed was enough to convey to even a gibbering gibbon that the show was a sitcom about inbreds living in some godforsaken small town in the middle of the Canadian Prairies. Happily, that's all I really knew about the show since I don't watch much television save for TV Ontario, a few select British and American items I'd catch up with on DVD, Judge Judy, Divorce Court and the Maury Povich Show. (I used to also watch the former CBC before it was ruined by an oinker with - ahem - "vision".)

Bottom line: I had not laid a single eyeball upon even one frame of the hit series when I finally watched the recent feature-length big-screen version entitled Corner Gas The Movie. I'm glad, though, because I really only care to assess feature films on their merits (or lack thereof) as feature films. Given the pedigree of the series, plus the fact that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool prairie lad who despises Toronto with a passion and has rued every day I've had to live in the godforsaken Town o' Hogs for 20 of my 50 or so years on this Earth, I was open-mindedly thrilled to see this movie.

Besides, seeing feature length versions of shows one loves, especially those made years or even decades after the original idiot box versions, carries way too much baggage for me and more often than not, I'm supremely disappointed. However, in recent years, I had the good fortune to see some family-oriented movies based on hit television shows aimed at pre-teen and tweener girls and enjoyed them so much, I ended up watching the programs on DVD quite happily with my daughter.

I was primed to love this movie, or at least, like it.

It didn't happen. I felt I was watching television of the worst order - a half-hour episode dragged out for over 90 minutes. Even worse, I did not laugh once. Not even a smile managed to crack my steely visage. At times, the movie was so painfully unfunny, I tried to imagine it within the context of being a Carl Dreyer masterpiece, but written and directed by Jethro Beaudine. THAT made me laugh, but alas, the fantasy did not transfer to the misery of having to watch Corner Gas The Movie.

75% of this movie's $8.5 million budget came from public funds. Money well spent! Good Job!

The tired narrative trudges along interminably and involves the denizens of Dog River, a town on the verge of utter bankruptcy. Water and power are in scarce supply and business is so bad that Brent (Brent Butt), the proprietor of the gas station, attempts to inject some life into the town by purchasing the local bar. Lacey (Gabrielle Miller) runs the town diner and has her own ideas on how to turn things around. She enters Dog River into a national contest to find the most quaint city in Canada. The prize is $75K, which, could go a long way to cover the town's debts and then some.

The problem, though, is that Dog River needs a whack of elbow grease to get it closer to "quaint". Lacey enlists Brent's Mom, the crusty Emma (Janet Wright) and a handful of others who appear to comprise the entire population of the town. Local layabout Hank Yarbo (Fred Ewanuick) is full of ideas. They're all stupid, but it doesn't stop him from trying. His stupidest idea is attempting to open a coffee-donut chain franchise which, if it worked, would put Lacey out of business.

The town's sole law enforcement is comprised of the pregnant Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn) and the dopey, friendly big-galoot Davis (Lorne Cardinal). The town's shifty, boneheaded Mayor Fitzy (Cavan Cunnigham), has not only drained the town dry by investing the coffers in, uh, Detroit, but also dupes David into taking an early retirement to save the town some dough. No matter. Davis decides he's going to become a private investigator (not unlike Jethro Beaudine deciding to be a brain surgeon in The Beverly Hillbillies) whilst Karen goes on a mad spree to issue municipal citations to get her "quotas" up in case she needs to get a new law enforcement gig somewhere else.

Nutty Wanda (Nancy Robertson) appears to have the most moxie and entrepreneurial spirit of the lot when she opens up a booze can and casino in Davis's man-cave. It becomes so popular, it's driving Brent's bar into the poorhouse. The biggest threats of all come from the nearby town of prairie fundamentalists who wish to annex Dog River and a coffee and donut chain that wants to buy up all of Dog River's property cheap and turn the whole shooting match into a massive industrial warehouse. Adding insult to injury, a massive lawsuit rears its ugly head and Brent is about to lose everything.

While all this is going down, Brent's father Oscar (Eric Peterson), a dad-nabbit old curmudgeon is so obsessed with survivalism, he trades in his car for a horse and proves, as both a man and human being (and frankly, as a survivalist) to be about as useless as tits on a bull.

By the way, have I yet mentioned that the evil chain trying to swallow Dog River whole is called "Coff-Nuts"?

Are we laughing yet?

The pain involved in suffering through this convoluted maw of rancid folksiness and whimsy is enough to inspire suicide or, at least, a trip to Holland for a bit of the old euthanasia. The acting is either prime-time-competent or full of egregious mugging and there isn't one single funny, original line of dialogue, pratfall or story beat anywhere to be found in the whole dreary enterprise. About all I can say in favour of the movie, and I suppose this is something, is that I did not need prior exposure to the series to figure out who was who and what was what. This was all plainly obvious.

Frankly, though, if the TV series is anything like this movie, I'm not making any time to watch it on DVD and ultimately, I can only conclude how truly bereft of taste and/or brain our kinder, gentler, simpler Canadians are blessed with to have turned it into such a huge hit. It kind of makes sense, though. Corner Gas was probably a big hit amongst all those who elected our current Chancellor/Prime Minister. It's the only explanation.

As for Corner Gas The Movie, it's not a movie. It certainly doesn't have the scope of a movie and feels little more than going to the movies to watch television. Yup, the movie stinks, alright, but I will say it sure does have some pretty prairie sunsets.

Oh, and speaking of purty prairie sunsets, the thick-heads running the government of Saskatchewan (where much of this movie was shot) flushed a terrific tax credit down the toilet, effectively destroyed the local film industry, tossed out all the economic spin-off benefits of film production in the province and forced locals to move away (kind of like what was in the works for the Dog River denizens). I suppose one could consider the Saskatchewan Legislature to be little more than, uh, Coff-Nuts.

In spite of this lack of vision, the province of Saskatchewan opened their purse strings to the tune of $2 Million smackeroonies to help finance this muddy slough of a movie. As reported by CBC News in Saskatchewan, the inbreds running the province cobbled together a funding agreement that "includes a clause that the producers are expected to include 'positive visual aspects' that promote the province as a tourism destination in the story line of the movie. The agreement suggests 'sunrises/sunsets, unique vistas or locations'". Saskatchewan? A Tourism Destination? For what? To see the RCMP horse brigade parade in Regina?

What a bunch of yokels.

They've gotten exactly what they deserve.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: THE TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHARBROIL & DINING LOUNGE For a full explanation of this rating click HERE.

If you're interested in reading about HOW to make a genuinely successful big-screen version of a small-screen success, you can read my review from yesterday by clicking HERE.

Corner Gas The Movie is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from VSC. The transfer highlights the gorgeous picture postcard cinematography of Saskatchewan very nicely and it includes a bevy of extra features like gag reels (about as funny as the movie), a clutch of EPK-like making-of items and a thoroughly useless commentary track which is filled wall-to-wall with folksy shout-outs. Nothing I say here will stop the multitude of inbreds in this country from parting with their dollars to buy it, so they might as well order it right from here so they can support the ongoing maintenance of the website which, like the Prime Minister they voted for, has little but disdain for them.

Amberlight PR: Commandeered by the inimitable Chris Alicock (music marketing guru, producer and overall legendary launcher o' great Canadian talent) and buttressed by the formidable PR powerhouses Leah Visser (the tireless, committed doyenne of film and home entertainment PR) and Kristen Ferkranus (the sharp, youthful face and voice of numerous film PR initiatives), Amberlight has been on the front lines of promoting a wide variety of superb Canadian films distributed by their equally heroic client Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada. Such cutting edge indie Canuck genre masterworks by the likes of Foresight Features, the Twisted (Soska) Twins and, among many others, Steven Kostanski, have been in excellent hands with this crack team of classy flacks. The team is rounded by Jason Acton in graphics/IT and Vanessa Neschevich in social media. (And gee whiz, Amberlight also reps their fair share of super-cool non-Canuck items for Canadian audiences).




Audrey Cummings: Along with the Soska Twins, Karen Lam and Jovanka Vuckovic, Canada can now add yet another astonishing female filmmaker dedicated to generating Canadian Cinema designed to scare the living crap out of audiences. Cummings has toiled away in short-film hell, creating a variety of suspense and science fiction-themed work in addition to her lovely slice o' life mother-daughter relationship dramedy Burgeon and Fade. Cummings has recently completed her first feature film Berkshire County, a chilling babysitter versus piggly-wiggly-costumed psychopaths with its telling critique of traditional roles expected of young women (especially) in rural areas, the sexual assault, exploitation and bullying of same said young women and super-charged empowerment and vengeance burning with brains and blood-letting. Already a major award winner in genre film festivals, Berkshire County joins a huge swath of intelligent scare-fests made independently from occasionally dour, pole-up-the-ass publicly-funded investment agencies like Telefilm Canada. Berkshire County is being released theatrically via A71 in Canada and sold worldwide via Raven Banner Entertainment.




Avi Federgreen: This youthful powerhouse of art and industry has been a producer on numerous quality Canadian films like As Slow As Possible, One Week, Leslie My Name is Evil, Random Acts of Romance and Empire of Dirt. As the founder and CEO of Federgreen Entertainment and Indiecan Entertainment, his commitment to the creation and distribution of our national cinema has remained fiercely and boldly independent. 2014 saw Federgreen launch an important new production initiative, the INDIECAN10K Film Challenge, a cross-Canada enterprise that will launch several new first feature films which will be personally mentored by Federgreen in addition to respected producer-mentors in every province and/or territory selected for participation. In March 2014, seven productions were selected from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Ontario. Keep your eyes glued to the marquees, Canada. Product is a coming.

Jason Lupish: He's a nice Ukrainian boy in Ontario's wine country hinterlands and he makes movies there. This is cool. With a team of friends/colleagues, his St. Catharines-based production company Open Concept Films has been an awe-inspiring regional force in serving its indigenous community and the country at large. Short films, commercials, promo films and documentaries have been a major stock in trade, but the real triumph for Lupish is the absolutely lovely no-budget award-winning feature film A Kind of Wonderful Thing which is, frankly, a kind of wonderful movie. In fact, it's not just "kind of" wonderful, it's moving, funny and fabulous. Lupish and his collaborators created a film that is indigenous, yet infused with a universal quality of genuinely offbeat Canadian fruit loopiness. And now Lupish and his team are working on a new project that is going to completely blow the lid off. . . well, I'm not allowed to say, but it's gonna knock people on their collective butts.

Bill Marshall: The man is a legend. He founded the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 1976 and was its first director. He's produced some of Canada's finest feature films including the classic Outrageous and among a myriad of achievements in both the film industry and public life, produced over 200 docs, PSAs and other specialty items. 2014 continued to be a banner year for Marshall's support of Canadian film. As Artistic Director of the Niagara Integrated Film Festival's first year, Marshall brought some of the finest international films to Canada's glorious wine country in a lovely amalgamation of the region's cuisine and delectable spirits. One of the festival's outstanding achievements was its commitment to programming Canadian Cinema including the tremendous Niagara-region-produced feature length debut of Jason Lupish's A Kind of Wonderful Thing. Marshall is a senior member of our industry who commands the highest degree of respect, but he maintains a modesty, honesty and sturdy work ethic that's rare in our business. The man never quits. He could rest easy with any fraction of his achievements, but we know he never will.

David Miller: This estimable young man roared onto the motion picture scene with an unmatched fury and in a few short years he's become one of Canada's brightest young producers and a leading entrepreneur in the packaging, promotion and distribution of our indigenous motion picture product. Amal, Blackbird, Berkshire County and It Was You Charlie are just a smattering of important titles Miller's attached to. Not surprisingly, the man has a whack of pictures that are either recently completed or in development. In 2006, he wisely connected with the brilliant branding gurus Chad Maker and Kirk Comrie and he is now President of A71 Productions Inc which aims at the highest heights artistically and backs up its product with high level marketing savvy. Miller and his partners are genuine "friends" to some of the very best filmmaking talent in Canada. Recent properties include Kivalina, Foolish Heart and Sidharth. And lest we forget, Miller was the guy who led the major marketing charge at the National Film Board of Canada with a glorious Oscar campaign which garnered two additional NFB nominations and a win for Ryan. Canada is in very good hands with the likes of David Miller and A71.

Ryan McKenna, Mark Morgenstern, Randall Okita and Matthew Rankin: These four young men are national treasures of Canada's grand tradition of cutting edge cinema. Ryan McKenna's Controversies is one of the most haunting and poetic short documentary films ever made in this country and his first feature film The First Winter is an utter gem which captures, the bleak, sad, elegiac and utterly hilarious qualities of a bitter Winnipeg winter through the eyes of a stranded young Portugese immigrant. (McKenna also directed Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story, a one-hour doc that I understand is not without merit.) Mark Morgenstern is not only a phenomenal cinematographer, but as the director of Curtains (co-directed with sister Stephanie), Shooter and the jaw-droppingly gorgeous, moving and thematically rich Avec Le Temps, he's one of Canada's leading practitioners of alternative drama and the avant-garde. Randall Okita is one of Canada's greatest young visual artists and his films blend a variety of approaches and media to the art of storytelling including machine with wishbone, the knock-you-on-your-ass portrait as a random act of violence and 2014's highly acclaimed multi-award-winning the weatherman and the shadowboxer. Matthew Rankin is one of the leading heirs to the tradition of Winnipeg's unique wave of Prairie Post-Modernism led by John Paizs and Guy Maddin. His rich cinematic output is perhaps one of the most important historical, cultural and artistic reflections upon the unique midwestern big old small-town, Winnipeg. His works include Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets (co-directed with his equally brilliant and demented 'Pegger colleagues Walter Forsberg and Mike Maryniuk), HYDRO-LÉVESQUE, Negativipeg and among far too many (yet never enough works of inspired madness), 2014's Mynarski Death Plummet (one of the best short films of the year and one of the best short films made anywhere - EVER!).

John Paizs: Cinema in Canada, in terms of a highly lauded international reputation for its sheer demented genius, does not exist, nor would it exist, if not for one of our truly greatest auteurs, John Paizs. His groundbreaking short films The Obsession of Billy Botski and Springtime in Greenland, his hilarious madcap satire of 50s science fiction The Top of the Food Chain (aka Invasion!) and the legendary and quite perfect Crime Wave, an ode to garish 50s crime pictures, NFB documentaries and corporate training films of the 60s all betray a huge body of stupefyingly extraordinary work that define English-Canadian cinema at its very best. Guy Maddin and Astron-6, both of Winnipeg, owe everything to Paizs and frankly, so does the entire new wave of independent cinema in Canada during its Golden Age of the late 80s to mid-90s. Everyone and anyone of any consequence whatsoever has been a follower in Paizs's mighty footprints of ingenuity, originality and just plain anarchic brilliance. Crime Wave was recently the recipient of a gorgeous 2K restoration thanks to TIFF's Steve Gravestock and filmmaker Jonathan Ball authored an exhaustive U of T Press book which details both its production as well as providing a punchy, intelligent, but easily digestible egghead critical analysis. Appallingly, Crime Wave is legendary for being one of the world's most beloved cult films to have been squashed and squandered by Canada's pathetic tradition of lame-ass distribution of our indigenous cinematic culture. Crime Wave has been locked in an egregious 40-year-long distribution agreement which has been passed on from one miserable company to another and now sits idly in the vaults (or rather, upon a dusty shelf) of E-1 Entertainment's bottomless pit of superb product that virtually nothing has been done with. (They're so impressively huge that they're out-Miramaxing Miramax in its heyday.) With the recent TIFF 2K restoration, Crime Wave is primed for a major campaign to address the wrongs perpetrated against it. The movie begs for a major DVD/Blu-Ray Special Limited Edition in addition to a decent theatrical platform release. E-1's pockets are deep and a mere coin toss would restore and maintain the film's rightful place amongst our country's most legendary masterworks.

Raven Banner Entertainment: Led by the impressive team of Michael Pazst, Andrew T. Hunt and James Fler with a crack crew of valued associates, Raven Banner has become one of Canada's most vibrant and influential companies worldwide. Devoted to the international and domestic sales of razor-sharp genre and art cinema, it has quickly secured fame and respect for breaking new ground in a wide variety of media within the world of independent cinema. The enduring passion of its team is virtually unparalleled and in terms of Canadian Cinema, they (along with Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada) have been the go-to guys for quality genre product in this country. Impeccable taste, sales savvy and a seemingly indefatigable work ethic, Raven Banner puts most Canadian sales entities to complete and utter shame. The overwhelming list of brilliant, talented Canadian filmmakers represented by the company is steadily mounting and it's gotten to a point where virtually no quality, kick-ass genre picture created domestically (or, for that matter, internationally) doesn't have a Raven Banner finger in the exalted pie of blood gushing, mind-fucking, nerve shredding suspense, horror and action. Founders and creators of the Canada-Wide theatrical initiative Sinister Cinema, the company continues to mine potential audiences for our delectably twisted national cinema.

VSC (Video Services Corp.): Jonathan Gross is a former rock critic, television script writer and producer who has turned his unique skills and passion to the promotion and distribution of first-rate product via his company VSC. Gross is a visionary who has long-supported a wide variety of quality motion picture product in the Canadian home and theatrical marketplace. His commitment to Canadian film and television is astonishing with a huge number of Canuck TV series, sports documentaries about our greatest athletes and original dramatic product. He's recently brought a huge number of great new internationally acclaimed independent films to Canadian audiences including Frank, Alan Partridge and, among many others, Big Bad Wolves. He's brash, bold and brilliant - just like the product he represents and the company he operates.

"I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man."

Double Indemnity (1944)
Dir. Billy Wilder
Scr. Raymond Chandler & Wilder
Src. Novella by James M. Cain
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred McMurray, Edward G. Robinson, Tom Powers, Jean Heather, Byron Barr, Porter Hall, Richard Gaines

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is one of the creepiest, most chilling film noir thrillers of all time. That after 70+ years Double Indemnity still manages to pummel us with the force of a raging bull is a testament to the genius of director-and-co-writer Billy Wilder, his dark-matter-infused screenwriting partner Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, the original author of the novella upon which the film is based.

No matter when I've seen it, the movie never lets me down and continues to raise my goose-fleshy hackles with the same force Barbara Stanwyck's performance pumps streams of blood to engorge my, uh, appendage.

The movie begins with a car's mad dash through the streets of Los Angeles until its driver, one seemingly distraught Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) stops, slowly exits his vehicle, stumbles into an office tower, then into the domain of the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company. In the pitch black of night, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse; though, it seems, a few weary cleaners work quietly as they sweep, vacuum, mop and wax the floors, occasionally emptying the contents of wastepaper baskets near the desks that now sit empty and silently in the vast workspace. Neff, still unsteady, carries himself along the hallways until he lunges into a dark room, slumps into a chair and flips on the dictaphone.

"You said it wasn't an accident, check. You said it wasn't suicide, check. You said it was murder…check."

Neff has a story to tell, a confession if you like. His voice, filled with an odd mixture of regret and cynicism, begins to pour out the events which will comprise the vast majority of the film. It's a story rooted in lust and love, one that slowly tunnels into the muck and mire of paranoia, dreadful secrets and murder most foul.

A routine visit to remind a client (Tom Powers) that his automobile insurance is about to expire is the thing that turns Neff's life completely upside down. The client isn't home, but his wife, the shapely Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) most certainly is.

Being a man obsessed with keeping his standing as Pacific Assurance's top-flight salesman, he's had little time for love.

Lust, maybe, but Cupid's Arrow has always eluded him.

Phyllis, much younger than her hard-working oil man hubby, is trapped in a loveless marriage which she thought would yield riches, but has instead, served up an all-you-can-eat buffet of unhappiness, abuse and the most modest financial stability.

These two are primed, so to speak, for a good pump.

Phyllis: Do you make your own breakfast, Mr. Neff? Neff: Well, I squeeze a grapefruit now and again.

Love, however, is a deadly game and a secret affair twixt Neff and Phyllis turns positively noxious when the ace salesman hatches a devious scheme based upon his confidence (due to experience) in being able to successfully pull off the ultimate insurance scam. Initially inspired and supported in his efforts by Phyllis, she of the Gorgeous Gams, lustful eyes, sexily curled lip and provocative anklet, perfect a plan that seems perfectly in the cards. If someone has life insurance, you see, there's a little clause called a "double indemnity". If the death occurs in a number of rare locales, then the payout is twice the normal amount. A tidy sum, indeed.

Nothing's ever perfect, though. Neff's best friend, mentor and bonafide father figure is the crafty, dogged insurance investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson). Neff is more than aware that Keyes will be a tough nut to crack, but he's ultimately convinced that his dark premeditated enterprise will succeed.

"You know, you ought to take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business… you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone… of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leaping from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself?"

This is a great film. Though it captures the post-war ennui of the 40s, it's a film that still packs a punch in a contemporary context. Its protagonist, Walter Neff, unfettered by the "normal" desires of the upwardly mobile, seems to be content with his place in the world. He doesn't need love, a home with a hearth, a family, nor a desire to take to a desk-job in order to justify that he's "made it". He wants to be in the field, out in the world and finally, he takes a certain degree of pride (albeit of the laissez-faire variety) in being the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company's top salesman.

His patter to sell insurance is sprinkled with seemingly caring advice; counsel which indeed might have the potential to interfere (albeit positively) upon the lives of others, but is ultimately self-serving. It boosts his ego, his pride in selling more successfully than anyone, but most of all, Neff, as a human being seems to share the psychological portrait of a corporate entity. In the official synopsis of Mark Achbar, Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott's 2003 documentary The Corporation, a corporation. which is a legally constructed individual, or if you will, a "person", is defined thusly:

"The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social 'personality': it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism."

This seems to describe Neff to a "T" and yet, we like the guy. Why shouldn't we? He's a charming, oddly handsome and wryly funny human being. He sees something he wants - Phyllis - and he's willing and able to do what he needs to do to get it/her. All this said, though, the Wilder/Chandler/Cain Holy Trinity have carefully inserted enough shadings to Walter's character, which gradually reveal a man who honours friendship, wants love and is also imbued with a sense of sacrifice. It's true that he's painted himself into a kind of "the jig is up" corner, but it's a sense of both mortality and morality which work upon the un-oiled hinges of that tiny door nestled deep in his heart and sacrifice, he will, and does.

Phyllis: We're both rotten. Neff: Only you're a little more rotten.

In many ways, it's a heartbreaker of an ending. Neff breaks the hearts of too many, including himself and he takes the ultimate plunge into seeking a kind of skewed redemption - one which we all too clearly understand. Fred McMurray is fundamentally perfect for the role of Walter Neff. It's no surprise that he eventually went on to depict the wise TV-Dad of the long running series "My Three Sons". Wilder/Chandler/Cain have created a character who fits very nicely into a cusp, one between war and post-war and yet another twixt hard-line film noir and mid-60s mainstream sentiment.

As filmmaker/critic Paul Schrader notes in his terrific essay "Notes on Film Noir", the film "… provided a bridge to the post-war phase of film noir. The unflinching noir vision of Double Indemnity came as a shock in 1944", but I'd go further and suggest it's as shocking now as it once was. We all want to believe in man's inherent goodness and though, as Schrader notes, "Double Indemnity was the first film which played film noir for what it essentially was: small-time, unredeemed, unheroic", I'd again go a step further and suggest that Neff's final act of sacrifice goes beyond all that.

There are two deep loves in the film. Firstly, there's the love between friends - Neff and Keyes. The body language between the two men and even the way they look at each other subtly betrays the notion that Neff is a true psychopath. Secondly, there's the love between old man Dietrichson's daughter Lola (Jean Heather) and her hot-headed-with-jealousy boyfriend Nino Zachetti (Byron Barr). It's a love thwarted by Lola's Dad, Phyllis and through his nefarious actions, Neff himself.

"Who'd you think I was anyway? The guy that walks into a good looking dame's front parlour and says, 'Good afternoon, I sell accident insurance on husbands. You got one that's been around too long? One you'd like to turn into a little hard cash?'"

Even Phyllis, the ultimate noir femme fatale, feels like she transcends using her charm, her seductive powers in the manner in which the Neff-Phyllis affair plays out - in secret, unconsummated, behind dark sunglasses and furtive whispers in a public supermarket where they can hide in plain sight. Stanwyck's performance is a whirlwind of sensual/evil force, but in her final confrontation with Neff, she's as cold and calculating as she's also tinged with a bitter regret, clearly inspired by the entire abnormal set-up of seeking to make love a reality.

Neff's narration of the tale has the same impact as Wilder's use of narration much later in Sunset Boulevard. Schrader defines the narration of film noir as being imbued with "an irretrievable past, a predetermined fate and an all-enveloping hopelessness." The sad and salient difference is that Sunset Boulevard is brilliantly narrated by a literal dead man, but the earlier and equally powerful Double Indemnity is narrated by a dying man, or rather, a man facing the inevitability of death, a life wasted save for his sacrifice for a love between two people that might only have been achieved by his acts of deception and murder.

And this, maybe more than anything, is why Double Indemnity is truly and virtually unequivocal in its greatness. The immoral actions of one man lead to sacrifice, which in turn leads to love. If this isn't as cynical as it is profoundly and deeply moving, nothing is.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** 5-Stars

Double Indemnity plays Saturday, February 21 at 3:30 p.m. at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in James Quandt's amazing series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". The film is presented in a BRAND NEW DIGITAL RESTORATION. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE. The film is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray via Universal Pictures replete with a phenomenal set of extra features. As well, there are many other Stanwyck films from this TIFF series which can be ordered directly below and, if so, you'll be contributing to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

"YES, I KILLED HIM. I KILLED HIM FOR MONEY AND A WOMAN. I DIDN'T GET THE MONEY AND I DIDN'T GET THE WOMAN. Pretty, isn't it?"

In Canada - BUY Double Indemnity HERE, eh!

In Canada - BUY Barbara Stanwyck Movies HERE, eh!


In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Double Indemnity - HERE!


In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Barbara Stanwyck movies - HERE!


In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY Double Indemnity - HERE!


In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY Barbara Stanwyck Movies - HERE!

The Time That Remains (2009)
Dir. Elia Suleiman
Starring: Elia Suleiman, Saleh Bakri, Samar Qudha Tamus, Shafika Bajiali

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I was initially unable to put my finger on it, but I knew there was something quite perfect about Elia Suleiman’s The Time That Remains.

It became abundantly clear during an extraordinary scene where a group of Palestinian children are sitting in a dark classroom within the confines of an Israeli-colonized Arab School as their wide-eyes are utterly transfixed upon the flickering images emanating from a rickety 16mm projector. The pieces of time dancing before them, projected onto a tiny screen, yet retaining a scope bigger than life itself are none other than the sprawling spectacle of the Stanley Kubrick-directed epic Spartacus– Hollywood’s ultimate big-screen allegory of Zionism.

It is this scene that precisely defines the perfection of Suleiman’s great film for a number of reasons. First of all, the scene flawlessly demonstrates the differences in cinematic approaches to the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Spartacus is, of course allegorical and an epic tale of subjugation presented with all that money can buy. The Time That Remains is also an epic, but with comparatively meagre resources. It focuses, not on spectacle, but on the smaller, more confined details of humanity in the realm of subjugation; an epic and indeed episodic examination of big ideas, bigger conflicts and the biggest need for peace betwixt both entities.

Secondly, the scene demonstrates the perfection of Suleiman’s delicate, poetic and quiet approach to the subject, in direct contrast to the violent, spectacular bombast of Kubrick’s picture which, in fairness to Kubrick is an exquisitely directed gun-for-hire job and not the personal, poetic, from-the-heart and primarily autobiographical approach that Suleiman takes. That said, Suleiman shares with Kubrick that magnificent stylistic approach to the tableau – finding just the right composition and holding on it.

Thirdly, the scene expresses the notion that all cinema, no matter what side of the political fence it sits on, is rooted firmly in some form or another of a perspective that is almost always propagandistic in nature. The Time That Remains takes a side and sticks to it in a black and white manner with an occasional splash of grey in order to present its tale of subjugation with an equal mixture of sadness and humour.


Set against the backdrop of the city of Nazareth, the film charts the life of a simple, loving Palestinian family during the formation of Israel from 1948 to the present day and is delivered to us in a number of different time periods. Based on his father’s diaries and his own recollections, Suleiman presents the lives of his family, friends and neighbourhood and examines the absurdity and injustice of people being forced to live as strangers in their own land. In fact, the Palestinians who choose to remain in Nazareth instead of being exiled are categorized by their oppressors – not as Palestinians, but as Israeli-Arabs.

Suleiman presents all of this with a strange mixture of humour and tragedy. In one scene – which is as beautiful as it is bizarre – the same group of children described above are seen proudly singing a rousing, pro-Israeli song in Hebrew on a national holiday while a group of adults look on proudly. In yet another, a group of young Palestinian men sit outside a café in the blazing sun and watch with a poker-faced bemusement as a soldier runs back and forth, occasionally asking which way he should go to the battlefield and when told which way to go, he argues that it must be the wrong way – especially since the sounds of battle seem to be coming from every which way.

Another great scene blending the deepest black humour and tragedy involves Israeli soldiers decked out in Arab gear and marching along the street when a Palestinian woman congratulates them on their victory. She receives a bullet to the head for her salutations in a shocking, deadpan, horrific and mordantly funny manner – recalling that famous moment in (of all movies) Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones casually blows away the sword-wielding turban-adorned bad guy. Suleiman is clearly recapturing the "spirit" of Spielberg's colonial-tinged fantasy, forcing us to laugh and almost just as quickly, forcing us to confront our laughter.

Since Suleiman’s film spans several different periods and doesn’t follow (on the surface) the traditional and comfortable storytelling checkpoints, it’s not an easy movie to describe in terms of plot, but in a nutshell – it is a story that begins with resistance to subjugation, moves through to acceptance of subjugation and ends up in a seemingly ambiguous place of “Where am I?”

While the movie feels unconventional, Suleiman does indeed adhere to the principles of basic storytelling with a three act (or, if you will, three movement) structure, but cleverly masks it to create the feeling that with the passage of time, not much changes. In spite of this, he reminds us that things DO change, but the changes are incremental, subtle and so tiny that one is confronted with the horrifying reality that full-on change could take an eternity, if at all..

The primary reason for this overwhelming sense of the unconventional is that Suleiman establishes a rhythm and structure early on in the film and adheres to it passionately – one that involves the repetition of certain actions and situations – the funniest being one in which the family’s neighbour, a mad old gent, unsuccessfully and repeatedly attempts to immolate himself, dousing himself with kerosene and lighting his match improperly, and upon subsequent tries is continually talked out of it by Suleiman’s father.

As a character in the film, we also follow Suleiman who, in the early portions casts some extraordinary look-alikes to play himself in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood before taking over the role proper in the latter sections of the film. Suleiman and his surrogates continue his silent Keaton-like poker face from earlier films to especially powerful effect in this new picture.

Many have commented on Suleiman’s debt to the likes of Keaton, Harry Langdon and Jacques Tati and while I will not quarrel with this, I also feel strongly that he infuses his work and performance with the same sublime qualities so prevalent in the best work of Chaplin. The Time That Remains has several moments that come close to matching the incredible emotional wallop of Chaplin’s final smile at the end of City Lights.

It is, I think Suleiman's mastery of all the elements needed to create one indelible and sublime sequence after another that makes watching this film such a breathless and awe-inspiring experience. The Time That Remains is most probably a masterpiece.

Time, and in particular, that which remains, will, as always, be the ultimate judge.

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

Serial (Bad) WeddingsakaQu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu? (2014)
Dir. Philippe de Chauveron
Starring: Stephen Bogaert, Alejandro Rae, Kris Demeanor, Lori Ravensborg, Mandy Stobo, Mikaela Cochrane, Alana Hawley, Joe Perry, Carrie Schiffler, Graeme Black, Zoe Glassman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Racist humour doesn't get better than this! An affluent Catholic French couple have spawned four ravishingly gorgeous daughters, all smart, all well-educated, all settled into good careers and, have I mentioned how gorgeous they are? These four pure, lily-white French goddesses could well have been Playboy Playmate material. Many men have no doubt lusted after them, men of wealth, of distinction. Three of the daughters are already married. Their hubbies all have noble professions. One is an entrepreneur, the other a criminal defence lawyer and, GLORY BE TO GOD, the third is a banker.

There's a problem, however. None of the husbands are Catholic. In fact, their daughters have hitched themselves to the wagons of Jewish, Arab and Chinese life partners. "Oy, Gevault" the French Catholic parents would cry out, if they were Jewish instead of Catholic. They wonder how they could be so unlucky. What did they do to deserve this?

Luckily, their fourth and final daughter is going to marry a Catholic and the couple is overjoyed. Little do they know that the prospective hubby is from the Ivory Coast. You betcha! He's the right religion, he speaks French, is apparently very handsome, BUT, he's Black.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph!


To top it all off, the father of the Ivory-Coaster is as big a racist as French Daddy. The two of them are veritable Archie Bunkers in extremis. Hilarity ensues, cultures clash and the cage match of the century is looming.

Serial (Bad) Weddings isn't racist at all, but it sure garners one knee-slapping guffaw after the other from some of the most hilarious racist verbal spewing and sparring since Bunker held court on the long-running Norman Lear TV series All in the Family. As well, the eventual verbal fisticuffs twixt these two old racist patriarchs, yields some of the funniest stuff in the movie and, in all honesty, some of the funniest stuff in any recent comedy.


If there's any problem with this movie at all, it's that it finally seems like little more than a feature-length TV sitcom. That hasn't stopped the picture from being the 6th-highest grossing box-office smash of all time in France, number one at the box-office all across Europe and amazingly, the hugest grossing hit in La Belle Province where it played theatrically for 30 straight weeks. Besides, my own TV-sitcom kvetching is a minor criticism considering how entertaining the movie is. Serial (Bad) Weddings certainly doesn't dive into the intolerable cesspool of unfunny, corn-pone sit-com shenanigans the way in which the awful Canadian Corner Gas - The Movie did. Now that was an embarrassment!

The other minor quibble I have is with the English title. In French it was the much more appropriate Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu? which means something like "What'd we do to you Dear God?" It seems to be that that or some equivalent would have been far closer to the spirit of the piece and much less clunky than the stumble-bunny parenthesized version they have now.

To suggest the movie itself is racist, as some boneheaded critics have already done, is absolutely idiotic. There's nothing intentionally racist about Serial (Bad) Weddings at all. The racism is rooted in character as opposed to being the attitude of the film. The very notion of using the racist attitudes of the characters as humour is what not only tempers the hatred, but in fact, allows the picture to examine racism and the whole field of stereotypes unfettered by knee-jerk responses to that which is politically correct.

Is there racist humour in the movie? Yeah! Uh, the characters, you see, happen to be old-world racists. The movie, however is not racist. It's NOT an attack upon different races and cultures, but upon racism itself.

And it does so with skill, exuberance and even a bit of sweetness. Director Philippe de Chauveron keeps all the action moving briskly and brightly enough. He has a special touch with dinner table sequences which, believe it or not, are as difficult to pull off properly as an action set-piece. His screenplay, co-written by Guy Laurent keeps all the comic set pieces rooted in the inherent drama, but also offers a solid structure and just enough character to keep the principals from veering too far into archetype. The entire cast bubbles with sprightly insouciance tempered by just enough investiture into the domain of their characters to keep them allca shade away from being too broad. These craft elements, above all, might explain how the movie is as solid as it is to have yielded such humungous popularity.

But really, now, the damn thing is simply, firmly and infectiously hilarious.

The Film Corner Rating: *** 3-Stars

Serial (Bad) Weddings is an A-Z Films release and is about to take English Canada by storm. Initial playdates in Toronto and Ottawa are: Cineplex Varsity, the Cineplex Varsity VIP, Cineplex Empress Walk and Landmark Cinemas (Kanata/Ottawa).

Justifiable Criminal Action. Target: The FBI

1971 (2014)
Dir. Johanna Hamilton

Review By Greg Klymkiw

1971 by Johanna Hamilton might be one of the most important American documentaries in years, but it's not just the subject matter which demands accolades, but the filmmaking itself is of the highest order.

Long before the brave actions of exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden, a (technically) criminal action was perpetrated upon America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (The FBI). In 1971, a small group of young Philadelphia activists formed "The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI" and carried out a hair-raising break-in upon a sleepy regional FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. Lifting hundreds upon hundreds of secret FBI files, these brave souls risked everything to discover and expose the insidious illegal actions of the famed domestic criminal intelligence arm of the United States government.

Their actions exposed one of the most heinous breaches of civil rights in a supposedly democratic nation. The Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was devised and overseen by the seemingly untouchable thug J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's notorious longtime kingpin, and its goal was to illegally spy upon American citizens to fight against what Hoover believed were un-American activities. Most of the targets were normal, perfectly innocent citizens, including groups of women meeting regularly to discuss women's liberation. Some of the more high profile citizens the FBI spied on included anti-Vietnam movements, the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King.

COINTELPRO included such sleazy, illegal actions as implanting spies amongst these groups and even communities of normal citizens. The plants were to gather information, seed dissent and to even go so far as to implant criminal "evidence" to make persecution/prosecution easier.

CRIMINALS: Richard Nixon & J. Edgar Hoover

Director Hamilton effectively utilizes all the tools of great documentary filmmaking to tell this stunning story, but furthermore, she employs all the best elements of filmmaking period to generate a movie that's as nail-bitingly suspenseful and harrowing as any great fictional political thriller. Call it The Parallax View with real people. Her protagonists in this group include hardened, up-front political activists as well as the astonishingly normal, suburban husband and wife team of Bonnie and John Raines.

Expertly weaving extraordinary archival footage, contemporary interviews with the original members of the Citizens' Committee, plus journalists instrumental in breaking the story, Hamilton manages to generate a film which blows this year's Oscar-winning Snowden documentary Citizenfour off the face of the map with the sheer force of expert filmmaking. 1971 is cinematic art of a very high order. Citizenfour has all the extraordinary Snowden footage, but as filmmaking, its sole importance lies in its subject matter, whereas 1971 - as cinema - transcends its important subject to place itself on a grand perch of sheer movie-making excellence.

Where Hamilton winds us aesthetically is by employing dramatic reenactments that are so brilliantly shot, cut and acted, then expertly blended into the archival and interview footage, that she pulls off the impossible. She out-Eroll-Morisses-Eroll-Moriss and for my money, has generated the best dramatic reenactments I've ever seen in any documentary.

Just a normal American family of heroes/criminals.

Throughout the film we're not only served up with important historical documentation of a turbulent time in American history, but we're plunged into the utter humanity of the Citizens' Committee to a point where we feel a combination of both pride and dread in their ongoing activities. The protagonists and antagonists are as clear as any great thriller, though they are superbly fleshed out with ever-creepy, danger-fraught and insidiously mysterious shades of grey.

This is great filmmaking. It must be seen by everybody.

Now, more than ever, it's especially important for Canadian audiences to see. Canada is on the verge of the most despicable federal legislation in our country's history. As reported in the Jan. 26 edition of Toronto's Globe and Mail, Chancellor Stephen Harper and his ruling Nazi Party of Canada "says his government will introduce promised new national-security legislation…including a provision that draws a line between free expression and endorsing terrorism. [Harper says] he will protect Canadians from homegrown extremists by giving authorities new powers – including the ability to prosecute people for 'the promotion of terrorism.'"

Who will protect Canadians from Harper and his proposed Gestapo?

See 1971. In a vital historical context, it will provide some answers to that question in terms of what might have to happen if Harper follows through with this insane act of terrorism upon our country.

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

1971 is a Blue Ice Docs presentation that's currently playing at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto. Demand it be played in YOUR city, town, hamlet, school, community centre and wherever else normal Canadians can get a whiff of what America did to its populace and how we, in this day and age, will be subject to equally immoral, totalitarian and downright criminal activities perpetrated by our own government.

Amberlight PR: Commandeered by the inimitable Chris Alicock (music marketing guru, producer and overall legendary launcher o' great Canadian talent) and buttressed by the formidable PR powerhouses Leah Visser (the tireless, committed doyenne of film and home entertainment PR) and Kristen Ferkranus (the sharp, youthful face and voice of numerous film PR initiatives), Amberlight has been on the front lines of promoting a wide variety of superb Canadian films distributed by their equally heroic client Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada. Such cutting edge indie Canuck genre masterworks by the likes of Foresight Features, the Twisted (Soska) Twins and, among many others, Steven Kostanski, have been in excellent hands with this crack team of classy flacks. The team is rounded by Jason Acton in graphics/IT and Vanessa Neschevich in social media. (And gee whiz, Amberlight also reps their fair share of super-cool non-Canuck items for Canadian audiences).




Audrey Cummings: Along with the Soska Twins, Karen Lam and Jovanka Vuckovic, Canada can now add yet another astonishing female filmmaker dedicated to generating Canadian Cinema designed to scare the living crap out of audiences. Cummings has toiled away in short-film hell, creating a variety of suspense and science fiction-themed work in addition to her lovely slice o' life mother-daughter relationship dramedy Burgeon and Fade. Cummings has recently completed her first feature film Berkshire County, a chilling babysitter versus piggly-wiggly-costumed psychopaths with its telling critique of traditional roles expected of young women (especially) in rural areas, the sexual assault, exploitation and bullying of same said young women and super-charged empowerment and vengeance burning with brains and blood-letting. Already a major award winner in genre film festivals, Berkshire County joins a huge swath of intelligent scare-fests made independently from occasionally dour, pole-up-the-ass publicly-funded investment agencies like Telefilm Canada. Berkshire County is being released theatrically via A71 in Canada and sold worldwide via Raven Banner Entertainment.




Avi Federgreen: This youthful powerhouse of art and industry has been a producer on numerous quality Canadian films like As Slow As Possible, One Week, Leslie My Name is Evil, Random Acts of Romance and Empire of Dirt. As the founder and CEO of Federgreen Entertainment and Indiecan Entertainment, his commitment to the creation and distribution of our national cinema has remained fiercely and boldly independent. 2014 saw Federgreen launch an important new production initiative, the INDIECAN10K Film Challenge, a cross-Canada enterprise that will launch several new first feature films which will be personally mentored by Federgreen in addition to respected producer-mentors in every province and/or territory selected for participation. In March 2014, seven productions were selected from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Ontario. Keep your eyes glued to the marquees, Canada. Product is a coming.

Jason Lupish: He's a nice Ukrainian boy in Ontario's wine country hinterlands and he makes movies there. This is cool. With a team of friends/colleagues, his St. Catharines-based production company Open Concept Films has been an awe-inspiring regional force in serving its indigenous community and the country at large. Short films, commercials, promo films and documentaries have been a major stock in trade, but the real triumph for Lupish is the absolutely lovely no-budget award-winning feature film A Kind of Wonderful Thing which is, frankly, a kind of wonderful movie. In fact, it's not just "kind of" wonderful, it's moving, funny and fabulous. Lupish and his collaborators created a film that is indigenous, yet infused with a universal quality of genuinely offbeat Canadian fruit loopiness. And now Lupish and his team are working on a new project that is going to completely blow the lid off. . . well, I'm not allowed to say, but it's gonna knock people on their collective butts.

Bill Marshall: The man is a legend. He founded the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 1976 and was its first director. He's produced some of Canada's finest feature films including the classic Outrageous and among a myriad of achievements in both the film industry and public life, produced over 200 docs, PSAs and other specialty items. 2014 continued to be a banner year for Marshall's support of Canadian film. As Artistic Director of the Niagara Integrated Film Festival's first year, Marshall brought some of the finest international films to Canada's glorious wine country in a lovely amalgamation of the region's cuisine and delectable spirits. One of the festival's outstanding achievements was its commitment to programming Canadian Cinema including the tremendous Niagara-region-produced feature length debut of Jason Lupish's A Kind of Wonderful Thing. Marshall is a senior member of our industry who commands the highest degree of respect, but he maintains a modesty, honesty and sturdy work ethic that's rare in our business. The man never quits. He could rest easy with any fraction of his achievements, but we know he never will.

David Miller: This estimable young man roared onto the motion picture scene with an unmatched fury and in a few short years he's become one of Canada's brightest young producers and a leading entrepreneur in the packaging, promotion and distribution of our indigenous motion picture product. Amal, Blackbird, Berkshire County and It Was You Charlie are just a smattering of important titles Miller's attached to. Not surprisingly, the man has a whack of pictures that are either recently completed or in development. In 2006, he wisely connected with the brilliant branding gurus Chad Maker and Kirk Comrie and he is now President of A71 Productions Inc which aims at the highest heights artistically and backs up its product with high level marketing savvy. Miller and his partners are genuine "friends" to some of the very best filmmaking talent in Canada. Recent properties include Kivalina, Foolish Heart and Sidharth. And lest we forget, Miller was the guy who led the major marketing charge at the National Film Board of Canada with a glorious Oscar campaign which garnered two additional NFB nominations and a win for Ryan. Canada is in very good hands with the likes of David Miller and A71.

Ryan McKenna, Mark Morgenstern, Randall Okita and Matthew Rankin: These four young men are national treasures of Canada's grand tradition of cutting edge cinema. Ryan McKenna's Controversies is one of the most haunting and poetic short documentary films ever made in this country and his first feature film The First Winter is an utter gem which captures, the bleak, sad, elegiac and utterly hilarious qualities of a bitter Winnipeg winter through the eyes of a stranded young Portugese immigrant. (McKenna also directed Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story, a one-hour doc that I understand is not without merit.) Mark Morgenstern is not only a phenomenal cinematographer, but as the director of Curtains (co-directed with sister Stephanie), Shooter and the jaw-droppingly gorgeous, moving and thematically rich Avec Le Temps, he's one of Canada's leading practitioners of alternative drama and the avant-garde. Randall Okita is one of Canada's greatest young visual artists and his films blend a variety of approaches and media to the art of storytelling including machine with wishbone, the knock-you-on-your-ass portrait as a random act of violence and 2014's highly acclaimed multi-award-winning the weatherman and the shadowboxer. Matthew Rankin is one of the leading heirs to the tradition of Winnipeg's unique wave of Prairie Post-Modernism led by John Paizs and Guy Maddin. His rich cinematic output is perhaps one of the most important historical, cultural and artistic reflections upon the unique midwestern big old small-town, Winnipeg. His works include Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets (co-directed with his equally brilliant and demented 'Pegger colleagues Walter Forsberg and Mike Maryniuk), HYDRO-LÉVESQUE, Negativipeg and among far too many (yet never enough works of inspired madness), 2014's Mynarski Death Plummet (one of the best short films of the year and one of the best short films made anywhere - EVER!).

John Paizs: Cinema in Canada, in terms of a highly lauded international reputation for its sheer demented genius, does not exist, nor would it exist, if not for one of our truly greatest auteurs, John Paizs. His groundbreaking short films The Obsession of Billy Botski and Springtime in Greenland, his hilarious madcap satire of 50s science fiction The Top of the Food Chain (aka Invasion!) and the legendary and quite perfect Crime Wave, an ode to garish 50s crime pictures, NFB documentaries and corporate training films of the 60s all betray a huge body of stupefyingly extraordinary work that define English-Canadian cinema at its very best. Guy Maddin and Astron-6, both of Winnipeg, owe everything to Paizs and frankly, so does the entire new wave of independent cinema in Canada during its Golden Age of the late 80s to mid-90s. Everyone and anyone of any consequence whatsoever has been a follower in Paizs's mighty footprints of ingenuity, originality and just plain anarchic brilliance. Crime Wave was recently the recipient of a gorgeous 2K restoration thanks to TIFF's Steve Gravestock and filmmaker Jonathan Ball authored an exhaustive U of T Press book which details both its production as well as providing a punchy, intelligent, but easily digestible egghead critical analysis. Appallingly, Crime Wave is legendary for being one of the world's most beloved cult films to have been squashed and squandered by Canada's pathetic tradition of lame-ass distribution of our indigenous cinematic culture. Crime Wave has been locked in an egregious 40-year-long distribution agreement which has been passed on from one miserable company to another and now sits idly in the vaults (or rather, upon a dusty shelf) of E-1 Entertainment's bottomless pit of superb product that virtually nothing has been done with. (They're so impressively huge that they're out-Miramaxing Miramax in its heyday.) With the recent TIFF 2K restoration, Crime Wave is primed for a major campaign to address the wrongs perpetrated against it. The movie begs for a major DVD/Blu-Ray Special Limited Edition in addition to a decent theatrical platform release. E-1's pockets are deep and a mere coin toss would restore and maintain the film's rightful place amongst our country's most legendary masterworks.

Raven Banner Entertainment: Led by the impressive team of Michael Pazst, Andrew T. Hunt and James Fler with a crack crew of valued associates, Raven Banner has become one of Canada's most vibrant and influential companies worldwide. Devoted to the international and domestic sales of razor-sharp genre and art cinema, it has quickly secured fame and respect for breaking new ground in a wide variety of media within the world of independent cinema. The enduring passion of its team is virtually unparalleled and in terms of Canadian Cinema, they (along with Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada) have been the go-to guys for quality genre product in this country. Impeccable taste, sales savvy and a seemingly indefatigable work ethic, Raven Banner puts most Canadian sales entities to complete and utter shame. The overwhelming list of brilliant, talented Canadian filmmakers represented by the company is steadily mounting and it's gotten to a point where virtually no quality, kick-ass genre picture created domestically (or, for that matter, internationally) doesn't have a Raven Banner finger in the exalted pie of blood gushing, mind-fucking, nerve shredding suspense, horror and action. Founders and creators of the Canada-Wide theatrical initiative Sinister Cinema, the company continues to mine potential audiences for our delectably twisted national cinema.

VSC (Video Services Corp.): Jonathan Gross is a former rock critic, television script writer and producer who has turned his unique skills and passion to the promotion and distribution of first-rate product via his company VSC. Gross is a visionary who has long-supported a wide variety of quality motion picture product in the Canadian home and theatrical marketplace. His commitment to Canadian film and television is astonishing with a huge number of Canuck TV series, sports documentaries about our greatest athletes and original dramatic product. He's recently brought a huge number of great new internationally acclaimed independent films to Canadian audiences including Frank, Alan Partridge and, among many others, Big Bad Wolves. He's brash, bold and brilliant - just like the product he represents and the company he operates.

Being the tender tale of a mother-daughter, an amiable paranormal investigator, a creepy Teddy and a creepier social worker. One right Royal Kiwi Kitchen Sink!

Housebound (2014)
Dir. Gerard Johnstone
Starring: Morgana O'Reilly, Rima Te Wiata, Glen-Paul Waru, Cameron Rhodes, Ross Harper, Mick Innes, Millen Baird

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Kylie (Morgana O'Reilly) is a nasty piece of work. Since leaving home, the chunky, unkempt, greasy, tattooed and criminally-minded lassie has been through the revolving doors of Kiwi drug rehab clinics and courtrooms more times than she can remember. A not-unsympathetic judge working for Her Majesty's Crown in New Zealand has all the facts at his fingertips. Her latest escapade involved smashing into an ATM for drug money.

Deciding Kylie needs some stability in her life. albeit forced, he orders her to several months under house arrest in the countryside with her dear Mum (Rima Te Wiata) in the old country homestead.

Prison might have been better since the family home was never, ever a place Kylie felt comfortable in.


With its overgrown yard, gnarly trees, scrubby woods and a creepy neighbour (Mick Innes) to boot, Mummy dearest's musty, ramshackle, pack-rat-crowded old house is chock-full of too many bad memories. It's hardly conducive to a mentally healthy recovery, especially since Kylie's forced to wear an electronic ankle bracelet which keeps her from seeking any respite from the dusty claustrophobia of her childhood home. Adding insult to injury is the incessant nattering of her Mum and regular visits from a smarmy court-appointed slime-bucket councillor (Cameron Rhodes). Her only friend turns out to be an unlikely one, the beefy, amiable security dude Amos (Glen-Paul Waru), hired by the corrections department to monitor her incarceration.

Worst of all, it appears the house is haunted.

Luckily for Kylie, Amos is an amateur paranormal investigator and the two team up to solve the mystery of odd noises and goings-on. Needless to say, there's a whole lot more than meets the eye. Think of Housebound as an extreme kitchen sink melodrama (so popular in the UK during the 60s), that's infused with loads of black comedy, more red herrings than you can shake a stick at, plenty of muted whisperings, things going bump in the night, a surfeit of shock cuts and eventually, a few gallons of bloodletting.

Debut helmer and chief scribe Gerard Johnson, keeps the atmosphere thick with suspense and punctuates the numerous shocks with big laughs. If there's a problem it's that Johnson's script is too packed with red herrings and that it spins its wheels during the last third of the film. It's also a tiny bit of a letdown to discover that what seems to be, isn't, and is, in fact something else altogether.

Still and all, Housebound is an intelligent and finely wrought genre item. That its characters are vaguely plain, plain-spoken and a bit repulsive is an added bonus. If and when the movie is remade in Hollywood, it'll be scrubbed to a lily white and zapped dry of everything that makes it fresh.

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

Housebound opens January 16, 2015 at the Carlton via Raven Banner and will be available on BRD/DVD via Anchor Bay Entertainment (Canada) in very nice home editions. The Blu-Ray contains an excellent commentary with Writer/Director Gerard Johnstone and two of the film's producers. There are also deleted scenes and a trailer. It's available on XLRator in the USA. It was the Opening Night Gala at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

Anchor Bay BRD blows lid on possession.

The Atticus Institute (2015)
Dir. Chris Sparling
Starring: Rya Kihlstedt, William Mapother, John Rubinstein

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Dr. Henry West (William Mapother) has devoted his career and risked his reputation in the study of paranormal activity. When a promising experiment in telekinesis is exposed as a fraud, his already-underfunded institute faces extinction until a very curious subject is introduced to him. Judith Winstead (Rya Kihlstedt) displays considerable gifts, but as experiments upon her continue, it's clear she's not your everyday garden variety subject in this field.

Spewing viscous goo is always a treat, but as per usual, it's only the BEGINNING.

Judith is possessed by a demon.

When the evil within threatens both herself and everyone involved at the institute, help from a shady military agency devoted to parapsychology is summoned.

The demon, now under the purview of these bureaucratic automatons, gets stronger and stranger.


When it's decided to control "Judith" and harness the demon's power as a secret weapon in the Cold War, all Hell (as it were) breaks loose. Don't these clowns know that the U.S. military and C.I.A. is never powerful enough to fuck with a demon from the deepest pits of Hades? Of course not. Scumbags know nothing.

Writer-director Chris Sparling has crafted one mighty strange picture. The premise is first-rate and the atmosphere is rich with portent and creepiness. Where the film errs is, oddly, is in its recreation of a cheesy television-style documentary on paranormal activity. I say "oddly" because Sparling does indeed capture the tropes of such programming perfectly, but in so doing, he does take something away from the picture's ultimate potential to slip into near-horror-classic territory.

Relying heavily upon a mix of talking heads interviews, different formats of video technology, evocative still photographs and portentous voice overs --as these programs so often do-- Sparling expertly sticks to his plan of action until he wisely manoeuvres the approach into straight-up narrative for the climactic moments. It's skilful and clever, but ultimately detracts from delving into deeper levels of character, especially in the case of Judith herself. We really get to know little about her, which is a shame, since Rya Kihlstedt delivers a throughly mesmerizing performance as the possessed and prodded victim. It's a largely physical performance and this handsome actress is clearly adored by the camera. Ultimately, she's placed into the symbolic position of being a victim, which is all well and good, but the movie only hints at who she was, what she went through and how she was indeed vulnerable to an attack from an unholy demon.

Save for Mapother as the conflicted, obsessed scientist whose humanity gets the better of him and the welcome appearance of 70s cult icon John (Zachariah) Rubinstein, most of the acting ranges from competent at the high end and godawful at the low end. As well, the tropes of the genre Sparling has chosen to ape, allow for way too many "You really had to be there to understand" interviews and none of it ever goes beyond the surface.

In spite of this, The Atticus Institute is just the right running time and seldom slows down enough to lose us completely. The premise is, ultimately, compulsively engaging and though the film is less reliant on visceral scares, the atmosphere of this dank, fluorescent-lit laboratory and the increasingly inhuman experiments upon the possessed woman are always nothing less than monstrously icky.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

The Atticus Institute is available on a superbly transferred Blu-Ray (and, if you must, DVD) which captures the period look of the now-obsolete cameras and lenses which captured the "70s" footage. Anchor Bay/Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada have also created excellent front cover box-art that makes the disc a decent-enough keeper. The only drawback is a too-brief "making-of" which provides enough interesting insights from director Sparling that one would have much-preferred a full-length commentary track. The deleted scenes are a nice added bonus, mind you.

What do Leonard Cohen, Raymond Carver and Drumheller, Alberta have in common? The Valley Below

The Valley Below (2014)
Dir. Kyle Thomas
Starring: Stephen Bogaert, Alejandro Rae, Kris Demeanor, Mikaela Cochrane, Joe Perry, Lori Ravensborg, Mandy Stobo, Alana Hawley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Ya gotta keep your stick on the ice." - Canuck advice in The Valley Below

Leonard Cohen's great post-modernist novel "Beautiful Losers" is an important book on many levels, but for me, it's always been the place to begin in terms of exploring the complex mystery of what it means to be Canadian within the context of our culture, and by extension, our popular culture. Cohen charts the disparity between the indigenous populace with the sons and daughters of the European colonizers, but furthermore, that of the great divide twixt French and English. Diving even deeper, we're confronted with both the historical building of a nation based upon exploitation, theft and violence and the contemporary results of said exploitation.

It's those very results, which count the most, and they're what come to the forefront of writer-director-editor Kyle Thomas's important first feature film, The Valley Below. Structurally the film is imbued with a kind of Raymond Carver flavour in terms of it being comprised of four ambiguity-fraught short stories about love, relationships and alcoholism. They're related, yet separate and all tied to the lives of those who make their home in the dead-end world of Drumheller, Alberta. I am inclined, however, to more strongly associate Thomas's film with Cohen's work than that of Carver.

The legendary Bard of Montreal's novel is essentially broken into three different "books", separate, yet intertwined. In spite of the novel's post-modernist qualities, its poetry, its harrowing evocation of rootlessness is rooted as deeply as the deepest roots can possibly drill down into - that being, the psyche of a fractured, regionalist nation. Amidst the post-modernist style, I'm still walloped by Cohen's equally attuned sense of realism, albeit measured out to taste, if you will, in healthy dollops here and there.

The Valley Below has realism to burn, but it's adorned with its own dollops - generous birthday-cake-icing-squirts of exquisitely-wrought cinematic poetry. Also, not unlike Cohen's book, the film's parts operate in stylistically distinctive ways (especially in Thomas's use of different composers for the astonishing score representing each part), yet ultimately its parts are skilfully welded together by the whole.

If there's one central character in Thomas's multi-character film, I might suggest it's the setting itself - a repressed small town of honky tonks, greasy spoons, strip malls, bargain basement "getaway" hotels and a whack of grotesque folk-art - everything from the cheesy statues of ancient dinosaurs which once ruled the vicinity to a humungous plaster of Paris Jesus Christ overlooking the desolate beauty of Alberta's Badlands, the topography of which, dwarfs everything. (In "Beautiful Losers", it's history itself which feels like the central "character", that which holds dominion over all.) In more ways than one, Drumheller is as much to The Valley Below and, by extension, to Canada, as Nashville was to Altman's Nashville which, furthermore was reflective of America itself.

The characters of The Valley Below are a familiar, yet colourful grab-bag of people we all know or have been ourselves, or, indeed are. They're also decidedly Canadian and as such, are virtually inconsequential compared to the vastness of the land itself. It's the macrocosmic focus of Thomas as the filmmaker which gives the characters'collective inconsequence the weight of individual consequence and at times, challenges which seem virtually Sisyphean.


Kate (Mikaela Cochrane) is on the cusp of leaving Henry (Joe Perry), her good-natured, loving, yet aimless childhood sweetheart to seek out new horizons of academia and life experience in the big city. She's torn between flight and adhering to the small-town notions of having a family and staying behind. She's especially conflicted upon discovering a very real and pending reason to stay. Her choice, either way, will have substantial weight behind it.


Warren (Kris Demeanor) is the Zamboni operator and general caretaker of Drumheller's skating rink, a pleasant-enough job to finance and fuel his dreams of becoming a singer-songwriter. Still, what he wants more than anything is to be reunited with the mother of his little girl (and mostly, one gathers, the child), but he's both unwilling and unable to deal with his general lack of ambition (which, is probably skewed as opposed to being completely non-existent) and most of all, his alcoholism. His ex has escaped well beyond the confines of Drumheller and pursued her talent as a visual artist. Alas, Warren is satisfied with the repressive pettiness of his environment and merely paying lip service, to others as well as himself in terms of making the changes he needs to better himself.


Barry (Alejandro Rae) is the buff, amiable constable at the Drumheller cop-shop who prides himself on pulling local ne'er-do-wells out of the drunk tank for honest heart-to-hearts and dispensing sage advice (small-town Canuck-style, of course) instead of bringing criminal or misdemeanour charges against them. He volunteers as a D-Jay at the local community radio station and is married to the sexy, beautiful and loving Jill (Alana Hawley). Though they struggle with the real dilemma of being unable to have children, their sex life is as charged with excitement as their genuine, deep friendship with each other. They seem, in many ways, like the perfect couple. Barry, though, has a secret, or rather, an intense hobby he keeps solely to himself - a model reproduction of Drumheller with an ever-circling train within it.


Finally, though, Thomas delivers the heartbreaker of all the film's stories. Gordon (Stephen Bogaert) is a taxidermist and a damn fine one at that. He spends endless hours in his basement workshop with local wildlife dispatched by the locals. He meticulously creates glass-eyed stuffed trophies of these once living and breathing creatures of the bush. That enough clientele require his services for him to live in a nice house and provide very well for his family suggests just how many critters fall prey to rifles or to becoming roadkill in Drumheller.

Like the huge lifeless reproductions of dinosaurs and Jesus dotting the landscape, Gordon is able to provide a whack of equally lifeless approximations of the county's fauna to go on display in the living rooms and rec-rooms of dreary Drumheller's denizens. His work requires much in the way of solitude - maybe too much. He's neglected trouble spots in his marriage to Susan (Lori Ravensborg) and maybe, just maybe, left them too late. He loves her, his kids and their home. He believes that love, like taxidermy, requires hard work and he plunges himself and Susan into intense marriage therapy. Between stuffing animal carcasses, he goes out into the woods to cut down a fresh Christmas tree with his son and books a getaway romantic evening at the local inn. It's a cheap. tawdry little place, though and hardly conducive to reviving a marriage that is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

There is clearly, the possibility that this will not turn out to be a White Christmas for everybody.

This is a movie that gnaws away at you ever-so slowly and before you know it, the picture's ripped your guts out. Basically, Thomas has delivered a film that is as muted as it is charged with the kind of emotion that explodes when you least expect it. Visually, via the face-punching terrible beauty of Michael Robert McLaughlin's cinematography, The Valley Below is a film that indelibly aptures the myriad of exterior and interior vistas with a high level of artistry, always rooted in character and tone. Thomas elicits performances from his entire cast - from leads down to background extras - that ring with raw truth (especially Stephen Bogaert who manages to elicit tears and a sickening feeling of emptiness in your gut).

This is a film that's as much a reflection of Canada's indigenous landscape as it is a dramatic examination of the country's ethos.

Thomas doesn't provide us with a narrator for these four tales, but in a sense, his eye is the narrator, his simple, evocative quill=strokes as a writer create a silent storyteller to reflect the terrible truth.

Leonard Cohen's "Beautiful Losers"does have a narrator, someone to guide us into the complexities of his own multi-character narrative. Cohen's narrator is the character referred to in the first person as "I", an academic studying a tribe of near-extinct Native Peoples, a man who is all too aware that the subject of his research is a group of people whose entire history seems founded upon a dubious pedestal of constant and utter defeat at the hands of its colonizer enemy. "I" furthermore identifies himself, if not the entire nation of Canada as being afflicted with the literal and figurative ailment of constipation.

Certainly, whenever I try to put my finger upon what it means to be Canadian, constipation is most definitely the first thing to pop into my head. (Certainly our neighbours south of the 49th parallel have no problems with being bunged up, but are, if anything, afflicted with all sluices open and gushing.) Curiously, whilst first seeing The Valley Below, I couldn't help but recall the "Beautiful Losers" narrator when he announces to himself and the reader the following sentiments:

"Why me? The great complaint of the constipated. Why doesn't the world work for me?…How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday within me?"

Cohen refers to "yesterday" as being that "unassailable bank" in his "psyche" that so desperately requires "shit." In a sense, Thomas's film is as inextricably rooted in this psyche as Cohen's "Beautiful Losers". All of the characters in Drumheller, Alberta are living on the long-decayed waste matter of dinosaurs, the refuse of some global disaster from millions of years ago that have turned the land, the province, the very psyche of its inhabitants into murky black oil wells, tar pits, endless rolling prairies and the gorgeous desolation of the Badlands.

The bottom line: How does one begin anything new with yesterday backed up within?

If Cohen's novel has an overriding link to Thomas's film, it can be found in the title "Beautiful Losers". Some of the greatest works in Canadian Cinema have been populated with what I like to think of as beautiful losers. From Joey (Douglas McGrath) and Pete (Paul Bradley), the beautiful losers on the road in their Chevy Impala from Nova Scotia to Toronto in Donald Shebib's Goin' Down The Road to beautiful loser Rick "Marshall" Dylan (Keir Dullea) the fast-drawing, gun-toting, alcoholic hockey player in Peter Pearson's Paperback Hero to beautiful loser Billy Duke (Art Hindle), the hard-playing pretty-boy goon in George McCowan's hockey classic Face Off, Gordon Pinsent's beautiful loser The Rowdyman, the man-child who refuses to grow up and last, but certainly not least, even French Canada has a fine history of the beautiful loser in the cinema - most recently and notably in one of the best Canadian films of all time, the tale of the crusty old car salesman in Le Vendeur by Sebastien Pilote.

Now we can add Kyle Thomas's The Valley Below to this stellar history of Canadian Cinema's ever-so-beautiful losers.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

The Valley Below is an A-71 Entertainment Release which began it's Canadian theatrical run at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas in Toronto.