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SEPTIC MAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - IF YOU DARE MISS JESSE THOMAS COOK'S CINEMATIC POO-PUS-PISS-VOMIT-WALLOWING MASTERPIECE OF TERROR, I'M GOING TO MAKE LIKE LIAM NEESON AND I PROMISE THAT I WILL FIND YOU AND I WILL KILL YOU!!!

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Septic Man (2013) ***1/2
Dir. Jesse Thomas Cook
Starring: Jason David Brown, Molly Dunsworth, Robert Maillet, Julian Richings, Stephen McHattie, Tim Burd, Nicole G. Leier
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Any movie that opens with a weepy babe (Nicole G. Leier) taking a severely punishing crap replete with dulcet echoes of spurting, plopping and gaseous expulsions whilst said babe alternates twixt the release of putrid faecal matter with cum-shot-like geysers of stringy rancid vomit launching from within her maw, splattering triumphantly upon the grotesque tiles of a dimly lit toilet adorned top to bottom in slime, sludge, blown chunks and excrement, should be enough to alert viewers they're in for one mother-pounder of a wild ride into the deepest pits of scatological horror hell.

Septic Man, a new movie from the talented young Canadian horror auteur Jesse Thomas Cook (Monster Brawl) and the visionary independent production company Foresight Features takes the cake (of the urinal variety) for serving up one heaping, horrific platter o' genre representation of the real-life deadly water contamination that occurred several years ago in the bustling Southern Ontario burgh of Walkerton - known around the world for its inbreeding and, of course, the famous E-coli contamination of its drinking water.


READ THE FULL REVIEW OF "SEPTIC MAN"HERE!

VISIT THE TADFF 2013 WEBSITE HERE!

IF YOU HAVE READ IT, BUY SOME MOVIES BELOW AND THEN GO SEE "SEPTIC MAN"






SOLO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - Competence is always a dirty word.

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

Review By Greg Klymkiw

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

There you have it. Solo in a nutshell. There's no real reason to see it now. Just go home and watch John Carpenter's Halloween for the umpteenth billionth time. It's so good you'll think you've never seen it before.

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

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

When filmmakers enter the fray with a first feature that actually excites you - not only because of the film itself, but what you sense this director will deliver in the future. Their declarations feel like the following:
The Soska Sisters (Dead Hooker in a Trunk):
"We're going to fuck your ass with a red-hot poker, but you'll enjoy it. We promise."

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Solo, Canadian director Isaac Cravit joins the club of voice-free directors when he declare (by virtue of his debut film):
"Look. I can use a dolly. Look. I can shoot coverage. Look. I am ready to direct series television drama and straight to V.O.D. and home video product for indiscriminating audiences looking to fill their worthless lives with content as opposed to something exceptional."
There's absolutely nothing new, surprising or exciting about this pallid genre effort save for its competence. Solo is blessed with some superb production value, to be sure. The locations are perfect, they're nicely shot by Stephen Chung and the combination of on-location sound and overall mixing and design seems much more exquisite and artful than the movie deserves. The cutting by Adam Locke-Norton, given the dullness of the coverage, manages to keep the proceedings moving at a nice clip. The score by Todor Kobakov is especially superb - rich, dense and one that enhances the film - again - much further beyond the movie's narrow scope. (There's one four note riff in the score that should have been excised by the filmmakers at a very early juncture, but save for that, it's a winner in all respects.)


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


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


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


Is the movie well made? Hell yes! Is it anything special? Will you leave the theatre soaring? Will you even remember it two minutes after you see it? The answer to all those questions is a resounding "No." Sadly, most audiences these days are perfectly happy with competence. To them, I say, knock yourself out, losers.

The rest of us can cherish the memories of great work and look forward to the next film endowed with both a voice and more delectable frissons than you can shake a stick at.

"Solo" is playing at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013. Visit the website HERE. It's inexplicably distributed by Indie-Can Entertainment, a visionary young company with some very powerful and important works on its slate. Ah well, even visionaries need to score some quick easy dough. If anything, "Solo" has that written all over it and I'm sure we'll see more of the same from its - ahem - auteur.

GRIOT - Review By Greg Klymkiw

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Griot (2013) ****
Dir. Volker Goetze
Starring:
Ablaye Cissoko,
Volker Goetze

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Griot is, at least from my own interpretation of Volker Goetze's film, the very essence of African history and culture. These hallowed individuals are singers, storytellers, community leaders, praise-bearers and keepers of oral histories and traditions. To learn of their history and to be introduced to one of the truly legendary Griots, Ablaye Cissoko was a truly and deeply personal revelation to me.

I'm not African by any stretch of the imagination, but like all of us on this planet, I share the blood of humanity with the African people as they do with me. We are, ultimately the product of stardust and as such, we are the progeny of the Heavens. Call it God, call it a higher power, call it a supreme being, call it dark matter, call it quantum physics, call it the Drake Equation - call it whatever you like. We are all one and it is with both awe and respect that I feel blessed to have been introduced to the dazzling power of this great musician.

Griot is a stirring, colourful and moving documentary and as such, a lyrical and poetic exploration of the West African tradition of the aforementioned Griot, an important personage in African culture with a clear relationship to the indigenous populace, but more importantly, how it seems to have influenced the entire African diaspora - especially in America.

The structure of the film is simple - all the better as this exposes so many factual, historical and finally spiritual properties of the Griot. You will experience heart achingly gorgeous music, you will see it performed, you will experience the joy of dance and musical expression and most of all, you will learn of the great lament of the Griot in the contemporary world. Culture and tradition is a blood right, but history has toyed with it, colonialism and slavery has tried to suppress it, contemporary African leaders seem to have no interest in its preservation and finally, even the Griot is an a world where the very role needs to both grow and yet return to its very roots.

I truly believe the concerns of the Griot are ALL of our concerns and the message Cissoko imparts via Goetze's cinematic eyepiece is truly universal and something that touches us all.

It might even touch you personally as it did me.

Allow me to share a deeply personal and cultural connection to this great story. My heritage is Ukrainian - a culture and language that has been battered, slaughtered and oppressed for over a thousand years - primarily by Russia. Perhaps the most horrific piece of recent history that has always haunted me is the systematic destruction and brutalization of the Ukrainian culture and its people by the Butcher Joseph Stalin. He not only orchestrated the genocide of ten million Ukrainians during the man-made famine known alternately as the Harvest of Despair and the Holodomor, but for me, the most horrendous genocide was a cultural decimation. Stalin not only implemented forced Russification amongst the Ukrainians, he destroyed one thousand years of history.

Here is why I was so personally moved by this film - my people were agrarian in nature and their entire history and culture was maintained in a very strict oral tradition by men who were not unlike the West African Griots. In Ukraine, they were called Kobzars. Like the Griot, their talent and place in the world was not through formal training, but through blood. They were the keepers of the country's history. Joseph Stalin invited all the Ukrainian Kobzars to Russia for a national conference to celebrate and discuss how the Kobzars would remove the yoke of Czarist oppression and adopt a new direction in praise of the revolution, of communism, of Stalin. Once all the Kobzars were assembled under one roof, Stalin had them all shot. One thousand years of history gone in one fell swoop.

To see the brilliant, caring, committed Ablaye Cissoko as he laments the horrid lack of a proper cultural centre, the indifference of a government to tradition and a millennia of history and culture was so profoundly touching. All the more so because the Griot still exists and his place in African culture - bound by blood - will only be eradicated if it is done so by force. Thankfully, we have filmmaker and musician Volker Goetze to put this important tradition in front of a camera and preserve its sound, image and yes, even soul so that the tradition can travel well beyond the borders of West Africa, beyond the borders of its intended audience - to travel into the hearts and minds of humanity all over the world.

My people lost their Kobzars, but as long as the Griot exists and thrives, I am confident that through the power of stardust, the river of blood that binds all of us and most of all, through the soul cleansing grace and beauty of the Griot's music, the history and tradition of man will be reflected in the words and teachings of the great people of West Africa. This is a film that gives me so much hope that culture is what binds all of us.

As Cissoko states, "Without culture one becomes a person without an identity."

He has nothing to fear, however. His blood flows as does the blood of others like him. It flows into the music of the soul and it cascades out via the tributaries of the Earth and thank whatever power is responsible, but the Griot thrives. Cissoko is here to soothe us, to offer praise to the heavens and to the ancestors - who ultimately are the ancestors of all of us.

For we are one.

"Griot" is launching a cross-Canada tour via Ryan Bruce Levey's Vagrant Films Releasing and Publicity. The film begins at the gorgeous Royal Theatre in Toronto - a perfect launch pad as it's still the one standalone cinema in the city with the most exquisite sound and picture quality. The film, miraculously, will be launched by a concert that features blaye Cissoko and Volker Goetze. For tickets and further information about the concerts and screenings across the country, please visit the official Griot website HERE.


CANADIAN SHORT FILMS SHINE @ TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL 2013Reviews By Greg Klymkiw (Esq.)

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The Guest (2013) ****
Dir. Jovanka Vuckovic
Starring: Jordan Gray, Tara Elliott, Isabella Vuckovic

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This simple, creepy take on the ages-old Faustian nightmare is yet another visually sumptuous gem from Vuckovic. The Soska Twins, Karen Lam and, of course, Vuckovic, comprise a sort of astounding triple threat of female empowerment in the world of class-act genre filmmaking, but delightfully 'tis the land of Maple Sugar and Mounties that runs red with the blood of scary shit from the ladies. Gotta love it. Vuckovic continually astounds. Her eye is impeccable, her short films are lovely works unto themselves, they never have that Canadian whiff of "Calling Card" to them and they are embodied with the kind of maturity and life experience that creates (and will continue to create) genre films with substance to add body to the shocks. The Guest is a special grotesque bon bon. Just when we think we know where it's going, Vuckovic takes us there with heart-stopping images that are as beautiful as they are mind fuckingly sickening. I think it's time for someone to give this lady a wheelbarrow of dough to make a feature. Telefilm Canada? Are you out there?


The Vehicle (2012) ****
Dir. O. Corbin Saleken
Starring: Gillian Barber, Garry Chalk

Review By Greg Klymkiw

William has been asking Bernice out. She's made it clear she thinks William is a nice man, but she no longer has room or desire in her life for romance. He asks her for just one chance to say something important to her - face to face and in private. She agrees, but makes it clear she won't change her mind. What he has to say might make anyone suspect he's out of his mind (albeit benignly crazy). Love, however, traverses time and space. It's the force that controls the universe, but it's also a great gift that needs to be accepted when offered. This is one of the loveliest two-handers I've seen in some time. Simple, careful direction, two profoundly moving lead performances and writing to die for. The screenplay by director Saleken is so sweet and heartbreaking, but it's also infused with a touch of malevolence and the kind of graceful melancholy that typified so much of the magnificent writing from such stalwarts as Richard Matheson during the original five years of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone.



The Last Videostore (2013) ***1/2
Dir. Cody Kennedy, Tim Rutherford'
Starring: Cody Kennedy, Tim Rutherford

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The courier has a package to deliver. Buried deep in an alleyway is a grim looking doorway - hidden from all except those who seek it. These days, not too many are seeking this door which still hides thousands of treasures within. It's a video store and the last of its kind. Unbeknownst to the courier, the package contains the very thing that has destroyed every other video store in the world. A battle to the death must ensue. A monster created by the corporate pigs of digital supremacy rears its ugly head and the clash will not be a pretty one. A super hilarious film-geek wet dream that brings the magic of brick and mortar video rental stores to life and most of all, reminds us of the incalculable joy of analogue picture and sound. A first rate score, effects (a goodly whack of them from Canada's leading F/X whiz Steven Kostanski) and superb comic performances plunge us into the warm and fuzzy world most of us should have fought to the death to preserve for future generations. Pick up the sword, people. It's not too late.


Night Giant (2013) ***
Dir. Aaron Beckum

Review By Greg Klymkiw

For some, it's a drag being the fifth wheel, but for our protagonist Gene, it seems par for the course and simply his lot in life. Night after night, the woefully-single-girlfriend-bereft Gene walks home alone and is tormented by an utterly horrifying entity that springs out at him from the blackness. Word gets around quickly that he's afflicted with this decidedly dangerous ball and chain that could mean death for all and soon, he is shunned by his friends. He needs help. Professional help. Who ya' gonna call in a situation like this? A giant hunter, of course. Hilarious, dead-pan humour drives this fantastical journey into a modern world wherein a fairy tale creature springs to life to offer one motherfucker of a huge helping hand and, in so doing, hinder the progress and safety of those around the beneficiary of its assistance. Sometimes a hired gun won't do the trick. Sometimes, one needs to gird one's own loins and face the threat like a man among men. Sometimes the old neighbourhood needs a new Giant Killer.

Toronto After Dark 2013 has been presenting Canadian short films before every feature. These four are among the best and brightest I've seen. Visit the TADFF 2013 website HERE.

SHARKNADO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - ALL HAIL "SHARKNADO" FOR MERELY EXISTING

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Sharknado (2013) 1 PUBIC HAIR
Dir. Anthony C. Ferrante
Starring: John Heard, Tara Reid and a bunch of other people who appear to have acted in movies and television that nobody in their right mind will have even heard of, much less seen.

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A huge humdinger of a Hurricane-Katrina-like whirlwind is no common-variety tempest in a teapot. It results in mega tornados capturing every shark on the Pacific Coast and depositing thousands of the munchie-crazed-bastards in Lotus Land. A handful of non-characters become the film's prime focus as they battle the CGI threat of a lifetime. We watch, open-mouthed. as the most horrendous computer-generated sharks shoot out of the raging twisters to fill Sunset Boulevard - and they sure a shootin' are not looking to eat at Taco Bell. Nothing less than the human species will do for the main course.

That's it. No more. No less. Nothing else.

This utterly horrendous made-for-SYFY movie (which aired in Canada on SPACE) doesn't even have the distinction of being laughably awful. What it has in its favour is that it exists. The other thing in its favour is that, as stupid as the idea is, it's actually a pretty fun idea for what might have been a watchable, borderline surreal B-movie. I wish it were so, but the writing is abysmal, there's nothing remotely funny about it and the only thing that keeps you watching is to see how long your jaw will stay dropped at just how horrendous it actually is.

One of the more depressing elements of the movie is seeing the offbeat 70s/80s actor John Heard embarrass himself in the role of a drunk (a la Walter Matthau's similar cameo in Earthquake). Heard was never going to be anyone's idea of a big star and his bland qualities suggested he'd never be, uh, heard from, ever again. Still, he made a reasonable impression in movies like Paul Schrader's The Cat People, Ivan Passer's Cutter's Way, as Jack Kerouac in the kind of strange, kind of cool John Byrum-directed Beat Generation biopic Heart Beat and Joan Micklin Silver's Chilly Scenes of Winter. Watching him humiliate himself here for a paycheque can't even inspire me to crack a good joke or two at his expense.

Watching the movie, I just kept wondering why SYFY doesn't even try to make good movies. They don't have to be anything other than crap, but there's no reason why they can't be good crap?

The movie looks as good as it's ever going to look on Blu-Ray and the technology is so indelible in its image quality that it serves to make the special effects actually look worse than they are.

Still, I have to admit that I not only looked forward to watching it, but as I screened the picture, I could not take my eyes off it. I was never bored and managed to make it all the way through rather painlessly. This is hardly a ringing endorsement, but even from a dyed-in-the-wool genre freak like me, that's about the biggest endorsement I'll be able to bestow upon it.

Here's a nice quote I'm happy to offer for some future home entertainment release box art:

"I sat all the way through Sharknado and I'm embarrassed to admit it didn't bore me."

"Sharknado" is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from VSC - Video Service Corp.

WILLOW CREEK ***** Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 It's Official, Bobcat Goldthwait is one of America's Best Living Directors & his new film is as hilariously brilliant as it is chilling and crap-your-pants terrifying as anything I've seen in years. The picture DEMANDS big-screen exposure!

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HAPPY DAYS - NOT FOR TOO LONG, THANKFULLY.
Willow Creek (2013) *****
Dir. Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Alexie Gilmore,
Bryce Johnson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

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

You're fucked! Right royally fucked!

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

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

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

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

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

In addition to these achievements, Goldthwait has solidified himself as one of the most original, exciting and provocative contemporary American film directors working today. His darkly humoured, satirical and (some might contend) completely over-the-top films are infused with a unique voice that's all his own. They've made me laugh longer and harder than most anything I've seen during the past two decades or so. Even more astounding, is that his films - his first depicting the life of an alcoholic birthday party clown, one involving dog fellatio, another about an accidental teen strangulation during masturbation and yet another which delivered a violent revenge fantasy for Liberals - are ALL films that have a deep current of humanity running through them. His films are as deeply observational and genuinely moving as they are nastily funny and often jaw-droppingly shocking.

Willow Creek is a corker! It forces you to emit cascades of urine from laughing so hard and then wrenches wads of steaming excrement out of your bowels as it scares you completely and utterly out of your wits. It's a "found footage" film, but I almost hesitate to use the almost-dirty-word term to describe it, because Goldthwait, unlike far too many boneheads, hardly resorts to the sloppy tropes of the now-tiresome genre.

He's remained extremely true and consistent to the conceit and in so doing, used it as an effective storytelling tool to generate an honest-to-goodness modern masterwork of horror. His attractive leads are nothing less than engaging (lead actor Johnson reveals a scrumptious posterior for the ladies and, of course, gentlemen of the proper persuasion). Goldthwait's clever mixture of real locals and actors is perfection and the movie barrels along with a perfect pace to allow you to get to know and love the protagonists, laugh with them, laugh with the locals (not at them and finally to plunge you into the film's shuddering, shocking and horrific final third. The movie both creeps you out and forces you to jump out of your seat more than once.

Goldthwait is the real thing. If you haven't seen his movies up to this point, you must. As for Willow Creek, I urge everyone to see the film on a big screen with a real audience. Sure, the movie will work fine at home in a dark room with your best girlie snuggled at your side on the comfy couch, but - WOW! - this is a genuine BIG SCREEN EVENT. Try to see it that way, first!

"Willow Creek" is an official selection of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

THE LAST DAYS ON MARS Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - Blighty Does Mars

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Babe on Mars in Peril
The Last Days On Mars (2013) ***
Dir: Ruairi Robinson
Starring Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas, Olivia Williams, Romola Garai

Review By Greg Klymkiw

An international crew exploring Mars for signs of life have sadly come up short. In their last days, however, a natural disaster on the planet loosens up a living entity that begins to wreak unexpected havoc. Well, we do expect havoc, but the manner in which it grips the crew is deliciously, scarily unexpected. Life, of course, does not have to mean tangible upright forms - it can also be bacteria, disease and/or mutation. Whilst some might find elements of the tale derivative of Alien and/or The Thing (among others), the writing is generally infused with intelligence and strong attention to character. Besides, familiarity does not always breed contempt.

In general, the film proves to deliver on a solid ensemble cast. Liev Schreiber and Elias Koteas are both especially fine in their stalwartly heroic roles and the babes (especially Romola Garai) are extremely easy on the eyes. Olivia Williams, in a kind of pseudo-Judy-Davis-styled manner, makes her usual highly-strung urgency work nicely in the somewhat stock, but entertaining role. Of course, she's the scientist who feels her research is getting short shrift when her gut keeps telling her how close she is to a discovery. When this happens, we can be sure the thing she's looking for is just around the corner and it will neither be pretty nor benevolent.

Life on a seemingly dead planet can be bacterial.
Based upon "The Animators", a classic short story by Britain's late, great pulp writer Sydney J. Bounds, screenwriter Clive Dawson more than adequately fleshes out the terror and wonder of the proceedings and while director Ruairi Robinson handles much of the film with solid, straightforward direction, he annoyingly resorts to the de rigueur short-shot-quick-cut-herky-jerky coverage for many of the action/suspense set pieces. This sadly detracts from their overall effectiveness, but thankfully isn't as sloppily and boneheadedly generated in bigger films that should know better. In spite of the fact that the film is a far cry from the brilliance of another recent space travel thriller Europa Report, it manages to be a far more engaging picture than the bloated Ridley Scott abortion Prometheus for a mere pubic hair of that picture's costs. Clearly and intentionally making excellent use of an actual desert as a filtered, stylized and CGI'd Mars is just what the doctor ordered to add production value, though it does lack the magical storybook look in the similar approach Byron Haskin took in the classic Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

Though the movie inexplicably landed a slot at this year's Cannes Film Festival in the Director's Fortnight (which gave it a bit more cache than it probably deserved), it's a solid science fiction thriller guaranteed to fill the bill for those inclined. While the movie will fill said craving for this type of thing, it's not necessarily a big-screen must-see. A decent helping of this picture via VOD or some other home entertainment platform will more than suffice.

"The Last Days On Mars" was an official selection of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013.

THE MACHINE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - Blade Runner Sans Pretense

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She's Hot. She's Deadly.
She's Artificial Intelligence.
And she has a moral centre.
Watch the fuck out!
The Machine (2013) Dir. Caradog W. James ***1/2
Starring: Caity Lotz, Toby Stephens, Sam Hazeldine

---Review By Greg Klymkiw---

Two scientists. One's a babe (Caity Lotz). The other's a handsome single Dad (Toby Stephens). Once they're teamed up to develop artificial intelligence, they become a formidable force. They're working for a scumbag (Sam Hazeldine) who wants to use their research and development to create ultra-weapons to go to war with China. The Babe is getting too peace-nikky for the scum-wad's liking and is assassinated. Handsome Dad transforms her into a walking, talking, killing machine. Their love knows no boundaries, but they continue to transgress the war-mongering desires of their bosses. Hell will break loose. And it indeed, does. And indeed, with The Machine, we get another intelligent, thrilling, well-written science fiction film on a shoestring from dear old Blighty that puts studio-generated product to shame and even provides a sort of unofficial prequel to Blade Runner, but without that film's pretension (less so in the unfairly crapped-on studio cut of Blade Runner and more so in Ridley Scott's pretentiously masturbatory director's cut).

There is something delightfully exciting going on across the pond. Our former colonial overlords are proving that they're far more superior to America's bloated and intellectually meagre motion picture output - both old, and especially, new. The past year, UK delivered one of the best horror films of the new millennium (Citadel) and easily the best science fiction space travel thriller of said new century (Europa Report). Are these people drinking untreated water from the Thames to generate this great stuff? I wouldn't doubt it. Mutation often renders exquisite results via happy genetically-altered accidents.

Much like the other 2013 Bad-Ass Blighty science fiction chiller The Last Days on Mars, The Machine (written and directed by Caradog W. James) might not be hitting the same orgasmic pitch as the aforementioned Citadel and Europa Report, but on the level of thrills and (who'duh thunk it?) IDEAS, it's knocking a few clear out of the park.

Caity Lotz is one sexy cyborg. She love you good.
She love you all night. She love you forever.
You fuck her over, she kill you good, too.
Caradog's electrifying, funny and sexy thriller provides literate dialogue, fleshed-out characters (even within archetypal representations) and super-blistering sequences of action and suspense. He generates terrific performances from the whole cast, but none more inspired than that delivered by Caity Lotz. Damn, the camera loves this sumptuous morsel, but she also renders a cool and complex performance in what amounts to a dual role. Her first scenes she delivers a chilly blankness - not unfriendly or sexy, but she's clearly someone who has her very being locked on scientific discovery. She takes a shine to the A.I., realizing they're living breathing entities that are being exploited, tortured and eventually transformed into killing machines.

Her commitment to the cause becomes so intense and endearing that we're with her one hundred per cent. Once transformed into a walking, talking, ass-kicking babe-o-licious A.I., Loitz displays a sensitivity and warmth of character that exceeds even her "living" persona. Oh yes, and she kills - she kills REAL GOOD!

It's true that the film is derivative of elements in both Blade Runner and James Cameron's original The Terminator, but not annoyingly so and, in fact, it's closer to homage than anything else. But what homage! It lives, breathes and pulsates with the excitement of life and dazzles us as much as feeding us nice, nutricious and decidedly healthy helpings of food for thought. Most importantly, it keep you on the edge of your seat, occasionally kicking your ass around the block and then some.

"The Machine" was an Official Selection of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2012.

THE BANSHEE CHAPTER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - Shortwave Shocker

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A journalist (Katia Winter) searches for an old college chum (Michael McMillian) who disappears after experimenting with the same mind altering drugs actually used in secret experiments conducted by the American government during the 50s and 60s. She teams up with an irascible alcoholic druggie (Ted Levine) who is modelled - not at all loosely - upon the late "Fear and Loathing" author Hunter S. Thompson. What they discover is far more horrifying than anything, anyone could ever possibly imagine.
Babe-o-licious star Katia Winter displays
her exquisitely large mouth
designed especially for
SCREAMING!!!!!
The Banshee Chapter (2013)
Dir. Blair Erickson ***1/2
Starring: Katia Winter, Ted Levine

Review By Greg Klymkiw

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hell, maybe After Dark topper Adam Lopez needs to cut a promotional tie-in with the Depend® brand. I give you this idea, Adam - FREE OF CHARGE. Use it!

"The Banshee Chapter" was an Official Selection of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013.

FOUND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013- A boy should LOVE his brother.

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Marty (Gavin Brown) is 10-years-old and like most exceptional little boys, he has no real friends and gets mercilessly teased and picked on (even by the pudgy geek who deigns to spend time with him). Naturally, Marty seeks solace in horror movies, drawing comics and looking up to his big brother Steve (Ethan Philbeck). Lately his older sibling has been cold, distant and given to hiding things in a bowling ball bag that are anything but bowling balls. The lad hopes against hope that Steve isn't doing something he shouldn't. He wishes, ever-so desperately, that maybe, just maybe, life will get back to normal instead of starting to resemble all those VHS horror films he rents for movie marathons. Such is life, in the quiet, leafy suburbs of Bloomington, Indiana and it's about to get a whole lot stranger than it already is.

BLOOD is thicker than water!
Found (2012) ***
Dir. Scott Schirmer
Starring: Gavin Brown, Ethan Philbeck, Phyllis Munro
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Sometimes you see a movie, and no matter how much you enjoy it, no matter how good it is, no matter how much promise the filmmaker displays, you feel an overwhelming urge to draw a scalding hot bath and scrub yourself raw. Found is just such a film. By the end of it, I felt sullied. However, this was no garden variety horror experience, because for its first half, it felt like we were going to be in the somewhat surprising territory of - I don't know, say Rushmore, but with a serial killer instead of Bill Murray and thankfully no dweeb loser wearing a red beret.



Or maybe, for instance, it was going to have dapples of Stand By Me, but without Ben E. King crooning over picture postcard shots of those oh-so-sensitive lads of yore or, for that matter, To Kill a Mockingbird, sans, of course, Gregory Peck and a literary source as beloved as Harper Lee's great book. However, this film was shaping up to be a coming of age tale - albeit with a somewhat darker edge than the first two aforementioned titles and without the pedigree of the last title.

No matter where it was going to go, I never expected it would veer into territory that reminded me of the first time I ever saw the likes of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or John McNaughton's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or, for that matter, Alan Ormsby's scum-bucket-o-rama Deranged: Confessions of a Necrophile.

This is not to say Found is even as good as those seminal works of horror either, but GODDAMN! there is a point in this movie where you're looking for a scrub brush in a way those same titles also inspired. This is no mean feat. Screenwriter-Director Scott Schirmer's film adaptation of Todd Rigney's novel, dives into a septic tank of a truly rank odour and retching-inspired viscous fluid that is as evocative of societal blight as it is stomach-churningly grotesque.

Found is a good movie and its total price tag was the princely sum of $8000. The almost non-existent budget is, however, (more often than not) betrayed by clearly unavoidable exigencies of production. Miraculously, this does not at all detract from its power.

Much of the acting is, save for Gavin Brown and Ethan Philbeck, strictly amateur hour. Some of the blocking is painfully sloppy. Occasional attempts to buttress the movie with elements that try, but miserably fail to feel like a bigger picture, all point - quite obviously - to a meagre production kitty. In spite of this, you can't take your eyes off the proceedings - Schirmer manages to pull off a picture that's genuinely compelling. He also accomplishes what ALL no-budget filmmakers need to do in order to stand out from the crowd of morons who think that, they too, have an inalienable right to make movies. He takes us to places that nobody in their right mind would want to ever visit.


Where the movie takes a turn for the truly demented is when our hero watches a horror movie on VHS that his older brother has stolen from the local video store. It is, appropriately, entitled Headless. Schirmer recreates some of the more sickening scenes from this video nasty and we're treated (so to speak) with a film within the film that gives us a pretty good idea of what Marty's older brother is up to.

And then, just transplant Mt. Vesuvius to Bloomington, Indiana and watch the fucker erupt. The last third of Schirmer's picture is jaw-droppingly relentless in its utter horror. Surprisingly, much of the really disgusting violence - some of it sexual - occurs offscreen and because of this, it's even more horrendous. The movie swirls like some mad twister, careening malevolently towards one of the most shocking, mind-searing shots I could never have imagined. Again - WOW! If you're going to make a movie for no money, you deliver something we are never, ever going to forget. To coin the title of Guy Maddin's shockingly insane and funny masterpiece, you give your audience a Brand Upon The Brain.

Schirmer clearly has a voice and his film suggests the potential he's yet to tap to its fullest power.

When he does, I can assure you, it's going to be a gusher.

"Found" was an official selection at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013.


















THE COUNSELOR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - If you must see this movie, do not pay to see it. Its makers do not deserve a single penny. Anyone who exhibits it does not deserve a single penny. In fact, anyone who pays for this movie is a chump of the highest order and deserves a good face-sitting from someone who has not wiped or washed for weeks.

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A lawyer (Michael Fassbender) needs money to buy his gal (Penélope Cruz) an expensive engagement ring from Bruno Ganz (who will henceforth always look like Adolph Hitler thanks to his performance in Downfall). The cash-strapped lawyer decides to score some quick wads of dough in a drug deal set up by a client (Javier Bardem) whose girlfriend (Cameron Diaz) humps windshields. A Heineken-loving middleman (Brad Pitt) moves the deal forward. Things go awry. Many die.

*NOTE* My lowest rating for a motion picture is 1 PUBIC HAIR. A movie must truly earn the right to such a hallowed position. Normally, a film like THE COUNSELOR would deserve the lowest rating I can bestow, but if I did that, I fear I would be causing injury to a motion picture like SHARKNADO. I am therefore compelled to create a NEW rating lower than a PUBIC HAIR. So, for Sir Ridley Scott and Cormac McCarthy's aborted fetus pretending to be a movie, I hereby announce a rating even lower. I hereby call it: TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND "HARRY'S CHAR BROIL & DINING LOUNGE". The new rating will be accompanied by the photo of the real thing:

The Counselor (2013)
RATING: TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND
"HARRY'S CHAR BROIL & DINING LOUNGE"

Dir. Sir Ridley Scott
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Pérez, Rubén Blades, John Leguizamo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

So I'm sitting there watching this thing and listening to the worst pillow talk dialogue imaginable between Michael Fassbender and Penélope Cruz while they loll about under a blanket and just before Fassbender starts to muff dive Cruz, she suggests she needs to clean her pussy and Fassbender tells her he'd prefer to lap up the smegma, dried-Fassbender-spunk and all other manner of the viscous fluids and Krusty Kremes churning around "down there" and while he starts Hoovering it all up, Cruz has the temerity to tell him how to do it and I'm, like, not only on the verge of puking, but a tad annoyed that she'd dare be making any suggestions as to his tongue-action at all as he's graciously offered to spic n' span her sullied vaginal septic tank sans a thorough douching.

I suspected at this point in the proceedings I might be in for a rough ride with this one.

But THEN I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that The Counselor had only one direction to go when I was force-fed one idiotic, pointless scene after another wherein the film's characters yapped endlessly in some preposterous Cormac McCarthy pidgin code blending the worst hardboiled dialogue imaginable with obtusely stupid and simplistic speechifying and philosophizing.

All of this moronic babble-speak is occasionally punctuated with dollops of extreme violence (none of it directed with any panache whatsoever), including shootings, stabbings and beheadings.

And then, there is a sequence wherein Cameron Diaz humps the windshield of Javier Bardem's Ferrari.

Now, on paper, all this must sound potentially delectable, like some crazed melodramatic 70s male existential angst crime drama directed by John Waters after a lobotomy administered by Dr. Cukrowicz in Tennessee Williams'Suddenly Last Summer, but I can assure you it's not that promising. Sir Ridley Scott's direction which, seems to grow increasingly bereft of anything resembling competence is not even worthy of being termed as the work of a hack. It's well below that: unmotivated camera moves, inertly ugly compositions, lifeless herky-jerky action sequences, no attention to detail of any consequence and worst of all, a slavish adherence to the worst writing of Cormac McCarthy's entire career.

This is the novelist's original screenplay debut - way to go, Cormac!

The movie makes absolutely no sense and yet, its pathetic attempts at mystery are anything but mysterious. Anyone who can't see from the beginning that Cameron Diaz is the shady puppet master of all the betrayals and supposed twists must surely be a bear of very little brain. Even if her complicity in the double-triple-quadruple-crosses is supposed to be obvious, it makes no real sense and if not making sense is the intention, then it's just not achieved with anything resembling skill, artistry or purpose (though its writer and any of his apologists might think otherwise).

Of course, the film's fake, surface nihilism is ultimately supposed to be the point - one supposes - and I sure have no problem with that, but not one single second of this abominable film has any entertainment value whatsoever. Worst of all, the movie is just plain dull and humourless, though it appears as if there are a few lame, lunkheaded attempts to insert some darkly-tinged jocularity into the proceedings.

All through the movie, characters of seeming import are given long dialogue scenes and speeches. One assumes there was some point to all of this, but whatever it was, I'll concede that those who can suggest what it might be are better men/women than I. To them, I bestow a certificate of merit. For what, I'm not sure, but I give it to them anyway (just as I give Messrs. Scott and McCarthy the aforementioned rancid turd).

By the end of the movie, we watch every major character get bumped off. We even get to see characters who seem to be important, but who are unfamiliar to us get bumped off. We even get to see characters of NO importance who are unfamiliar to us get bumped off. I, for one, feel like anyone who thought they were making a good movie here, deserve a right royal bumping off along with every character who bites the arsenic biscuit in this dreadful movie.

Thinking on it, though, death is probably too good for them. I think we need to line them all up to get face-fucked by Cameron Diaz, but only if her pussy is as purportedly filthy as Penélope Cruz's is when Fassbender snuffles into it at the beginning of the movie.

Maybe it can be lots dirtier even.

"The Counselor" is in wide release all over the world. Good movies can't even get screens. In fact, good movies have a hard time getting made. If you really think you need to see this movie, download the worst cam torrent you can find. No need to give these clowns a penny of your dough. In fact, a grotty torrent download might even improve the movie.




















WE ARE WHAT WE ARE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - Transplanted Gothic

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The patriarch (Bill Sage) of a small American family unit becomes unravelled when his wife (Kassie DePaiva) dies. It now falls upon the eldest daughter (Julia Garner) to cook all the family meals, but she really has no stomach for the unconventional food and its strict ritualistic preparation. When the local doctor (Michael Parks) performs an autopsy on Mom, his findings suggest her death is consistent with that of those who also die from the steady consumption of human meat. It's only a matter of time before the family is discovered engaging in a centuries-old tradition rooted in abject generational poverty, superstition and Christian fundamentalism.


We Are What We Are (2013) ***
Dir. Jim Mickle
Starring: Bill Sage, Michael Parks, Julia Garner, Ambyr Childers, Kassie DePaiva, Jack Gore, Kelly McGillis

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I'm not prone to knee-jerk negative reactions towards movie remakes, but sometimes, the originals are so damn good that the mere notion of a redo is enough to induce apoplexy (of the "nervosa" kind). Jim Mickle's well directed 2013 American version of the identically-titled 2010 Jorge Michel Grau shocker from Mexico is just such a film.

Grau's picture was a knockout, a genuine revelation to me. Then again, so too was Mickle's astounding 2010 release Stake Land (not to mention his terrifying 2006 first feature Mulberry Street). Hearing Mickle would be handling the remake allayed my concerns somewhat. What Mickle has wrought here is a good picture and a fine take on its progenitor, but I have to admit that the transference of Grau's original tale, doesn't quite make the sojourn out of Mexico to the Gothic American White Trash territory as imagined by Mickle and longtime screenplay collaborator Nick Damici. Not that it doesn't try. It tries hard and often succeeds.

The best element of the picture is how Mickle slowly, painstakingly builds both suspense and grotesque horror. Mickle is a natural born filmmaker and there is seldom a frame or beat that's out of step. In fact there's something very peculiar at work here in just how rich his approach is since there's a genuine attempt to humanize its characters in a way where we often empathize with their situation even when they're engaging in utterly horrendous actions. This is in stark contrast to the original Mexican version where its characters are pretty reprehensible as human beings, and even so, I'd argue that Grau's film is infused with humanistic qualities also.

If you've not seen the Mexican version of this strange tale, you might actually be better off seeing Mickle's film first and then Grau's version. Mickle's version feels quite a bit different than Grau's, but I'm planning to give We Are What We Are 2013 a bit of a rest before I go back to it - just in case my appreciation of it has been too tempered by my love for Grau's picture. Mickle's film is intelligent, beautifully wrought and full of terrific performances. It might actually be a lot better than I'm giving it credit for, so by all means take a look at it in the manner prescribed above.

"We Are What We Are" was an official selection of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013.

THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - See this history of Toronto Punk or DIE, motherfucker!

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THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN is a thrilling epic journey into Toronto's legendary punk rock scene. It's a Joseph-Conrad-like boat ride into some kind of Hell that always feels like a Heaven as imagined by Anton LaVey. Directors Colin Brunton and Kire Papputs are the two halves of Willard on a mission that seems to have no real end. And if there is a heart of darkness on display, a Kurtz, if you will, it feels like every Status Quo fuck-wad that ignored this exciting scene. "The Last Pogo Jumps Again" is playing theatrically in Toronto at the Big Picture Cinema, 1035 Gerrard St East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4M 1Z6, Tel. 416 466 3636. Friday November 1 through Wednesday November 6 at 7:30 pm. Matinees on Sunday November 3 and Thursday November 6 at 3:30. (NB: No 7:30 pm show the evening of November 7.) Tickets are $10.00; Thursday November 7 matinee at 3:30 is $5.00 for students and the unemployed. The fuck else you doing this week anyway? Jerking off? Thumbing your asshole? Or sticking your dick through a glory hole to get some chump to slaveto the fuck out of it? Just see the fuckin' movie!!!


The Last Pogo Jumps Again (2012) ****
Dir. Colin Brunton, Kire Papputs

Review By Greg Klymkiw
PREAMBLE - Winnipeg's Punk Scene
So, like, some dude who works on the docks, his name is Réjean, corners you in a stall at Jilly's and says: "Suck my dick". We've all been there before. Right? Both parties are too skint to hit the V.I.P. room for some private dancing and before you can say, "Gimme summa lovin'", you're greedily gobbling the knob of this bearded, seven-footer with a plaid shirt and hoping for a nice reach-around. We've all been there. Right? So, okay, what if the same dude traps you in the shitter and growls, "Slaveto my dick!" - you're going to be, like, "The fuck, Réjean? You want me to WHAT?" From the late 70s until I can't remember when, the aforementioned conversation played out in my mind whenever I drove by an old garment district building in the Market Square area of Winnipeg that featured this spray-painted graffiti prominently displayed on its grey cement wall:
 SLAVETO
 MY DICK
Moments after I first read those words (in double-take, mind you) I knew the graffiti was that great song "SLAVE TO MY DICK" by Vancouver punk band, The Subhumans. Some moron with a can of spray paint was shit-facedly inspired to splooge the words via aerosol in a prominent location. The bonehead placed the words "slave" and "to" too fucking close together. This might not be true, but I remember the graffiti remained for decades after it first appeared - a beacon at the entranceway to this 7 or 8 square blocks in downtown Winnipeg that had become the stomping grounds of artists, actors, filmmakers, junkies, drunks, hookers and, of course, punks. It was a scene, know what I mean? And for about four years, the punk scene fuelled the crazy alternative film making scene at the Winnipeg Film Group. I can't think of a single person in their mid-40s-50s from the 'Peg who makes movies and WASN'T part of that scene. Great 'Peg punk and new wave bands - and I mean GREAT bands - belted out the coolest sounds imaginable. Bars like the Royal Albert or, my favourite, the "Chuckles" (or to malcontent veterans, the St. Charles Hotel) featured gig upon gig with local Winnipeg Punk/NewWavers like the Popular Mechanix, Personality Crisis, Dub Rifles, Lowlife, The Stretch Marks, Discharge, The Psychiatrists, The Bristow Hoppers - the list goes on and on - and bookers (often Winnipeg band members themselves) peppered the local acts with whatever punks from Toronto, Vancouver or the USA who could get their shit together enough to play the 'Peg. I was running a West-End movie theatre that played mostly cult films, sometimes sprinkled with live acts ("Nash the Slash VS. Eraserhead" read one of the immortal handbills). The "Scene" would come see a movie or two, blast down to the garment district, catch a punk band, then head to Walter and Megan's Lithium Cafe to belt back joe with tired hookers and their hopped-up pimps. This happened pretty much every night for many moons.
It's funny now, how many film or media people frolicked about the punk scene. John Paizs directed the quaintly perverse cinematic equivalent to 'Peg Punk with his brilliant short film The Obsession of Billy Botski and, years later he used the great Popular Mechanix song "IceBox City" during a joyous dance sequence in his immortal feature length cult classic Crime Wave. Guy Maddin blew his inheritance from Aunt Lil (her beauty parlour became the studio set for Tales from the Gimli Hospital) on 78 recordings of fruity 20s/30s tenors from this amazing store in Minneapolis, but also collected the most amazing number of punk albums which he purchased from Winnipeg's immortal Pyramid Records. Guy would gather everyone round to his place, quaintly adorned with his late Aunt Lil's doilies, and spin Richard Crooks singing Stephen Foster's "Old Black Joe", then switching from 78 to 33rpm, he'd announce something a bit more "challenging" was on its way - code for: this is some good shit I got from Pyramid Records and it's going to blow you the fuck away. In delicious contrast to "Old Black Joe", the needle gently found its groove and the room swelled with the aural explosion of Feederz crooning "Jesus Entering From The Rear". Radio producer John Copsey (he wears suits now) led a punk band that devoted themselves to worshipping the survivalist movement as preached on Winnipeg's community cable station TV show "Survival" featuring yours truly and Guy Maddin as apocalypse-welcoming rednecks. Lead singer of several great Winnipeg punk bands was none other than heartthrob Kyle McCulloch who starred in virtually every early John Paizs and Guy Maddin film and eventually became a head writer on TV's South Park. And lest we forget, Canada's highly esteemed journalist and political pundit in all media, Mr. Andrew Coyne, took to the stage with several other burgeoning writers from the University of Manitoba newspaper and in punk tradition, nary a one of them could actually play, but they gave their all as The Nimrods.
Happy times for many. Times that led to even happier times - for some. All were ultimately inspired by Winnipeg's punk scene, but most of all, the brilliant local artists - the musicians who made you soar higher than a kite with kickass punk/new wave music were the big motivators who instilled a more anarchic, freewheeling, devil-may-care spirit in so many of us to push the limits of our own lives and artistic pursuits. The music, unlike the arts inspired by it, had NO outlets of support to take the music and musicians to the next natural level. There were a few limited tapes or EPs cut, a handful of extremely indie albums, but this genuinely brilliant period of Winnipeg music - post The Guess Who and pre The Crash Test Dummies - lives in the minds, memories and movies of all those who loved it deeply and were fuelled by seeing it LIVE - night after night after blessedly blasphemous night.
THE MEAT & CORNMEAL OF THE POGO STICK CALLED TORONTO PUNK: YEAH, NOW YOU GET YOUR FUCKING FILM REVIEW OF
THE COLIN BRUNTON & KIRE PAPPUTS EPIC DOC

It took about 30 seconds of screen time for me to feel a surge of the old excitement I used to get in my late teens and early 20s in the aforementioned Winnipeg Scene. Here I was, watching The Last Pogo Jumps Again, the alternately thrilling and depressing but ultimately powerful story of the Toronto Scene de la PUNK and it mattered not that it was Toronto. Hell, I kind of felt like I was back in Winnipeg all over again.


I embraced the crazy, scrappy, downright dangerous insanity of this terrific documentary and fully accepted its body, its blood - like an unholy sacrement drained and scourged from the everlasting soul of Sid Vicious himself who died, NOT for OUR sins, but for his own and for the rest of us who were willing to commit our own - no matter how heinous or benign. This downright wonderful picture by Brunton and Papputs is a sacrament and I accept its fuck-you-filmmaking-moxie as much as I allow its people, places and music into my very soul as if they were my very own.

On the surface - this is a movie that shouldn't work - at least not by the standards of many un-cool fuck-wads who make cultural decisions in this country at both the public and private sectors - propped up comfortably on the nests they feather atop the podiums they take their dumps-a-plenty from as if they were showering the Great Unwashed with gold. It shouldn't work, but it does. Some might say it is solely about a subject only 100 or so people might get into. They'd be wrong. Others will complain (usually without seeing it) that the movie is too long - 3 hours and 20 minutes PLUS an intermission. Again - WRONG. I saw a much longer version and then this shorter version and frankly, I wish the filmmakers stuck to the original length. In fact, they could have made it even longer for some extra-sweet fuck-you cherries on the ice cream sundae.


Some might say the movie is a mess. Yeah, it is - sort of, but brilliantly and subversively it's a documentary equivalent to the punk scene itself and that's one of the many things I admire about it.

Here's the deal, when legendary Canadian film producer Colin Brunton was a teenager, he worked as an usher at the Roxy Theatre in Toronto - a deliciously fucked joint on the East End that combined 99-cent double features of art films and art sleaze with a kick-ass music scene. This temple of all things anti-peace-love-and-prebyterianism-a-la-Toronto was the jumping off point for so many who would contribute to one of the most thrilling music in the country.

Eventually the Scene moved further west in the otherwise Presbyterian pole-up-the-ass city. Pockets of fuck-you exploded at the New Yorker Theatre, along Spadina, in Kensington and, of course, Queen Street West when it wasn't full of fuck-wit rich people pretending to be poor. And the biggest fuck you explosion in Toronto was the exciting punk rock new wave scene.


Brunton and Papputs focus on a two year window - beginning at the Roxy and New Yorker Theatre gigs and ending with the famous Last Pogo when the Horseshoe Tavern on Queen decided to flush punk off its stages forever and a legendary concert that eventually culminated with a visit from Toronto's Finest Porkers with their night sticks and guns to boot the bands off the stage and patrons out onto the street. In reality, the window of this history is probably a wee bit larger, but what happens within the period the filmmakers choose to focus on is pretty much the trajectory that occurred not only in Toronto, but Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal - anywhere in Canada that had a vibrant punk scene, lots of devoted fans and absolutely no support from most of the mainstream media and a total fucking from the music business (like, what else is new?). The music business - virtually non-existent in Canada anyway - chose to ignore the Scene and for the one or two bands they took a passing fancy to, they basically sucked them RAW and DRY.

Uh, and like, what else is new?

NO REACH-AROUND!!!


Brunton was fully enmeshed in the whole Scene and chose to document the Last Pogo concert at the Horseshoe with a 16mm camera ('natch). This resulted in a scrappy little movie called ... come on, give it a guess ... come on, you can do it - Yesiree-Bob!!! You win the fuckin' Kewpie Doll - it was called The Last Pogo.

That was then - this is now and during the past six years the filmmakers embarked on an odyssey to interview as many members of the Scene as possible and create a document that would serve as an artistic and living testimony to a slice of Canadian popular culture that many would prefer to forget and/or even refuse to acknowledge it even (or ever) existed.

And The Last Pogo Jumps Again is a joy - a real joy. Blending new and archival interviews and footage with all the onstage and behind the scenes players, the movie tells a tale as inspiring as it is sad - but what keeps the whole thing buoyant is the mad genius on view in both the words and performances of the likes of D.O.A., The Viletones, Teenage Head and all the rest of this Scene of gloriously talented purveyors of fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-fucking-rode-in-on. Some of those interviewed keep playing, others have morphed their love of music into other areas of the music business while some have chosen to grow up and get real jobs - and it's a testament to the obsessive qualities of the filmmaking itself that it's simply impossible to NOT like anyone in the picture.

Some of the interview highlights for me were poignant moments with the late Frankie Venom of Teenage Head, the brilliant, erudite Andy Paterson of The Government and without question, the vitriol-and-venom spewing Steve Leckie from the Viletones - a poet, an artist, a gentleman curmudgeon of the highest order.


The Last Pogo Rides Again definitely feels like a Joseph-Conrad-like boat ride into some kind of Hell that always feels like a Heaven as imagined by Anton LaVey. Brunton and Papputs are the two halves of Willard on a mission that seems to have no real end. And if there is a heart of darkness on display, a Kurtz, if you will, it feels like every Status Quo fuck-wad that ignored this exciting scene.

And it's an important film. So much of Canada's truly vibrant culture has been squashed or ignored. Here's a film that holds up a slice of it that not only created great work in and of itself, but was an inspiration and seed for so much that followed in a variety of artistic mediums.

Never mind the cornucopia of great artists, filmmakers, writers, playwrights, actors and other truly gifted iconoclasts who sprouted from Toronto's Punk Scene - they're out there, doing their thing - they know who they are and so do we. But a word about the visionary Colin Brunton: he might well be the true soul and pulse of indie filmmaking in the Toronto Scene and even to this day, one feels his visionary influence upon the first two great rock pictures directed by Bruce McDonald. Roadkill and Highway 61 feel very much like they're as much Brunton's sensibilities as they are McDonald's. What sets Brunto apart from most producers in this country is that he doesn't come from some bullshit rarified place - he's the real thing. He's been there. He's done that. And all his collaborations feel like they're moulded and charged by his love for film, his knowledge of ALL the rules - artistically AND practically - so he can motherfucking break them when necessary and finally, his genuine life experience which he injects into every project he undertakes.

He's all over The Last Pogo Jumps Again, but he clearly has a collaborator in Paputts that shares this crazy-ass vision. They clearly make a great team because they've made a great movie.

See it. Or die, motherfucker!

"The Last Pogo Jumps Again" is playing theatrically in Toronto at the Big Picture Cinema, 1035 Gerrard St East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4M 1Z6, Tel. 416 466 3636. Friday November 1 through Wednesday November 6 at 7:30 pm. Matinees on Sunday November 3 and Thursday November 6 at 3:30. (NB: No 7:30 pm show the evening of November 7.) Tickets are $10.00; Thursday November 7 matinee at 3:30 is $5.00 for students and the unemployed.

The fuck else you doing this week anyway? Jerking off? Thumbing your asshole? Or sticking your dick through a glory hole to get some chump to slaveto the fuck out of it? Just see the fuckin' movie!!!

I, for one, can hardly wait for some kind of deluxe Blu-Ray - a numbered limited edition Box-set with the full version of the movie I originally saw - maybe even a LONGER one, tons of the good shit that hit the cutting room floor, commentaries galore and, for good measure a two-by-four-across-the-teeth soundtrack. I expect someone like Kino-Smith or Indie-Can to do this. If they don't, I assume Brunton will do it himself anyway. Better that, actually. He and Papputs can divvy up the profits without a middleman.

TORONTO AFTER DARK 2013 - ROUNDUP - THE BEST OF THE FEST - KLYMKIW ACCOLADES - By Greg Klymkiw

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Another year of Toronto After Dark Film Festival has ended. Recently TADFF 2013 announced their audience awards and I've decided to hand out a few of my own. Here then are the Film Corner's Accolades and Excretions. The accolades receive my citation appropriately named The Val Lewton Oblation for Genre Excellence and the more dubious films receive my hallowed excretions in the form of my very special "Turd Behind Harry's Char Broiled Burgers and Dining Lounge" - a genuine artifact discovered by myself and "Project Grizzly" director Peter Lynch. Both seem ideal ways to celebrate the best and worst. So, without further delay, here are the Greg Klymkiw Accolades and Excretions for the 2013 Edition of TADFF 2013. ENJOY!

GREG KLYMKIW'S ACCOLADES AND EXCRETIONS
2013 TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL

Greg Klymkiw's "Film Corner Accolades" By Film:


SEPTIC MAN - Winner of 10 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Canadian Feature Film: SEPTIC MAN, Jesse Thomas Cook
Best Screenwriting: Jesse Thomas Cook, Tony Burgess, SEPTIC MAN
Best Art Direction/Production Design: Jason David Brown, SEPTIC MAN
Best Makeup: Alex Rotundo, SEPTIC MAN
Best Actress (Supporting): Nicole G. Leier, SEPTIC MAN
Best Social Commentary: SEPTIC MAN
Most Disgusting Movie: SEPTIC MAN
Best Movie Demanding a Sequel: SEPTIC MAN
Best Line of Dialogue: "I’m a civic-minded shit sucker." SEPTIC MAN
Best Babe Taking a Shit and Vomiting: Nicole G. Leier, SEPTIC MAN


EEGA - Winner of 7 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Foreign Film: EEGA, S. S. Rajamouli
Best Editing: Venkateswara Rao, Kotagiri, EEGA
Best Musical Score: M.M. Keeravani, EEGA
Best Special Visual Effects: Makuta Arts, EEGA
Best Comedy/Laughs: EEGA
Best Villain: Sudeep in EEGA
Most Original Film: EEGA


WILLOW CREEK - Winner of 6 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Feature Film: WILLOW CREEK, Bobcat Goldthwait
Best Horror Film: WILLOW CREEK
Best Director: Bobcat Goldthwait, WILLOW CREEK
Best Actress (Lead): Alexie Gilmore, WILLOW CREEK
Best Ass Cheeks: Bryce Johnson, WILLOW CREEK
Best Movie To Watch With An Audience: WILLOW CREEK


FOUND - Winner of 5 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Actor (Lead): Gavin Brown, FOUND
Most Promising Young Director (Feature): Scott Schirmer, FOUND
Best Opening Title Sequence: FOUND
Best Gore: FOUND
Best Necrophelia: FOUND


BOUNTY KILLER- Winner of 4 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Action Film: BOUNTY KILLER
Best Action Scenes: BOUNTY KILLER
Best Hero: Christian Pitre as "Mary Death" BOUNTY KILLER
Best Killing: BOUNTY KILLER


THE GUEST - Winner of 2 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Short Film: THE GUEST, Jovanka Vuckovic
Most Promising Young Director (Short): Jovanka Vuckovic, THE GUEST


THE MACHINE - Winner of 2 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Science Fiction Film: THE MACHINE
Best Babe: Caity Lotz, THE MACHINE


WE ARE WHAT WE ARE - Winner of 2 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Cinematography: Ryan Samul, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE
Best Ensemble Cast: WE ARE WHAT WE ARE


THE BANSHEE CHAPTER - Winner of 1 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Scariest Movie: THE BANSHEE CHAPTER


SILENT RETREAT - Winner of 1 Greg Klymkiw "Film Corner Accolades"
Best Actor (Supporting): Robert Nolan, SILENT RETREAT

Greg Klymkiw's "Film Corner Accolades" By Category:

Best Feature Film: WILLOW CREEK, Bobcat Goldthwait
Best Short Film: THE GUEST, Jovanka Vuckovic
Best Foreign Film: EEGA, S. S. Rajamouli
Best Canadian Feature Film: SEPTIC MAN, Jesse Thomas Cook
Best Action Film: BOUNTY KILLER
Best Horror Film: WILLOW CREEK
Best Science Fiction Film: THE MACHINE
Best Movie To Watch With An Audience: WILLOW CREEK
Best Director: Bobcat Goldthwait, WILLOW CREEK
Best Movie Demanding a Sequel: SEPTIC MAN
Best Screenwriting: Jesse Thomas Cook, Tony Burgess, SEPTIC MAN
Best Cinematography: Ryan Samul, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE
Best Editing: Venkateswara Rao, Kotagiri, EEGA
Best Art Direction/Production Design: Jason David Brown, SEPTIC MAN
Best Musical Score: M.M. Keeravani, EEGA
Best Makeup: Alex Rotundo, SEPTIC MAN
Best Special Visual Effects: Makuta Arts, EEGA
Best Actor (Lead): Gavin Brown, FOUND
Best Actor (Supporting): Robert Nolan, SILENT RETREAT
Best Actress (Lead): Alexie Gilmore, WILLOW CREEK
Best Actress (Supporting): Nicole G. Leier, SEPTIC MAN
Best Ensemble Cast: WE ARE WHAT WE ARE
Most Promising Young Director (Feature): Scott Schirmer, FOUND
Most Promising Young Director (Short): Jovanka Vuckovic, THE GUEST
Scariest Movie: THE BANSHEE CHAPTER
Most Original Film: EEGA
Most Disgusting Movie: SEPTIC MAN
Best Action Scenes: BOUNTY KILLER
Most Original Film: EEGA
Best Social Commentary: SEPTIC MAN
Best Comedy/Laughs: EEGA
Best Monster/Creature: SEPTIC MAN
Best Babe: Caity Lotz, THE MACHINE
Best Hero: Christian Pitre as "Mary Death" BOUNTY KILLER
Best Villain: Sudeep in EEGA
Best Babe Taking a Shit and Vomiting: Nicole G. Leier, SEPTIC MAN
Best Line of Dialogue: "I’m a civic-minded shit sucker." SEPTIC MAN
Best Ass Cheeks: Bryce Johnson, WILLOW CREEK
Best Opening Title Sequence: FOUND
Best Killing: BOUNTY KILLER
Best Gore: FOUND
Best Necrophelia: FOUND

Review Links:

SEPTIC MAN
EEGA
WILLOW CREEK
FOUND
BOUNTY KILLER
THE GUEST
THE MACHINE
WE ARE WHAT WE ARE
THE BANSHEE CHAPTER
SILENT RETREAT

Greg Klymkiw's "FILM CORNER EXCRETIONS" - Worst of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013</>

Worst Films: STALLED and ODD THOMAS
Most Disappointing Narrative, but with Promising Direction: SILENT RETREAT
Most Mediocre Display of Calling-Card Competence: SOLO
Worst Direction: Stephen Sommers, ODD THOMAS
Worst Screenwriting: Corey Brown, Tricia Lee, SILENT RETREAT
Worst Movie with Decent Lesbo Action: STALLED

Review Links:

SILENT RETREAT
ODD THOMAS
STALLED
SOLO

FULL LIST OF OFFICIAL TADFF 2013 AUDIENCE AWARDSHERE



OIL SANDS KARAOKE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Documentary Puts Human Face To Environmental Devastation

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Director Charles Wilkinson and producer Tina Schliessler return to the subject of energy and environmental devastation in their engaging and surprisingly buoyant followup to the powerful "PEACE OUT". This time, the energy is Oil Sands workers letting off steam in a local karaoke joint. The environment continues to be assaulted, but this time, the filmmakers put a genuinely human face to the devastation of the planet. It's an entertaining, poignant AND important film - an unbeatable combination.

Oil Sands Karaoke (2013) dir. Charles Wilkinson ****
Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of the most devastating assaults upon Canada's environment continues to take place in the Alberta Oil Sands. For the faceless corporations lining the deep pockets of the very few, one of the largest deposits of petroleum on our fair planet is in - you guessed it - the Alberta Oil Sands. Fort McMurray, Alberta used to be a city until it was amalgamated with a good chunk of the region of the Oil Sands once referred to as (don't laugh, I'm not kidding) an Improvement District. Once the city and the nameless district became one, the city of Fort McMurray was no longer a city, but rather (again, don't laugh, I'm really not kidding) an urban service area.

It seems tax dollars were hard at work coming up with all that in order to more adequately serve the interests of oil companies that would find it more convenient to strip the land of its natural beauty if they only had to deal with one civic bureaucracy. Fort McMurray and surrounding areas are, you see, a major cash cow.

This area is alone responsible for generating two million barrels of oil every single day. This isn't a bad haul considering the world uses 90 million barrels of oil a day.

It is Fort McMurray where Director Charles Wilkinson and Producer Tina Schliessler, the makers of Peace Out, last year's stunning, award-winning documentary on energy consumption, have aimed their lenses. This time, the subjects are not corporate CEOs and environmental specialists, but rather, the people - the real people of Fort McMurray. Including migrant workers, the population of the amalgamated R.M. can hit heights of well over 70,000 and most of them either work in the oil business or are beholden to it with their own non-oil toils.

Corporations often think about their scads of employees as faceless hordes, but Oil Sands Karaoke seeks to give faces and names to those who break their backs out in the oil fields - haul truck drivers, small business owners and scaffolders to name but a few.

This is a movie about people, the people - working people.

Wilkinson's film treats all of them with the respect corporations don't. Focusing on five primary individuals, Wilkinson's camera eye captures who they are, where they came from, what their work is and what they hope their futures hold. Most of all, it captures their one true passion.

Bailey's Pub is a popular magnet for oil workers. It's a Karaoke Bar where the backbone of the oil industry, the hard labourers, come to express themselves through song, through music, through fellowship and camaraderie - Karaoke!

Bailey's bartender puts it simply and best - the working people of the oil industry come there for a small section of limelight, to focus themselves on pure musical (and in a sense, spiritual) expression. "It's a big escape from reality," the bartender states succinctly.

Escaping the reality of toil in the Oil Sands might be the only thing to maintain one's sense of self-worth. Yes, the wages are great, but Wilkinson cannily displays the working conditions. On the surface, all seems fine - state of the art equipment, an accent on workplace safety and the ability to learn and work a trade to the best of one's ability.

This is all, however, skin deep.

Wilkinson uses shots of the land itself as both transition points in the narrative, but to also expose the ruination of the environment, the bleak, manmade hell that is the Oil Sands. Land scorched and scraped beyond recognition, a hazy treeless wasteland and worst of all, endless smokestacks belching clouds of filth into the air are what comprise the world these workers must live in.

It ain't pretty, but every night in the karaoke bar, all that changes. With lights in their eyes and the sounds of genuinely appreciative audiences, the workers who partake of the nightly forays into musical expression get to experience the thrill of connecting with others using their innate talents to perform.

Life transforms into a thing of genuine beauty.

We've had our share of fictional renderings of this phenomenon - whether it be John Travolta's Tony Manero tripping the light fantastic on the disco floors of Saturday Night Fever or Jennifer Beals gyrating ever-so artistically to Michael Sembello singing "Maniac" in Flashdance - but with Oil Sands Karaoke we get the real thing.

Seeing these genuinely decent working class heroes spilling out their innermost dreams through song and knowing they are the real thing - not a construct of imagination, but rather, what and who they are in life - is what provides the sort of resonance that fiction can't always deliver. Sometimes you just need to train your lens on reality.

This is what Wilkinson does so expertly and poignantly.

And yes, he tells a story. The narrative arc involves an upcoming karaoke contest at Bailey's - an event that grips Fort McMurray by the veritable short hairs - especially those who will participate in it.

One of the revelations in Oil Sands Karaoke is the alluring, passionate and genuinely talented Iceis Rain. By day, a small business owner, but by night a chanteuse of the highest order. He claims to have been the first gay person in Fort McMurray to come out and though he might, in other similar working class towns in other countries - oh, let's say, the United States - he might well be taking his life in his hands. As we come to know and love those who patronize Bailey's, he's in good hands (most of the time) - surrounded by warmth and good cheer.

All that aside, Iceis (pronounced like "Isis") Rain delivers one show-stopper after another. By the time we get to the big Karaoke contest, Iceis knocks us completely on our collective asses. The performance is infused with a strange blend of sadness and elation - a kind of melancholy that has the power to lift our spirits to the Heavens - and does so with a virtuosity that captures it so indelibly that many will be moved to tears. I know I was.

Oil Sands Karaoke is quite unlike any documentary about the environment that you'll ever see. It's about the people. And as is my wont when compelled, I'm always happy to paraphrase that great line Jimmy Stewart has in It's a Wonderful Life. With taste and genuine emotion, Wilkinson sheds light upon all those "who do most of the living and dying in this town."

It can't get more environmental than that.

"Oil Sands Karaoke" launches on a limited theatrical run beginning in Toronto November 8 (4pm and 9pm daily) at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas via Avi Federgreen's Indie-Can. Free to visit the Carlton Cinema website directly by clicking HERE.


HERE ARE SOME FANTASTIC DOCUMENTARIES YOU CAN PURCHASE DIRECTLY FROM HERE (AND SUPPORT THE MAINTENANCE OF THIS SITE) BY CLICKING THE HANDY AMAZON LINKS BELOW:

AFTERSHOCK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Blood-soaked Eli Roth-produced disaster thriller hits Blu-Ray via VVS

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An American vacationing in Chile (Eli "The Bear Jew" Roth from Inglourious Basterds) and his two local pals hook up with some babes for a taste of the exotic sights and sounds of various tourist traps as well as the delights of inebriation, dancing and meeting a clutch of hot chicks. Danger rears its ugly head when our 30-something revellers become trapped in an underground nightclub during a massive earthquake. With several deadly aftershocks and constant tsunami warnings, they escape onto the surface, but with the potential for further natural disaster, they look for higher ground. Their goal, of course, involves making it through the perils of societal collapse, crazed looters and escaped convicts looking for babes to rape. With globs of proverbial shit hitting the fan, mankind proves to be the most deadly adversary of all.

A BABE IN PERIL!!!
Aftershock (2012) **1/2
Dir. Nicolás López
Starring: Eli Roth, Andrea Osvart, Ariel Levy, Nicolas Martinez, Lorenza Izzo, Natasha Yarovenko

Review By Greg Klymkiw

From their 70s heyday and up to the contemporary Roland Emmerich laugh-fests, disaster movies have been a staple of big screen entertainment at various points throughout film history. They are most definitely not without their pleasures. Lots of stars, big money and state of the art special effects pull out all the stops to allow us the visceral edification of safely, passively and vicariously participating in the mega-destruction of our fellow man. I have no real problem with this. Who, after all, doesn't enjoy watching people suffer and/or die?

THE SAME BABE IN PERIL!!!
I CAN LIVE WITH THAT.
Well, inexplicable as this might be to some, a good many don't. However, within the categorical context of the bonafide disaster genre (including the likes of Airport, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno), as opposed to genuinely harrowing dramas detailing the effects and/or after-effects of natural and/or man-made disasters such as A Night To Remember or Fearless - many, under the right circumstances do indeed drool over the prospect of watching (mostly) innocent people bite the bullet. God knows, even James Cameron's Titanic (wishing to be in the latter and loftier aforementioned category as opposed to the former) has us all rooting for the iceberg - impatiently waiting for mass death and, in particular, the death of Leo DiCaprio - his demise meaning we can listen to Celine Dion sing "My Heart Will Go On".

A BABE IN PERIL - Is she, perchance, the SAME
BABE IN PERIL? It sure seems that way!
The textbook approach to natural disaster in the former catefory forces us to get to know a whack of dull, stereotypical characters all played by stars and almost always unrelated to each other save for the fact that many of them will die. Aftershock, however, happily focuses on a small group of protagonists who we stick with like flies to shit. This is a blessing, but also a curse since all of the characters, save for one, are pretty dull, stupid and/or reprehensible. Like the cliches of the aforementioned, here we wait with baited breath to see how each one of these losers will die. Eli Roth, the director of such torture porn hits as Hostel, is not only the male lead, but the producer and co-screenwriter os the film. It's a pretty good idea for a disaster thriller. There's something creepily plausible about a stranger in a strange land facing a major natural disaster that then becomes even more terrifying when a nearby prison is shaken to its foundations by an earthquake and releases huge swaths of bloodthirsty hardened criminals amidst the societal breakdown already occurring.

Babe in Peril
Helps 2 Dumb Guys
Unfortunately, Roth does himself a disservice by penning a character with few reasons for us to care and his performance in infused with a smugness that keeps us even more distant from him. Though the movie clumsily attempts to infuse his character with humanity by continually bringing up his little girl, it just renders him even more a knob since we're wondering why he's needed to come so far to score some poon-tang after his wife's left him. His Chilean buddies are also no prizes and the female characters are little more than bubbleheads on the prowl for drinks, drugs and dick. Luckily, the script gives us a very tough and appealing character in the form of a single Mom who has all the instincts of a den mother and lots of smarts. That the actress who plays her is the supremely talented Andrea Osvart, a mega-babe the camera loves to death, is the film's primary cherry atop the ice cream sundae.

Of course, there's something vaguely offensive about this babe with maternal instincts and no real need to get dinked like the other damsels in distress that places her in the stereotypical position of all those 70s slasher movies where the "virgin" survives being carved up by the psychopath killers. Here, since she requires no schwance up her quim and no dope down her gullet is a sure sign she doesn't need to be raped and will be spared this indignity. In spite of this, she IS a damn fine heroine and Osvart more than once makes us wonder why she's not a bigger star than she is.

Director Nicolás López is to be commended, however, for keeping the latter half of the film moving in a classical tradition and his handling of the action and suspense here is first rate and Antonio Quercia's cinematography is lively, colourful and sans the horrendous herky-jerky so many action movies are afflicted with. It's too bad the screenplay by Guillermo Amoedo, López and Roth is so aimless and moronic during the film's first half and can't seem to get out of the these-sinners-will-get-there's mentality. It almost ruins everything else it does right which include taut action direction, a great female lead and some really spectacular visual and makeup effects that almost never make use of CGI.

"Aftershock" is available on Blu-Ray from VVS Films. It's a great transfer and it does have a few extras - though frankly the two making-of pieces feel like glorified EPKs and the commentary track with Roth and López is meandering and rather inconsequential.

MIKE TYSON: UNDISPUTED TRUTH - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Spike Lee serves up Mike Tyson's one-man-show.

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HBO Films presents Spike Lee's latest Joint, a biographical portrait of boxer "Iron Mike" Tyson via his hit one-man stage production which wends its way through the triumph and turmoil of his storied life.

IRON MIKE TYSON: UP CLOSE AND
PERSONAL - THROUGH THE LENS OF
MASTER FILMMAKER SPIKE LEE
Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth
(2013) Dir. Spike Lee ****
Starring: Mike Tyson
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Most boxers are genuinely great natural story-tellers. So many of them, it seems, spring from tough, colourful, Runyonesque mean streets of various squalid, crime-ridden urban jungles and no matter how punch-drunk they've become, no matter how many decades have passed, they all seem to remember every single detail worth recounting about their rich lives in and out of the ring.

In fact, I've personally never met a boxer who couldn't spin compelling autobiographical yarns. That said, one doesn't need to actually be sitting face-to-face with one of these grand old guys in a booth at some greasy diner to enjoy their tales of glory since there's a wealth of interview material out there with any number of pugilists.

These guys seem to have the hard-wired DNA to recount stirring narrative accounts that are as humorous as they are heartbreaking, as hiply cool as they are harrowing. Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth is a magical thing all unto itself - at least when it comes to documentary portraits of boxing and bluntly, it's impossible to imagine anyone other than the scrappy stylist Spike Lee to so perfectly capture the essence of one of the world's greatest boxing legends.

One of the aspects of Lee's film that was most apparent to me was the notion that its scope and style of presentation was not just the work of a genuine filmmaker (as opposed to the typical camera jockey that captures such events for television), but that it indeed, did not feel like a television special at all, but rather, a bonafide feature film. Like a previous HBO Film, Steven Soderbergh's astonishing Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, my immediate response to Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth was just how much I would have loved to see the movie theatrically - in a real movie theatre, with a real audience.

With this film in particular, I was reminded of the terrific tradition in theatrical exhibition of presenting work that can collectively be typified as "concert/live performance films." Unlike classic rock concert films, however, like Gimme Shelter from the Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerin or Monterey Pop by D. A. Pennebaker, Spike Lee's film is more in the tradition of stand-up style concert films like the immortal Richard Pryor: Live in Concert, Eddie Murphy Delirious, but crossed with Jonathan Demme's groundbreaking Spalding Gray monologue masterwork Swimming To Cambodia.

All of these films shared a number of elements with Lee's film. First of all, they were shot before live audiences. Secondly, the stage presentations were conceived with being captured on film. Thirdly, as theatrical feature films, they shared the unique viewing experience wherein the movie audience watched a cinematically rich approach to filming an event that included on-screen audiences responding to the material. Sitting in a huge movie theatre with hundreds of people laughing in unison with audiences reacting to the show on-screen was an experience unique to cinema and one that was so special, so indelible that watching Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth at home, on television with a very small (albeit delightful) audience that included my wife and twelve-year-old daughter made me immediately yearn to have seen this terrific movie (with said wife and child) in a real movie theatre, with real people and a larger-than-life screen.

Lee's mise-en-scene is certainly larger-than-life and this, given the subject, is as it should be and could only be. Mike Tyson was the undisputed heavyweight boxing champion of the world and the youngest man to ever win several coveted titles. Most of his fights were won by completely knocking out his opponents and usually in the first or second round. For many years, he seemed unstoppable, but a series of turbulent personal travails wreaked enough havoc upon him that he did, indeed, start to lose. During one losing bout, Tyson savagely bit off part of his opponent's ear - not once, but twice. Add to this the blight of various domestic disputes, bankruptcy and a rape conviction leading to three years in prison and Tyson has a story as huge as that of any immortal God of Ancient Greece.

Using a series of simple, but evocative lighting effects, still images, film footage and a great music track, Lee shoots Tyson as he sits and struts upon the huge stage like a lion in a cage - his very life forming the bars and the appreciative audience providing the eventual redemption within the tale he weaves. We learn about Tyson's rough childhood - a beloved mother who was a substance abuser and sometime street hooker, an abusive step-father, an irascibly flamboyant pimp as his birth father and a huge juvenile criminal record. Tyson seems thankful for these early years of crime and incarceration, as his time in juvenile detention led to a relationship with a trainer and mentor who promised Tyson that he would indeed groom the lad into becoming the youngest world boxing champ.

Tyson comes across as a plain-spoken orator - an entertainer from the streets of life and the school of hard knocks. He's pretty damn riveting and Lee clearly knows how and where to place the camera - the lens of which that truly, madly and deeply loves the ex-champ. Unfortunately, it's impossible to be completely sold on his redemption - the physically brutality he exacted upon his young wife Robin Givens is avoided in favour of exposing her "gold digging" ways and the manner in which Tyson represents his rape conviction is full of denial and mean-spiritedness towards his victim. Instead, we get a parade of all the celebrities who came to visit him in prison. (Shame on all of them!) These are big hurdles to get over and I'm not sure if most audiences will be able to do so. I suspect, however, that Lee's dazzling direction will indeed keep them watching at the very least.

Ultimately, what the film achieves is not so much myth-making since Lee knows that this ground's already been tread upon (via James Toback's excellent, though surprisingly straightforward feature doc Tyson). Instead, we get "Iron Mike" up close, personal and almost oxymoronically, bigger than life. As the camera scrutinizes the big man, there's no denying that there will be plenty of room for audiences to see what they need or want to see. Most will see a young man from a hellhole, his rise to the top and his rock-bottom crash. We'll see a man in denial and yet, this is what we'll clearly see and believe. Finally, we'll see a man, a human being - one who looks ahead to new beginnings and new challenges.

And for all the achievements and all his fame, he'll still be a thug - a thug who parlayed his gifts as a thug into becoming a much-beloved hero and celebrity - an American Icon.

Only in America. No wonder the country is collapsing.

"Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth" can be seen on HBO Canada. For info, visit the website HERE.
Playdates in Canada are as follows:
Saturday Nov.16 8:01PM ET / MT
Sunday Nov.17 2:16AM ET / MT
Saturday Nov.30 11:45PM ET / MT
Sunday Dec.8 9:40AM ET / MT
Sunday Dec.8 6:30PM ET / MT

For info on U.S. dates and times, visit HERE.


THE MESSAGE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Inspirational Epic of Islam now on Anchor Bay Ent. Canada Blu-Ray

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ZORBA the ARAB
It ain't all Greek to
His Holy Swarthiness!
Mohammed, the Prophet, receives a Holy Message from God via the angel Gabriel and begins a struggle to take back the city of Mecca - now a den of inequity and represented by over 300 pagan gods. With such formidable foes as a rich, greedy and powerful merchant class led by Abu Sofyan (Michael Ansara) and his wife Hind (Irene Papas), converting the people to Islam is going to be an uphill battle. Luckily, playing Mohammed's Uncle Hamza is Anthony Quinn (AKA "The Life Force" - as crowned, with tongue firmly in cheek, by the late, great Pauline Kael). He's just the man among men to kick all the Pagan-butt necessary on behalf of the Great Prophet. Eventually God is forevermore able to win the hearts and minds of all the people - thanks, of course, to Anthony Quinn (and yes, Mohammed, the All Holy Messenger of the One True God).
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Anthony Quinn: The Ideal Butt-Kicker for Islam!
THE MESSAGE (1977) ***1/2
Dir. Moustapha Akkad
Starring: Michael Ansara, Irene Pappas, Anthony Quinn
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Short of reading a good translation of the Koran and/or taking an introductory undergraduate Religious Studies course, Moustapha Akkad's straightforward epic narrative rendering of the story of the Prophet Mohammed, provides a solid, entertaining Coles/Cliff's Notes version of the origins of a religion that has otherwise been horrendously stereotyped by the West and equally (and even surprisingly) perverted by extremist Middle Eastern sects.

The Message was long overdue and cinematic reparations were, indeed, in order. Like any decent Cecil B. DeMille sword-and-sandal sprawler like The Greatest Story Ever Told (including the ludicrous George Stevens remake) and The Ten Commandments, it's a relatively straightforward tale told with a great deal of sweep. Director Moustapha Akkad isn't, however, as proficient a filmmaker as DeMille. Not that Akkad's direction is bad, but due to the international nature and flavour of the production (it was seven years in the making, shot in several languages and in some cases with alternate cast members for different markets), there are more than a few clunky moments. However, the film strikes a generally good balance between history lesson and rip-snorting entertainment and is, in general, thoughtful, literate and respectful of its subject matter.

Given that the subject matter is Mohammed, the Holy Prophet of Islam, it's a darn good thing Akkad was respectful. Ultimately, God only knows, he might well have had a Fatwah imposed upon him. This wasn't going to happen to Akkad, though, since the canny director developed the property and shot it in such a way that he was able to maintain the strict Holy Doctrine of never literally depicting Mohammed. His solution to the problem of telling the story of someone who was not allowed, in any way, shape or form to be seen onscreen, was so brilliantly simple that after the initial shock of having to get used to it, you do.

Seriously, this must be reiterated: Mohammed is the main character, but he is never seen onscreen, nor are we allowed to hear his voice. His actions and words are described by others and when characters need to speak with Mohammed, Akkad has them speaking directly into the camera. I really loved this touch - not only for adhering to the strict Muslim laws on such matters, but frankly, this kind of reverence towards the "Character" adds considerably to the mystique and holiness of Mohammed and his very important story within the context of the world's faith-based history.

This is one big movie. As the cliched saying goes: "They don't make 'em like this anymore." The vistas are vast, the sets and costumes sumptuous and the whole film is pleasingly photographed. Akkad assembled an amazing team of artists including gorgeous cinematography by the legendary Jack Hildyard (The Bridge on the River Kwai) and a stirring score by composer Maurice Jarre (Dr. Zhivago). This is a movie that, by rights, should have been seen far more widely in the West - especially in North America.

In contemporary terms, The Message might be even more important than ever since it presents a far more accurate portrait of the Islamic faith, its roots and history - effectively shooting down all the truly hateful American propaganda foisted upon audiences since 9/11. Akkad emphasizes so many of the progressive values of this religion - including equality between men and women as well as issues of peace, love and forgiveness. Though the movie might have been tarred and feathered by Muslim audiences even before it was released (rumours circulated that Charlton Heston would be seen - on camera - playing Mohammed), Akkad had wisely brought numerous Islamic clerics and academics on board as active historical and religious watchdogs. Rather than compromising the film, it did, I believe, make the film far more sympathetic, informative and entertaining.

In America, the film was viewed in an anti-Judeo-Christian light which, was especially moronic since the film even refers positively to any number of Judeo-Christian prophets and deities including Abraham, Moses and the Big Fella' Himself, Jesus H. Christ. The real reason The Message was virtually censored and condemned via poor exhibition and distribution (under the title Mohammed: Messenger of God), along with Akkad's tremendous followup Lion of the Desert (to be reviewed on this website soon) had way more to do with the fact that his films had been financed to the hilt by Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi (Rompin' Ronnie Reagan's nemesis throughout the 80s). In spite of America's hatred for Gaddafi, he offered, provided and maintained a strictly hands-off approach to financing both films and exercised no censorship whatsoever. This, of course, is a far cry from the overt and/or subtle censorship of American cinema via the government, New World Order and/or the studios.

Sadly, Akkad never got to make his dream project Saladin, an epic that was to star Sean Connery as the great Muslim leader who fought against the injustices of the Crusades. During pre-production in 2005, Akkad and his daughter were killed in the bombings that took place in Amman, Jordan. Luckily, we have Akkad to thank for making two huge motion pictures in an attempt to bridge the divide between Islam and the Western World.

Curiously, and for better or worse, he can also be thanked for financing, as Executive Producer, the first eight Halloween films - movies that reached audiences in the most universal manner one could imagine.

"The Message" is available on Blu-Ray in a gorgeous new edition from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada which includes the Arabic version of the film and an excellent making-of documentary.

WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY - the award winning feature film by Alan Zweig Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw *****

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Alan Zweig's latest film, WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY, winner of the Best Canadian Feature Film Award at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2013) opens theatrically via KINOSMITH in Canada on Nov. 15 at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema and to be followed by playdates across the country. To read my review (which also encompasses Zweig's entire feature canon, feel free to read my latest Colonial Report column at the very cool UK film magazine: Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema. Click HERE!

SCANNERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - "From Within: The Films of David Cronenberg" - a TIFF Cinematheque Retrospective during "DAVID CRONENBERG: EVOLUTION" a major exhibition (including Special Guest Events and MORE) via the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) until January 19, 2014 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox

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SCANNERS, by master Canadian director David Cronenberg, is a creepy science fiction thriller dealing with a 1950s maternity drug gone seriously wrong, resulting in over 200 children being deformed - or, depending on how you look at these things - endowed with ultra-powerful telepathic and telekinetic abilities. Years later, they are dubbed "Scanners" by Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan), the mad doctor who created these freaks of nature. The most powerful of the afflicted and now grown men, the seemingly gentle, confused street bum Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) and Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), a malevolent, corporate-styled automaton of destruction, both become locked in a dangerous struggle for supremacy between rival corporations wishing to control the scanners as weapons. Scanners can make heads explode. This is not a pretty sight.

SCANNERS (1981) *****
Dir. David Cronenberg
Starring: Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, Patrick McGoohan, Jennifer O'Neill, Lawrence Dane, Louis Del Grande, Mavor Moore

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of the greatest pharmaceutical tragedies of the 20th Century was the development of the drug Thalidomide in the late 50s. Meant to alleviate "anxiety" or uh, "hysteria" in pregnant women,` it was yet another invasive, sexist patriarchal attempt to keep the "weaker sex" in their place. It was essentially a drug borne out of the "Can they just shut up and quit whining" School of Medicine. Its effects upon the babies born from mothers who ingested the drug were disastrous. Children were born with malformed limbs and/or deaf and/or blind and any number of other physical abnormalities. The lucky ones lived. A much larger percentage died.

Of course, this medical botch-up was also happening smack dab in the middle of the Cold War wherein murky, nasty psychological experiments were being carried out by nefarious corporate and government agencies in the name of furthering the arms race, military superiority, espionage, interrogation techniques and other horrendous areas of mind control. All this despicable nonsense actually ran rampant in an era where millions of people were being murdered by their own governments for absolutely nothing in wars that meant even less - notably Vietnam.


Out of this scary real-life backdrop, David Cronenberg's considerable imagination ran amuck and he delivered Scanners, a chilling tale of adults who were products of a Thalidomide-like drug. Their abnormality, however, is psychological and results in extreme mental overcrowding which, when pushed by anger, anxiety and other highly-charged emotions, results in telepathic abilities that can create major physical damage. Just thinking about something is enough to make it happen.

Cronenberg delivers on all manner of shocks and scares, but does so with resonance on both visceral and thematic levels. His clever screenplay, blending a variety of new spins on old genre tropes and his cool, controlled direction always focuses on characters living amidst sterile corporate offices, fluorescent lights washing over whiter than white labs, lonely, grotty warehouse spaces and a very strange Montreal bereft of spirit, but infused with a kind of faux futuristic interior design and architecture.

He layers these visuals which, on their own, might be mistaken as somewhat drab, but the sum of his complex assemblage of locations parallels the richly layered actions and goals of the film's central players Patrick McGoohan (a Father), Michael Ironside (a Son) and Stephen Lack (a Holy Spirit). Cronenberg wisely roots the film in this strange trinity wherein all three play out a series of roles: of fathers and sons, creators and their experiments and perhaps the most ruthlessly complex of all, rival siblings.


There's even a strange Mary Magdalene figure played by the gorgeous model Jennifer O'Neill (that Summer of 42 girl who, in grief, gently took the virginity of young Gary Grimes in the classic Robert Mulligan weeper). O'Neill's wooden line deliveries and porcelain iciness seem a perfectly apt tent pole for Vale and Revok to find themselves on opposite sides of.

Early on in the film, we're introduced to Cameron Vale (Lack) as he wanders aimlessly through a downtown mall food court, shoving leftovers down his gullet as the flicker of fluorescent lights and constant chatter plays on him until he is driven to a state of near madness - his thoughts and emotions spilling out into the ether and physically affecting two affluent female diners whom he assumes are mocking him. It's a chilling moment. We get the sense he's responsible for the seizure that starts to afflict one of the women, but we also sense nobody else knows this - not, really, even Vale himself.

Later on, Vale finds himself strapped down on a gurney in a hollow warehouse. Here he meets the scientist Paul Ruth who explains with a creepy matter-of-factness (in a way only the great Patrick McGoohan seemed capable of):

"You are 35 years old, Mr. Vale. Why are you such a derelict? Such a piece of human junk? The answer's simple. You're a scanner, which you don't realize. And that has been the source of all your agony. But I will show you now that it can be a source of great power."

The power, however, is loaded with dangerous implications - not the least of which is individuality being sucked dry from unique individuals like Vale and usurped by others for their own needs, their own goals. These individuals are viewed by the world and, most of all, the Status Quo as freaks - freaks to be co-opted and/or manipulated to wreak havoc instead of providing the world with what's genuinely special about them. It's a battle between individuals, or rather, the struggle between individuality for good or for evil.

It's an ages old struggle, but Cronenberg makes it feel fresh by always adhering to the simple narrative power of trinity which is what allows it to yield complexity. Scanners is, first and foremost, a truly great thriller - not only because it confounds, astounds and often terrifies the living crap out of us, but because it accomplishes all this by being a film that was, in its time, ahead of its time.

As such, it's a film for now, and forever.

"Scanners" is playing as an entry in the series: "From Within: The Films of David Cronenberg" - a TIFF Cinematheque Retrospective during "DAVID CRONENBERG: EVOLUTION" a major exhibition (including Special Guest Events and MORE) via the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) until January 19, 2014 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. For showtimes, playmates and tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE.


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