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Greg Klymkiw's 10 Best DVD and Blu-Ray Releases of 2013 - Don't rent or download - BUY! BUY! BUY!

December 29, 2013, 10:16 pm
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The 10 Best DVD and Blu-Ray Releases of 2013
(in alphabetical order)
By Greg Klymkiw


American Mary
Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada
The Blu-Ray edition of American Mary, one of the best Horror films made in years is completely and utterly orgasmic. It's ultimately the best way to see the movie at home - bar none. Dynamic Duo directors The Soska Twins have a great imagination, but even better, they have a phenomenal eye (well, actually, make that, uh... FOUR eyes) and this is a true keeper.


Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room
Milestone Films/Milestone Cinematheque
Baby Peggy was 19 months old in 1920 and became one of the world's most beloved child stars in countless shorts and features. This is her story. This terrific documentary by Vera Iwerebor includes the most delightful extras imaginable - the full length Baby Peggy feature Captain January and three Baby Peggy Shorts.


The Lord of the Flies
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion release of Peter Brook's adaptation of William Golding's classic book is another must-own title. The Criterion version includes the following items: New, restored digital transfer (box set edition); new, restored 4K digital film transfer, supervised by editor and cameraman Gerald Feil, ASC (two-DVD and Blu-ray editions), with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, Audio commentary featuring director Peter Brook, producer Lewis Allen, director of photography Tom Hollyman, and Feil, Audio recordings of William Golding reading from his novel Lord of the Flies, accompanied by the corresponding scenes from the film, Deleted scene, with optional commentary and Golding reading, Interview with Brook from 2008 (two-DVD and Blu-ray only), Collection of behind-the-scenes material, including home movies, screen tests, outtakes, and stills, Excerpt from a 1980 episode of The South Bank Show featuring Golding (two-DVD and Blu-ray only), New interview with Feil (two-DVD and Blu-ray only), Excerpt from Feil’s 1973 documentary The Empty Space, showcasing Brook’s theater method, Living “Lord of the Flies,” a piece composed of never-before-seen footage shot by the boy actors during production, with new voice-over by actor Tom Gaman, Trailer, PLUS: An essay by film critic Geoffrey Macnab (two-DVD and Blu-ray only) and an excerpt from Brook’s autobiography The Shifting Point, New cover by Kent Williams (two-DVD and Blu-ray editions); new cover by Olga Krigman (box set edition).


Manborg
Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada
From Anchor Bay Canada in partnership with Raven Banner comes the most triumphant DVD for any Canadian Film ever! This DVD is comparable to a Criterion Collection release. This phenomenal no-budget Canadian movie from Astron-6 must be seen by all burgeoning (and maybe even quite a few veteran) filmmakers. Dive into the fabulous extra features and learn how to make your first feature the RIGHT WAY!!! This DVD is practically a film school in a box. DON'T WASTE MONEY ON FILM SCHOOL, JUST BUY THIS DVD!!! And if you DON'T agree these guys made EXACTLY the kind of first feature REAL FILMMAKERS must make when they are bereft of money, then you are a POSEUR! In the tradition of John Paizs and Guy Maddin, Astron-6 is the REAL THING!


The Message
Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada
Moustapha Akkad's historic epic is brought to Blu-Ray glory and includes the Arabic version of the film and an excellent making-of documentary. This, along with its Akkad companion piece The Lion in the Desert (also on Anchor Bay Blu-Ray) star Anthony Quinn as a formidable butt-kicker for Islam. These are important works that present a unique perspective on the birth of the religion as well as the historic struggles between Islam and the colonial forces of Mussolini.


Nashville
The Criterion Collection
Fans of Robert Altman's masterpiece have waited their whole lives for this home entertainment release. The film holds up brilliantly (as it always does) and it looks great. I must admit, I'm still going through the bounty of added value features, but so far, they are up to the high standards of Criterion. This DUAL-FORMAT BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL EDITION features: • New 2K digital film restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray • Audio commentary featuring director Robert Altman • New documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with actors Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy, Allan Nicholls, and Lily Tomlin, assistant director Alan Rudolph, and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury • Archival interviews with Altman • Behind-the-scenes footage • Demos of Carradine singing his songs from the film • Trailer • One Blu-ray and two DVDs, with all extras available in both editions • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Molly Haskell


Repo Man
The Criterion Collection
Alex Cox's quintessential, if not utterly seminal 80s cult film classic gets its much-deserved & long overdue Criterion Collection treatment in this ABSOLUTE MUST-OWN BLU-RAY. What shines are all the other added value features. Deleted scenes, many of which are genuinely terrific in and of themselves, are presented with some very amusing interstitial segments involving some extremely surprising guests joining Cox in the proceedings. A taped roundtable discussion between Cox, producers Peter McCarthy and Jonathan Wacks, Zamora, Richardson, and Rude on the making of the film seems at first a repeat of the issues discussed in the commentary track, but proves to be an excellent supplement. New interviews with musicians Iggy Pop and Keith Morris and actors Dick Rude, Olivia Barash and Miguel Sandoval are thoroughly delightful. The two utterly exquisite highlights of Criterion's great disc are a "cleaned-up" television version of Repo Man - replete with all sorts of hilarious alternatives to the more "foul" elements of the picture as well as scenes not used in the theatrical version; and the second item is a phenomenal taped conversation between producer Peter McCarthy (whose questions are always terrific) and Harry Dean Stanton. Stanton's philosophies on life and work are insanely cool - so convinced are we of his POV that we only think AFTER watching it that he might have brilliantly been pulling our respective legs. He probably wasn't, but this interview is, I think so historically important that it works as a mini-film unto itself and feels less like an "extra" and closer to the sort of creative approach taken years ago by the master of these sorts of things, Laurent Bouzerau. The packaging is impeccable and the added booklet is packed with tons of great reading (including Cox's original financing proposal for the film). The artwork and art direction of the booklet, the box and the menus are all first rate. This is not only a great and important movie, but overall, the Criterion presentation (along with the exquisite transfer) is one of the best I've had the pleasure to dive into in years.


Seconds
The Criterion Collection
Seconds has been given the royal treatment on the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray. Here are the disc's highlights: A stunningly restored 4K digital film transfer, with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack, a genuinely great commentary with Frankenheimer, a surpringly insightful interview withactor Alec Baldwin, excerpts from "Hollywood on the Hudson" TV show from 1965 that has on-set footage and a Hudson interview, a fine making-of with interviews from Frankenheimer’s widow and actor Salome Jens (who plays the film's "love interest"), a 1971 interview with Frankenheimer, a decent visual essay by film scholars R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance and the de rigueur booklet that has the added value of a superb essay by movie critic David Sterritt.


The Ultimate Gangsters Collection
(Little Caesar / Public Enemy / The Petrified Forest / White Heat)
Warner Home Video
Typically first-rate Warner Brothers treatment of these seminal crime classics which all look stunning on Blu-Ray and contain more superb extras than you can shake a stick at.


Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection
DRACULA, "SPANISH" DRACULA", FRANKENSTEIN, THE MUMMY, THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE WOLFMAN, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
Universal Studios
Great Blu-Ray transfers. Great movies. Tons of Extras. 'Nuff Said. Monster fans rejoice!
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THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Decimation of Peter Jackson

December 28, 2013, 11:31 am
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Do any hobbits wish to clog dance?
The happy folk of the Shire need to kill a dragon, but will they? "By the big toe of Bilbo Baggins," you ask, "Will they?" Well, all I'm willing to say is it's going to take you 281 minutes to find out.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) 1 PUBIC HAIR

Dir. Peter Jackson
Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I don't care how much money this or the other Hobbit movies make - suckers are born every minute - but I used to have something resembling admiration for Peter Jackson as a filmmaker. As if The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey wasn't bad enough, but part two of this dull, convoluted, interminable saga is beyond the pale. While it is thankfully bereft of the endless Hobbit clog dancing, mead guzzling and fiddle playing that permeated the first instalment of this folly, it now, sadly, has nothing going for it at all, save for dull roller coaster rides that we're forced to yawn our way through as there's little else to pay attention to.

Even worse, is that Jackson and his cohorts have gone out of their way to tamper with J.R.R. Tolkien's book in some unbelievably stupid ways. Now, let it be said, I have very little use for Tolkien, but "The Hobbit" was, at the very least, a relatively slender volume with an emphasis upon magic more than mayhem. However, this distended-stomach of a movie goes out of its way to concoct as many opportunities as possible to shoehorn in a ludicrous number of action and chase scenes to showcase the derring-do via the inexplicably ugly accelerated 48-frame-rate digital so that the usually crappy digital 3-D is even crappier.

Characters and events are concocted - not just for the aforementioned reasons - but to idiotically tie-in these new films with the Lord of the Rings trilogy so that watching all six back-to-back will yield a full epic a la the George Lucas Star Wars saga.

It's almost impossible to assess any aspect of this film properly since it, its predecessor and, no doubt, the final instalment have no real reason to exist in this idiotic form. Yes, the entire cast acquits themselves as best as one could hope for and there are design elements - mostly with the various monsters - that are in and of themselves kind of cool, but finally, all I can ask is, "For what?"

On a number of fronts, Jackson had already created a fine legacy for himself with virtually every film he's made, but so far, the woeful trilogy seems at best, little more than a cynically calculated cash grab and at worst, a pompous, misguided attempt to rewrite Tolkien so The Hobbit can flow more naturally into The Lord of the Rings. Chances are pretty good that if Tolkien had wanted to do so, he'd have bloody well done it.

What remains, finally, is little more than the image of a spluttering dunderhead jamming square pegs into round holes and getting millions of likeminded brain-bereft audiences to pay for it and cheer him on in the process.

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is playing everywhere.
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OUT OF THE FURNACE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Neo-Noir enshrouds Rust Belt's Braddock, Penn.

December 28, 2013, 10:27 pm
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Out of the Furnace (2013) ***1/2
Dir. Scott Cooper

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

Review By Greg Klymkiw

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

Hell.

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

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

And there's violence. Plenty of it.

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

Amidst the empty storefronts of Braddock, Pennsylvania and in the dank, empty home where the brothers' Dad dies a painful death from the effects of working the mill his whole life, Russell and Rodney's lives will soon cross paths to be inextricably linked with the psychopathic thug Harlan DeGroat (Harrelson) and the tough, but strangely amiable bar-owner (and bookie) John Petty (Willem Dafoe). To say things get grim is an understatement. Out of the Furnace is a heartbreaking portrait of an America on the verge of total collapse. Ironically, it's set on the eve of Barack Obama's victorious ascension to the presidency in 2008, but any shred of hope is dashed by the reality of a country that's been battered by a genuinely villainous corporate New World Order that is intent upon driving an even bigger wedge between rich and poor. What's left is an ever-increasing class of the working poor and the insidious element of low-level thuggery and crime.


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

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

"Out of the Furnace" is in a surprisingly wider release (via Relativity Media/E-One) than one would expect for a film of uncompromising darkness. Given how gorgeously shot on actual 35mm film stock it is by ace cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, it is definitely worth seeing on a big screen.
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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #1 still packs a wallop on the eve of a 5th sequel

January 1, 2014, 8:03 pm
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A 5th Paranormal Activity is now out there in the world. Though the sequels to the original have had a few decent frissons, nothing held up to the first serving of the found footage ghost story. For fun, I'm looking back at the very first Paranormal Activity and after a few years of not watching it, I can happily say it holds up magnificently.
Paranormal Activity (2009)****
dir. Oren Peli
Starring: Katie Featherston,
Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Any and all clichés one could utilize to describe the overall effect of this magnificently directed, utterly extraordinary and near-perfect no-budget horror movie would be apt – it’s heart-stopping, nerve-jangling and pulse-pounding.

More than suitable, albeit hackneyed descriptions, one and all, but in some ways a disservice to use because Paranormal Activity is such an exquisitely rendered creep-fest that any superlatives it deserves (clichéd or not), will ultimately pale in comparison to the experience of bearing witness to what unfolds. There is also the fear that as much as one wants people to see it, any overwrought praise has the ability to set up the sort of high expectations that no picture could ever live up to.

Well, let it be said that I had absolutely NO expectations.

As per usual, I managed, in advance of seeing the picture for the first time, to avoid reading all reviews. No puff pieces for this fella, either, since I can’t stomach reading them anyway. I partook of no trailers, nor any of the usual hype used to hawk movies. All I knew going in was the title. Knowing even that, I assumed it would be a horror movie, and, being a rabid fan of late-night radio stars Art Bell and George Noory of “Coast-to-Coast” fame, I furthermore suspected the picture would be dealing with one of my favourite subjects in horror movies – paranormal activities, of course; those forces in the universe that are received with as much scepticism as profound belief.

With no expectations or knowledge, I sat back and let it happen.

And happen, it most certainly did.


On the surface, the picture falls into the shaky-video-cam thriller mockumentary tradition of The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Quarantine. It blows all of them into near oblivion – not because there’s anything profoundly original about Paranormal Activity (well. there is, actually - more on this later), but because it’s endowed with the sort of relentless, obsessive quality one might find in the very best horror thrillers and feels less machine-tooled than the aforementioned.

It’s also just plain scary - something that I never really felt about the mock thrills within the trio cited above; due, I suspect, to the feeling that I could feel the hands of the filmmakers at work just a little too obviously.

Paranormal Activity elicits the sort of unexpected explosions of fear-induced fecal matter into my undies that all great horror films wrench out of you because writer-director Oren Peli creates mounting dread by avoiding so many of the trademarks of the shaky-cam genre.

Number one, it is not overwrought – at least not all the way through and ONLY when it needs to be.

Secondly, the performances are fresh and naturalistic. The attractive leads seem like any normal young couple flung into a situation that is clearly out of their realm of experience.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the shaky-cam is actually not all that shaky. In fact, it’s mostly very, very still. Locked off in tableau for a good portion of the picture, the camera is a silent witness to some of the most horrifying images I have yet to experience (which takes some doing since about 1/3 of the over 30,000 titles I've seen in my life are affiliated with genres devoted to terror). There’s no blood – not too much, anyway: there’s no elaborate, over-the-top digital effects and there are no cheap shocks (well…maybe just a few, but – Goddamn! – if they aren’t effective).

While we are presented with the terror in the familiar stillness and darkness of night, the manner in which many of the scares are delivered are rooted in an approach that is less common in this age of torture pornography masquerading as horror. And it is the stillnes that resonates most profoundly in the picture. This is the stuff of most of the nightmares that haunt us.

It is a terror of the creepiest kind and as such, comes far closer to the work of Val Lewton and/or William Friedkin by way of Jim McBride’s legendary mockumentary David Holzman’s Diary.

Lewton was the legendary producer and head of the RKO horror unit in the 40s where he created a series of brilliant works like The Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie and a handful of other creepy pictures that not only revolutionized how horror films were made, but still work in a current context - mainly for their adherence to finding terror in ordinary, (and mostly) contemporary situations touched by some form of psychic or psychological malevolence. As well, Lewton's pictures discovered utter horror in what is NOT seen – stillness, quiet, shadow, darkness and obsession. These are the real monsters in Lewton’s work. Paranormal Activity is replete with these attributes.

Friedkin’s The Exorcist battered us with the most horrendous, extreme images that still shock to this very day – yet the reason they shock is that they are framed in the clinical detail of how Regan, the devil-possessed child, is run through a battery of painful and intrusive tests and, most importantly, how the horror is rooted in the lives and locale of normal people. Paranormal Activity has a clinical precision in the obsessive detailing of every moment of the lives of the central figures in addition to the added delightful detailing of paranormal phenomena via a supernatural expert who's brought in to assess the odd goings-on.

And yes, because of such attention to details prior to the super-explosions of creepiness, the movie is all the more terrifying.

If the abovementioned were then filtered through the birthplace of the mockumentary, Jim McBride’s 1967 David Holzman’s Diary, an obsessively grainy vérité look at the psychological disintegration of a man who uses a camera to chart his descent into madness, one would come very close to experiencing the brilliant, visceral terror of Paranormal Activity.

Following 20 days in the lives of a seemingly normal man and woman trying to videotape and live with the horrible entities threatening the woman’s sanity and eventually, both their lives, Paranormal Activity draws from well-honoured cinematic traditions and manages to go its own unique way. In fact, it is the normal people and locales in this picture that make us squirm whenever night falls and the camera just sits there – a quiet observer of the mounting horror. These are normal people in an extraordinary situation who are recording the strange events in their lives.

Paranormal Activity is a clever variation on pinching oneself to confirm that either there is nothing to worry about or, in the worst case, that it’s not a dream. And if it’s not a dream, the only solace our characters (and we, the audience) can take is that the central figures (and by extension, us) are not completely out of our minds. Unfortunately, what befalls the two main characters is so blood-curdling that insanity, or death would be better than having to live yet another night – face to face with evil incarnate.

This is a movie that demands being experienced on a big screen. It takes the home movie aesthetic and swallows us whole. The very essence of a big-screen experience is what envelopes and virtually consumes us. Every small, subtle and horrific detail explodes in our faces with the kind of power and force that big-screen features are meant to do. Subsequent small screen viewings will also prove interesting, especially when the alternate “first version” (without the reworked and decidedly kick-ass “theatrical” conclusion) is also watched – but only AFTER seeing it theatrically.

Paranormal Activity is a corker of a horror film. Another cliché for your edification, but one that is perfectly appropriate. One leaves the theatre drained, solemnly quiet, and alternately contemplative and stunned.

It’s the magic of movies, and for that, I am most grateful.

Paranormal Activity is available on Paramount Blu-Ray along with sequels II, III and IV. Part V, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is in extremely wide release world wide.
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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Dreaded Hispanic Fifth Wheel

January 2, 2014, 6:48 am
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More of the same found footage activities of the paranormal kind come our way in this fifth instalment of the ghostly horror series about witchcraft and demonic possession captured by people who seem to do nothing else but shoot every second of their lives through home video cameras.

Come join me at
Satan's Tupperware Party!
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014) *
Dir. Christopher Landon
Starring: Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz, Gabrielle Walsh

Review By Greg Klymkiw

After seeing the first Paranormal Activity, I hoped there'd never be a sequel. I knew this was wishful thinking, but when I see a picture that feels perfect, I don't want its existence besmirched by an endless barrage of substandard instalments that deliver more of the same, but go out of their way to generate useless backstory and fleshing-out. After seeing the first film, I felt delectably walloped, but was also left with enough questions about what had occurred that they enriched the experience by lending an air of mystery to the proceedings. I didn't want to know that Katie was the target of an ages-old conspiracy of witches carrying out demonic possession, nor did I want to know the reasons why. What happened in the first film was enough.

Even still, I'd gird my loins appropriately and then faithfully see each and every new instalment. Parts II and III of the followups, though bereft of the power of the first, were surprisingly fun, creepy and offering enough jolts to satisfy me on visceral levels. Part IV, though, seemed like the beginning of the end and the latest instalment comes close to tarring and feathering Oren Peli's original offering.

I might be possessed, but I still
brush my teeth twixt hauntings.
The Marked Ones is set against the backdrop of California's Hispanic community. Given how scary Santeria is - at least for this fella - I thought that maybe we'd go into somewhat different territory. Alas, this is something that's never exploited for what it could have been worth.

What it barfs up instead is a Hispanic kid with a video camera discovering weird stuff in an apartment below his own family's abode.

A well-known witch in the community boasts a series of odd comings and goings including a pal from school. The pal is always distant and in a hurry. Lucky, for all concerned, we're treated to a ritual involving the naked old witch and a gorgeous young lovely displaying full frontal nudity. However, what follows is pure tedium until the last 20-or-so minutes when the filmmakers deliver a close-but-no-cigar fright-fest.

This, of course, is hardly enough to save the picture.

A clutch of Hispanic kids break into the apartment after it's been sealed with police tape after a grisly murder and then, more of the same - weird noises, odd images and the ever-mounting dread that a kick-ass climax will ensue. The movie briefly skirts with Hispanic gang involvement, but this is never properly fleshed out. Like all the sequels, we never get a sense of the characters and hence, don't really care what's going to happen.

This is all more retreading on a well worn series and the only new element is that the filmmakers have ensured a whole new marketplace amongst Hispanic audiences. Replete with vaguely ethnocentric trappings, one expects appearances from either Topo Gigio and/or The Frito Bandito.

How the mighty continue to fall - this time to the strains of La Cucaracha.

"Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones" is in wide theatrical release worldwide via Paramount.
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THE POSSESSION OF JOEL DELANY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Flawed 70s shocker offers far more effective chills and thrills than the new Hispanic-tinged "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones" - thanks to Santeria!

January 3, 2014, 9:23 am
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After I slice and dice these kids,
I'll go on to star in MANDINGO.
The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972) **1/2
dir. Waris Hussein
Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Perry King, Edmundo Rivera Alvarez
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Santeria is some scary shit and has largely been ignored by horror films. This might have something to do with the fact that it’s a religion and therefore politically incorrect to drag it into the realm of such a “lowly” genre. That said, political correctness has never reared its ugly head when Catholicism or other religions are delightfully exploited for similar purposes, so one can only gather that either Liberal-minded creators are happy to exploit the dominant European religions, but unable to bring themselves to do so for the saintly Third World blend of Jesus-worship and voodoo or it might be that they just haven’t had their thinking caps skewed in the direction of Santeria. That said, this 70s thriller goes whole hog on the Santeria front and includes one freaky exorcism sequence that blends very cool Latin musical stylings with all the shrieking, convulsing and chanting you can handle.

The Possession of Joel Delaney is seriously flawed, but still manages to effectively raise the hackles on a number of fronts – not the least of which is its creepy, deliberate pace as we’re treated to the tale of a wealthy, fur-laden New York housewife (Shirley MacLaine) who slowly comes to realize that her messed-up lay-about brother (our title character – marvelously played by Perry King in his first feature film role) is possessed by the spirit of a now-dead serial killer who delights in severing the heads of his female (‘natch) victims with one Mother of a switchblade.

It’s a movie rife with all sorts of interesting shadings – undertones of incest, the wide gap between rich and poor, the dichotomous cultures of WASPS and Puerto Ricans and, most fascinating of all, the backdrop of Santeria. Unfortunately, the movie is marred by some really clunky direction and a clutch of dreadful performances.

Director Waris Hussein seemed an unlikely choice for this film adaptation of Ramona Stewart’s very cool novel which kept this feller up for several late nights as a kid – clutching a flashlight under the blankets to keep reading, but to also ward off fear of the dark. Hussein’s previous directorial attempts included the extremely entertaining counter-culture kiddie sleeper hit Melody (replete with a classic BeeGees score and that double-infusion of Oliver star wattage Mark Lester and Jack Wild) and the whimsical, delightful Gene Wilder comedy Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx. He clearly seems out of his element with this material and it’s certainly one of the oddest studio pictures I’ve seen from this period since it equally balances some really effective sequences with moments that raise Ed Wood to the heights of Bergman.

He ain't Warren Beatty
He's My Brother
Even Shirley MacLaine (the reincarnation-believing estranged sister of Warren Beatty) seems weirdly unsuited to the requirements of the picture. She handles the rich-bitchiness of the role with considerable assuredness, but many of her other emotions feel forced and even annoyingly shrill. The latter performance flaw is especially odd when she’s called upon to be vaguely caring and/or maternal. It’s so insanely uneven that one can only think she felt she was slumming and wrong-headedly thought she needed to mix things up to keep it interesting for her. MacLaine isn’t, however, the only one rendering a bad performance. Many of the American and British actors in the film feel like foreigners dubbed into English, though are clearly WASP-ish thesps recorded mostly with synch sound. Only Perry King is dubbed with regularity, but at least that makes sense for the character since his voice is only replaced when he's speaking Spanish in the serial killer’s demon spirit. In fact, King delivers solid work and it’s clear why he went on to become a popular leading man in the 70s.

Aside from King, the only performances of note come from the Puerto Rican actors Hussein cast in supporting roles. One of the most memorable and stirring appearances in the picture comes from Edmundo Rivera Álvarez as the Santerian exorcist Don Pedro. He’s only on-screen in two scenes, but he is so riveting – blending compassion with religious fervor – that one almost wished he had more scenes. In fact, it might have been far more interesting to expand his role to the size of that of Max Von Sydow’s in The Exorcist (that little 70s possession picture that has definitely outshone this one). Interestingly, Álvarez was a prominent actor, director and playwright in Puerto Rico who, in spite of his prolific work in his home country never found a place in mainstream Hollywood cinema and died in relative poverty and obscurity.

For all its problems, though, The Possession of Joel Delaney is still a picture worth seeing – especially for fans of the horror genre. It has enough creepy moments to keep one glued to the screen. It’s also yet another bold DVD release from Legend Films – taking an obscure picture from the Paramount catalogue and getting it out in the world for all to see. And for a glimpse at a small, but dynamic performance by Edmundo Rivera Álvarez and the Santeria action, it’s worth catching up with.
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TIFF 2013 - Electric Sheep Report by Greg Klymkiw on MISCELLANY - The final report to coolio UK Film Mag Electric Sheep in my column, Colonial Report on Cinema from the Dominion of Canada - Includes Reviews of Tracks, Le démantèlement, Shivers, L’intrepido, Border and Child of God

January 4, 2014, 12:25 pm
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TIFF 2013 offers up a Cornucopia of Cinema for ALL! 

Greg Klymkiw's COLONIAL REPORT
from the Dominion of Canada
on the Toronto International Film Festival 2013
for ELECTRIC SHEEP UK - a deviant view of cinema

Miscellany is the theme of this final colonial report on the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, for this is ultimately the fest’s greatest stock in trade. One of the truly delightful activities during the Dominion of Canada’s greatest cultural event (bar none) is watching a variety of motion pictures from EVERYWHERE. So here, dearest scavenger of all things cinematic, is a grab bag of product I snuffled up during 10 days of movie gluttony. No better place to experience a whack of movies than in the colonies.

THE FULL REPORT CAN BE ACCESSED HERE!!!

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INVICTUS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - This great film about Nelson Mandela well worth experiencing!

January 5, 2014, 7:56 am
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Anthony Peckham's superb screenwriting as directed by the venerable Clint Eastwood seems a fitting movie to experience after Nelson Mandela's Death on Dec. 5, 2013.
Invictus (2009) ****
dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Great screenwriting - and I mean TRULY great screenwriting is in such short supply these days that when you come across a picture as exquisitely written as Invictus you're more than likely, as I was, to second guess your impulse to bestow the necessary laurel leaves upon it. Therefore, wanting to make sure I wasn't entirely out of my mind after the first taste, I went to see the picture a second time the very next day and was relieved to discover that on this sophomore viewing, it was as rich and dramatically satisfying as the first. It's also held up very nicely on subsequent Blu-Ray viewings. There are, of course, many reasons for this: Clint Eastwood's direction, a fine cast headed by Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon and the sort of sumptuous production values one naturally expects from a major motion picture.

And then there's the writing.

With additional helpings of Invictus, I was even more impressed with Anthony Peckham's great screenplay. It is pure meat and potatoes writing of the highest order. As a script, this is no hipper-than-than-hip word-wanking groove-ola-fest, nor is it a hodge-podge of half-baked genre tropes thrown into the blender to serve up a mess of special effects and most certainly it isn't the horrendous by-committee screenplay so prevalent in this day and age. It's a straight-up, classically-structured, old-fashioned story that's actually ABOUT something - REALLY about something. It's replete with food for thought AND works as rousing, thrilling, exciting and inspirational entertainment. In fact, it might actually be what young audiences need more than ever: a movie designed by a team serving the interests of a director who is old and wise enough to be everybody's grandfather (and who, in turn, is wise enough to work with a great screenplay).

Clint Eastwood is the father and the grandfather of us all. He might actually even be Jesus Christ Almighty! No, let's make that God! The Father, that is.

Eastwood, as if he has anything to prove anymore, proves that he's as great a filmmaker as the very best America has delivered. And, with Peckham's solid script, he delivers a profoundly moving and intelligent story. Adapted from John Carlin's non-fiction book "Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation", it focuses upon Mandela's first order of business as President of South Africa after the fall of Apartheid - to bring the country together and to find a way of crossing the divide of race, of colour and to hold to a process of reconciliation rather than revenge.


The film proceeds to detail Mandela's belief in using the country's national rugby team (the Springboks) as the primary tool and symbol of a united front. He has his work cut out for him though since there was a long, deep-seeded history of the Black population intentionally refusing to cheer for their home country. As the team represented South Africa and its subjugation of the nation's Black population, the Black rugby fans would lavish cheers and applause on every OTHER nation. After the fall of Apartheid, this does not change. In fact, the hatred for the green-and-gold-uniformed Springboks becomes even more bilious. Even the White population begins to lose faith in the team since under the leadership of its captain Francois Piennar (Matt Damon), the overwhelming effect of this hatred crushes their morale and the team experiences one embarrassing defeat after another.

Mandela urges his sporting counsel to have faith in the team and he begins a deep courtship/friendship with Piennar, offering mentorship, an almost spiritual guidance and, in an odd way, a bit of side-coaching. With Mandela's near-obsessive support, the Springboks miraculously claw their way out of a deep hole and eventually face the mighty New Zealand All Blacks who have brutally decimated every other team in the world. The showdown has the added resonance as the 1995 Rugby World Cup game is being hosted by South Africa and the eyes of the world are aimed squarely at a country on the verge of major changes.

One of the nice things about Peckham's screenplay is the deft way he manages to focus on Mandela, while at the same time, peppering the story with rich characters at every turn - even down to extras. There is absolutely no on-screen individual who is NOT given an engaging purpose to support the story's forward movement. We get vivid, information-packed snapshots of everyone in Mandela's sphere - from secretaries to assistants, from bodyguards to chief bureaucrats and from visiting dignitaries to domestic politicians. Furthermore, we get colourful portraits of Piennar and his family (including their Black domestic), Piennar's teammates and most extraordinarily, two small, but important characters (verging on being background extras) during the climactic game where we see a coming together of Black and White.

While sticklers might have a problem with seeing all the country's problems solved with one rugby game, both Peckham and Eastwood know there are two higher purposes - to present a general plea for unity amongst race, creed and colour while delivering thrilling, rousing entertainment of the highest order. Eastwood as both an actor and director truly understands the notion that there are ultimately no small parts and Peckham's script provides a great opportunity to fulfil this.

Peckham's screenplay superbly takes this one slice of Mandela's life and infuses it with enough detail that we get a magnificent snapshot, not only of Mandela's existence up to that point, but a very good idea of the before-during-and-after of Apartheid. In retrospect, there are a few moments that are obviously expositional, but it is to the screenplay and Eastwood's credit, that the film never wears its exposition on its sleeve while we're actually watching the movie. Even when such old-fashioned, tried-and-true elements threaten to rear their heads during the movie, Peckham quickly engages us in some expertly wrought detail that moves us ever-forward. Exposition is just fine in ANY movie, it's only when we feel it and/or see it working that it's problematic. In retrospect almost never counts and subsequent viewings allow you to experience the craft in all its glory.

While the script itself plays a tiny bit fast and loose with actual events, it at least does so in the spirit of said events. (It is a movie, after all, and needs to compress such matters effectively, so long as it does not take us out of the drama as we watch it.) For example, only a persnickety egghead would quarrel with the fact that the title not only represents its meaning in Latin, which is "unconquered", but is used as a dramatic element of the film in that it's the title of a poem Mandela used to keep himself going in prison and which he gives a copy of to Piennar as inspiration. In reality, it was an altogether different poem that Mandela used in real life. Big deal. It works perfectly here, and most importantly, for the story that's being told. As that great line from John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance reminds us: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." (Note to all burgeoning writers everywhere: great drama exposes truth even when you need to bend the truth to create great drama!)


Great drama is, of course, what Eastwood's name has become synonymous with. His direction crackles with excitement. Many critics unimaginatively fall back on the word "stately" to sum up Eastwood's mise-en-scene. While there is definitely a majesty to much of Eastwood's work, it's so much more than that. Having been mentored by some of the best directors in movie history, Eastwood is more than a merely proficient director. He has learned wisely and well, but also knows enough to use that mentorship as a springboard for his own controlled, yet ultimately dazzling approach to the material. Yes, he has his camera exactly where it should be for virtually every dramatic beat, but the work is infused with such a strong, clear voice, it's apparent that Eastwood is ultimately a born-filmmaker.

Given Eastwood's own prodigious talent and experience as well as being mentored by the likes of Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, it's no wonder that this particular inspirational tale of mentorship appealed to him and why he attacks it with the frenzy of a zealot.

When we get to the final game, it becomes even more apparent what a great filmmaker he is. Treating the game like a massive action sequence - one of war, one of guts, one of determination - Eastwood creates scenes that had me and the audience trembling with excitement and mounting tension and finally, pure orgasmic elation. Even though I knew the outcome, I somehow forgot about all that and sat on the edge of my seat, raptly paying attention to every detail and occasionally needing to almost look away when the suspense became too unbearable and, I must demurely admit, to finally cheering the team on with the same gusto that has struck me very few times at the movies.

Those moments of pure animal savagery on my part are still vivid in my memory and include: Charlton Heston barking the "damn, dirty Ape" insult to the gorillas in Franklin J. Schaffner's Planet of the Apes, the sweet-faced little boys in Mark Rydell's The Cowboys as they extract the most vicious, brutal revenge upon the killers of John Wayne's character - most notably when they allow Bruce Dern to be dragged to death by a horse, Will Sampson's "Chief" in Milos Foreman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest wrenching the huge marble sink out of the ground and using it to crash through the windows of the asylum to escape and, most recently, when Sylvester Stallone single-handedly butchered hundreds of Burmese infantrymen during the climactic bloodbath of Rambo. With this in mind, I'll allow you, dear reader, to see Invictus and guess for yourself which extraordinary sequence during the final game had me releasing spontaneous "huzzahs" and applause.

This is, quite simply, a wonderful movie! Eastwood keeps delivering the gold and at this rate, I pray for the sort of miracle that will keep him going until long after I'm gone. Though, even better, is hoping he will at least make a few more movies with screenplays as magnificently wrought as Peckham's. Great directors can only be as great as their collaborators and the whole kit and caboodle can only really be as great as the screenwriting allows.

"Invictus" is available in a lovely Blu-Ray via Warner Home Entertainment.
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JEWS OF WINNIPEG - DO NOT MISS SEEING ALAN ZWEIG'S AWARD WINNING "WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY"

January 6, 2014, 9:30 pm
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GILBERT GOTTFRIED SAYS:
"HEY, JEWS OF WINNIPEG!
YA' GOTTA' SEE THIS MOVIE!"
DO NOT MISS
WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY
David Steinberg is fromWinnipeg
He is a Jew
You Can See Him in

WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY

at the Winnipeg Film Group
CINEMATHEQUE
Jan 10-18, 2014

CALLING ALL JEWS in WINNIPEG!
YEAH, YOU!

GOYIM, TOO!!!

READ MY REVIEW

AT THE LINK BELOW

THEN TELL ME YOU AREN'T GOING

THEN TELL YOUR JEWISH & GOYIM FRIENDS!

GET A LOAD OF SOME OF THE JEWS IN THIS MOVIE:
SHELLEY BERMAN
SHECKY GREENE
JACK CARTER
BOB EINSTEIN
aka SUPER DAVE

Nu, so what are you waiting for?

HEY!

JEWS

of WINNIPEG!

YEAH! YOU!

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) is playing theatrically via KINOSMITH across the country and can now be seen in WINNIPEG at the Winnipeg Film Group CINEMATHEQUE:
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!

GO, JEWS OF WINNIPEG, GO!
YOU GOYIM GO, TOO!
NOW! BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
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LONE SURVIVOR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Racist War Propaganda Poses Dilemma of Being Superbly Made

January 6, 2014, 7:45 pm
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Fact-based tale of Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell (played by Mark Wahlberg), the only American survivor of an Afghanistan mission gone wrong and leading to the deaths of 19 soldiers at the hands of Taliban forces.
Lone Survivor (2013) **1/2
Dir. Peter Berg
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, Eric Bana, Ali Suliman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It is virtually impossible to NOT be deeply moved seeing the deaths of 19 young American soldiers, but it's probably not for the reasons intended by the filmmakers. They want us to experience the honour and sacrifice made by these clearly brave young men. They want us to revel in the glory of their service to America, their deep camaraderie and their unwavering commitment to keep fighting to the death in the face of insurmountable odds.

This is what the filmmakers want and sadly, from many audiences, they'll get it.

What will move (I hope) most thinking, feeling people is how utterly senseless the deaths of these young men were (and by extension, ALL soldiers and civilians on both sides of the equation that is Afghanistan, and for that matter, the entire reprehensibly spurious War on Terror). Watching this picture we are pummelled by the utter futility of the mission these men were ordered to fulfill and the clear screw-ups on every level by the American command. We see this, but the movie takes no moral, political, thematic or, frankly, even dramatic position on this. There's a cursory nod to "war is Hell", but if the film takes any stance at all it is to extoll the virtues of the American tolerance for pain, hardship and death at any and all cost to themselves.

The movie's sole narrative purpose is to send the boys on a mission to assassinate a Taliban military leader who - HORRORS!!! - has killed many Marines and then to view how everything that could go wrong, indeed does. It's the war film equivalent to The Passion of the Christ. We know during the film's opening five minutes and from the title, that everyone in the film will die except one. All that seems necessary to spin the tale forward is when our soldiers make the right, but fateful decision not to kill civilian goat herders. This results in one of the lucky-to-be-spared Afghanis ratting out the presence of the Yanks to the Taliban armed forces.

Our brave American lads are quickly surrounded, then assailed by an unbeatable extremist Muslim juggernaut of strength and numbers. We spend about one hour of screen time watching the soldiers take repeated bullet-hits and incur rips, gashes, scratches, bruises and broken bones - many of the jutting-out-through-flesh variety.

The damage done to Uncle Sam's boys pretty much puts them in the hallowed position of equalling Jesus H. Christ Almighty's scourging, ascent to Calvary and brutal crucifixion.

As luck would have it, we experience a panoply of Taliban deaths so excessive that one suspects the Americans are responsible for the wholesale slaughter of a good chunk of Afghanistan itself. The blows to our American boys are treated with savagery by director Peter Berg, but savagery with indelible strength and honour. The Taliban, however, are dispatched by our boys with slam-bang, blood-spurting aplomb - all designed for us to cheer as if Rocky Balboa is scoring blows against Drago in Rocky IV.

Ah, but lest we forget, our American boys are flesh and blood. They have hopes, dreams, loves, wives, children and homes. According to this film, Afghanis do not. They are nameless, often faceless hordes of heathen who deserve spectacularly painful deaths for OUR edification.

At times this whole exercise is sickening.

However, director Berg and his long-time cinematographer Tobias Schleissler render dazzling visual flourishes to the violence. It's all so simply and classically structured, not unlike the pair's fine work on Battleship, in spite of its ludicrous screenplay, that we are witness to work of an exemplary nature. Berg knows how to stage action and in collaboration with Schleissler, still manages to dazzle us in ways that most contemporary filmmakers are woefully unable to do.

Aside from Eric Bana's sleepwalking impersonation through the film, there isn't a single cast member who delivers anything less than superb work and, in the case of Wahlberg, he's electrifying. It's also great seeing Ali Suliman, the great Israeli actor of Palestinian descent (he recently starred in The Attack and he's pretty much the only Afghani allowed something resembling a character. This is probably because Suliman's part is that of an anti-Taliban member of the Muslim persuasion.

Lone Survivor is one of the most reprehensible pieces of American war propaganda foisted upon us in quite awhile, but it's impossible to deny the craft and downright virtuosity of its filmmakers. As a director, Berg is the real deal. The man knows how to make a movie and dazzle us, but one wonders if he'll ever allow us a peek into his soul. Then again, maybe he doesn't have one.

"Lone Survivor" is in wide release from Universal Pictures.
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THESE ARE THE DAMNED - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Teddy Boys, Incest, Oliver Reed, Sci-Fi, Joseph Losey - YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA!

January 7, 2014, 10:40 pm
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These are THE DAMNED (1961) ***1/2
dir. Joseph Losey
Starring: MacDonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Oliver Reed, Viveca Lindfors and Alexander Knox

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Blacklisted American filmmaker Joseph Losey’s compelling science fiction thriller These are THE DAMNED, made for Britain’s Hammer Studios in 1961 and released in the U.S. during 1963 in a severely truncated form, is much closer in spirit to the company’s more subdued 50s efforts such as X – The Unknown (which Losey was fired from when the right-wing star Dean Jagger threatened to walk rather than submit to the direction of a “communist”), as well as the marvellous Quatermass pictures with Brian Donlevy.

In spite of this, These are THE DAMNED is still as unlikely a Hammer picture and certainly an even farther cry from the company’s deliciously overwrought 60s and 70s colour horror films starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. In fact, Losey’s near-masterwork goes further than most Hammer pictures, and frankly, most science fiction pictures of the 50s and 60s as it seems even more in tune with the early beginnings of the British New Wave than any of its fantastical genre counterparts.

Imagine, if you will, a kitchen-sink angry-young-man story (an incest-obsessed Teddy Boy) merged with a fantastical fairy tale (involving a strange, sad race of "super" children) and fraught with 50s/60s apocalyptic paranoia (on behalf of everyone in the film). It’s a mad vision, which inhabits a time gone by, yet possesses a timelessness that makes it as relevant today, if not more so. These qualities are inherent in the work, due very considerably, to Joseph Losey.

His staggering and original mise-en-scéne is a patchwork quilt of movement and composition that ultimately becomes surprisingly linear in creating a world that seems at home, ONLY on the silver screen, yet also possessing mirror-like qualities of our own world. It's a universe where one can recognize a planet - our planet - that’s as fraught with the same kind of orderly disorder we continue to face in these times of economic uncertainty and war – a world fraught with crime, poverty and boneheaded, exploitative government policy and all seemingly on the verge of collapse.


The film’s opening credits run over a bird’s eye view of the sea, waves crashing on a remote shore below, panning ever so smoothly to reveal that we’re on a rocky cliff. The camera dollies gently to reveal a series of grotesque sculptures along the edge of the barren outlook until it settles on a tortured figure – a semi-mermaid with a hawk-like visage and a vaguely human torso. The figure is frozen and faces away from the majestic sea and sky, yet it seems desperate to face the beauty of the horizon. Losey’s “directed by” credit appears in a patch of sky on the upper left of the contorted beauty of the sculpture, then recedes into the clouds.

What a credit sequence! The bronze outdoor sculptures seen here and throughout the film are credited to the iconoclastic British artist Dame Elisabeth Frink and they are very much stars of the film - in addition to the warm-blooded ones.

As if this weren’t enough, we move from these images of nature and art, all presented with stalwart Hammer composer James Bernard’s suitably malevolent score to a smash cut revealing a gorgeous wide shot of the seaside resort of Weymouth perched from a gently lolling camera on the water. Thus begins the movie’s opening dramatic sequence – a brilliantly shot and edited montage which may well be the ultimate British predecessor to Lester’s “rock videos” in A Hard Day’s Night and clearly an influence on Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. With music written by Bernard and lyrics by both screenwriter Evan Jones and Losey himself, an unnamed band (worthy of some of the amazing tracks on the “Las Vegas Grind” series) sings:

Black leather, black leather, rock-rock-rock...
Black leather, black leather, smash-smash-smash
Black leather, black leather, crash-crash-crash
Black leather, black leather, kill-kill-kill
I got that feeling – black leather rock!


As the song be-bops along, the camera begins atop a clock tower, makes its way down and reveals a load of leather-clad Teddy Boys led by the suave King (played by an ultra-cool and very young Oliver Reed), adorned smartly in a crisp white shirt, thin black tie and a plaid sport coat to end all plaid sport coats. Perched against a perfectly symmetrical sculpture of a white unicorn (juxtaposed beautifully with the architecture of Weymouth and Frink's sculptures from the previous sequence), King surveys the square as Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey, who starred – for thirty years!!! – on the soap opera “Days of Our Lives”), an American tourist, admires a historical plaque and is quickly seduced into following a fetching, nubile Joan (British ingénue Shirley Anne Field). At first, Joan appears to be King’s squeeze, leading the American along with promises of carnal delight, but it's clearly a trap. King and his Teddy-Boys beat the American to a pulp and steal his watch and wallet.

Joan feels some guilt over her part in this act of savagery and soon tracks Simon down to apologize and, with a strange Daddy-fixation, throw herself at him. This enrages King – not because she’s REALLY his main squeeze, but is in fact, his sister!!! King has rather obsessive and overtly incestuous feelings towards Joan and refuses to let her touch or be touched by any man. Add to this mix, a mysterious military bureaucrat Bernard (Oscar-nominated Alexander Knox for his role in “Wilson”) who seems to be overseeing a secret research operation just on the outskirts of property owned by the sultry, cynical sculptress Freya (the vivacious Viveca Lindfors).

The movie eventually brings all of these seemingly disparate characters together – first at Freya’s studio on the cliffs and finally, behind the barbed wire of the military research facility where a strange group of children are incarcerated within a seawall fortress – subject to observation, experimentation and indoctrination.

This is one crazy movie! And what a movie it is! Dealing with such heavy themes as haves and have-nots, incest, art versus science, science as creation, secrecy yielding paranoia, childhood innocence being exploited for a greater “good” and ultimately, the horrors of nuclear radiation – These are THE DAMNED is some kind of lost and decidedly insane masterpiece (albeit with some of the flaws associated with its bare-bones budget).

Based upon a novel by Evan Jones, neither the British nor American titles seem to adequately encompass what this film is about. The novel’s original title was “The Children of Light” which seems to be a far more evocative summation of the picture itself – a film devoted to the ironic loss of innocence of an entire post-war generation to the mad powers that gripped everyone and created a platform that forced subsequent generations to live in a world of fear, paranoia and exploitation with each successive government blunder and lust for power - or, in the parlance worthy of a Teddy Boy: same shit, different pail.

Joseph Losey made a B-movie, all right. He who would go on to direct many more fine pictures, including a rich collaboration with Harold Pinter, but These are THE DAMNED is one hell of a great B-movie!

“These are THE DAMNED” is included in the recent Sony Pictures DVD release entitled “Hammer Films: The Icons of Suspense Collection” which also features the very good child molestation thriller "Never Take Candy From a Stanger" in addition to four other pictures from the same period.
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THE INVISIBLE WOMAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw

January 14, 2014, 11:02 pm
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The Invisible Woman (2013) ***
Dir. Ralph Fiennes
Starring: Felicity Jones, Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tom Hollander, Joanna Scanlan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The May-December romance is always a popular road travelled in the movies since it's so much more pleasant to eyeball the gorgeous and glamorous as they play out their trysts instead of the reality which, almost always involves a beautiful young woman and some smelly old codger (or, vice-versa). (In addition to real life, one can see similar regurgitative scenarios play out in Woody Allen movies.) Even thinking about the reality of May-December couplings is pretty sickening, but thank Christ for the movies!!! On a big screen, beautiful people - no matter what their age - are still just that. (And even the smelly old codgers in Woody Allen movies are pretty sexy.)

The Invisible Woman seems a perfect choice for the sophomore directorial effort from Ralph Fiennes, following his relentlessly twitchy and kinetic adaptation Shakespeare's Coriolanus. That was one delectable, blood-soaked dive into war-mongering testosterone a la The Bard of Avon, with dollops of contemporary anti-war sentiments. Nothing, then, could be further away from his previous film than the Victorian gentility on display in this love story between author Charles Dickens (Fiennes) and the young, VERY YOUNG actress and fan Nelly Ternan (Felicity Jones).

From the moment Dickens sees the tender, tasty morsel o' Nelly, he wants nothing more than to aim his socially conscious schwance into the maw of the child's virginal pie o' Hair, but since he's married to the mother of a ridiculous brood o' Dickens-seeded-progeny, he'll need to conduct his dirty desires without divorcing the dour porker (Joanna Scanlan) bearing his wedding ring and who gazes mournfully, if not bovinely at her hubby's roving eye.

Since Nelly comes from a family of thespians, it's her Mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) who must provide the blessing for her daughter to become the secret mistress of Mr. Dickens. Nelly, you see, is not a very good actress and Mom figures she'll be better off as a kept woman of one of the world's most celebrated authors. It helps, of course, that Nelly loves every word Dickens has chiseled onto the page.

This, however, will prove to be a long, but rather unsatisfying tryst. Dickens humiliates his wife by making his affair public and goes so far as to cruelly force his loyal porker to confront his mistress to see precisely WHY he needs this bit on the side.

Dickens, as played by Fiennes, is pretty much a prig AND an asshole. Why any woman would put up with him seems one of the profoundest mysteries of the universe.

This is one strange movie. There's nothing romantic OR sexy about it. The pace borders on the lugubrious and in spite of the lush photography and stunning period detail, we feel like we're almost a party to a kind of neo-realist plunge into the inequity suffered by women in this time, place and world.

Nelly's story is almost unwaveringly sad and one certainly wishes to doff a cap in Fiennes' direction for tackling this material in such a perversely cold fashion. Other than a clumsy framing device to present the tale in flashback, it's a generally compelling and fine picture which, in spite of the queerly muted quality, proves often moving and, indeed, bordering on tragedy.

This is finally no traditional May-December romance. We do not, for a moment, ever feel like we want these two people together. If anything, we want poor Nelly to run away as fast as humanly possible and for Dickens to just grow the fuck up.

"The Invisible Woman" is currently in theatrical release via Mongrel Media.
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FORGOTTEN WINNIPEG - By Greg Klymkiw - Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with SPUR, the NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL and the WINNIPEG FILM GROUP CINEMATHEQUE present a celebration of all things forgotten about Winnipeg. Read Greg Klymkiw's Thoughts on HIS Forgotten Winnipeg!

January 22, 2014, 10:19 am
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The Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque presents a special series of films in conjunction with the WSO’s New Music Festival featuring Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm with a brilliant score by Winnipeg-born Mychael Danna, two important films from the New York underground filmmaking scene (Sara Driver's When Pigs Fly and Celine Dahnier's documentary Blank City), Craig Baldwin’s Spectres of the Spectrum (featured to complement WSO’s new opera on genius inventor Nikola Tesla created by composer Phil Kline and film director Jim Jarmusch) and last, but not least: several key works which reflect Winnipeg’s past and often conflicted view of itself - Death by Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets (from ATELIER NATIONAL DU MANITOBA - Walter Forsberg, Matthew Rankin, Mike Maryniuk), Forsberg's Fahrenheit 7-Eleven, Rankin's Negativipeg and Ryan McKenna's Survival Stories: The Greg Klymkiw Story (which is - YOU GUESSED IT - about ME! Maybe I'll have the nerve to review it).

And, I'm sure you're going to enjoy this: I'm moderating a Panel Discussion on the topic of Forgotten Winnipeg on January 28, from 6-7pm on the Piano Mobile at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg as part of a co-venture between Spur, a festivals of politics, art and ideas and the WSO's New Music Festival. Participants include Bruce Duggan, Frank Albo and Esyllt Jones.

MY FORGOTTEN WINNIPEG

By Greg Klymkiw

What then, IS a forgotten Winnipeg, anyway? For me, it's simple. It's the Winnipeg of my mind. It's the Winnipeg that once existed, but is no more except in my memories. It's the Winnipeg that existed before I was born, but lived on, like piles of refuse dotting the landscape - monuments to former glory and defeat that made me what I am today (for better or worse).

It's a Winnipeg that lives in the souls of the well-dressed couples in their august years, sitting amongst the refuse of humanity in the long-gone Harry Smith's Club Morocco - the mirror ball spinning on the empty dance floor, the silver palm tree leaves reflecting the coloured lights Stanley and Stella used to get a goin' in Tennessee's world (one not unlike that of those similarly passion-infused in the geographical centre of North America) as thick-lensed horn rims of Harry himself surveyed his mighty empire, adorned in cheap tux, smoking his LaPalina Lily and smiling with approval as Benny Lee, wizened well beyond his years of building Canada's Railway, hobbled in, hunchbacked and hunched-over as he wheeled in the chrome oxcart displaying an array of the Orient, its aroma beckoning all to grab a plate and load up on the 11:00 Chinese Smorg.

That, is Winnipeg. My Forgotten Winnipeg - forgotten, not to me, but to those who would never know.

*****

Winnipeg's power brokers have a history of repeatedly blowing it by displaying their poor taste, self interests and greed while ignoring the potential of assisting visionaries to fulfil their dreams and to hold on to the heritage and history of a once great city.

Winnipeg is a purgatory for the casualties of the city's faceless bureaucrats who do little more than the bidding of the soulless power brokers to screw over genuine individuals and institutions that contribute far more to the life of the city than those who look for excuses to destroy it.

It's a city of big dreams tainted by the mediocrity of those who believe new is better than old and continue to replace relics of beauty with their turds.

Winnipeg is a city of Death, not life, but in death, from out of its decrepitude, comes so much more.

*****

So, like, Réjean, this dude you meet every morning at 6 in the line-up for slave labour at the All-Jobs Labour Supply on Main Street, corners you in a Men's room stall at the Chalet Hotel 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

Illustrious Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz
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 (Winnipeg born and bred, of course) 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. Though this might only be true in my in-dotage-diseased memory banks, 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 for 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.

Bands 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. Myself, I was running a long-gone 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 what seemed - at least at the time and in my memory - forever.


It's funny now, how many film or media people frolicked about that 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 and news guy 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.

*****

All cities have ghosts. Winnipeg has more than most. My old Winter City is rife with spiritual activity - manifested by inordinate pools of ectoplasm - viscous globs expunged from living sources to release the phantom apparitions that emit screams of agony, horror and deep sorrow.

In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens imagined that the otherworldly cries of despair came – not from the spirits of the innocent – but from those who passed from our world into ghostly purgatory and “sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power to do so forever.”

Alas, there are no such ghostly lamentations from the long-dead rich in Winnipeg. The pain-infused shrieks come from the innocent, the working class, the outcasts who never fit the mould or to paraphrase Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, Winnipeg's phantasmal wailings came instead from the "people who do most of the living, working and dying in this town."

Since the retirement of Winnipeg’s visionary Mayor Stephen Juba in the late 70s, bland civic politicians and hand-picked petty bureaucrats dug their grubby fingers into the pockets of purportedly visionary captains of business – an amalgam of the lowest order of old money WASPS and tasteless, self-satisfied denizens of the city’s execrable nouveau riche – bound and determined to reduce the city to a slag-heap in the spurious name of "progress" (a word co-opted to mask their true desire, personal gain).

Even worse, the boneheadedly well-meaning Core Area Initiative of the 1980s decimated the city’s core instead of revitalizing it. Within this civic-provincial-federal programme, the stupidest thing Winnipeg power-brokers did was tear down three square blocks on the North side of Portage Avenue in the heart of downtown and replace it with – I kid you not – a MALL.

A mall.

Winnipeg loves malls, but they didn't need one downtown. There were plenty in the suburbs - where parking was expansive and shopping carts could easily transport oodles of goods to Ford Meteor station wagons. Besides, Winnipeggers are obsessed with free (or at least dirt-cheap) parking. If they're going to drive downtown (virtually nobody in Winnipeg uses public transit unless they are children or losers) and - God Forbid - PAY for parking, it needs to be for an experience they can't get at suburban malls.

And, ladies and gentlemen, it took three levels of government - count 'em, THREE - to decimate what made the core area and downtown Winnipeg unique.

What WE (Winnipeggers in body and like myself, in spirit) lost were head shops, pinball parlours, record stores, greasy spoons, massage parlours, grind houses, porn cinemas, news agents, coin and stamp shops, comic book stores, nightclubs, strip clubs, punk clubs and manor hotels to the north and Eaton’s, Woolworths, Hudson Bay, Clifford’s and a fine variety of specialty shops to the South.

Cool Sleaze on one side of the street and upscale shopping on the other side of the street. And guess what? There were people on the streets of downtown Winnipeg - at every waking hour. People had a reason to come downtown. No, they had a multitude of reasons.

We were sassified!

In the immortal words of Clarence Carter, the town was positively Strokin’ – it was strokin’ to the north, strokin’ to the south, strokin’ to the east and strokin’ to the west.

Ain’t nothin’ strokin’ no mo'.

After a decade of bureaucratic mismanagement, endless boondoggles and decisions made politically (which, of course really meant lining pockets of politicians and their cronies), Winnipeg’s core became a wasteland. Heritage buildings were closed. Businesses were boarded up. The streets after 5pm on weekdays and pretty much at anytime on weekends became empty.

Instead of people on the streets, all that remained were tumbleweeds.

The second stupidest thing Winnipeg's power brokers did was to destroy the historic Eaton's department store in downtown Winnipeg, then destroy the historic Winnipeg Arena (nicknamed "The Barn") in the West End, THEN build a NEW arena where the Eaton's rubble lay. (Many were happy that Winnipeg, of all places, elected Glen Murray as Mayor - an openly gay politician who inspired iconic Winnipeg filmmaker Noam Gonick to declare Winnipeg as the "Fudge Packing Capitol of Canada.") Alas, it was Murray who supported and pushed for this, the second stupidest thing in the city's recent history.

In sadness and disgust, I left over 20-years-ago. Each trip back became increasingly depressing - seeing one cool thing after another disappearing, seeing the downtown core decay with frightening rapidity. On one such visit I drove along Main Street, my car dipping down into the one and only subway below train tracks and coming up the ramp to the glorious corner of Main and Higgins to witness a wrecking ball smashing into the gorgeous old Brunswick Hotel. I was further agog to see so many of the (admittedly sleazy) hotels along the strip gone and replaced with empty lots and/or ugly new buildings. There was a genuine community here - mostly single men; retired and/or widowed bachelors, young working class fellas and malcontent veterans of several wars going back to WWI. There were houses and neighbourhoods of people who used to live downtown.

Where are they all now?

Where else could they be?

They're forgotten.

It is, after all, Winnipeg.

O Winnipeg!

Sad! Sad! Sad!
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BLANK CITY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Terrific documentary focuses on independent underground filmmaking scene and its relationship to the punk music scene. The NYC movements paralleled similar scenes in Winnipeg at the time and makes for a doubly fascinating experience. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with SPUR, the NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL and the WINNIPEG FILM GROUP CINEMATHEQUE present a celebration of all things forgotten about Winnipeg.

January 23, 2014, 10:18 am
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The Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque presents a special series of films in conjunction with SPUR and the WSO’s New Music Festival featuring Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm with a brilliant score by Winnipeg-born Mychael Danna, two important films from the New York underground filmmaking scene (Sara Driver's When Pigs Fly and Celine Dahnier's documentary Blank City), Craig Baldwin’s Spectres of the Spectrum (featured to complement WSO’s new opera on genius inventor Nikola Tesla created by composer Phil Kline and film director Jim Jarmusch) and last, but not least: several key works which reflect Winnipeg’s past and often conflicted view of itself - Death by Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets (from ATELIER NATIONAL DU MANITOBA - Walter Forsberg, Matthew Rankin, Mike Maryniuk), Forsberg's Fahrenheit 7-Eleven, Rankin's Negativipeg and Ryan McKenna's Survival Stories: The Greg Klymkiw Story (which is - YOU GUESSED IT - about ME! Maybe I'll have the nerve to review it). And, I'm sure you're going to enjoy this: I'm moderating a Panel Discussion on the topic of Forgotten Winnipeg on January 28, from 6-7pm on the Piano Mobile at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg.

As part of a co-venture between Spur, a festivals of politics, art and ideas and the WSO's New Music Festival, participants will include Bruce Duggan, Deco Dawson, Frank Albo and Esyllt Jones.

Today, let's take a look at BLANK CITY playing WFG's Cinematheque Saturday, Jan. 25 @ 9PM. Be sure to come at 7pm and get tickets for this AND Sara Driver's WHEN PIGS FLY. Jim Jarmusch - IN THE FLESH - will be in attendance to present the 7pm show. BLANK CITY (at 9pm) is a terrific documentary portrait of the New York filmmaking/music scene that paralleled Winnipeg's own scenes at the same time - a Winnipeg forgotten save by those who lived it and the films and music that survive.

Jim Jarmusch on
NYC's 70s No Wave Cinema Movement:

The inspirational thing
was people doing it
because they felt it.

DEBBIE HARRY: OUR LIVES,
IT FELT LIKE OUR LIVES WERE MOVIES.
IT WAS VERY CINEMATIC.

Blank City (2010) ****
dir. Celine Dahnier

Starring: Amos Poe, John Lurie, Steve Buscemi, James Nares, Jim Jarmusch, John Waters, Sara Driver, Lizzie Borden, Susan Seidelman, Ann Magnuson, Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, Beth B. Scott B., Debbie Harry, Lydia Lunch, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, Wayne County

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Blank City is such an immersive, joyous and always thrilling movie experience that a little part of me hopes that audiences not as obsessed with movies, queer culture and punk as I am will get as much pleasure out of it as I did. I think they will, but probably in different ways.

The converted will feel like they've died and gone to Heaven while others will either wish their most formative years as young people had been during the late 60s, 70s and a smidgen of the early 80s or, at the least, they'll come away with a new appreciation for the beginnings of truly DIY cinema and the sheer joy from living as art and art as living.

Director Celine Dahnier and Producer/Editor Vanessa Roworth weave a thoroughly entertaining narrative with a tight three-act structure (beginnings, heydays, end of days), truly inspiring, informative interviews and lots of great clips (with driving music that propels us with considerable force).

We hear and see a lot of Amos Poe - and so we should. Poe is, for many, the Godfather, the spirit, the soul of the entire movement of underground filmmaking in New York - coined by the great film critic Jim Hoberman as "No Wave". Poe describes his early beginnings as a photographer and tells a great story about visiting relatives in Czechoslovakia and how he eventually journeyed deep into "Dracula Country" within the Carpathian Mountains to surreptitiously "steal the souls" of superstitious rural country-folk with a long lens.

Returning to New York after Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to assert their Totalitarian power, Poe, like so many young people in America, especially artists, was ultimately gobsmacked by the sheer devastation within his country. The assassinations of JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, the seemingly endless Vietnam War, the lies and corruption of government, the civil unrest, wholesale murder and assaults upon Americans, on American soil by Americans.

In Canada, we felt much of the same strife in other ways - firstly as a trickle-up effect from our neighbours south of the 49th parallel, but secondly, the more insidiously and subtly creepy manner in which the Canadian Government preyed on its most vulnerable, its intelligentsia, its First Nation Peoples, its Queers, its artists and anyone not subscribing to the Status Quo.

Artists Ann Magnuson and James Nares respectively note how punk rock was an ideal response to the remnants of post-war Leave It To Beaver blandness that permeated America, clutching on to control for dear life and emitting death gasps that seemed to signal something all together new waiting in the wings. What this movement became was something that the young artists of New York embraced with a fervour (a "fuck you" movement/scene that, in its own way was happening in Canada at the same time in direct conflict with reigning Protestantism in Toronto and backwards, insular midwestern homogeneity in Winnipeg.)

Amos Poe spent endless nights hanging in bars where friends like Patti Smith, The Talking Heads, The Ramones, Wayne County, Debbie Harry and Television played (initially) in obscurity, save for the "scene" in New York. Poe had long since abandoned his first loves, still cameras and the 8mm home movie camera and hung in these joints shooting the bands on silent black and white 16mm and record their music (not synched, of course) on cassette tape.

Out of this came Poe's highly influential Blank Generation. Once he had all the footage, he needed to edit it. He rented an editing room from the Maysles Brothers (Gimme Shelter) for $40, but was only allowed one straight 24-hour period to cut the film. Poe fuelled himself with speed, cut for 24-hours, then premiered the film the next night at the famed punk bar CBGBs.

From here, underground filmmaking in New York exploded and this was TRULY underground. It had nothing to do with the equally cool, but snobby artistes amongst the experimental film crowd, this was a wave of cinema created out of the punk movement and sought to capture the energy of the "scene", but to also tell stories and, of course, with virtually no money.

They wrote the rules and broke the rules.

The city was bankrupt, and the lower East Side of New York looked like a blasted-out war zone. Whole buildings stood empty and while most "sane" people left NYC, the "freaks" stayed and even more descended upon it.

People wanted to make movies. They had no money, but this mattered not. They made them anyway. James Nares describes how artists could, for virtually nothing, secure astounding digs that served as studios: "We lived like itinerant kings in these broken down palaces." This truly became the antithesis to Hollywood and the mainstream. In fact, there was almost the sense that the Lower East Side WAS a movie studio, but with absolutely nobody in charge.

Blank City blasts through these glorious days and it's so much fun that you as an audience member hope, unrealistically, for it not to end. After all, the movie is a Who's Who of great filmmaking talent. Steve Buscemi seems to be in almost every movie, John Lurie not only makes music, but makes movies. Scott and Beth B, Lizzie Borden, Sara Driver, Susan Seidelman, Jim Jarmusch, John Waters, Nick Zedd and Richard Kern are but a few of those who flourished here (and are expertly interviewed by the documentary's filmmakers).

And, an end to all good things must come. Blank City reveals how the neighbourhood becomes gentrified and the lives led in a particular place and time are altered forever - as are the films. Some stay, others move on. What doesn't change is that for a glorious time, a scene of talented young people raged against the machine and made movies that captured a way of life and (both the filmmakers and their films) happily live on to influence and inform new generations.

If anything, Blank City is proof positive that Waves in filmmaking (or any great art) cannot be manufactured. They must come from the lifestyle, the gut, the artistry and invention of young passionate artists who find each other, support each other, make movies WITH each other, FOR each other and in so doing create a unique and indelible stamp upon the greatest magic of all.

The magic of movies.

After seeing Blank City on a big screen, it makes for an extra-special keeper disc for filmmakers, film lovers and/or old punks. Anyone who makes movies, cares about movies and can't live without movies must see and own this film. More importantly, after seeing it, do whatever you have to do to see the movie that started it all, Poe's Blank Generation and after you see that, dig up as many of the rest as you can. They make for great viewing. Blank City on Blu-Ray, looks and sounds GREAT. The disc is also chock-full of some superb supplementals. It's via Kino-Lorber.

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MOURNING HAS BROKEN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Death, Denial and the Decimation of Dreams

January 24, 2014, 12:14 pm
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Mourning Has Broken (2014) ****
Dir. Brett M. Butler, Jason G. Butler
Starring: Robert Nolan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There aren't many actors in Canada these days who are as intense, versatile and blessed with a wonderful sexy-ugly 70s-style screen presence as the criminally underused Robert Nolan. He is, however, quickly becoming the go-to guy for Canadian filmmakers of the TRULY independent persuasion.

In another time and place, Nolan would have been a bonafide star - not in the pretty boy mould, but rather in the chiseled and alternately tough and sensitive manner of a Gene Hackman, a Ron Leibman or even a Harvey Keitel. He's got leading man sensibilities, but the kind that would lead to what I like to think of as starring character roles. And yes, he's got the stuff, obviously, to be a great character actor in supporting roles, but he's proven thus far to be so goddamn good, I want to see as much of the guy onscreen as possible.

That's no problem in Mourning Has Broken, the Butler (Brett and Jason) Brothers' chilling, funny and heartbreaking contemporary equivalent to the grand tradition of American existential male angst and the Canadian beautiful loser genres of the 70s. Nolan, as a grieving husband is onscreen from beginning to end and pretty much provides the film's sole point of view. In this sense, it's impossible to take your eyes off him, but most importantly, you don't want to.

The Butlers have created a compelling and mature dramatic rendering of one man's denial of his wife's death and his refusal to accept how his simple dreams have been decimated by a callous world of ignorance, stupidity, selfishness, mean-spiritedness and - perhaps worst of all - mediocrity. He's as mad as Howard Beale in Lumet and Chayefsky's Network - psychologically unhinged, to be sure, but mostly, he's mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore.

The film follows the Husband on a day of mourning. Well, it should be a day of mourning, but he has a list of errands, activities and basic desires to plough through and it's his refusal to pause and consider the loss of his beloved wife that is, ultimately, how he mourns and how we, as the audience, share his grief. At first, though, it's a grief worth sharing. Along with the husband, we suffer through every horrendous scrap of white-bread existence - obnoxious neighbours, rude clerks, asshole drivers, moronic small talk, bombastic bullies and creepy booze hounds. God help the wicked. Our hero is in no mood to take shit.

An obvious comparison point might be the mediocre, overrated Falling Down, but for me, Mourning Has Broken comes a bit closer to the savage satire of Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America. It never explodes into the extremities of Goldthwait's film, but it does explode with considerable force since it's a film that always feels like it's roiling just below the surface. Nolan's understated performance keeps us completely glued to the proceedings and though we know he'll become truly unhinged, it's in the tiny, almost invisible details where we feel tense. When the Husband explodes, it comes when we least expect it.

The film's sense of time, place and character seems so beautifully captured and so delicately subtle, I wish the sibling directors had placed more faith in their milieu and miss-en-scene (and Nolan) and refrained from including the mediocre score. The film's soundscape is so delicate and beautifully wrought, the cheesy guitar riffs, blarts and dum-dum-wanh-wanh moments telegraph or assert or reiterate emotions and actions in such obvious ways, and finally, it annoys in all the wrong ways. The only necessary music in the entire picture is during a haunting record store sequence and a terrific montage of the film's pop-music namesake during the end titles. If there was a film that could have lived without score and instead built on the expert use of sound, this was it.

Given how dreadful most English Canadian films are, I think it's worth pointing out that Mourning Has Broken carried the hefty price tag of $1000 via Ingrid Veninger and Stacey Donens' 1-K Wave. Most filmmakers in English Canada need only look at the invention and humanity on display here and rightfully feel the shame they most richly deserve.

"Mourning Has Broken" is in theatrical release via Indie-Can and unveiling first-run at Toronto's Royal Theatre.
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TESLA IN NEW YORK - Greg Klymkiw's Report on the World Premiere of the work-in-progress Opera collaboration between filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and composer Phil Kline at the Centennial Concert Hall, January 26, 2014 during the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival

January 26, 2014, 8:30 pm
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History is made in Historic Winnipeg,
the Forgotten Winter City of Death, Dreams and Dashed Hopes

JIM JARMUSCH:
"MUSIC is the most beautiful form of artistic expression.
FILM is the most closely related artistic form to music.
IMAGINATION is always the beginning of any
Artistic or Scientific endeavour."
Tesla in New York (2014) *****
World Premiere - A work-in-progress of the New Opera
A Collaboration Between Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and Composer Phil Kline
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival
Centennial Concert Hall - January 26, 2014
Artistic Directors and Curators: Alexander Mickelthwaite and Matthew Patton

Report By Greg Klymkiw

TESLA IN NEW YORK: Metal Machine Music on Lithium
A night sky, an ocean, wisps of white and a blue, so radiantly, yet alternately nocturnal and aquatic, cast a glow upon a stage empty of human figures on a landscape of instruments, music stands, speakers and amps - all standing forlorn in silhouette, waiting to be held, caressed and lovingly brought to life by the warmth of a human touch as the vaguely industrial aural pulsations of an unsettling drone wash over all in its path. It's like Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" on Lithium - so uneasy, so disorienting, yet so lulling - a magnet drawing us closer to either death or rebirth. Or both.

This is the appetizer to the main course of several new musical pieces performed by a myriad of brilliant, talented performers which, in turn reflects the public world premiere of the beginnings of a new opera entitled Tesla in New York, a collaboration between film director Jim Jarmusch and composer Phil Kline. These childhood chums, now well into their august years, have come together, bearing the armament of their mutual love, appreciation and admiration of the legendary inventor Nikola Tesla.

The performance is unveiled in the acoustically rich Centennial Concert Hall and though, in typical Winnipeg fashion, a Winnipeg Jets game proves to be enough of a rival that the 2000+ seats appear mostly empty - save for about one half the capacity of the majestic hall's Orchestra level - those Winter City denizens who are not eyeball-glued to the town's newly-restored-to-NHL-glory Jets are treated to an event of such artistic magnitude that they will carry the memories of it to their progeny and subsequent generations, long before they flutter away to their eventual respective deaths with the sounds and images of a work that seems destined for greatness, dancing across their cerebella and into the warm, white light that awaits us all.

This was, to coin a phrase from one of my mentors, the late, great Meyer Nackimson, the legendary octogenarian film distributor who refused to retire and ran the MGM/UA distribution branch office on Hargrave Street in Winnipeg until he was forced to leave the movie business when the office was completely shut down in the late 80s:

"Kid, Estelle and I saw the picture, the other night and it was ONE HELLUVA GOOD SHOW!"

TESLA IN NEW YORK
Though what we witnessed was indeed one helluva good show, it was not a motion picture in the traditional sense (and the late Meyer and wife Estelle could have only viewed the proceedings from the Heavens), Tesla in New York was most definitely a profoundly moving experience. Like so much great art presented within the picture-perfect magic of the proscenium, it was a visual and aural treat that made expert use of the stage in terms of the placement of singers, musicians and conductor/artistic director Alexander Mickelthwate (adorned ever-so stylishly in a perfectly fitting suit of Winnipeg Grey as he wielded his mighty baton).

The simple, but beautifully focused and operated lighting cast its sweet glow over the renderings of exquisite music whilst, most notably, the aqua-blue screen morphed into an astounding montage of early Edison motion picture footage, edited by Deco Dawson (who, according to Jarmusch, has "liquid hands") and Matthew Patton (the New Music Festival's fancifully chimeric co-curator) and under the guidance of Mr. Jarmusch himself (who self-decribed his own words of directions in this matter as an "oblique strategy").

Oblique or otherwise, it all pays off.

With Mickelththwaite and company, plus the audience itself, being enveloped in the historic Edison footage (stolen for this production on, it seems, Tesla's behalf in a perverse retaliatory act for all that Edison stole from Tesla - and, in fact, what Edison pilfered from pretty much everybody), I simply cannot imagine any subsequent production of this work without motion picture footage.

Though I was somewhat embarrassed to have used the cliched word "electric" to describe the production to Messrs. Mickelthwaite and Patton in their sumptuous Green Room after the show (well stocked with a fridge full of lovely spring water from the majestic Loni Beach in Gimli, Manitoba), I think, in retrospect, that it's perfectly fine to have used "electric" to describe the performance of Tesla in New York. Tesla, the Serbian inventor from Croatia who eventually found fame in the New World was nothing if not the Father of all things electric (in spite of Edison's thefts) and it felt to me like the music and the performance were definitely infused with the very quality of electricity - aurally, emotionally, thematically and yes, at times, even visually.

Take, for example, the stunning, partially improvised Overture wherein Mickelthwate guided singers and musicians alike to provide both melody and a fluffy, comfy bed for the onstage extension of the Lou-Reed-like Metal Machine Music drones in the pre-show. Kline and Jarmusch took to opposite ends of the stage and created some of the most haunting electric guitar feedback I've yet to experience - signalling precisely what this show feels like it's all about - the force and power of electricity and all the ramifications and permutations of its magic as borne from the mad genius of Tesla's mind, and to put a perfectly appropriate fine point to it - Tesla's boundless imagination.

Once the several pieces beyond this staggering overture began, one could, at points, gently close one's eyes and launch into a very private place in our respective imaginations to recreate Teslas's heart and soul, allowing Kline's often heartbreaking and alternately, elatedly-soaring score to take us to those hidden, magical places of what Nikola Tesla wrought for us all, but what, he in fact, wrought for himself. The evening's musicians and singers were all in superb and inspired form, but it would be remiss of me to not make special mention of the stunning work wrought by mezzo-soprano Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek whose voice took us to places of both darkness and romance.

I must also single out counter tenor David James (of the astonishing a cappella Hilliard Ensemble who so gorgeously opened the evening's program). James feels like he fits this score like a glove. When I think of Tesla, I am always infused with thoughts of madness, genius, passion and an overwhelming sense of the unrequited (in terms of both love AND career). James took me to places I both wanted to be and didn't want to be and I can think of no better approach to a figure as important and complex as Nikola Tesla.

In all, the importance of this event to the cultural fabric of our new century seems clear. This was history in the making and from this point forward, one can but marvel and dream as to what magic will ultimately be wrought when Kline and Jarmusch move forward with this work that will explore one of the great human beings to have ushered us all into the 20th Century.

Now, however, as we face in this 21st Century both the power and danger of manmade resources and accomplishments, Tesla seems even more vital a figure for us to consider. To do so with art, with imagination, with music, with a myriad of multi-media and live performance seems very much a no-brainer. After the evening's performance, Jarmusch cited the following inventions as the greatest manmade accomplishments: "Mapping the human venom, the Hubble telescope, the electric guitar and the bikini." One would like to think Tesla might approve.

Good Goddamn! My appetite has been whetted.

The buffet will follow and it will be sumptuous.

"Tesla in New York", a collaboration between Phil Kline and Jim Jarmusch is currently a work-in-progress for an opera that will eventually take the world by storm. Thanks to the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival, the first gold bricks have been laid down to take all of us to the Castle of Operatic Oz - a place of beauty, of imagination and wonder. Nikola Tesla himself would have it no other way.
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SURVIVAL LESSONS: THE GREG KLYMKIW STORY - Review By Greg Klymkiw -Forgotten Winnipeg, series of works exploring the mythology of "LittleChicago" at the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque, co-presented by theWinnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival and SPUR

January 26, 2014, 11:16 pm
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GUY MADDIN on his Longtime Producer GREG KLYMKIW:
"As roommates, occasional nude sightings are inevitable.
One day I spied Greggy sleeping naked, his posterior facing me.
He looked like one of those cute clubbed baby seals."
Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story (2013) ****
Dir. Ryan McKenna
Starring: Greg Klymkiw, Guy Maddin, George Toles, Bruce Duggan, Tracy Traeger, Dave Barber, Matthew Rankin, Patrick Lowe

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's a grey day in Toronto. What other days can there be in the capitol of Canadian pole-up-the-ass presbyterianism? The camera focuses in tight on the scowling face of a moustachioed, chain-smoking misanthrope in a dog park. Someone off-camera interrupts his interview to compliment him on his off-camera dog. "Yeah," he mutters under his breath. "Really nice dog I have here. Come a little closer and she'll take your fuckin' stupid hand off."

This is Greg Klymkiw - film producer, writer and long-time senior creative consultant at Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre - and he's the subject of Ryan McKenna's one-hour documentary about the early days of Winnipeg's prairie post-modernist new wave of indigenous, independent cinema. Blending interviews with the man himself, friends, colleagues and a generous supply of film clips and archival footage, McKenna presents a funny, unbridled portrait of the curmudgeonly film obsessed pioneer of indie production in the middle of nowhere - Winnipeg.

The movie follows Klymkiw's life as a North End lad who alternated between programming rep cinemas, buying films for small town movie theatres, writing uncompromising (and according to screenwriter George Toles, "incendiary") film reviews, conceiving, producing and starring in the perverse community cable cult hit "Survival", producing all the great early films of Guy Maddin and John Paizs and last, but not least, creating an entire mythology around the films being made in Winnipeg as the Director of Distribution and Marketing for the Winnipeg Film Group wherein he masterminded a marketing campaign to bring the films of Winnipeg to the entire world.

Okay, I'm sure you've gathered I'm reviewing a movie that's about, uh, me. It's a strange thing to do, but I have to admit that even though it is about me, I can genuinely attest to its quality, entertainment value and the filmmaking prowess of the talented young director Ryan McKenna who insanely decided I was worthy of my own documentary portrait.

When I first saw the finished product, to say I was delighted and flattered is an understatement. However, I needed to know myself, if the movie was really any good. So, I girded my loins and applied every single element of critical analysis that I'd volley mercilessly upon the shitloads of films I had to mentor at the Canadian Film Centre over thirteen years. The results of this stripping-away of my biases were, I'm happy to report, successful enough to be able to proclaim that, yes indeed, it's a fucking terrific little movie - especially for anyone interested in making independent, indigenous films in the middle of the second armpit of Canada (the first smelly, hairy armpit being Regina).

The real proof in the pudding for me was watching the film with a few audiences. Good deal here. Big laughs were had by all, pretty much from beginning to end.

The most important thing to note, though, is that Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story is playing within the context of a film festival co-presented by SPUR, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival and the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque as part of the ongoing series entitled "Forgotten Winnipeg". The film fits the thematic elements of this event like a glove. We're essentially dealing with a biographical portrait that wallows in the mythology of a guy (me) who loves mythology so much that he spends most of his professional life as someone who creates mythologies of all kinds and is finally a proponent of the famous credo John Ford proclaimed loudly and clearly at the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: When the truth becomes legend, what do you ultimately print. The legend or the truth?

The legend, of course.

You never let the truth get in the way of telling a good story. McKenna expertly plays with this throughout and as such, creates a pretty indelible portrait of friendship, mutual love for cinema, the absurd and finally, the realties of actually making and marketing movies that nobody cares about - until, of course, someone creates an atmosphere of "must-see" that lays down a fluffy, inviting blanket for all to dive into with relish and anticipation.

So, if you're in the 'Peg this week, you could do a lot worse than spend money on seeing this.

"Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story" plays at the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque Thu Jan 30, 2014 at 7:00 PM. Get tickets and more info HERE. Oh yeah, Greg Klymkiw (uh, me) will be there in the flesh to provide added entertainment value.

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NEGATIVIPEG - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Forgotten Winnipeg Film Series presented by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival, SPUR and the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque presents a powerful portrait of racism, media backlash and forgiveness.

January 25, 2014, 2:49 pm
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Negativipeg (2010) *****
dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Rory Lepine, Burton Cummings

Review By Greg Klymkiw


This is, without a doubt, one of the greatest short films I have ever seen. Given that I've seen a lot of them (thousands upon thousands), I'm happy to proclaim that this is one of the greatest short films ever made - in the world, ever! As directed by Matthew Rankin, it's a mere 15 minutes in length, but its impact upon those who see it will last a lifetime, if not several lifetimes.

On the surface, the film is a short documentary look at the events of one fateful night in the north end of Winnipeg in 1985 when a young man, one Rory Lepine, wandered into the now-gone Salter Street 7-11 to buy a Pizza Pop and was confronted by a racist employee who mistook him for someone else (all North End Native people look alike, you see) and demanded he leave as he'd been banned from the store.

An argument ensued.

As sparks flew, a tall, hulking gentleman with long locks of messy hair, a bushy cop moustache and a black leather jacket, strode into the store. Assuming the worst, he attacked Mr. Lepine. Mr. Lepine did what any north end Winnipeg lad (including me) might do in such a situation. He pulled a full bottle of Labatt's Blue beer and chucked it at the biker-like do-gooder. The bottle connected with the man's head, smashed and sent him to the ground, blood gushing from his dome. Mr. Lepine, fearing the worst would follow, began to mercilessly hoof the man repeatedly.

For his attempts to defend his honour against a racist knob and to defend himself physically against a tough, old biker, Lepine was arrested, tried and as a kid barely out of his teens, incarcerated in the notorious Headingly Jail wherein he suffered beatings and shiv attacks for several months.

His victim, you see, was no biker. It was songwriter-singer Burton Cummings, the front man for The Guess Who - the Winnipeg rock band that soared to the worldwide music charts with the likes of "American Woman", "Clap For The Wolfman", "No Sugar Tonight" and . . . the list goes on and on. Cummings went on to enjoy a stellar solo career and even flirted with motion picture immortality as the romantic lead of the 20th Century Fox feature film Melanie.

Cummings's reaction to this attack included a barrage of insults against the city of Winnipeg. Though he was the injured party and was viciously, physically assaulted, the media backlash against his anti-'Peg tirades was even MORE vicious.

As for poor, young Mr. Lepine, we heard very little. This was Winnipeg, after all. He was just another North End "Injun'" thrown into stir.

Rankin's film brilliantly and deftly allows Lepine to finally have a voice in the whole affair. Intercut with archival footage of Burton Cummings slowly coming to terms with the fact that Winnipeg was indeed his home, interviews with the local - ahem - journalists who trashed Cummings and haunting montages of derelict homes in the core area and north end of Winnipeg, Negativipeg is an important document of the disenfranchised in a neighbourhood where violence is a way of life - especially in response to racism of the most insidious kind.

It is also a film of redemption and healing. Twenty five years later, Cummings continues to remain silent on this event. At the time, Rory Lepine, didn't, for even a second, recognize Cummings. All he saw was a burly, leather-jacketed WHITE thug trying to take him down. That said, in one of the most devastatingly heartbreaking moments in this film (and, in fact, film history), Lepine admits that if he ever saw Cummings again, he'd ask him to sing a song.

For my money, I'd hope Cummings would sing a rhapsody from his classic solo album "Dream of a Child":

For I.... Will play a rhapsody
Cleverly disguise it, so it's not been heard before
And I.... Will sing a lullaby
Let you know I'm near you through the night to keep you warm.

I.... Will play a rhapsody

"Negativipeg" plays with the classic "Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets" (***½) and an alternate take on the aforementioned tale of Cummings/Lepine, "Farenheit 7-11" (***) during the Forgotten Winnipeg Film Series presented by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival, SPUR and the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque on January 30, 2014. For info and tickets, visit the Film Group website http://www.winnipegfilmgroup.com/cinematheque/forgotten_winnipeg_death_by_popcorn.aspx.
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RIO LOBO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Ho-Hum Howard Hawks is better than no Howard Hawks at all as this amiable, watchable John Wayne western vehicle proves.

December 21, 2013, 10:25 pm
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Rio Lobo (1970) **1/2
dir. Howard Hawks
Starring John Wayne, Jorge Rivero, Christopher Mitchum, Jennifer O’Neill, Sherry Lansing and Jack Elam

Review By Greg Klymkiw

While I have fond memories of Rio Lobo from when I first saw it on the big screen as a kid with Dad, I should have guessed something was wrong when my memories were little more than assuming I’d enjoyed the picture. No other details were seared into my brain save for the opening train robbery sequence. After seeing this movie 41 years later on Blu-ray release, I can definitely vouch for the train robbery – it’s a genuinely kick-ass set piece.

Having the distinction of being the last movie directed by the great Howard Hawks, this might perhaps be the only reason not to completely dismiss it. That said, Rio Lobo is a reasonably pleasant 114-minute duster. In spite of the familiar territory of the plot, the screenplay, co-written by Leigh Brackett, is a loose re-telling of Hawks’s classic Rio Bravo and the entertaining but not-so-classic El Dorado (both of which were also written by Brackett). And gosh-darn-it, the picture is not without merit.

Beginning during the civil war, the story involves a Union Colonel (played by John Wayne) whose pay train is robbed by a couple of Confederates (played by Jorge Rivero and Christopher Mitchum). Wayne realizes they’re the two responsible for the hard, dirty work, but the robbery itself has been ordered by someone inside the Union army. When the war is over, Wayne becomes pals with Mitchum and Rivero (he views their pre-war actions as just that – an “act of war”) and the three of them team up to track down the Union traitor (whose actions Wayne views as an “act of treason”). This all converges when the trio helps out the settlers in and around the nearby Rio Lobo, who are beleaguered and bullied by a corrupt land baron. (I’ll let you guess whom the Union Army traitor turns out to be.) At one point, like the aforementioned Hawks westerns, a motley assortment of good guys hole up in a jail whilst the bad guys lay siege.

So in terms of plot, it’s mostly a case of been there done that, but there are worse crimes a western can commit. It’s all in the delivery.

On the plus side, the action set pieces are extremely thrilling. Hawks was wise to hire ace action and stunt genius Yakima Canutt (the man solely responsible for the legendary chariot race in Wyler’s Ben-Hur, among other great cinematic rollercoaster rides), and his second unit direction includes some truly masterful carnage and derring-do.

Another good move on Hawks’s part was re-enlisting screenwriter Brackett to his cause. Not only is the plotting reasonably solid, the movie is peppered with some really crisp dialogue. The problem is that so many of the actors in the film are completely at a loss as to how to deliver their lines.

John Wayne seems up to the challenge, but having to play opposite the sad likes of Jennifer O’Neill (her line-thudding monotone is especially egregious) and the handsome but stilted Jorge Rivero appears to visibly drive the Duke to distraction onscreen. On the other hand, Wayne is such a great actor and true star that one is still glued to him throughout and happy enough to amble along the familiar trail his character is on. Our first introduction to Wayne is especially terrific and sets the tone of his character perfectly. When a young officer approaches Wayne and apologizes for disturbing him, Wayne responds in his deadpan drawl, “You were told to disturb me. You’d have been a lot sorrier if you hadn’t.” Gotta love the Duke!

One also assumes Brackett had a hand in the many funny jokes involving Wayne’s paunchy physique. As the story goes, when Hawks was running into trouble with William Faulkner on the screenplay for The Big Sleep he demanded the immediate assistance of “that guy Brackett” to punch things up. Having written primarily science fiction to that point, Brackett also wrote an amazing hard-boiled detective novel, “No Good for a Corpse,” and the writing endeared itself to Hawks as just what he needed. Throughout many pictures, including those of Hawks, “that guy Brackett” handled HERSELF with the craft and aplomb of an old pro – that she most definitely was. My favourite John-Wayne-directed joke in Rio Lobo is when some strapping young men lift his dead weight after knocking him out cold and one of them quips, “He’s heavier than a baby whale”.

The banter delivered via the screenplay to O’Neill and Rivero is exceptionally well written, but neither actor can attack it with the ping-pong ferocity that was such a hallmark of Hawks’s great comedies and most certainly not to the level displayed by Bogie and Bacall in Hawks’s first teaming with Brackett in The Big Sleep. As the film proceeds, one can almost feel the frustration Hawks must have been fraught with as scene after scene involving these two drags the movie down to some considerable depths.

Much better in the supporting cast is future producer and studio head Sherry Lansing who proves to be a gorgeous and terrific actress. If only she’d had O’Neill’s role. There’s also able support from Robert Mitchum’s son Christopher, who is a lightweight compared to Dad but attractive and affable enough. He’d have been great in Rivero’s role. Thankfully, there are some wonderful old hands like Jack Elam (chewing the scenery like only he could) and a nice bit from Hank (Ole Mose) Worden.

If you’re a fan of Hawks, westerns, good writing (albeit butchered by some awful actors) and The Duke, Rio Lobo will prove to be worth seeing. How memorable it will be is another question, but I can assure you that my second helping after four decades was not without merit.

"Rio Lobo" is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Home Video. It has no extra features, but the movie looks just fine in high-definition, and thankfully some over-zealous flunky in the transfer suite hasn’t seen fit to remove the grain and given the film some quality colour balance. Should you buy it? I would. But that’s me.

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LA GRANDE BELLEZZA (THE GREAT BEAUTY) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Sorrentino's Spectacle a BIG SCREEN affair

January 31, 2014, 4:05 am
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The Great Beauty (2013) *****
Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Starring: Toni Servillo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the ride will have been worth it.

"The Great Beauty" is nominated for a 2014 Best Foreign Language Oscar and currently in theatrical release via Mongrel Media, playing AT TIFF BELL LIGBHTBOX in Toronto.
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