I Spit On Your Grave - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (2010)

I Spit On Your Grave (2010) Dir. Steven R. Monroe
Starring: Sarah Butler, Daniel Franzese, Jeff Branson, Rodney Eastman, Tracey Walter, Andrew Howard and Chad Lindberg

**

By Greg Klymkiw

During the question and answer session following the Toronto After Dark Film Festival screening of his remake of Meir Zarchi's inept 1978 scumbag movie of the same name, director Steven R. Monroe responded to queries from the moderator and audience with a degree of humility and sensitivity that one wouldn't expect from a filmmaker who had just served up an extremely well-crafted 107 minutes of gang rape followed by torture-porn styled revenge.

Given the controversial nature of the picture he was asked if there were any crew members who walked off the film due to the extreme subject matter. He then referred to some "idiot" on the local Shreveport, Louisiana crew with a "drinking problem" who up and disappeared, but that nobody else abandoned the proceedings and certainly not due to the graphic recreation of various indignities perpetrated against virtually every character in the movie.

Monroe, for some reason, was bemused to relate this story about the "idiot" and perhaps it was because he thought it was funny or infused with irony. All it was infused with, frankly, was considerable insensitivity towards a fellow human being who might well be an alcoholic and as such, is/was suffering from a horrible, debilitating disease that should inspire empathy at the very least and certainly not derision.

I honestly couldn't figure out why Monroe chose to relate this anecdote with a goofy grin accompanied by a bit of nervous laughter, but it came close to tempering my response to the movie - which was already not all that positive to begin with. I girded my loins prior to writing this piece and tossed it off as perhaps nervousness and/or being thrown by the question.

Ultimately though, it reminded me what a danger it is to art when an artist comes across one way while publicly discussing their work and then foolishly and/or mistakenly throws something out that contradicts his initial feelings towards the work he's created. All of Monroe's attempts to deflect the notion that he was exploiting sexual violence for the edification of scumbags became so much dust in the wind.

So, does the film exploit sexual violence? Of course it does. In all fairness, however, all movies - to varying degrees - are exploitation. One manipulates and exploits in order to derive an audience response, so I'm not going to level any ill will towards the notion of exploitation in the movies, since this is the job of filmmakers - every last one of them (whether they want to believe and/or admit it or not).

That said, I did wonder, just as I wondered when I first saw Meir Zarchi's original 1978 rendering of this tale what, exactly, was the point of this movie? Zarchi's picture was so dreadful, one could barely consider it anything other than a disgusting pile of crap thrown together to give a bunch of sick fucks their jollies.

Zarchi's movie is what it is.

Monroe's is a bit more problematic - especially because it's very well made. In spite of Monroe's craft and that of his key creatives and actors, I still am not sure why the movie exists other than to make a buck off of revelling in the suffering of its characters.

That, I suppose, is the only point. One can try to justify it on a moral or political level - but that's all it would be, justification. I say, let's just call a spade a spade without condemnation. The movie is there simply to shock and titillate. End of story.

And, speaking of story, such as it is, the movie (for those who've been on Mars) is about a woman who seeks solace in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, gets gang-raped and then gets the most gruesome, satisfying revenge. There you have it. There not much more to it than that.

Does it do its job well?

Extremely.

There really isn't a single bad performance in the movie. Each actor playing the rapists is suitably and believably vile and reprehensible. The performance of Sarah Butler as the female victim is certainly brave and delivered with complete professionalism. I will admit, though, it was hard to buy her as a professional novelist since she carried herself with the air of a young freelance magazine journalist trying her hand at writing a novel. That might have been more "realistic", but the filmmakers chose a more implausible role for its heroine.

I will not even begin to suggest that the gang-rape is handled with any sort of sensitivity, but it is definitely presented in the most horrific, graphic fashion and seldom does the extended sequence resort to inspiring (or even attempting to inspire) hard-ons amongst the fellas in the audience (thank Heaven for tender mercies). Monroe shoots the rape in a way that pretty much forces an audience to react as it did - with cheers and hoots of approval when the rape victim eventually gets back at her violators in the most grotesque, nasty, painful ways. I should, perhaps also mention that just because the gang-rape is not shot with the intent to titillate, chances are good that with certain segments of the audience, it will.

So, if you've a desire to see:

(a) a man forced to watch a video monitor with fish hooks keeping his eyelids open whilst fresh fish guts, thrown in his open mutilated eyes, inspire crows to peck his eyeballs out;

(b) a man drowned in a tub full of lye until his head and face are rendered to a pulpy mass;

(c) a man castrated and forced to choke to death on his own testicles and penis;

(d) a man repeatedly sodomized with a shot gun which then goes off, the bullet plunging through his anus, out his mouth and hitting yet another rapist in the head;

then this, ladies and gentlemen, is the movie for you.

Enjoy!

The Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2010 schedule can be accessed HERE.

Centurion - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (2010)

Centurion (2010) dir. Neil Marshall
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West and Olga Kurylenko

**

By Greg Klymkiw

Neil Marshall is one terrific director, and he comes to every film he makes with the pedigree of being an editor - in fact, two of his directorial efforts, Dog Soldiers and Doomsday were edited by himself. Sadly, it is the editing that fails his latest picture Centurion.

Marshall's brawny screenplay, loosely based on a historical record that is itself a bit murky, focuses on imagining what might have happened to an entire Roman Legion in what is now Great Britain in the early part of the first millennium. It's a solid, simple script that should have yielded a much better picture.

It tells the story of a brave centurion, Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) who promises his superior, General Titus Virilus (Dominic West) that he will lead a small group of Roman soldiers to safety after the entire legion has been savagely decimated in a guerrilla-styled offensive perpetrated by the merciless Picts. The rest of the movie is one long chase scene punctuated by dollops of vicious fighting. Leading the Picts is the sumptuous near perfection that is Olga Kurylenko as Etain, a warrior goddess who had her tongue cut out by the Romans when she was a child.

Kurylenko is quickly becoming one of my favourite actresses. Not only is she mind-blowingly gorgeous, the camera loves her like nothing else and I appreciate the diversity of roles she takes on. She could be an action star on the level of her Ukrainian compatriot Milla Jovovich (and probably even bigger), but if she plays her cards right, she also has the stuff to take on more roles in non-genre pieces and still deliver bigtime. In Centurion, she conveys a wide range of emotions even though, and perhaps especially because, she is forced to present her character without the benefit of dialogue. She conveys everything through action.

Speaking of "action" (in the Jerry Bruckheimer sense of the word), with a picture like Centurion, how the action scenes play out is virtually the whole shooting match. Unfortunately, much of the film feels as if it were edited with a series of multiple rapid golf club swings and slices. The first 20 minutes of battle and exposition is so choppily cut, that it's almost hard to believe the film comes from such a precise craftsman as Marshall. One only has to recall the superb craft in Marshall's The Descent where the cutting was measured for maximum impact. Even worse in Centurion, is how the relatively easy-to-follow setup is rendered utterly confusing and takes far too much effort to piece together while watching the movie. (This takes some doing considering how simple it all really is.)

It's obvious Marshall had more than enough coverage to allow for a cutting style that could hang back a bit, yet the movie's story and set pieces are foisted upon us using the currently fashionable quick cutting. Where this annoying cutting hurts the most is in the action scenes. For all of the great fight choreography and Marshall's exceptional eye, it's pretty much all for naught. The only sequence that packs a wallop the way it should is when the handful of centurions are on the run from Kurylenko and her bloodthirsty Pict warriors. The sequence works because Marshall's compositions are exquisite and the less frenetic cutting style allows the action to play out in ways that are both emotional and rooted squarely in narrative.

I detest this wham-bam-thank-you-mam style of cutting because it has little regard for how a cut can not only move things forward, but, in fact, disregards the fact that a cut is in and of itself - inherently dramatic. The cutting here has little drama - just noise and fury. One of the few directors who knows how to make this kind of cutting work is the extraordinary Paul Greengrass with his Bourne pictures, Bloody Sunday, United 93 and his latest thriller Green Zone. But with his pictures, they are designed from the get-go to be cut in this fashion and you can even tell that he knows exactly where his herky jerky shots are going and how they'll cut together. Alas, when the cutting style is employed in such a haphazard, all-over-the-place fashion as in Centurion, one fells that its makers are trying too hard - the , effect is visceral, but seldom works in service to the narrative.

The photography, production design and performances are all fine, and Marshall's distinctive approach to onscreen violence remains as vivid and original as ever. Unfortunately, the cutting - aimed at the ADHD-challenged not only sucks the life out of everything that could have worked beautifully, but in fact, for all the whizbang slicing and dicing, the picture becomes exhausting and as such, is often borderline boring. This is the sort of cutting one expects to see in a J.J. Abrams or Christopher "One Idea" Nolan effort - filmmakers who are not really born filmakers and make movies anyway in spite of having no idea how to make them.

In spite of all this, I remain a steadfast champion of Neil Marshall (hell, I'm probably one of the few people who genuinely likes Doomsday - a really fun ode to the George Miller Mad Max pictures) and I very much look forward to his next picture with considerable anticipation.

I just hope it will be better than Centurion.

The full schedule for the Toronto After Dark Film Festival can be found HERE

All About Evil - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (2010)

All About Evil (2010) Dir. Joshua Grannell
Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker, Mink Stole, Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson and Noah Segan

*

By Greg Klymkiw

There are some movies you want to love - especially if you're a lover of movies, and most notably, a lover of genre movies. However, it ultimately matters very little how well intentioned, how securely the movie's heart is in the right place, how much its filmmaker shares your love for all the same things, the bottom line is always a heartbreaker - if the movie stinks, the movie stinks, and there's not too much else to be said.

All About Evil is such a picture.

This tale of revenge, murder and artistic blossoming against the backdrop of the Grand Guignol of el-cheapo splatter films, keeps feeling like it should work, but it simply doesn't. The talented child star turned train wreck, Natasha Lyonne top-lines as the much-beleagured mouse of girl, Deborah - accent on the second syllable, please. Her Dad always dreamed she'd be a star. Her Mom had nothing but contempt for her. In the end, she became a librarian while Dad continued to run his tiny little picture palace where he screened mostly movies he loved.

Upon Dad's death, Deborah tries to keep the old place going by running a repertory selection of camp horror classics of the Herschell Gordon Lewis variety. She has one loyal customer in the form of teenager Steven (Thomas Dekker) and a scraggly band of miscreants. When Mom demands she sell the theatre for its real estate value, Deborah goes berserk and viciously slaughters Mater on security cam, no less. When the footage mistakenly goes up on the screen instead of the title on the marquee Blood Feast, the audience goes nuts.

They love the surprise movie to death.

Deborah knows a good thing when she sees it and she quickly rediscovers the acting bug her Dad unsuccessfully encouraged in her to his dying day. Deborah now needs to feed her hungry public, but also feed her ego, and most importantly, her hatred of anyone who fucks her over and/or just plain offends her. She collects a motley group of like-minded souls and proceeds to make a series of gruesome snuff films. The public has no idea they're seeing real killings, however, and Deborah goes undetected.

This is pretty much the whole movie until it accelerates and explodes in an orgy of bloody mayhem.

This could have been entertaining, but there are a few things keeping it from working on that level. The most significant failing is that it's just plain bad. Worse than that, it's campy. Not that there's anything wrong with camp, but when camp is bad (and yes, there's good camp and bad camp), there's nothing more excruciating to sit through.

Not to get too high falutin' here, but I think it's apt to haul out a bit of Susan Sontag and her Notes on "Camp". Sontag, I believe, hits the nail on the head when she states: "One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naive. Camp which knows itself to be Camp ("camping") is usually less satisfying." This, of course, is exactly what keeps All About Evil from working. In fact, it's not just a matter of being "less satisfying", the movie intentionally or inadvertently tries so hard to live up to the Sontagian essence of Camp in "its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration", that it becomes extremely dissatisfying.

Writer-Director Joshua Grannell (AKA drag queen extraordinaire, Peaches Christ) pummels us with his knowing artifice to the point of boredom. Even worse, his approach seems to exemplify the more horrendous Sontagian notion that "Camp is esoteric -- something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques." Granted, filmmakers like John Waters or Guy Maddin cudgel us with esoterica, but they do so with genuine filmmaking virtuosity.

Grannell has the cinematic equivalent to a "tin ear". He is not the kind of filmmaker that has cinema hard wired into his DNA. Every detail is forced to the point of exhaustion. Waters, for example, has a crackling sense of pace, but Grannell has none. Between each ultra violent set piece, the movie plods along like some fruity Apatosaurus on downers and when the set pieces become more over-the-top, the movie simply takes a nose dive.

One of the more regrettable aspects of the movie is its nastiness. Now don't get me wrong, I love nasty as much as the next fella' - especially when it blends the kind of brilliant dark humour and dazzling imagery one finds in the best work of someone like Brian DePalma, but from a narrative standpoint, Grannell loses our empathy with Deborah completely when she goes after the matronly librarian she used to work with. There's really not a darn thing wrong with the old bird - she's kindly and genuinely concerned about Deborah's well-being. To see Deborah sewing the woman's lips shut in graphic detail pretty much flushes any shred of humanity her character might have been endowed with right down the toilet. Just because there is "artifice" involved in camp, it doesn't mean humanity must be abandoned. Then again, to the fakes who create such material and those who lap it up, humanity is just a little too cool for school.

I saw the picture during the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2010 and while I applaud the decision to show the film (camp, even if its bad, has a place within the context of such a festival), watching it was extremely painful. It was especially horrific being surrounded by a full house that included a healthy dollop of the "urban cliques" Sontag referred to. This particular urban clique is the worst sort of urban clique. They force laughs out of their bellies and I'm convinced that at a subconcious level, they're forcing themselves to enjoy the movie because they think (or desperately and pathetically want to believe) that's what is required. This rarified vantage point is, ultimately, what gives camp a bad name and in fact, encourages makers of such work to keep foisting their trifles upon us. Interestingly, the full house was not as raucously appreciative as the minority in the house who managed to annoyingly make their holier than thou anti-art presence known.

And as awful as the experience was, I'm glad to have had it. Any excuse to think about camp - something I genuinely love - is always welcome. And for me, it's important, every so often, to have an experience like this to remind me of how special and wonderful camp can be and that it takes great or pure artists to pull it off. Seeing something this inept is an extra forceful reminder of that fact.

The After Dark Film Festival 2010 edition has a number of more exciting prospects ahead including a new Neil Marshall, a new Phillip Ridley and, God help us, the remake of Mair Zarchi's I Spit On Your Grave. The schedule can be accessed HERE.

The Last Exorcism - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (2010)

The Last Exorcism (2010) dir. Daniel Stamm
Starring: Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Caleb Landry Jones and Tony Bentley

***

By Greg Klymkiw

I suppose we have to thank The Blair Witch Project for all the mock-doc shaky-cam thrillers of the past decade, though God knows, I really don't want to because frankly, it pretty much stinks. It had a vague visceral effectiveness upon a first viewing, but the real test for all these pictures is how they hold up on repeated viewings. Blair Witch doesn't hold up to that kind of scrutiny at all. Much like other one-trick-pony efforts such as Christopher "One Idea" Nolan's Memento or the reprehensible pile of filth Man Bites Dog, the aforementioned titles live and then die a miserable death because so much of them rest on the shoulders of their gimmick.

In fact, a much better film in this genre, might well be the patriarch of them all, Jim McBride's utterly haunting and creepy David Holzman's Diary which, after over forty years still has the power to blow an audience away as it has way more going for it than its conceit (though its central figure is indeed the walking, talking embodiment of conceit). My personal favourites of the recent forays into this form of telling creepy stories would be Oren Peli's stunning Paranormal Activity and the funny, twisted and strangely moving District 9. Both pictures are rooted in humanity against extraordinary backdrops and bear up under repeated scrutiny.

And now we have, from producer Eli (The Bear Jew) Roth, a very effective horror picture directed by Daniel Stamm which, presents its nerve jangling tale of demonic possession with a reasonable degree of intelligence and style. I suspect it will hold up to repeated viewings on a number of levels. The Last Exorcism is an apparent documentary about preacher Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), famous and popular man o' God who began his career (much like the real-life Marjoe Gortner) as a child evangelist and worked his way up to being a lower drawer Jimmy Swaggart. Cotton supplements his earnings as an exorcist, which is where he's really made his mark, but recent events have tested his faith and he invites documentary filmmaker Iris Reisen (Iris Bahr) to enter his life - warts and all.

Cotton receives numerous requests to perform exorcisms, but his belief in their effectiveness has more to do with the healing powers he wields through his performance. He goes so far as to rig the exorcisms with simple, but really compelling special effects. He randomly picks an exorcism request off a pile of letters on his desk and off the crew goes to watch him do his stuff. His hope is to expose himself, to expose all exorcists, to expose his own lack of faith. He doesn't believe in the devil and he doesn't believe the exorcism has any special Heavenly significance. He believes in his skill to heal, but due to some recent tragedies where other holy men have committed exorcisms that have traumatized the "possessed" - so much that they have actually died - he hopes to expose the absurdity and inherent danger in such practices - especially by those not as skilled as he.

He enters the world of the Louisiana backwoods Sweetzer family who have been plagued with livestock mutilations and very odd behaviour from 16-year-old Nell (Ashley Bell). Cotton is convinced the problem is psychological and he exorcises, with the help of his bag of tricks, the demon from the girl's soul.

Sooner than you can say "The power of Christ compels thee!" it becomes obvious that there's more to the girl than meets the eye. She's obviously suffered a severe trauma - possibly sexual abuse or... she really is possessed by a demon.

Horror ensues.

And much of the horror is extremely effective - lots of creepy crawly stuff and numerous all-out shit-your-pants pyrotechnics. Most impressively, these are bereft of CGI and delivered by the actors. Ashley Bell is especially astounding in a performance that is highly physical. The gymnastics of self mutilation are rendered by Ms. Bell and Ms. Bell alone. She's not only brilliant physically, but she plumbs the depths of an incredibly tortured young woman with the sort of skill that signals a great talent to keep an eye on.

Equally impressive in the acting sweepstakes is Patrick Fabian as Cotton. Bringing the right balance of showmanship, charm and sleaziness to the table and as the film progresses, a very strong sense in the character's rekindling of faith, Fabian makes us believe as readily as he makes his "patients" believe.

It's to the film's credit that faith still plays an important role in the story. While critical of organized religion, it follows the intricacies of Cotton's own spiritual struggles and ultimately, places stock in this, or if you will. his belief in God.

One of the more astounding elements is that the picture not only features lots of magnificent exorcism, but in what must be a first, we also get some mega-devil-worship dolloped lovingly into the mix. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I don't recall seeing anything (or at least anything good) where we are plunged into a movie about exorcism that then pulls the delicious, tantalizing card of devil worship.

I love devil worship. And let me guarantee you, The Last Exorcism features devil worship so profoundly disturbing that it rivals some of my favourite devil worship sequences in such classics of the genre as Hammer's The Devil Rides Out, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, and Race With The Devil.

This is one of those movies where horror aficionados can do the math on all the expertly handled moments of major-league delivery and determine the picture's ultimate worth - especially if the picture is good even beyond the math.

So here's the tally: Mutilation (of animals and humans), provocative sexual overtones, lots of "in-the-name-of-Jesus" prayers. Latin recitation. One can never get enough of that. And last, but not least, one of the most harrowing devil worship sequences replete with a bloody, goo dripping deformed demon baby with blood gushing geyser-like from the nether regions of the woman trussed to the unholy altar of Satan.

Seriously.

What's not to like?

For the rest of this week's amazing schedule, be sure to click HERE.

As a side note, a tiny two minute short film preceded The Last Exorcism during the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. While I usually use this time to stand outside and smoke a ciggie (purchased from a reserve in order to support our Aboriginal brothers) before the feature, I was compelled to sit through the entire live introduction of Eli Roth, the very cool After Dark promos, a couple of trailers for upcoming pictures in the festival and, Hot Damn! am I glad I didn't suck back the lovingly honey roasted tobacco. Fireman kicks holy motherfucking ass. I normally hate spoof trailers to movies that don't exist (at least not until Grindhouse, but this grotesque and hilarious 80s style pyromania thriller is tremendously engaging. For the first time in a long time, I actually wanted them to screen the short again. Written and directed by Adam Brooks of the oddball Winnipeg-based trash-movie collective Astron-6, Fireman was worthy of any fake trailer in Grindhouse. I suspect Mr. Brooks has horked down one too many Salisbury House Mr. Big Nips and washed them down with a few too many jugs of Labatt's 50. The result, however, was worth it.

High School - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2010

High School (2010) dir. John Stalberg
Starring: Adrien Brody, Michael Chiklis, Colin Hanks, Matt Bush and Sean Marquette

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Okay, I'm going to say it - loud and clear: High School is the best stoner comedy I have ever seen! Well, it's not better than Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but that's in a different category altogether - its own category of unfettered insanity and genius. High School is, however, the first picture to unseat the Grand Daddy of them all - Up in Smoke - and that's saying a lot! I mean, God Bless you Mr. Marin and Mr. Chong, you broke the ground and held the crown for decades, but the time comes for all great men, to yield their loftiness to others.

Director John Stalberg with his co-writers Erik Linthorst and Stephen Susco have crafted a no-holds-barred hilarious ode to weed and what's so perfect is that their script is exquisitely simple - a solid little coat hanger to adorn with as many laugh-getters as possible. In fact, the movie is so crammed with great gags that sprout quite naturally from the simple narrative that the movie does get a bit tiring (though not tiresome) at the two-thirds mark, but it recovers nicely to deliver a one-two knockout punch.

In the time honoured tradition of the bro-mantic comedy, Matt Bush and Sean Marquette play two Grade 12 students who used to be thicker than water in their junior years, but have been estranged for some time - Bush becoming a science geek and on the verge of an MIT scholarship and Marquette, a loveable loser with no ambitions save for attaining and maintaining the ultimate weed high.

They re-meet-cute when they almost crash head-on into each other's cars. Their unrequited bro-love rekindles faster than a bong high. Marquette introduces Bush to the joys of the devil's weed - just a day before Michael Chiklis as the nasty-pants Principal institutes a zero-tolerance policy with respect to drugs and mounts an evil plan to force every student in his high school to take a drug test - and if the results are positive, the student will receive immediate expulsion. Needless to say, Bush wasn't expecting this during his finals and a yellow brick road leading to MIT.

But never fear, Marquette has a great trick up his sleeve. They manage to pilfer some pure crystals of THC, spend all night making killer brownies and the next morning, swap them with all the brownies on the Bake Sale table. (Uh, I don't believe I conjured Swift, Beckett or Wilde at all - snap out of your stoner groove and please recall I cited Cheech and Chong.)

The rest of the movie occasionally deals with the plot (as it were), but mostly, we get pure, unadulterated hilarity as the entire school succumbs to the brownies and the entire faculty and student body gets so over-the-top stoned that everyone who takes the drug test will score positive during the drug test and Chiklis won't be able to expel the entire school.

And that's pretty much all she wrote. We get a full hour watching everyone in the school stumble around stoned.

Stalberg's direction is terrific. The comic timing is impeccable and his mise en scene in terms of capturing the POV of the effects of the THC crystal brownies is not only endowed with capturing the various stoner moments perfectly, but always doing so in a manner that seems rooted in the film's narrative (such, I'll admit, as it is). That said, it's no scattershot ZAZ comedy a la Airplane, but every beautifully written gag is set-up, blocked and built-up to deliver both comedy and forward narrative thrust with near perfection.

The performances are first rate. Bush and Marquette play off of each other delightfully, while Chiklis's insufferably nasty (and hilarious) school principal seriously rivals Mary Woronov as uber-principal Miss Togar in Rock n' Roll High School. Colin Hanks as the hapless, likeable vice principal is as deft and funny as Daddy Tom was - back in the days when Daddy Tom was genuinely funny on screen (in contrast to Daddy Tom's funny haircut in that Dan Brown movie adaptation - the name of which I have successfully repressed).

The performance to end all performances comes from Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as the psychotic drug pusher Ed. (I love the idea of a pusher called "Ed". In fact, in high school, MY connection's name was "Ed", so there you go.) And allow me to add yet another proclamation: Adrien Brody embodies COOLER-THAN-COOL. During the past year, Brody has starred in three movies I genuinely loved - movies that epitomized cool. First, Brody fucks his lab-created-half-amphibian-daughter while Mom/wife Sarah Polley watches in Splice, then - nicely buff - he kicks alien ass in the fun and solid Predators and now, as a drooling, vicious, perpetually stoned and gloriously tattooed drug dealer in High School, he delivers three (count 'em!) performances in thoroughly unpretentious movies that still manage to rival his very own Oscar winning work in The Pianist. Adrien Brody rocks bigtime! Not only did he appear post-Oscar in the only Wes Anderson picture I genuinely like (The Darjeeling Limited), but he makes three pictures back-to-back where he lets down his hair and delivers totally fun performances.

Methinks Mr. Brody is out-Johnny-Depping Johnny Depp!!!

He is cool!

Mr. Cool!

High School premiered earlier in 2010 at the Sundance Film Festival, but it is currently without a North American distributor. Thanks to the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, a sellout house at the cavernous Bloor Cinema experienced one of the best comedies of the year. Why this picture wasn't snapped up immediately is beyond me. As far as gross-out bro-mances go, it's miles above all the rest.

And lest we forget, High School is the best stoner comedy of all time!

I can prove it too. Feel free to sniff my pants. I laughed so hard I soiled them mightily.

For the rest of this week's amazing schedule, be sure to click HERE.