The Towering Inferno

The Towering Inferno (1974) dir. John Guillerman & Irwin Allen
Starring: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway

***1/2

I LOVE the “Towering Inferno” - the best disaster movie ever made. Admittedly I hadn’t seen it since childhood and it holds up beyond my memories of a child enraptured by the fire engines. A fire engulfing the tallest building in the world? Top notch, near-invisible special effects; Paul Newman and Steve McQueen occupying the same space? Plus William Holden and Fred Astaire and OJ Simpson! "The Towering Inferno" is a supreme guilty pleasure.

Irwin Allen made a career out of cinematic spectacle, an entertainer at heart who, despite his kitschy subject matter knew the movie business inside and out.

Made in 1974 perhaps in response to the skyscraper battle between the World Trade Centre (1970) and the Sears Tower (1973), Allen’s story is set at the opening of the world tallest building in San Francisco. Paul Newman plays the building's architect, Doug Roberts, who arrives to attend the lavish party arranged by the builder, Jim Duncan (William Holden). It doesn’t take long before the building engineers discover a fault in the electrical capacity of the wiring. All it takes is a spark from a cut-rate wire barely above safety code to start a fire.

Upon discovering the shoddy craftsmanship Roberts pleads to Duncan to delay the party, but with the dignitaries already getting smashed on the 135th floor Duncan chooses to save face. The small fire soon turns into a big one, thus trapping the party-goers above the fire. Chief O’Halloran (Steve McQueen) commands the fire fighters with an intense workmanlike manner using his creativity and experience to get everyone to safety.

As typical with the disaster-genre, the antagonist is the environment, which strikes usually in response to man’s efforts to tame mother nature. In this case, the fire which rages and grows uncontrollably. And often the moments of jeopardy can seem like overtly manufactured contrivances resulting in a fragmented collection of conspicuous set-pieces. Conflict inevitably arises from between the characters, at a sacrifice to common sense relationships. Allen and Guillerman manage to avoid these trappings admirably.

Take the Richard Chamberlain character the corner-cutting engineer, and son-in-law to Duncan, the builder. While he’s written to be a clear antagonist, his backstory as the working-class social climber looking for appreciation from his upper-class father in law anchors him in the real world. It's this concerted effort toward realism which elevates this disaster pic above most others in the genre.

Steve McQueen’s immersive performance as the chief exemplifies the Irwin Allen’s throughline of integrity. When McQueen arrives on the scene, he systematically goes through the procedural details of the job, retaining an unbiased professionalism and never losing his cool. A working man, just doing his job McQueen stays consistent to the very end up - to the final shot even, when we see him exit the building, non-chalantly hop into his car and drive away – like punching out of the clock.

In these final moments screenwriter Sterling Silliphant writes in a blatantly expository moral message about the dangers of architects and builders erecting skyscrapers higher and higher above their reach – “You know we were pretty lucky tonight, body count's less then 200. You know, one of these days, you're gonna kill ten-thousand in one of these firetraps, and I'm gonna keep eating smoke and carrying out bodies…” – a statement which could have caused audience groans in 1974 but resonates prophetically in a post 9/11 world.

We shouldn't over-analyze "The Towering Inferno" for profundities though, instead watch and appreciate it as a great epic adventure picture and blockbuster cinematic spectacle.

"The Towering Inferno" is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Exclusive HUMPDAY Screening!

Hey Torontonians,

The CFC is hosting an exclusive screening of Humpday next Thursday July 16 - 7:30pm at CiRCA. Alycia Delmore and Joshua Leonard will be in attendance. $20 gets you in the door, a ticket to the movie, plus cocktails and three drinks for the party afterwards. Proceeds go towards the CFC Scholarship Fund. See below for details.

Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise

Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940) dir. Eugene Forde
Starring: Sidney Toler, Sen Yung, Lionel Atwill, Leo G. Carroll and Cora Witherspoon

***

Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw

Most years saw 20th Century Fox releasing three feature-length Charlie Chan mysteries annually. After several pictures with Warner Oland in the role of the famous Honolulu-based Asian detective created by Erle Derr Biggers, the torch was passed to character actor Sidney Toler after Oland’s death. Toler acquitted himself magnificently and by the year 1940, he had created – what some might argue – the definitive Charlie Chan. Most importantly, Fox, as the studio generating the series, were able to keep the creative juice going so that the films, in many cases, got better and better.

By 1940, rather than succumbing to the usual law of diminishing returns, the Chan series saw three of the best released all in the same year.

“Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise” is as entertaining and engaging a Chan picture as one could imagine. Directed by one of Fox’s prolific B-and-small-A-picture stalwarts, Eugene Forde, the movie opens with the grisly strangulation of Chan’s best friend Duff, a Scotland Yard inspector who meets his fate in Chan’s office no less. Duff has been investigating a murder amongst a group of passengers on a round-the-world cruise. Chan joins the tour for its final journey from Honolulu to San Francisco where, in typical fashion, he not only solves the murder, but also in so doing, avenges his friend’s death.

The tale is a tad familiar (beyond the successful Chan formula) as the picture borrows a very significant item from “Charlie Chan in Paris”. It is also, most notably a remake of the earlier Warner Oland Chan vehicle “Charlie Chan Carries On” (one of the lost Chan pictures that hopefully will one day turn up) and both the original and the remake are based upon the hard-boiled Biggers novel. A Spanish-language version filmed simultaneously with the Oland version, entitled “Eran Trece” remains extant and can be seen on Volume One of the Fox Charlie Chan DVD series. “Murder Cruise” is, possibly because of its relative adherence to the Biggers novel, reasonably hard-boiled. The murders are not only pretty intense and almost serial-killer-like, but the first on-screen murder includes the dead character possessing the killer’s curious calling card – thirty pieces of silver. This becomes a tale of both betrayal and retribution.

In spite of the darker tone, the film is still imbued with the wonderful sense of humour that became a hallmark of the Toler Chan pictures. Many of the laughs come from the delightful interplay between Chan and his Number Two Son, the bungling, wide-eyed, prat-falling Jimmy (the always delightful Sen Yung), but there’s also a magnificent comic turn from the daffy Cora Witherspoon as a scatterbrained socialite whose ludicrous, confused descriptions of various suspects raise more than a few eyebrows.

And as always, the Chan films would not be complete without a clutch of sinister supporting performances and “Murder Cruise” provides not one, not two, not three, but four such great actors. Claire Du Brey and Charles Middleton are on hand as an American Gothic-styled couple (resembling a cross between funeral home owners and bible thumpers). The great Leo G. Carroll appears as a seemingly benign archeologist and rounding things out is the astoundingly perverse Lionel Atwill (whom will forever be remembered as the wooden-armed inspector from “Son of Frankenstein” so gloriously parodied in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein”). Atwill portrays the somewhat Franklin Pangborn-like cruise director. This, I assure you, must be seen to be believed.

Ultimately, though, like most of the Fox Chan pictures, “Murder Cruise” simply has to be seen.

“Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise” is available on DVD as part of Volume 5 of the Charlie Chan Cinema Classics Collection from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The Graduate

The Graduate (1967) dir. Mike Nichols
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katherine Ross, Murray Hamilton

****

Oh to be Mike Nichols in the late 60’s, like Orson Welles in late 1930’s, a revered stage director, brought to Hollywood and given the biggest toybox in the world to play in. After ‘practicing’ his skills with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” in 1966, Nichols at the height of his creative talents was shit hot and birthed the great masterpiece, “The Graduate” – a time capsule of American 60’s progressiveness and a benchmark for the Hollywood changing of the guard.

Benjamin Braddock arrives home a college graduate. His parents are joyful, not because they’re happy he’s back but because he has achieved what they’ve always wanted of him. But they are not content with this, expectations are further heaped on Ben to go to graduate school and push forward with his career. Typically Ben feels the pressure and is caught frozen and overwhelmed with doubt.

And so, when the wife of his father’s business partner, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), comes onto him, he gives in to her sexual demands. They start an affair ‘just because’, which we all know will end badly. The rift comes in the form of Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross) whom Ben’s parents have been pushing Ben to date. He gives in and goes out with Elaine, instantly sparking a chemistry which infuriates Mrs. Robinson. Her efforts to separate the two do not phase Ben as he embarks on a mission find Elaine at Berkeley steal her for good.

I think every romantic comedy made in the 90's and beyond owes a debt to the final act of “the Graduate”. As Benjamin Braddock races against time, scouring the Berleley campus for Elaine’s whereabouts the film gathers speed and momentum for its wedding-crashing finale. Same goes with the youthful self-expressionistic indie-film ilk of Wes Anderson, “Juno” “Away We Go” et al . Specifically Mike Nichols’ use of Simon and Garfunkel as a tonal reference point for the film with today’s eyes looks as fresh now as then. While the emotions of Benjamin and Elaine run from extreme highs to lows, the poignant music and lyrics route our interpretation of those emotions in it’s own subdued hyper-reality. Listening to “Mrs. Robinson” during the frantic chase finale lightens up what, for Benjamin, is a harrowing and desperate search. And the despair Ben feels for his soulless sexual affair for Mrs. Robinson achieves tonal perfection with the song, "The Sound of Silence".

The casting is so good, we don’t even release Benjamin and Elaine have the fastest courtship in cinema history. Just one date and we believe how Ben could propose to her (really, who wouldn’t propose to Katherine Ross after one date??) and how Elaine could actually settle for the neurotic and arrogant Ben. Chemistry sears the screen when they finally meet – which only occurs at the halfway point, prior to which it was Anne Bancroft’s picture.

Bancroft needs only a few words and a look of her eyes to express everything about her character. She is simply awesome as Mrs. Robinson, the original desperate housewife. The look on Bancroft’s face in the kitchen reacting to Ben’s conversation with her husband is priceless. The conversation is framed and focused on Bancroft in the foreground reacting only. And watch carefully her oh-so-quick glance down the barrel of the camera as she exits the scene. The seduction scene is played out carefully by Nichols and his actors and the dialogue as written by Buck Henry are the exact words which would have come out of these characters' mouths if they were real people. And so, despite the absurdity and quirkiness of the filmmaking every crucial moment in rooted in genuine real world emotion.

“The Graduate” represented a benchmark shift in studio Hollywood toward a more personal aesthetic like the French New Wave. Hollywood stripped away the old cumbersome production code and leaned on the creative minds such as Mike Nichols to tell us familiar stories in untraditional ways. Though untraditional for a studio film, at the time “The Graduate” is and always has been highly accessible and loved by all who watch it. Enjoy.

Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music

Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music (1970) dir. Michael Wadleigh
Documentary

****

There was a feeling of uninhibited honest naturalism in "Woodstock" which would be very difficult to duplicate today. This is the experience of watching the landmark "Woodstock", the ability of Michael Wadleigh to break any sort of wall between subject and the camera. His subjects are so genuine and candid, whether they love or loath this unique concert experience, it takes just a one line or sound bite from anyone on camera to capture all the texture of this era.

This is one of the reasons why "Woodstock" is not only the greatest-ever concert film, but one of the greatest documentaries ever made - a unique experience capturing the cultural and political importance of the monumentally huge concert with all it's peace, love and rock 'n' roll texture intact.

Director Michael Wadleigh, with his army of camera and sound men, didn't have enough 16mm stock to shoot every act on the bill, not even every song played and so the filmmakers had to pick and choose the right songs. While acts like Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jimi Hendrix,The Who were some of the biggest names in rock, we find some of the most memorable performances in bands like Ten Years After, Richie Havens and Sha Na Na - artists who, in retrospect, have been defined by their Woodstock appearances.

My personal favourite has to be Santana's "Soul Sacrfice", with the scene stealer 19 year old Michael Shrieve’s legendary drumming. It features the best drum solo I've ever seen anchoring the tightest performance of the event.

On a technical level Woodstock trumps all other concert films because of its achievements in epic and spectacular visual grandeur. It was shot on 16mm and blown up to 70mm, but of course a 16mm film frame has a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and 70mm has a 2.20:1 ratio which allowed Wadleigh to experiment with some magnificent split screen effects. And has there ever been a more glorious use of this technique? Hadleigh and his editors, Thelma Schoonmacher and Martin Scorsese, explore every inch of the widescreen frame, using multiple frame sizes and aspect ratios to frame the subjects. In the opening moments it’s a cropped frame, with the left and right portions of the frame cut off as black. But once the music starts the editors fill in the space like an ever changing jigsaw puzzle of imagery, giving us the illusion of being all around the concert at once.

Each musical act seems to have it's own a unique visual design. Jimi Hendrix’s songs are shot almost exclusively with a long lens, and even occasionally changing the shutter angle for a staccato effect. The stupendous "Soul Sacrifice" song by Santana is almost all extreme wideangle lenses, upclose and personal with Carlos Santana screaming away on his guitar,

The night music has a completely different look and feel to the day music. For Sly and Family Stone, though there are a dozen performers on stage the camera is focused entirely on Sly, who glows and pops out of the black background in the bright spotlight. And the rocking Who track, "Summertime Blues", is covered well by the band with multicoloured lights separating Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry with distinct looks.

The large disconnect between the youth and middle-aged in the 1960's is wholly palpable in the verite scenes in between the concert footage. Whether the hippies appear inspiring or completely out to lunch with extreme idealism their uninhibited genuineness is all that we require from a documentary. Perhaps my favourite scene (music included) is the port-o-potty maintenance guy whom we see literally sucking out the shit from the portable toilets, then telling us that he has sons both there at Woodstock and on the front lines at Vietnam. If anything he represents bridge which connects the youth and the middle-aged. Enjoy.

2009 Edinburgh International Film Festival

Hello there everybody, its foreign correspondent Blair Stewart here with a report from the recently wrapped 63rd annual Edinburgh International Film Festival in Scotland. Here's a quick roundup of what I saw:

All That She Wants (2008-Canada) Dir. Denis Cote
Starring: Eve Duranceau

***

A slow-boiling look at small-town hustlers and burnouts shot in gorgeous black and white, Quebec director Cote impresses with his Diane Arbus-ish framing. Eve Duranceau plays Coralie, the 'She' of this film, a sullen local making poor decisions so she can blow town with her boyfriend while the local thugs otherwise scheme. It moves slowly, but has moments of beauty and dark humour to elevate the patience that some audiences might not have. Likely only to be seen in Quebec and on the festival circuit, but worth a look.

The Missing Person (2009-US) Dir. Noah Buschel
Starring: Michael Shannon, Amy Ryan

**

A modern day noir led by the talented Michael Shannon about a private detective on the biggest case of his wonky career. Shannon's John Rosow is a fine gumshoe and a lousy drunk, stuck in a nostalgic time of fedoras and jazz. Rosow is given the task of following a mystery man with a Mexican boy across the western States and south of the border while running afoul of femme fatales, gangsters and new-age flatfoots. SWhile Shannon is exceptional with his Peter Lorre eyes and a squeezed lemon for a face, and both Amy Ryan and Margaret Colin make good of their brief screentime, several vital roles are woefully misplayed - like watching Ray Charles with a lousy backing band. The story dumps several good sub-plots when the topical main plot finally emerges concerning Rosow's past but all the loose ends were bothersome. I did appreciate the patience of the storytelling as the truth uncoiled itself, but I found the editing distracting as several noticable disolves looked out of place. Michael Shannon will next be seen in a new Herzog film produced by David Lynch, which is now a must-see for me next year.

Lights in the Fog (2008-Iran) Dir. Panahbarkhoda Rezaee
Starring: Behrouz Jalili

**

A bigger story than the film was the difficulty in extracting the print out of Iran which delayed the screening, so the fact that it was seen at all is a small triumph. Set in the cloud-schrouded mountains of Northern Iran, "A Light in the Fog" observes an Iranian woman quietly mourning the disapearance of her soldier lover as she nurses her dying father while scraping by in life. A short feature that's more for observation than engagement, its blessed with a stunning, unknown setting on par with Lean's deserts and Malick's forests for beauty. This is a film that seems to be set in-between momentous events in the characters lives, where not much is happening.

Giallo (2009-Italy) Dir. Dario Argento
Starring Adrien Brody, Emmanuele Seigner

*

What could have been a grand last kick in the slasher genre's ass from one of its masters is instead a folly that could spell Dario Argento's retirement and Adrien Brody's agent getting fired. Written exclusively for Argento by fanatics Jim Agnew and Sean Keller, "Giallo" concerns a jaundaced serial-killer (Giallo is 'Yellow' in Italian, and refers to the pulp nature of Argento's oeuvre) hacking away through Turin's ranks of pretty gals. After one model gets kidnapped by the yellowed killer for a slow, drawn out death (very slow at that) Detective Brody and the model's sister Seigner team up to crack the case. What mostly insues is cutting room scraps mistaken for a film, including Brody putting another nail in the coffin of his career post-'The Pianist' with a lackluster performance. Seigner puts proof into my theory that she should only act in her native tongue while Argento labouriously goes through the motions. Put the virturso camera movements from the likes of Argento's 1987 "Opera" or the stylishness displayed in his '70's work against "Giallo" and it appears the Italian master should just hang it up now.

Black Dynamite (2009-USA) Dir. Scott Sanders
Starring: Michael Jai White

***1/2

A little longer than it needs to be for its premise of a Blaxploitation spoof, but still a stone cold funky groove. Bacchus called it right after its Sundance premiere, sure to be a big hit for the marginalized Jai White, cut from "Kill Bill", killed off early in "The Dark Knight" and buried under makeup and costume in "Spawn". Here he displays brilliant comedic timing, and the batcrazy climax has to be seen without spoilers.

The Raven (1963-USA) Dir. Roger Corman
Starring: Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson and Peter Lorre.

**1/2

The Holy Trio of Ham and Cheese and more Ham is Price, Karloff and Lorre matching
wits in an overhauled version of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven". Written by the great Richard Matheson and directed by Corman, "The Raven" skips over the terror and veers
straight into comedy as Vincent Price plays a sorcerer who comes out of retirement to help the cursed Peter Lorre (in a bird's costume). Meanwhile in the shadows of a forbidden castle, Boris Karloff pulls the strings of a nonsenscal plot against them that also ensnares Price's daughter and Lorre's son played by a young Jack Nicholson. The entertainment comes mostly from the three veterans' playfulness and a great final magic duel that George Lucas may have nicked for his "Return of the Jedi's" finale.

The Wild Angels (1966-USA) Dir. Roger Corman
Starring Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern and Nancy Sinatra

**

The mold cast for Dennis Hopper's future smash-hit "Easy Rider" and the great "Vanishing Point", Corman's "The Wild Angels" roars on the screen with the 'assistance of the L.A. branch of the Hell's Angels'. Peter Fonda is the head of a biker gang that goes hunting in the desert for a stolen bike with distasterous results. Mostly a repetitive cycle of chases, fights and partying, "The Wild Angels" stands as a better, earlier, nihilistic version of the overrated "Easy Rider", Watch for the great backwards dolly-shot through a dive that may have given Scorsese ideas for "Mean Streets'" classic bar shot. While Corman makes great use of the grand Panavision format its a B-movie rosetta stone for American film before its last golden age.

The St.Valentine's Day Massacre (1967-USA) Dir. Roger Corman
Starring: Jason Robards, George Segal and Ralph Meeker

***1/2

An excellent, forgotten gangster film anchored by Robards's performance as the original Scarface, and the surprise of the festival for me. Approaching the Chicago massacre from a journalist's persepective, Corman successfully recreates the crimewave mentality of the Prohibition era with Robards's Al Capone pitted against Ralph Meeker's Bugsy Moran. Bullet-fast narration sets the tone as the film rolls towards its bloody end, with George Segal handing in his best work as a henchman, and a few great staccato gunfights. In an interview it was revealed that Orson Welles was once tipped to play Capone with Robards as Moran, but the studio shuffled the deck with the underwhelming Meeker. Regardless, its a joy to watch Capone chew on the scenery.

Moon

Moon (2009) dir, Duncan Jones
Starring: Sam Rockwell

***1/2

Like the film’s undisguised influencers, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, THX 1138, Blade Runner Duncan Jones’ Moon uses the genre of science fiction to examine the humanity deep inside us all. It's a marvelous film which unfolds from the point of view of its single character. If you haven't seen it, I advise reading this review after, because, although it's always best with any film to go in without any pre-conceptions, in this case, its especially important. But just in case, I've kept this review as spoiler-free as possible.

Sam Rockwell gives a marvellous performance as Sam, who for three years has been stationed on the Moon farming helium and sending it back to the earth for energy. He's been working diligently in solitary for three years, with his only companion his HAL-like computer Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey). His contract is almost ending and he greatly looks forward to reuniting with his wife and son. Three years in soltary is enough to make anyone bonkers and by the end Sam is a wreck, teetering on a psychological breakdown. After an accident with one of his lunar buggies, Sam comes face to face with a hidden secret about his mission eventually revealing an emotionally shattering truth about his own existence.

Director Duncan Jones' enthusiasm for humanity brings great warmth to the film's cold and detached environment. As told to us by the opening sequence, the helium mined on the Moon has been a saviour of the environment on earth. Once Sam starts questioning his mission there’s opportunity for him to weigh the altruistic nature of his mission - the importance of one man to humanity as a whole. Jones never lets Sam acknowledge this perspective. And it’s consistent with his point of view – the individual perspective, the importance of individualizing Sam as his own being, not a robot, or an indentured slave to humanity.

By using the visual language of the film’s genre predecessors Jones doesn’t need to off the moon for context. If you think really carefully, a few logical holes appear, and some narrative conveniences. But since we know how communications work in the movie version of space, or the motivations of nefarious corporations in science fiction films, this is all we need to suspend our disbelief.

The octagonal architecture of the base is lifted directly from 2001, same with the industrial clunkiness of the machinery straight out of the Alien franchise. Fit these visual cues into Andrew Niccol’s triumph of the human spirit in Gattaca and George Lucas’s dehumanized hero in THX 1138, and you have a wonderful homage to the best of these films. And of course there's Gerty, the computer which operates with the same monotone false companionship as HAL. Jones uses this familiarity to his advantage generating a blanket of tension just by his mere presence.

Clint Mansell, delivers his best score since Requiem for a Dream, a lovely piano-based theme which runs throughout the film evoking interminable sadness and melancholy. Mansell never threatens to go over the top, because for Sam, his personal discoveries are existentially monumental and earth-shattering.

Sam Rockwell has always been a hit and miss actor for me, often chewing scenery with his physical ticks and mumbling manner of speech. But hands down Moon is his best role, an intense and focused performance, which allows him to use his unique mannerisms for the betterment of the character and the film.

There are many people who hate this type of science fiction, and admittedly a film like this wears its heart on its sleeve, a metaphorical romanticism of the soul. Those naysayers be damned, Moon is a wonderfully optimistic and glorious piece of cinema. Enjoy.

Time Limit

Time Limit (1957) dir. Karl Malden
Starring: Richard Widmark, Richard Basehart, Dolores Michaels, Rip Torn

**

Rest in Peace Karl Malden. Over his lengthy career, in addition to his own fine performances, he helped other great actors deliver some of the best performances. Malden actually directed one film as well - a little known chamber drama entitled "Time Limit" - a 1957 military film about a mysterious case of treason within a Korean War POW camp. Coincidentally it happened to get its first DVD release by MGM last month.

It's the middle of the Korean War and Richard Widmark plays Col. William Edwards, a Judge Advocate (military lawyer) assigned to the case of Major Harry Cargill, a respected officer who confesses to treason. While in a POW camp, Cargill freely communicated anti-American propaganda to the Korean troops, a heinous act that threatens to have him court-martialled. Any questions Edwards asks of Cargill are met with the same unemotional statements repeated over and over again, same as his fellow POW inmates. Something just doesn't feel right and Edwards' investigation gradually uncovers a stunning revelation about the troops.

The investigation plays out with a predictable series of dramatic confessions to arrive at the shocking truth from the soldiers. While it's difficult to shock audiences these days, in 1957, Malden managed to poke some rather large holes in the foundation of the American military establishment to stir up some controversy. The title refers to the notion of military heroism and the unfair burden this label can be on our soldiers — themes applicable to any war, or any soldier, especially nowadays when our soldiers are supported with an often over-the-top shower of exaltation. But our soldiers, like the characters in Malden's film, are just regular people, just as vulnerable to the fears of death and dishonour.

These are some grand ideas that unfortunately are stifled by some stodgy storytelling. Stepping behind the camera with this material would seem a natural for Malden, as it was originally a play adapted for the screen by the writer — an actor's movie. Unfortunately it makes for a stagy filmed version, a visually uninspired effort, with its minimal interior locations largely undecorated on a small, claustrophobic set, though the occasional flashbacks to the POW camp do bring a dark sense of gritty realism to the picture.

We only have to look a yeas later to Stanley Kubrick's anti-war classic "Paths of Glory", which relays the same complex themes of cowardice and heroism, but with more cinematic chutzpah. Perhaps directing just wasn't for Malden. His body of work in front of the screen speaks for itself, and even though it's a flawed film "Time Limit" has the same intense integrity which inhabited many of Malden's great roles.

Humpday: Interview with Lynn Shelton

One of the best films at Sundance this year was Lynn Shelton’s “Humpday” – a marvellous low budget comedy about two best friends who, despite being straight, make a bet to try and have gay sex as a test of their friendship (Click HERE for my review). Sounds absurd and ridiculous, yet Shelton and his actors manage to establish a rock solid foundation of realism that we can’t help put ourselves in that situation and believe wholly in their journey. "Humpday" opens around North America on July 10.

If the press screening didn’t go off really well I knew something special was going happen with this film the day after, when, in a rented room above an art gallery on Main St., the publicist, the director, and the three stars assembled to do press interviews.

I found myself waiting on a staircase with a bunch of other journalists politely waiting their turn to talk to the team. There seemed to be more takers than expected, and so everyone seemed to be rushing around trying fit everyone in. And when it was finally my turn I was only allowed 5mins!

Five minutes was all I needed to figure out that Lynn Shelton had cracked a new filmmaking methodology breaking the traditional mould of cinema’s order of operations. Idea – Outline – Script – Financing – Casting – Filming. In order to achieve a distinct naturalism without visible improvisation Shelton employed a self-developed method of ‘upside down’ filmmaking. It’s not like it hasn't been done before - Mike Leigh has been doing this type of thing for years, and this type of naturalism is a hallmark of the so-called 'Mumblecore' films. But Shelton's film is by far the most accessible of this new American film movement and teaming up with fellow ‘mumblecore’ actor/director Mark Duplass is key for Shelton to elevate her film from festival-darling to a legitimate contender for best comedy of the year.

So, I finally was allowed into the room. The publicists had separated the guys and the girls – actors Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard ambled off to some other room, and luckily I got to sit down with the lovely ladies of the film – director Lynn Shelton and her female lead Alycia Delmore:

DFD: Talk about the genesis of the film, how it started and how you got the actors involved with it.

LYNN: I really built it around the actors. We really started with one actor, Mark Duplass. I had admired his work and he’s a filmmaker, and one half of the Duplass Brothers. I’d seen “The Puffy Chair”, I hadn’t seen “Baghead” yet but and I was also becoming good friends with friends of his and so we had all these mutual acquaintances. And he ended coming up to Seattle where I lived to star in a film called True Adolescence, which was an independent film being shot there. And I got myself on set because I like to be on set but really I was there to meet Mark. That was the key motivation for me, so I volunteered my time as a stills photographer to get myself there. And we really bonded. We were really primed to meet each other because we’d heard of each others’ films and our filmmaking methodologies and it seemed we had something in common. And we sure did. It really seemed like we were of the same ilk. Watching him act too I knew I really wanted to work with him. About a month after he got back to LA I gave him a call and I pitched this idea to him.

DFD: Did you have a script at this point?

LYNN: No, I didn’t. This is my third feature – my first film was made in a very traditional way – script first, then casting and everything else. I then came up with what I’ve been deeming, an ‘upside down’ version of filmmaking, because I found that trying to get a level of naturalism that I approved of was very difficult doing it the traditional way. And so I put a number of things into place, and first and foremost was to start with an actor, then a sort of a theme or premise, and really early on bring them in so we can develop the character, so it’s really customized for them. It’s like a club.

DFD: What was the core idea in Humpday?

LYNN: Basically I called Mark and said, ‘I know it sounds a little crazy but the idea I have is that there are two best friends who are straight and they’ll both have different personalities and then, for whatever reason, they decide to try and have sex together. I didn’t know if it was going to be a film yet or not. The main thing was they were going to have gay sex together. It was really loose at that point, and I had some things in place but not others. And the thing that was cool about it was bringing in the performers early on so you can get to know their characters as you develop them and their relationships as the plot is coming together. Especially with a script like this which is so far out in its premise. Its very crazy, ridiculous and we knew, the only way we could pull this off, was not to make an absurd random crazy farce, but grounded in humanity and believability. And the way to do that I thought was to have these fully fleshed out characters that we believed was real people. And once you know who the characters are and what’s supposed to happen in the scene you really know how these people are going to react in a believable way. So that’s why its 'upside down'.

DFD: Alycia, how were you working in that process?

ALYCIA: There was definitely a learning curve. I come from a theatre background and don’t have a lot of experience on film. I actually thought my theatre background was helpful rather than coming from a traditional film world. My only film experience involved being in one of Lynn’s other movies. We knew everything that was going to happen, the arc of the scene, but only where each character would start in the scene and hopefully end up, all of the in-between was up to us. We’d improvise through the scene and then we’d stop and talk about what worked and what didn’t work.

LYNN: And since they embodied their characters if they weren’t feeling it, they’d say, ‘Ben would not say this’. And so if we had an idea, ‘well this is how its gonna play out’ we had the freedom to go with it. I remember this one scene in particular, we just had to change it, because it just wasn’t working. We just couldn’t get from A to B. We said ‘nobody’s going to buy that he would do this’. And so we were always checking back, that scepticism was always pulling us back to ask again and again, from the audience’s point of view, would you believe this? And by just remaining true to the characters it was knowing who they were.

ALYCIA: In some ways having all the responsibility of the actual dialogue on your shoulders kept us honest because you get to a point of when you’re saying things like ‘this doesn’t sound like me. I’m just talking for the sake of talking, to get somewhere.’ So we really managed to keep ourselves honest that way. At least I hope we did.

DFD: I thought it was terrific. When Ben was talking, his dialogue sounded like me talking. Seriously, his words, manner of speech. It was uncanny.

LYNN: I can’t write that way – natural dialogue. Some people can. As long as you cast the right people, it really depends on that. There are actors who really aren’t comfortable with that. Coming up with their own words. If you can find someone who is comfortable with just coming out with what that they would actually say, all they need is the acting ‘objective’, those basic means. What’s going on in the scene, what does my character want, all the acting school things, and when they’re comfortable they're are just always gonna sound more like how speech comes out of somebody’s real mouth. Which is a really tall order. I found to write something down a piece of paper and say ‘ok make this sound like something you’d actually say’ is hard. And that is something I’m always on a quest for. I wanted it to feel like a documentary.

ABOUT DFD

Founded and operated by film buff and filmmaker, Alan Bacchus, Daily Film Dose is a daily film appreciation website. Featuring a new review everyday, the site features reviews of great classics, in theatre new releases, and DVD new releases. The films can be old or new, indie or popular, experimental or mainstream – like shuffle in your I-POD, anything goes.

Contact me at: albacchus(at)hotmail.com


Alan Bacchus is a Toronto-based filmmaker, and writer. He has produced and directed several short films and also writes for EXCLAIM!, a Canadian national entertainment mag. Alan also works in the Canadian film industry at Astral Media The Harold Greenberg Fund, which provides development and production financing to Canadian feature films.









CONTRIBUTORS:

Greg Klymkiw is a Toronto-based writer, filmmaker and teacher from Winnipeg. He has produced the work of Guy Maddin, Cynthia Roberts, Nik Sheehan, Alan Zweig and many others. Since 1998, he has been the Producer-in-Residence at the Canadian Film Centre.Click HERE for Greg's postings

Blair Stewart works in film post-production in Canada, Europe and New Zealand and as a technician for a number of international film festivals. He lives in London, England with his fiance and bombards Alan with constant cinema chatter.Click HERE for Blair's postings.

Reece Crothers is a Toronto-based screenwriter. Reece recently wrote the screenplays for The Cello, and The Morning Party - two multi-award winning short films. Click HERE for Reece's postings.

Matt McUsic is a New York/Los Angeles based filmmaker. After graduating from USC Cinema School he wrote/directed Shamelove (2006) and produced/photographed Sweet Thing (2008). He currently works as a segment producer in reality television on such shows as Dating In The Dark and Survivor. Click HERE for Matt's postings.

Public Enemies

Public Enemies (2009) dir. Michael Mann
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Stephen Dorff, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup

***

Nobody plays cops and robbers better than Michael Mann, and his new opus allows the director to venture back to the golden era of sensationalized crime — the Depression Era of John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson et al. But after the disaster of Miami Vice, it's not quite the return to form we all desperately hoped for. While Mann sets the same unique tone of stone cold procedural action mixed with elegant melodramatic melancholy, surprisingly it's the technical elements that let him down.

It's the 1930s and when we meet the film's anti-hero, John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), the charismatic bank robber extraordinaire, he's already public enemy #1 and a household name in America. The opening sequence establishes Dillinger's forthright attitude and skills with a Tommy Gun, as the moment he sets foot in the prison, he breaks out in a hail of bullets and is back robbing banks. The man on his tail, assigned by J. Edgar Hoover (a laughable impression by Billy Crudup), is another intensely focused man of action, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), who becomes the Al Pacino to Johnny Depp's Robert De Niro. It's a cat and mouse chase from beginning to end with many bank robberies in between. Dillinger's relationship with his main squeeze Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) provides the film its heart, and in the final moments that connection of respect between the cops and robbers Mann's so eloquently explored in Heat.

The elephant in the room throughout the entire film is Mann's awful visual design. Under the high-speed movements and the rapid flashing of gunfire the high definition image breaks up revealing a dreaded "video" look. Mann's lighting is god-awful as well, in what appears to be an extreme minimalist philosophy the character's faces are often in complete darkness — a curiously uncinematic treatment from a man often accused of over stylization.

It's a shame because the film leans so heavily on the cinematic legacy of the genre, from the characters' self-awareness of their actions to the importance of cinema and public opinion of this story. Dillinger acts like a movie gangster; his courtship of Billie has the same "me take" attitude of Jimmy Cagney. Women are objects for the taking, and vulnerable to the allure of danger. In the film's best scene Dillinger even sits down to watch a gangster film in the cinema, as if watching his life lived out on the big screen.

It's all part of the Hollywood romanticism of crime, a world Mann unabashedly lives and breathes in. Mann's imposition of non-style to a genre that is entirely based on style is a contradiction that threatens to drown the film. Thankfully, it doesn't. The film gains a steady momentum increasing in intensity all the way until the end. There are mondo gunfights, and masculine tough guy bravado, satisfying all those playful boyhood urges. If only those gunfights were lit properly, then perhaps Mann would have another crime masterpiece.

This review was first published on Exclaim.ca

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Canadian Cinema in Revue

Curated by yours truly Canadian Cinema in Revue, is a screening series devoted to bringing back great Canadian films to the big screen, celebrating features, shorts and filmmakers who made them. Once a month at Toronto's historic Revue Cinema (400 Roncesvalles Ave), a cool Canadian feature preceded by a short film of similar theme is screened along with Q&As with the filmmakers.

Curated by blogger, critic and filmmaker Alan Bacchus, Canadian Cinema in Revue, recent winner of Best Revival Programming in NOW Toronto, is a program devoted to showcasing innovative and entertaining features, related short films and the people who made them.



NEXT SCREENING IS: PROJECT GRIZZLY - Tuesday, April 27, 2010

There’s something about grizzly bears that just make people go mad. Lynch’s doc, ‘Project Grizzly’ would make a good companion piece to Werner Herzog’s equally great though more well-known ‘Grizzly Man’. Both films tells stories of psychologically-challenged mad men, who, in the name of science, are as much in search of personal fame as they are the research they purport to be gathering. Lynch’s hero is Troy Hurtubise, after a chance meeting in the woods with a grizzly bear, which left him mesmerized with the animal took it upon himself to build a suit of armour impenetrable to bear attacks thus allowing him to study them up close. ‘Moby Dick’, this is not, but his hubris is as large as Captain Ahab, and perhaps with more perseverance. It makes for an irreverent and unintentionally hilarious peak into one man’s delusions of grandeur. After its release in 1996, it instantly gained a cult following not only in Canada but around the world.

Preceding the film will be another classic documentary from the NFB, NAILS (1979) by Philip Borsos, a Genie-Award winning short film showing the diametrically opposed effects of man and machine on the production of nails

This screenings are presented with the support of The First Weekend Club, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, and Daily Film Dose.com.

Tickets for the screening are $8 for members of the Revue and sponsoring groups; $10 non-members.

Previous screenings:

March 17, 2010: SIX FIGURES (2005) (David Christensen) preceded by STILL LIFE (2005) (Jon Knautz)

Nov 24, 2009: OWNING MAHOWNY (2004) Richard Kwietniowksi) preceded by FLAMINGO (2005) (Cameron Groves)

Oct 28, 2009: THE DARK HOURS (2005) (Paul Fox) preceded by CENTIGRADE (2008) (Colin Cunningham)

Aug 10, 2009: ITS ALL GONE PETE TONG (Michael Dowse) preceded by IF I SEE RANDY AGAIN... (2006) (Vivieno Caldinelli)
Listen to the Q&A here:

July 13, 2009: FIDO (2006) (Andrew Currie) preceded by THE BIG CHARADE (2003) (Jesse McKeown)
Listen to the Q&A here:

June 10, 2009: CUBE (1997) (Vincenzo Natali) preceded by ELEVATED (1996) (Vincenzo Natali

Listen to Alan on CBC Radio discussing the Program:

La Haine (Hate)

La Haine (Hate) (1995) dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui

****

Although "La Haine" feels so thoroughly relevant and modern, the film is almost 15 years old, made at the time of “Boyz in the Hood” and “Menace II Society”. “La Haine” is less a time capsule of the era, like those urban American films, and more a grand artistic statement comparable to the early work of Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Vincent Gallo.

Kassovitz follows the day in the life of three low level street hoods, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Kounde), Said (Saïd Taghmaoui). It's just after a violent riot in Paris, which saw one of the leaders of their community beaten and in the hospital. Anger, fear and frustration fills the air, and the three boys are not sure how to channel their anger.

When hotheaded Vinz (think Johnny Boy from "Mean Streets") finds a missing policeman's gun on the ground it becomes a symbol for Vinz to exercise the power and force he's always wanted. For Hubert, he seeks an escape from the ghetto so he doesn't suffer the same fate as his imprisoned brother. And for Said, he's left in between the two divergent paths of Vinz and Hubert. We just spend one day with the guys as they cruise the streets of Paris rambunctiously disturbing the peace while contemplating their futures in the Paris ghetto.

I don’t know anything about urban Parisian life other than what I see in the movies and read on the news. Between now and then it would appear that little has changed for the underprivileged youth of Paris – a mixture of races who, through their urban poverty and racial discrimination, congregate together in gangs for strength. This is the story of any major ethnically diverse urban centre be it the streets of South Central LA or Toronto. But the trio in this film are not defined by race, Hubert is black, Vinz is Jewish-White and Said is Muslim, three lost souls who have little in common culturally other than their mutual poverty. It wasn’t the first and won’t be the last film on this subject but “La Haine” is one of the powerful and accessible of these urban stories.

Though this wasn’t Mathieu Kassovitz’s first film, it certainly was his coming out party. Shot in stark high contrast wide angle black & white, “La Haine” is a beautiful piece of celluloid. Black & white captures youth so eloquently and the deep focus look in this film reminds us of Francis Coppola’s “Rumble Fish”, or Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show”.

So far I’ve referenced five great filmmakers, so there’s a palpable acknowledgement of cinema in Kassovitz’s style. He’s supremely confident with his camera and the direction of his performances. Characters are framed carefully with attention-grabbing compositions – whether it’s the back of someone’s head, or a bold macro close-up Kassovitz finds clever ways to orchestrate the characters in the spaces - an expressionism borrowing heavily from Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese.

Despite the stylish visuals, Kassovitz's compensates with a natural freeform narrative which evolves without burdening us with traditional plot devices. Using the time of day as the only narrative reference point, Kassovitz makes every scene special. And when the final scene comes only then do we realize how well his characters have been drawn and made flesh. In the final moments Hubert, Vinz and Said are tested in a dramatic confrontation which leaves the audience gasping - and with a little bit of auteur ambiguity for good measure to let us all know it's a director's film. Enjoy.