Every year at this time much is made of the annual Queen’s University Homecoming extravaganza when thousands of students descend on the campus and carouse in the streets intoxicated like typical restless youths. The student arrests, minor scuffling, skirmishes, and general public disturbance of this weekend always seems to spark nationwide debate. Well in Toronto, this happens every Friday and Saturday, in the city’s notorious ‘Entertainment District’ – 1.4 square KM area in the heart of the city where nightly 50,000 young people inhabit 60 nightclubs for four hours and then emerge into the streets after last call for even more drunken rowdiness.
All major cities and specifically ‘college/university towns’ have this phenomenon to some degree. And so it’s not unique to Toronto, but the fact it’s a grossly exaggerated and heightened event weekend after weekend indeed makes it one of the ‘unofficial’ attractions of Toronto. You won’t see it on listed on tourist guides, or in subways ads, but 3am on a Friday night at Richmond/John, for good and bad, it’s something to behold. Violent? Yes. Debauchery? Yes. Utterly fascinating like a trainwreck? Yes.
This is the subject of Eric Geringas’s one-off hour long doc “Clubland” which played at Hot Docs this year and now premieres on television tonight at 8pm on Global. Geringas serves the subject matter adequately showing us several angles of this Toronto experience. We get to see the clubgoers who drive in from the suburbs in droves, bribe the bouncers to get past the monstrous line-ups, spend hundreds of dollars on overpriced bottle service tables and navigate the tricky game of picking up. There’s the nightclub owners, like veteran Charles Khabouth, Toronto’s club king and the one who famously brought Paris Hilton to town to promote one of his venues. There’s the policemen who strap on riot gear and patrol the streets nightly like it’s a G20 summit meeting. And there’s Adam Vaughn the city counselor who represents the interests of the residents (thus the voters) of the area, locals who, of course, resent the ritualistic disturbance.
Geringas’ visual palette compliments the electricity of these nights. Eye candy is all over the place – spotlight, lasers, and neon of the nightclub interiors, good looking young people dressed to the nines and acting like drunken ragdolls. The bright lights of the nighttime streets are so well lit up it becomes a natural expressive lighting for his cameraman. Even the camera light offers a fluorescent softness to the interviewee’s faces blending them in with the general look and artistic design of the clubs.
While it all works for a one-off, the film doesn’t get much deeper than the surface of the issues. We’re told nothing we don’t know already from the frequent nightly reports on local news and even our common sense of the issues – the residents complain, the business owners scoff back, nothing solved. The characters are mildly interesting and represent an adequate slice of the modern club scene, but we don’t spend enough time with any of them to really get to know them. With commercial breaks the film clocks in at 42mins or so, so that’s about all we can expect. With 90mins our expectations change drastically.
“Clubland” is thus successful and provides us a fun glimpse into this world I have long since bypassed, but like to get a taste of every once in a while to remind myself that little has changed, or will change, about how young people party.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990) dir. John McNaughton Starring: Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles
****
By Alan Bacchus
I can take pretty much anything shown to me on screen, but 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer' features one of a few scenes which truly terrifies me and compells me to turn the film off... but more on that later...
John McNaughton’s low budget independent masterpiece of horror is a different kind horror. While the more notorious classics 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Halloween' tell horrific stories of torture and murder through the eyes of its victims, McNaughton, swung his camera around on the murderers thus creating a film with an even more visceral kind of terror.
Otis and Henry (Tom Towles and Michael Rooker) are a pair of uneducated ex-cons living in Chicago. Henry served time for killing his mother, and despite being free still has a deep seated need to kill and has been on a rampage of random but obsessive serial murders. Otis is unaware of his roomie's predclictions until one night when they pick up a pair of hookers, Otis watches Henry inexplicably snap the necks of the po0r women. Otis suddenly becomes intoxicated with the thrill of murder and follows Henry's trail of a serial killing like a trade apprentice.
Complicating Henry's simple anti-social lifestyle is Otis's comely sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) who has come to live with Oits, thus making the two-some into a threesome. Becky becomes enraptured with Henry's introverted shyness and reserved internal strength. Otis on the other hand expresses his sexually violent tendencies against Becky. Out of this threat emerges a protective side of Henry and genuine love for Becky which might just bring him out of his cycle of violence.
We never knew the motivations of Michael Myers or the freaks from 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. What does Michael Myers do when he's on his own, or plotting his next victim? John McNaughton sadistically digs deep into the mind of these kind of madmen with a remarkable layered and sometimes sympathetic character study.
'Henry" was shot in 1986 independently for a mere $110,000, financed by a pair of indie producers Malik and Waleed Ali looking to make a quick buck with a disposable straight to video slasher picture. But when McNaughton delivered his complex, meditative and unslasherlike creeper, the Ali brothers didn't think it was good and thus shelved it. But finally after a long and complicated journey the film was discovered at film festivals years later and hailed as a masterpiece thus earning its cult status.
It's a great success story, as 'Henry' manages to achieve a kind of terror more horrific and viscerally frightening than anything before it. We don’t even see a murder until the 30-40 mins mark . Until then we only see the grisy aftermath of Henry's rage - single shots revealed via subtle camera movements of a strangled corpse or a mutilated and stabbed body floating in the river underscored with the agonizing sounds of the ordeal.
'Henry' has much in common with Tobe Hooper’s 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. McNaughton’s depressed urban working class flavour has much the same effect as Hooper’s backwoods hillbilly approach. The flat, rough and colourless cinematography has the same amateurish aesthetic as Chainsaw. Even the simple music which seems to have been played on a casio keyboard compliments this grimy, unpolished feel.
Tracy Arnold as Becky embellishes all the simplicity of an uneducated, foolhardy nave attracted to danger. Her conversations with Henry are sexually teasing, especially the ridiculosuness of her enthusisam at buying her 'I Love Chicago' T-shirt. It's pathetic, but serves as a sexual tease for both Otis and Henry creating the fundamental teeth-gritting tension between the three. And from a screenwriting point of view her attraction to Henry serves as the engine for him to either turn his life around or perhaps become another notch on his bedpost of murder.
The cycle of abuse characterized through stories and dialogue, and the implications of their squalor actually sympathizes with the killers - an internalized conflict which keeps the audience on edge. Michael Rooker's career-launching performance shifts with complete naturalism between fear, contempt, deviance, innocence, charm and even heroism. The violence he and Otis commits is choreograpahed with such unpolished, uncinematic realism it transcends the genre set piece cinematic death scenes we had been desensitized to from traditional horror films.
And as far as that disturbing scene which I struggle to sit through,... anyone who has seen the picture knows it, for those don't, it comes midway through the picture and shows the grisy murder of a family via a snufflike VHS videotaping of the event and subsequently rewound and replayed again and again by Otis. Its wholly disturbing, and brings to mind the heinous operandi of the Bernardo/Homolka murders, certainky something I don't necessarily think everyone should see, but, for good and bad, shows pitch perfect control of cinematic tone, however gruesome.
Warning: "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" is so good at what it does, it requires lengthy cinemtic recovery time.
"Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" is available on Blu-Ray from Dark Sky Films. Despite the HD format, the visual roughness is not lost and the film is even presented in its uncinematic 4x3 aspect ratio.
The Proposal (2009) dir. Anne Fletcher Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock, Craig T. Nelson, Mary Steenbergen, Betty White
**½
By Alan Bacchus
Didn’t this film just come out in the theatres? Well it’s on DVD/Blu-Ray now with one of the shortest DVD holdback periods for a successful Hollywood picture in a while. I was curious when I saw Ryan Reynolds hosting Saturday Night Live last week. Was he hawking ‘The Proposal?’ or “X-Men: Origins” or both? In any case it proved to be one of the better episodes in a while. Reynolds managed to surmount the trapping of celebs going on SNL and using only their likeness and mere presence to generate passive mocking gags.
The fact is Reynolds is a natural comedian, a Jack Lemmon-type, the handsome but affable bachelor, not afraid to muck himself up for comedy. His great sense of physical space and comic timing often overshadowed by his hearty good looks.
In ‘The Proposal’, there’s very little to grab onto, a film based on the wildly absurd contrivance of a lowly ladder-climbing assistant blackmailed into marrying his boss in order to keep her in the country and save his job. And so, Reynolds’ presence in ‘The Proposal’ single-handedly makes this picture palatable and even enjoyable at times.
Reynolds plays Andrew Paxton, the dedicated but frustrated wannabe book editor who works as an executive assistant to a high-class bitchy Senior Editor Margaret Tate. As Tate, Sandra Bullock sheds her perkiness, for the ‘Devil Wears Prada’ skin, essentially another recycling ‘Anna Wintour’ super-bitch character established by Meryl Streep. The set-up is a shamelessly contrived arbitrary conflict - Tate suddenly finds her immigration status expired and about to be sent back to Canada. As she’s been given the news, she concocts a ruse that she’s engaged to none other than her assistant. Andrew is caught off guard but plays along for fear of losing his job. The deception goes so far that Andrew find himself and his faux fiancé visiting his family in his home town in Alaska to appease the doubting immigration officers.
Once in Alaska Andrew is forced to lie to parents - Craig T, Nelson and Mary Steenburgen - who already resent his decision to chase the fast paced big city life instead of the rural family business in Alaska. A former girlfriend whom he left back home to pursue his career is resurrected causing Andrew much confusion between the life he wants and the life he’s left back home.
We know Andrew and Margaret are meant to be together, just by the very nature that a) Bullock and Reynolds are the stars and b) they’re the two best looking people in the film. Well, actually Malin Akerman has the role of the former girlfriend, which did throw a wrench into my perceived expectations for a brief moment
The plot contrivances required a leap in logic as long those in say, ‘Bride Wars’, or ’21 Dresses’, or ‘Ten Things I Hate About You’. Reynolds who is well into his 30’s as the Vince character to Sandra Bullock’s Ari Gold, or the Anne Hathaway character to Meryl Streep in ‘Devil Wears Prada’ is like a square peg being fit into a round hole. And the romance which emerges with haste between the two makes no sense whatsoever (other than for the reasons above), which is why Reynolds’ ability to make us forget this huge leap of faith is miraculous. We don’t really care about the plausibility of the set up as long as Reynolds looks and acts charming and sells all the gags in the script. Which he does.
Charm and screen presence goes a long way in cinema and the film made $162million at the U.S. box office. I hope Reynolds got paid a lot of money because without him the movie bombs.
'The Proposal' is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) dir. David Hand Voices by: Adriana Caselotti, Roy Atwell, Lucille La Verne, Moroni Olsen
****
By Alan Bacchus
For consistency I have to identify ‘David Hand’ as director of this picture, because, this is how I title all my film reviews. We all know, of course, this misrepresents the authorship of this picture, the visionary entertainer Walt Disney. In fact, other than the opening credit ‘Walt Disney Presents’ Walt’s not even listed as a producer.
So is the effect of Mr. Disney on animation, the movies, and pop culture in general - an unclassifiable artist, producer, director, writer, entrepreneur, animator and all of the above. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is indeed the brainchild of Disney’s desire to create the first-ever feature length animated film, a medium which up until then served only in short form to warm audiences up to the longer, more prestigious feature pictures. And so to produce a film with such a distinct assimilation of comedy and pathos the first time out of the gate, makes it one of the great milestones in cinema. The leap in technology and storytelling was so big, few milestones in cinema can compare.
Based on the Grimm’s fairytale, the story is told with same simplicity as in its literary form. The evil Queen who is so vain, looks into her magical mirror and asks ‘who is the fairest in the land’. Expecting to hear her own name repeated back, she's angered to hear it’s ‘Snow White’, a gorgeous raven-haired princess. Seething with jealousy, she sends one of her minions to kill her and to reclaim the title. But when the soldier arrives on the grounds of her estate about to stab her in the back, he catches sight of her innocent and ravishing beauty. He just can’t do the deed and tells her to flee into the woods for safety.
And so Snow White goes running away from danger into a dark, gothic and gloomy forest, alien and frightening. But the forest reveals itself to be a utopian land of cute furry animals who take to Snow White as one of their own. The princess and her mammalian followers eventually stroll into the home of the seven dwarfs, a group of happy-go-lucky, working class little people. Snow White is ingratiated into their home, a joyous occasion with much singing, dancing, and frolicking. But when the evil Queen discovers Snow White is still alive, she plots her demise via a poisoned apple which will render her asleep forever – unless her “prince” can smack with her a kiss and bring her back to life.
If this film were to be made today by Disney I doubt it would even make it past the first round of script coverage. The story is revealed to us with a seemingly unsophisticated simplicity of its fairy tale origins - very little dialogue, only a few talking characters, none of the bunnies, deer or other forest animals, and absolutely no pop culture references. This is what makes rewatching 'Snow White' the ultimate reboot. We can see how far, technically, Hollywood has come in terms of animation and the types of pop cultural referential storytelling which prevails in almost every animated film. 'Snow White' serves as the rock solid immovable foundation of everything after it.
Even before 1937, the animation rendering of 'Snow White's' characters is a result of a decade of fine-tuning the Disney style with hundreds of Mickey-related shorts. And for decades since, the fluid motion and watercolour pastel visuals are inimitable and timeless. Looking carefully, there is not much to Snow White's character visually. Her face is drawn without any detail, a flat uncountoured look which serves to play off the exuberant and highly developed and distinct personalities of the dwarfs - Dopey’s slapticky amblings, Doc’s deliberate and controlled presence, and Bashful’s adorable shy sweetness comes off only with physicality.
The most remarkable and resonating achievement of ‘Snow White’ is it’s enchanting tone and pathos. The remarkable imagery of Snow White’s funeral send what would have been considered delightful cartoon film up until this point in the film into the stratosphere of cinematic grandiosity. The expressive and art deco framing of the dwarfs surrounding Snow White’s lifeless body, with angled streams of light from the clouds is typical of that prevailed artistic movement of the 20’s and 30’s – a blend of modern futurist design with the Baroque 16th century renaissance styles.
The reverence of the mythological tone of Grimm's fairytale with the technical advancements of the new merged with unprecedented success artistically and monetarily. Upon release, 1937 ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ was then the highest grossing film ever made, and to this day, when adjusted for inflation, sits at #10 of all time.
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is available on sparkling Blu-Ray from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. The film is presented in two formats, 4x3 original aspect ratio, framed with the vertical black bars on widescreen television as as well as in ‘Disney-vision’ where the vertical bars are replaced with traditional watercolour hand drawn borders complimenting each scene. The reverence to the original source material with this Disney vision is admirable and work a look, but the viewing experience is arguably best seen without this distraction. The special features includes a number of well-produced interactive featurettes constructed like a puzzle. The navigation through each segment is fun at first then quickly turns frustrating for those who would prefer just to see them all sequentially and uninterrupted.
Zombieland (2009) dir. Ruben Fleischer Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Bill Murray
*1/2
By Greg Klymkiw
Zombies.
Babes.
Bill Murray.
What’s not to like, right?
Well, lots, but the big one is mighty simple – the movie’s just no good.
And it’s too bad, because all the elements – in addition to those mentioned above – are in plain view. A great title. Two nicely matched actors. Two terrific actresses. Lots of carnage. A road trip across a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. An amusement park with cool rides and filled with zombies (a nice – on paper – substitute for Romero’s mall in “Dawn of the Dead”). A blend of humour and horror.
And most importantly:
Muscle cars.
With all these elements popping up throughout the picture, my constant inner refrain was, “Please, oh please – say it ain’t so! Please let this get better.”
Unfortunately, these sure-fire elements are not presented with the kind of intelligence, control and style they needed. The picture is a flaccid mess. The super-talented Jesse Eisenberg of “The Squid and the Whale” fame plays a young Woody Allen-like schlemiel who delivers deadpan narration on how he’s managed to survive a worldwide onslaught of flesh eating living dead. The casting, content and delivery is reasonably inspired; the rules of the world are set-up nicely, there’s some terrific zombie killing and a few lines actually manage to elicit some smiles and a couple of chuckles.
Enter Woody Harrelson as a zombie killing cowpoke extraordinaire who takes an instant dislike to Eisenberg, but grows to like him. The two characters have their differences, but they bond by their mutual love and prowess at killing zombies. Not a bad thing to bond over in a zombie movie, but it seldom goes beyond a by-the-numbers nod to a depth that doesn’t really exist.
The opening minutes are not too bad, but the style and presentation of the film’s inaugural un-spooling is pretty much dropped and tedium starts to set in until the fellows meet up with two babes; the sinfully sexy Emma Stone and the younger and thoroughly delightful Abigail Breslin. The two chicks are in peril, but in reality they’re cleverly using the cliché of weak women who need their men to con our two zombie killers into giving up their wheels and guns. Eventually all four team up and the fun should really begin. It doesn’t.
The story turns into a series of comedy and action set pieces that are not funny or suspenseful enough. Add to this an annoying A.D.D.-challenged approach to shooting and cutting (director Ruben Fleischer, not surprisingly, comes from music videos and commercials). He has no feel for suspense and his timing on the comedy front is always just off the mark.
While the leads are attractive to look at, they go through the obligatory ropes of most multiplex fodder, adding little spin to the proceedings save, perhaps, for Eisenberg’s performance which is delightful in its incongruity with the genre. This would all be fine if the writing had been better, but the screenplay by Fleischer and co-scenarists Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick delivers mostly frat boy humour gussied up with some wiseacre-speak from the wonderful Eisenberg. Woody Harrelson is not without amusement value, but again, he’s pure good ole’ boy without the kind of heart that might have lifted the picture beyond the perfunctorily machine-tooled variety. The ladies are perky and cute; especially since they’re allowed to kick some ass, but they too are cardboard cutouts without the shading that could have made them more interesting and engaging.
I also love the IDEA of the Texas backdrop to much of the proceedings, but there’s really no sense of place beyond the fact that we’re told the setting is Texas. The movie feels like it could be pretty much anywhere.
The overall pace of the picture is also problematic. Given the fact that the running time is a perfect 80 minutes, the annoying style of Fleischer’s approach, still manages to bung up the works and the picture feels far longer than it actually is.
“Zombieland” wants to be “Shaun of the Dead”, but the writing is not good enough. It craves to be “Dawn of the Dead”, but the direction is lifeless and bereft of any weight.
All this said, I do suggest eventually renting the movie since there is one truly great element to find pleasure in. Bill Murray’s supporting role is an absolute delight. His performance and the material he’s working with rises above the pedestrian level of everything else in the picture. If the movie had been up to Murray’s greatness, I’d have been singing a much different tune. I’m not, though. Instead of belting out “Yellow Rose of Texas”, I’m just a-humming “Old Black Joe”.
Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) dir. Michael Moore Documentary
****
By Greg Klymkiw
Michael Moore is a showman – an entertainer of the highest order. He’s also one of the few filmmakers who seems willing (and indeed able) to tackle the insanity that is the United States of America with such a perfect blend of in-your-face chutzpah, humour (of both the dry and broad variety), hard-hitting straight-up journalism, muck-raking reportage of the most obvious kind and a feel for the common man that is as genuine as it is profoundly and resolutely moving.
In the 20 years Moore has been making movies – both the world AND cinema, have been a much better place because of his work. He’s scrappier than a wiry street mutt and as steel-jawed as a mastiff.
Moore’s ramshackle, yet remarkable debut feature “Roger and Me” examined how General Motors Corporation heartlessly destroyed profitable factories in Flint, Michigan (Moore’s home town) in order to increase profits by simply laying off thousands of workers. With his most recent picture, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, Moore continues to stand his ground as the mouthpiece of the working stiff and the worst nightmare of corporate and political sleazebags.
Using himself as a “character” in his documentaries, Moore has made one deliciously entertaining picture after another. Dealing with such diverse subjects as gun control (or lack thereof), the American health system (or lack thereof) and the inner-workings of the mind of President George W. Bush (or – you guessed it! – lack thereof), Moore is an activist extraordinaire who exposes hard truth with laughs, tears and a whole lot of the old razzle-dazzle.
And “Capitalism: A Love Story” is nothing if not dazzling. Like all good love stories we get a delightful bit of the old meet-cute (via 50s educational films on capitalism and the American way), the instant attraction (the rise of fake post-war American prosperity), the pursuit (the American dream), the jeopardy (the corporate takeover of America), the loss (how capitalism failed us) and, in a strange way – boy does indeed get girl back again, but in that bittersweet way where he kind of gets something he didn’t bargain for, but still has fresh hope for the future (Obama).
Still, within the picture, there appears little hope for the family who has their home stolen from them by the bank, but is offered $1000.00 to clean the house and dispose of a lifetime of memories. How much hope could their be for another family that refuses to leave their home – waiting for the Sheriff and his men to “illegally” break down the doors and remove them by force? Such images and sad stories are the backdrop for the corporate crime of the mortgage scandal and the even bigger crime of the very non-capitalist government bailout of the banks wherein high placed executives cut themselves huge bonus cheques while continuing to steal homes from honest, hard-working people. Even more scandalous is that these same banks don’t necessarily even hold the mortgages since the debt has been pieced off, bought, sold and traded. This almost unbelievable corporate gangster-ism is countered when Moore gets Ohio Democrat politician Marcy Kaptur on-camera admitting to the fact that she tells all her constituents not to move and to demand, as is their right, a copy of the mortgage itself which she further reveals is probably no longer with the bank anyway.
Another extraordinary and, I daresay groundbreaking moment in Moore’s picture is when – for the very first time in history (!!!!!) – actual film footage of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is shown wherein he declares that all Americans have the basic right to jobs, healthcare, homes and education – a right that must, according to Roosevelt, be inscribed in stone and adhered to if America is to ever become the great country its founders envisioned. Roosevelt steadfastly declares that there must be a new Bill of Rights, a second Bill of Rights that guarantees the basics of a good life (as opposed, one supposes to the right to bear arms). Alas, Roosevelt was too sick to deliver his statements in public. The footage was commissioned by him and filmed privately in the White House. He died some months later. The footage was never shown – not then, not ever and only NOW in Moore’s film. How this astonishing filmed historic record was suppressed is, on one hand, beyond me, but on the other, it makes perfect sense – especially within the picture Moore paints – of a country, if not an entire planet that is ruled, not by government, not by the people, but by corporate entities and a veritable handful of individuals who hold the vast majority of the world’s wealth.
One of the most grotesque insights into the corruption and moral bankruptcy of capitalism is the use of “dead peasant” insurance where major companies (including, naturally, Wal-Mart) take out life insurance policies on their employees and when these employees die, the beneficiary is not the families of the deceased, but the corporation they work for. That this is even legal is bile inducing. To see the shattered families who find out that their departed loved ones have been exploited in this fashion is heartbreaking. To think that companies look upon their departed employees as “dead peasants” is beyond moral reprehensibility. This enters the realm of pure evil. Hitler’s a pussycat compared to these scumbags.
In addition to all the hard-hitting stuff in the movie, we also get healthy doses of Moore up to his (borderline cliché by this point) amusing antics of shit disturbing – tussling with security guards, trying to make citizens’ arrests of corporate bigwigs, wrapping crime scene tape around banks and insurance companies, etc. Thankfully, these moments of levity hammer the point home further, but like the best filmmaking (which frankly is ALL propaganda to my way of thinking), it’s supremely entertaining.
Where the film somewhat betrays Moore’s and, in fact, most of the world’s naïve belief is the bittersweet final moments of the film where Moore questions the notions of all “isms” to be the real answer to solving the world’s woes. Moore feels the real victor is Democracy. Sorry, Mike. Democracy is bought and paid for. Obama winning means nothing. He’s either going to sell out in a more gentle manner than his Republican colleagues or he will be set-up to screw up and be taken down, or if and when he tries to do something genuinely good that’s not a compromise or a half-measure, he’ll be murdered.
For me, Moore does such a good job of exposing the truth behind what and who really rules our souls that I don’t believe in much of anything anymore – other than great entertainment, which this picture most certainly is.
9 (2009) dir. Shane Acker Starring the voices of: Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly, Martin Landau, Jennifer Connelly and Crispin Glover
***1/2
By Greg Klymkiw
“9” is blessed with a simple narrative that, not unlike the little engine that could, drives the picture forward with the force of a powerful springboard – yielding big ideas and exquisitely generating emotional responses as viscerally thrilling as they are profoundly moving. Based on his acclaimed award-winning and Oscar-nominated short, director Shane Acker attracted the likes of such visionaries as Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov to assist with the production of his feature debut. Blending the dark magical qualities of the former and the razzle-dazzle rollercoaster ride action of the latter, Acker goes the distance and then some with this astoundingly gorgeous animated sci-fi adventure. He also brings his own unique visual style to the fore and creates a movie that careens through a futuristic, yet retro look that is altogether unique. On a story-level, Acker builds to a suspenseful climax and a conclusion that is almost as awe-inspiring in its sense of spirituality as the final moments of Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.
It’s a ride that keeps you glued to the screen and desperately wanting, by the end, to not leave the cinema. He keeps you wanting more and this is a considerable virtue, indeed. However, rather than leaving unanswered narrative questions, you are left with much that is cerebral and, dare I say, philosophical.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world that resembles our own (but early 20th century retro), a strange little rag doll with the number 9 stitched on his back (Elijah Wood), comes to life in a ramshackle room with the long-dead body of an old man, his inventor (Alan Oppenheimer). He eventually discovers others like himself, tucked away in a bombed-out cathedral while huge metal machine monsters roam the lifeless planet seeking to destroy the rag dolls. Led by the patriarchal #1 (Christopher Plummer), the dolls are convinced they must hide to survive, but #9 is convinced that the key to their continued existence is to fight back, and most importantly, try to discover the reason why the monsters are hell-bent on wiping them out. #9 leads the battle charge with the help of #5 (John C. Reilly), a mechanical whiz, #2 (Martin Landau), an old scientist, #6 (Crispin Glover), a feverishly crazed artist, #7 (Jennifer Connelly) a “gorgeous” ninja-styled ass-kicker (a “ninjette”?) and the hulking more-brawn-than-brains #8 (Fred Tatasciore). As it turns out, it’s not just the existence of the rag dolls that’s in peril, but the potential to bring real life back to the planet.
One of the extraordinary aspects of “9” is Acker’s use of the all-star cast of voices. This is not the usual assembly of names to inject boxoffice appeal into an animated film. Each and every actor used (save for one sore thumb) is endowed with the sort of voice one needs to give life to animated characters. Christopher Plummer is not surprisingly, in excellent form as the authoritarian figure that demands adherence to his belief that survival can only mean keeping the lowest profile possible. This said, however, would paint a portrait of a character far too one-dimensional for an actor as great as Plummer to be wasted on and there is another aspect of #1 that we get subtle glimpses of so that his eventual transformation comes as one of those surprises we should have seen coming right from the very beginning. All the other actors acquit themselves superbly, but the one low-point is Jennifer Connelly’s weak voice work that borders on cliché. But no matter, Wood is a great, finely textured hero, Reilly a warm and fun presence and Glover, especially and predictably brilliant as a tortured artist.
Acker has a real gift for blending images that are stunning in their detail – in fact, almost awe-inspiring – and yet, that are as dark and bleak as all get out. The shattered ruins of a civilization that once was – lying dead under greenish clouds of some vaguely nuclear haze are powerful indeed. Similar to the strange feelings evoked by John Boorman in “Hope and Glory”, his live-action autobiographical portrait of England during World War II where, to a child, there was something oddly fun about the Blitz in a boys’ adventure manner – Acker manages to make this dead world a kind of cool playground. To the dolls, it’s as dangerous as it is fascinating. And this is exactly one of the things that stays with you after you see “9”. Acker allows you to fill the shoes of his title character and much of what you experience is from his perspective. Even George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” had this going for it – especially in the main setting within the mall where the survivors create their own Heaven on an Earth that has become a living Hell. For the dolls in “9”, it’s especially evocative since they’ve never really known anything else and certainly for the title character, he is very much a child born into a world that is dizzyingly intoxicating.
The depiction of life before the apocalypse is seen mostly in strange flashbacks or film footage and yellowed newspaper clippings where Acker creates a Hitler-like global dictator referred to only as The Chancellor (Tom Kane), a foul despot who uses the scientist/inventor (whose corpse we see at the beginning of the film) to create a world of deadly machines that have a life and mind of their own. The scientist, duped into thinking his life’s work will be used for the good of mankind, suffers the slings and arrows of his own genius as he sees the machines used to destroy The Chancellor’s enemies and eventually, mankind itself.
This, of course, is where Acker parcels out the spiritual element of the picture. Though the cathedral is initially seen as a place of sanctuary, it soon becomes, like all symbols of organized religion, a place that represents authoritarian rule and not unlike the totalitarian evil that has destroyed the world. But what’s very interesting and extremely moving is how Acker depicts the notion of how many scientists – especially astrophysicists – have embraced the notion of a higher power. This is not God as some patriarchal old dude with a furry white beard, but something far more mind-boggling. It is the notion that science IS spiritual – that the very idea and essence of soul is so fully rooted in Creation itself. This is what eventually carries the picture to a conclusion that is tremendously moving.
“9” has a perfect running time. At 78 minutes it moves in mysterious ways. Though short in length, it’s a picture that has as many moments of breathing room as it does moments of utterly breathtaking, break-neck action. Contemporary audiences are so out of step with just how short many features were during the Golden Age of Cinema that it’s conceivable that some people might be taken aback by just how short it is. This, I feel, is their loss – getting one’s money’s worth at the movies has less to do with how much running time can be applied to a picture, but just how satisfying the ride actually is.
And make no mistake, “9” is a ride that is very much worth taking.
Like Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, Acker infuses his film with a Judeo-Christian ethic and finally, it is a sacrifice – the ultimate sacrifice, in fact – which opens the doors to a sense of rebirth. And in a world as dead and bleak as the one Acker fashions, mankind’s redemption is only attainable through rebirth.
For much of the film’s running time, Acker presents us with a perfect example of what’s often referred to as “A Terrible Beauty”, but ultimately, what he delivers is pure, unadulterated beauty. It’s not something we get enough of in movies today. Most importantly, it’s not something we get enough of in life. “9” admirably fills a void on both counts.
Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973) Dir. Alan J. Pakula Starring: Maggie Smith and Timothy Bottoms
***
By Greg Klymkiw
“Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing” is a terrific title and, because of its length, a challenge for most marquee displays, video box covers and TV listings. It’s also, save for those who saw the picture in 1973 and loved it, a relatively forgotten picture from one of the best American directors of the 70s.
During the last 17 years of his life, filmmaker Alan J. Pakula was prolific enough to generate the overrated Holocaust-themed-Oscar-bait “Sophie’s Choice” and a clutch of competent, watchable thrillers of the John Grisham/Scott Turrow variety. If one were to watch – back-to-back – all nine films he made between 1981 and 1997, one might conclude he was little more than a hack. In fact, the most interesting thing about Pakula during this period might well have been how his life ended – a freak car accident wherein a steel pipe sailed through his dashboard and into his head.
However, if one could erase the abovementioned years and focus solely on his output during the 60s and 70s, one would be faced with the work of a good, if not great filmmaker. In the early 60s, Pakula established himself as one of the best creative producers in Hollywood.
Allied as a producer with director Robert Mulligan, the pair generated seven fine feature films during the 60s. Of these seven pictures, two were bonafide masterpieces – the powerful film adaptation of Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” and the brilliantly acted (Anthony Perkins and Karl Malden) biopic of baseball player Jimmy Piersall and his domineering father, "Fear Strikes Out". This was surely one of the great producer-director relationships in American cinema. Pakula and Mulligan tackled a wide variety of important social issues with taste, intelligence and most, importantly, a fabulous sense of showmanship. The pictures they made together were as supremely entertaining as they were thought provoking.
Pakula’s talent as a filmmaker became even more apparent when the team split up. Mulligan’s work got worse - a pale shade of his past successes, while Pakula went on to direct some of the most important films of the 70s. Ironically, it’s Pakula’s last years as a director that resemble the mediocrity of Mulligan’s career WITHOUT Pakula as a producer. But from his directorial debut in 1969 with the quirky Liza Minnelli vehicle “The Sterile Cuckoo” and through to the elegiac post-war western “Comes a Horseman” and the tremendous romantic comedy “Starting Over”, Pakula delivered the goods - and then some.
Pakula is, perhaps, always going to be best known for his unofficial trilogy of 70s paranoia-infused thrillers “Klute”, “The Parallax View” and “All the President’s Men” – and rightly so, since all three pictures clearly display a strong voice, an impeccable command of film craft and solid delivery of some of the most intelligent thrills committed to film.
Nestled between the paranoid world of a call girl being stalked and a corporation devoted to political assassination is Pakula’s imperfect, but still lovely and mostly forgotten bittersweet romantic comedy “Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing”. Working from a terrific script by Alvin (“Paper Moon”, “Ordinary People”, “Spiderman 2”) Sargent, the picture tells the tale of a May-December romance between two lonely, seemingly mismatched people. Lila Fisher (Maggie Smith) is a forty-something spinster dying of an incurable disease who takes a trip to Spain to experience the beauty and adventure that has eluded her. Walter Elbertson (Timothy Bottoms) is a twenty-something slacker packed off by his over-achieving father to the same sunny Spanish climes for a bike tour. When Walter abandons the rigorous journey for the relative comfort of a bus tour, he finds himself sitting next to Lila in the only empty seat. At first, the unlikely pair keep their distance, but after a couple of meet-cute-ish moments – one involving Walter’s underwear, the other involving a locked outhouse door – the loners are drawn to each other: first as friends and eventually as lovers.
Sargent’s scenario is a largely familiar romance, but he peppers his tale with a series of genuinely funny set pieces and some terrific dialogue for the two attractive stars. Most importantly, he creates two lovely, diverse characters for two equally diverse actors.
Timothy Bottoms, no stranger to the May-December romance by virtue of his turn as Sonny Crawford in Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic “The Last Picture Show” where the sensitively studly Bottoms beds down the sex-and-love-starved housewife played by Cloris Leachman. Made the same year as “Love and Pain…”, rhe Bogdanovich picture went through the roof while Pakula's effort saw its release delayed until 1973. Bottoms is great in both. In “Love and Pain…”, he's initially and alternately aloof and whiny, but his performance is truly a marvel as he slowly becomes charming and likeable as his relationship with Lila deepens.
Maggie Smith is especially wonderful in her role. Often portrayed as pinched and matronly in films like “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and the seriously neglected “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne”, she is full of life, vim, vigour and romance in “Love and Pain…” and happily, Pakula lavishes the kind of pictorial attention to her that was so rare for Smith. She is a downright sexy in this movie – a mature, but enticing middle-aged babe. With her gorgeous red hair, long legs, delectably prim manner and beautiful smile flashing a nice set of pearly whites, Smith is – without question a MILF-extraordinaire!
Most amazingly, the script allows her to engage in some really funny physical humour. Smith is not above taking more than one pratfall and a scene wherein she has an entire roll of toilet paper wrapped around her legs and unfurling an ever longer trail of bum-wipe as she scrambles towards her tour bus is the stuff of comic genius.
The movie is not without clunky moments – many of the scenes involving minor supporting players seem oddly forced and the “Love Story” disease-o-rama in the final third is a bit much, but Pakula injects such warmth and humour that one tends to overlook these flaws in favour of watching two great actors devouring their roles and on-screen relationship with relish.
Add to this mix a lush, romantic score from Michael Small and stunning location photography from Geoffrey (“A Night To Remember”, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Tess”) Unsworth and one has a quirky, sparkling and moving romance from a director at the peak of his powers.
“Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing” is available on Sony’s “Martini Movies” DVD brand. How and what a “Martini Movie” is supposed to be is still beyond me. How this bittersweet romantic comedy can be considered a “Martini Movie” is especially beyond me.
Mothra/Mosura (1961) Dir. Ishiro Honda Starring: Frankie Sakai, Kyoko Kagawa, Jerry Ito, Emy Ito, Yumy Ito and Takashi Shimura
***
By Greg Klymkiw
The threat of nuclear annihilation has always been a theme at the forefront of science fiction, but nowhere is this more profound than in the cinema of Japan. The devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki loomed large within the frontal lobes of most filmmakers from the land of Nippon, but at Toho Studios, a long-running series of fantastical pictures that began with 1954’s “Gojira” (aka “Godzilla”), took the islands of Japan by storm and crossed the waters to tantalize audiences worldwide.
The director who is associated most closely with these pictures is Ishiro Honda, a visionary whose work is often ignored, neglected and/or derided by many critics. That said, if Akira Kurosawa is to be considered the John Ford of Japanese cinema, I’d argue quite strenuously that Honda is the Nipponese Spielberg – an entertainer of the highest order, an expert stylist/craftsman and a serious film artist. Like Spielberg, Honda created a wealth of product that appealed to kids of all ages – from east to west and back again!
Sadly, in the Western world, Honda’s work was so manipulated by American distributors that his dark, thrilling morality tales of nuclear mutated monsters were often reduced to the most basic elements of the monster movie genre with much of the political subtext removed in order to remain palatable to the narrow interests of the Occidental world. With substantial re-cutting and dialogue dubbing, most Western audiences lost out on the opportunity to not only enjoy rip-roaring entertainments, but also do so with considerable food for thought.
In 1961, Honda’s “Mothra/Mosura” was a slight change of pace from his dark horrific explorations of the effects of nuclear radiation. The message of peace is still front and centre, but the delivery of this important missive has a colourful, fantasy-infused lightness. Dappled, as it is, with this lightness of tone and touch is what gives the audience a fresh perspective and creates a creature-feature endowed with a very unique vantage point.
When a strange island is discovered in an area spoiled by nuclear contamination, the world comes face to face with a civilization that devotes itself to worshipping the splendours of the natural world. On this island are two beautiful miniature women – fairies who sing the loveliest of melodies. When an unscrupulous promoter kidnaps and subsequently forces them to perform in his circus, a ragtag group of journalists seeks to rescue them – especially since the tuneful crooning becomes mournful and summons the awakening of the ancient monster Mothra. This snail-like behemoth eventually cocoons and transforms into a horrifying winged beast hell-bent on rescuing the fairies and wreaking major havoc upon the towns and cities of Japan - most notably, Tokyo.
Blending slapstick humour with the sort of destruction one expects from Honda’s monster pictures, “Mothra” is a magical and supremely entertaining thrill ride. Amidst the serious thematic concerns about Western greed and exploitation the entire concoction delivers a fine homage to “King Kong” and a delightful mix of laughs and thrills. The humour is, thankfully, not tongue-in-cheek, but rooted in the characters and situations so that, while broad, it never renders the picture into a knowing gag-fest.
The hallmark of Honda’s work is undoubtedly his handling of the carnage and “Mothra” does not disappoint in this regard. When our title monster transforms into a flying avenger, the force of its wings beating is enough to create hurricane-like winds that send cars, trucks and tanks hurtling into skyscrapers.
A considerable chunk of the running time in the first half is devoted to a debate between the forces of exploitation and those who desire a more harmonious relationship to the forces of nature. Within these debates, humour abounds – thanks mainly to the comical turns by the blustery Frankie Sakai as the rotund reporter “Bulldog” and the fiery female photographer Michi (played by the delightful Kyoko Kogawa). Jerry Ito is a deliciously slimy villain while fave Kurosawa thespian Takashi (“Ikuru”) Shimura makes a welcome appearance as the news editor who lights a flame under his writers’ butts and has them become actively involved in the proceedings. The real life singing sensation twins (the Ito sisters), known to the world outside of this film as “The Peanuts”, deliver great screen presence and are in very fine voice.
Ultimately, “Mothra” does not disappoint and lovers of Japanese monster movies will get their fair share of peace through superior firepower as the title monster must be cruel to be kind as it cuts a huge path of destruction in its instinctive, single-minded purpose to rescue the twins.
It’s a terrific monster movie and one of the best from Toho Studios. Lovers of this fare will especially be delighted, but even for those not immersed in the canon of Nipponese behemoth pictures, the pleasures to be derived are immense indeed: great carnage, lots of laughs and a worthwhile message about peace and ecology – the latter of which is way ahead of its time.
Sony’s great DVD collection is an especially worthwhile buy for anyone who worships this genre. You not only get s fantastic commentary by Honda scholars, but the transfer to DVD is gorgeous - with deep blacks to offset the vivid colours. Most importantly, the original Japanese version with English subtitles can be viewed along with the truncated, dubbed American version. The only flaw is the horrendous packaging with all three discs in the collection packed onto one spindle – each movie on top of the other and a definite accident waiting to happen.
“Mothra” is available on Sony’s New DVD release “Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection” with two other Ishiro Honda classics “H-Man” and “Battle in Outer Space”.
Tulpan (2008) dir. Sergei Dvortsevoy Starring: epbergen Baisakalov, Ondas Besikbasov, Samal Esljamova, Askhat Kuchencherekov
***
By Alan Bacchus
We've never seen a landscape as dull as this make for such peculiar and inspired cinema. We're in the desert of Kazakhstan, which is even remoter and more alien than the Borat version, a land of flat, infinite horizons, perpetual gusting winds, camels, sheep, a hut or two and one motor vehicle. That's it. That's all we get visually from 'Tulpan', Sergei Dvortsevoy's feature debut that won the En Certain Regard Award at Cannes in 2008; it's a fresh, funny, emotionally resonant and wholly unique experience.
Asa is one of the stranger movie protagonists we've seen in a while: a Kazakh youth with a funny face, short hair parted in the middle, wingtip bangs and big Prince Charles ears. He's just returned from a tour with the Russian navy and he's introduced telling wild tales of far-off lands to his family members; it's revealed later that it's part of Asa's ritual courtship for the hand of a local gal Tulpan. Unfortunately, despite never meeting, Tulpan rejects him solely based on the size of his ears. It's earth shattering to Asa, whose only dream is to raise a family and a flock of sheep in his homeland. But without a wife this is impossible. Poor Asa, as Tulpan is the only single girl in the vicinity, and like his brother-in-law, Ondas, argues: "he's got two arms and two legs, what's not to like?"
Dvortsevoy isn't so much concerned with detailing a romance as showing us the strange lifestyle of accepted sparseness and solitude of the Kazakh people. The camera lingers on the wide expanses of the land and moves only when motivated by the people and animals that cross its path. Even when nothing is happening the sound of whistling winds and the grunting of camels and sheep are strangely fascinating. Much time is spent with the sheep ― an important aspect of the livelihood of the characters. There's a problem with the pregnant females giving birth to still babies and Asa and Ondas's investigation makes for an eye-opening lesson in sheep birthing and mouth-to-mouth lamb CPR.
There are no overt gags but these strange, otherworldly moments contrasted against the characters' awareness of the world and pop culture is deadpan hilarious. The use of Boney M's "River of Babylon" is a great ironic moment; Asa and his friend 'Boni' in the middle of the desert rocking out to the '70s German/West Indian disco-reggae band is a symbol of connectivity even in the remotest places on Earth.
A Hard Day’s Night (1964) Dir. Richard Lester Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Wilfrid Brambell, Norman Rossington, John Junkin and Victor Spinetti
****
By Greg Klymkiw
This is one astounding picture. I first saw "A Hard Day's Night" at the age of five. It is now 45 years later and I have seen it innumerable times and in several formats – more times on a big screen in 35mm than I can remember, on 16mm with my own Bell and Howell Auto-load projector, Beta, VHS, laser disc, DVD and now Blu-Ray. It is a movie that never gets stale. Each time I see it, it seems like I’m seeing it for the first time and in this sense, it is truly timeless on a personal level. As a movie and in the larger scheme of things, it’s a gleefully entertaining movie - a mad, freewheeling portrait of the greatest rock and roll band of all time and surely one of the most influential motion pictures during the latter half of cinema’s relatively short history.
As well, it is one of the truly important works to come out of a period often referred to as the British New Wave where the silver screens lit-up with a new way of telling stories on both a stylistic and content level. A series of comedies and dramas from a combination of foreign expat directors living in the United Kingdom as well as indigenous talent were the order of the day. These pictures delivered cutting edge satire, anarchic laughs, kitchen sink realism, grim and/or humorous looks at working and middle class society and more often than not, focusing upon the hopes and dreams (both dashed and realized) of young adults. There were, for example, the "angry young man" pictures featuring the likes of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay - grimy little affairs that were depressingly cool. And then, there were the comedies - the best of which came from a director who contributed a great deal to changing the face of how movies could be made.
Richard Lester, the gifted American-born expatriate in London, was this very director and “A Hard Day’s Night” is unquestionably his masterpiece. Conceived just before the “Beatlemania” craze really exploded on an international level, Lester was probably the best man for the job of creating the sort of work that would have the greatest impact. Having directed and produced several British TV comedy programs featuring the iconoclastic Goons (including the likes of Peter Sellers, Kevin Connor and Spike Milligan) and with an Oscar nominated short film and a hit feature “The Mouse on the Moon” under his belt, Lester not only wore the shoes of director ever-so-comfortably on The Beatles' big-screen debut, he dove into the job with the mad passion of a Welles or an Eisenstein. This was not going to be just any rock and roll musical – it was going to be THE rock and roll musical – and as such, it informed filmmaking technique and style in ways we still experience in cinema even now.
Lester’s approach was to capture the slender tale in a documentary style with black and white photography; handheld cameras galore (all stunningly shot by the great Gilbert Taylor of “Dr. Strangelove” and “Repulsion” fame) and an approach to editing (with the exquisite shearing of John – “Frenzy”, “Zulu” and “A Fish Called Wanda” – Jympson) that would have made Eisenstein both dizzy and sick with envy.
The usual approach to rock movies at this time was to assemble a gaggle of performers and have them deliver a series of tunes in the dullest, most conservative fashion or worse yet, to plunk the likes of Elvis into (mostly) silly vehicles that were far below the dignity levels such performers demanded. Lester, on the other hand, wanted to propel us with lots of humour (sheer silliness mixed with sharply tuned wit), a dizzying camera and cool cuts that drew attention to their sheer virtuosity as well as performing the task of always moving us forward.
What this approach needed was a script like no other. Securing the services of the Welsh-born and Liverpool-raised actor, comedian, playwright and screenwriter Alun Owen. He proved to be a godsend to both Lester and the Beatles by crafting a simple narrative involving a day and a half in the life of the mop-topped Liverpudlians wherein they repeatedly shirk their responsibilities as rock stars and just have tons of fun – much to the consternation of their road manager (Norman Rossington), the bemusement of his assistant (John Junkin), the exasperation of a harried live TV director (Victor Spinetti) and to the delight of Paul McCartney’s (fictional) Grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) who exploits his proximity to the rock stars to also show himself a grand old time. Amidst the frivolity, Ringo goes missing on a soul search until finally all are reunited for one totally kick-ass show in front of thousands of screaming, swooning kids.
Wow! Can it get more simple and pure than this? Thankfully no! It’s just what the doctor ordered for this picture. Even more impressive is Owen’s brilliant dialogue and the endless opportunities to have the boys duck in and out of cabs, run from screaming teenyboppers and find as many different means of escape from both their fans and responsibilities – crashing through service doors, cascading down fire escapes and partying up a storm against the backdrop of the swinging-est London imaginable..
Not surprisingly, given the auteurist tendency to downplay the importance of screenwriters that aren’t the auteurs themselves, Richard Lester has uncharitably stated that much of Owen’s script was jettisoned in favour of letting the Beatles ad-lib. Enough statements from many others refute this assertion to support what really seems to be the truth of the matter – Owen spent a considerable amount of time with The Beatles on their journeys before setting narrative and dialogue to paper and went out of his way to create words perfectly suited to John, Paul, George and Ringo so that they’d be comfortable playing them and, on rare occasions have a solid springboard to ad-lib (which according to most reports is no more than 10 to 15% anyway).
And then there is the music – the title track “A Hard Day’s Night” (taken from one of Ringo’s delightful malapropisms), “Can’t Buy Me Love”, “Tell Me Why”, “She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)”, “I Should Have Known Better” and then some – all used in stunning concert footage and/or within the narrative body of the film – not unlike music videos before the notion of music videos even existed. This latter point is especially important to add some illumination. Lester, always the consummate filmmaker didn’t throw images and cuts at us willy-nilly, but actually adhered to the conventions of filmmaking (establishing shots, mediums, reverses, close-ups, etc.) by making it seem like he did anything but.
Most of all, it’s great filmmaking – pure and simple and in all the purity and simplicity that great pictures are ultimately endowed with, in order to allow for differing levels and perspectives to grow and to flow naturally and organically out of the mise-en-scene.
And even though it is a movie set in a different time and shot 45 years ago, it feels as free and original and fresh as if it had been shot… yesterday!
“A Hard Day’s Night” is available on a Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray via Alliance Films (Universal Home Entertainment, Canada). The new Blu-Ray release will disappoint most home videophiles since the source material seems no different that what appeared on the previous DVD and laserdisc releases. That said, Blu-Ray makes anything and everything look great and “A Hard Day’s Night” is no exception. This recent Blu-Ray release also contains a decent clutch of extra materials, which are surprisingly worth watching (since most of them on most releases, I find, are not). Until a complete re-mastering (or better one) comes along, this will most certainly do.
Deconstructing Cinema of the 2000's - Part 2: Social Realism
By Alan Bacchus
After watching the nearly unwatchable latest Bond flick, ‘Quantum of Solace’ it was clear to me the prevailing film movement of the decade is Social Realism. Though QoS is at the far end of Social Realism, the stylistic aesthetic of independent European cinema had crept all the way into one of the most exploitive and fantastical of Hollywood franchises – the 47 year old 22 film James Bond series.
What is Social Realism? Well for starters it’s a movement which isn’t necessarily exclusive to cinema – an art movement which began in the Depression-era 1930’s reflecting the everyday life struggles of poor working class citizens. The Italian neo-realism movement of the 1940’s is the most famous – such as Roberto Rossellini's 'Open City' and Vittorio de Sica’s seminal morality tale ‘The Bicycle Thief’. The hallmarks of these films – real locations, unprofessional actors, loosely structured minimalist plotting - has defined this movement ever since.
Fast-forward to 1996 and the introduction of the Belgian filmmaking duo, the Dardennes Bros third feature drama ‘La Promese’, but first of their vertite style films, is distinctly neo-realist and won the Palme D’Or. After “La Promesse” came “Rosetta” then “Le Fils” then “L’Enfant” then “Lorna’s Silence” five films which would first influence European cinema and eventually bleed down into American films.
Perhaps “Le Fils” is the most influential film of the Brothers, a Best Director Award-winner at Cannes, a simple film about a lowly factory working who takes a local street kid under his wing as an apprentice. For an hour the Dardennes’ camera hovers behind Olivier Gourmet’s shoulder going through the mundane daily routine of his life and his job. Just at the moment the audience might give up on this film the Dardennes sledgehammer us with a dramatic reveal which suddenly gives context to the film jumpstarting a third act which plays upon the best examples of morally challenging complexities of the original Italian realism.
Throughout the decade European and international cinema has been dominated with films of this aesthetic. Just look at the success stories from Cannes – “The Class”, “Gomorrah”, “4 Weeks, 3 Months and 2 Days”, "Serbis" – a collection of films which chose to treat formalism like a plague. The filmmakers of these films found inspiration in the details of people lives. Whether its following someone walking through a hallway or across the street characters in these films are defined more by their actions that their dialogue.
Charting it's relationship to the original neo-realist dogma the casting of the children in “The Class” exemplifies Social Realism’s preference of non-professional actors. Laurent Cantent cast his film after a lengthy workshop with real Parisian street youth to find the right people to personalities to weave his stories around – a situation not unlike the casting of Lamberto Maggiorani as Guido in “The Bicycle Thief”, an unprofessional plucked from a factory to be De Sica’s viewpoint into postwar Italy.
Realism is not the be all and end all though. It's as self-conscious and fashionably trendy as any 'new wave' in cinema - a stylistic choice in many cases which alienate audiences as much as draw them in. Personally, I thought Mateo Garrone's "Gomorra" was transparent hogwash. Garrone's desire to 'keep it real' left me detached and uninvolved with it's characters. It was remarkably empty and had me yearning for the melodrama of 'The Godfather', or the stylish bravura of 'Goodfellas.' Even 'The Class', celebrated everywhere, winning a Palme D'Or was admirable in it attempt to show the real lives of an urban Parisian high school, but also tedious and remarkably undramatic at the same time.
By the second half of the decade we saw this movement slowly creep into American films. In the world of Hollywood, it seems to be the norm now to shoot any action scenes off the sticks and handheld for that 'gritty' feel. The days of the locked down formal compositions of the camera in action were long gone, and thanks to the films of Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum), Steven Soderbergh and Alejandro González Iñárritu handheld dialogue seemed to become the norm as well.
These were just stylistic crutches for directors keeping pace with the times, and few of these films actually drew from the fundamental and core humanism tropes of European Social Realism. We had to look to the American independent film movements to find these influences. New York Times critic A.O. Scott’s widely circulated article earlier this year on neo-neo-realism summarized the American version of the trend well, identifying Kelly Reichhart’s Wendy and Lucy” and the three films as Ramin Bahrani (‘Man Push Cart’, ‘Chop Shop’ and ‘Goodbye Solo’) as the quintessential American neo-realist films.
A film which Mr. Scott doesn’t mention, which has as much influence from European Social Realism and had the widest audience reach in the U.S. is Darren Aronofky’s ‘The Wrestler”. Aronofsky’s camera which often follows behind Mickey Rourke’s shoulders takes direct influence from the Dardennes’ “Le Fils”. Even Rourke himself, though far from a non-professional, takes influences from his life and career as much as any of the films mentioned above. The 180 degree switch of Aronofsky from the formalism of his three previous high concept features to the stripped down humanistic integrity of “The Wrestler” sums up this trend.
Back to 'Quantum of Solace'. To make the connections back to neo-realism, follow this chain. QaS, along with its prequel, 'Casino Royale', was a concerted attempt to 'get back to the real', away from the cartoony of the Brosnan pictures. The visual style of QaS seems to take it main influence from the action as Paul Greengrass's handheld aesthetic and very serious tone of the (last two) Bourne films, a style actually birthed from Greengrass's 'Bloody Sunday' , his documentary-like take on the 1970's massacre in Northern Ireland, a particularly British version of neo-realist real time action film.
Here are my favourite Social Realism films of the decade:
The Wrestler (2008)
As mentioned above, the most accessible and entertaining of the above-mentioned films, featuring an immersive performance from Mickey Rourke, told with an unabashed humanist and sentimental unironic tone.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2006)
A difficult film to watch but ultimately devastating portrait of communist Romania and the lengths to which one woman will go to get an illegal abortion for her best friend
Wendy & Lucy (2008)
A simple minimalist story of a woman and her dog, plays like an American version of Vittorio De Sica’s ‘Umberto D’ replacing 1951 Rome for 2008 American Midwest
L’Enfant (2006)
The Dardenne bros second Palme D’Or-winning film, dramatizes the redemption of a hardened street youth who sells his baby for money.
Silence of the Lambs (1991) dir. Jonathan Demme Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald
****
By Alan Bacchus
There’s no real need to shower ‘Silence of the Lambs’ with any more praise. Its place in cinema and pop culture history is as rock solid as the ‘Wizard of Oz’. I’ve seen it a dozen times, and even catch snippets of it from the numerous A&E HD replays on TV. But this film is not meant to be seen on Sunday television, or with commercials, or in snippets when flipping through channels at the halftime break during televised football games. Nor was it meant to be seen in grossly edited versions for family friendly television – shame on you TBS.
It had been years since I’ve actually devoted adequate time to this picture - a quiet anti-social uninterrupted Saturday night with the lights down and with a crisp high definition Blu-Ray presentation – the next best thing to the theatrical experience.
I knew the film was good, even great, but with my full attention, mood, environment, and viewing quality all aligning properly it becomes a pure transcendental engrossing cinematic experience, nearly as good as seeing it for the first time. And think that a dark (really dark) genre picture released in February could sweep all major categories of the Oscars proves that every once in a while the Academy can get it right.
Director Jonathan Demme achieves cinematic perfection in bringing Thomas Harris’ brooding and wholly disturbing serial killer tale to screen with all its gothic tones and grimy seediness intact. Sure the performances are great, not only the award-winning lead performances but the dozen or so character actors that really make the picture work, and make Hopkins and Foster look so good. Anthony Heald as the loathsome and slimy Chilton, Scott Glenn as the FBI heavy Jack Crawford, Charles Napier as the Tennessee cop over his head with Lecter in his custody, the soothing gentle giant quality of Frankie Faison as Barney, even the two geeky bug experts who help Agent Starling identify the moth are memorable in two small scenes.
It’s easy to dismiss Demme's unflashy camera work - a style not all that different than his other films, most of which were warm-hearted Hal Ashby-esque dramatic-comedies. Demme’s close-ups, many of them centre-framed with the actors looking straight into the camera, helps lock in the audience to the characters – like what Errol Morris does with interrotron interviewing device. Tak Fujimoto’s visual design would seem more natural, and less stylish than say, Michael Mann/Dante Spinotti’s icy-coolness of “Manhunter” or David Fincher/Darius Khondji’s underlit tattered texture of “Se7evn”, but look closely and you’ll find it a precise and controlled look. Careful camera placement is used to subliminally subjugate Starling to both her environment and the other male characters; even his steadycam is used differently. The camera movement isn’t meant to be smooth and steady, instead using longer lenses on a steadycam allows the camera to move unencumbered by dolly track, yet keep the same organic shake as with traditional dolly moves.
Lambs has a remarkable sense of urgency, leapfrogging over ‘Manhunter’ and especially the oft-stolid “Se7en” in terms of pace. Hannibal Lecter’s introduction is a marvel. We all know it’s a great reveal from Starling’s lengthy walk past the grimy prison cells of Lecter’s basement neighbours, but the scene is the climax of a lengthy and expertly directed sequence of shots. As the slippery Dr. Chilton leads Starling through the cavernous hallways of the Hospital his dialogue controls the pace of their movements, editor Craig McKay punctuating each beat with a smash cut to a door opening or door closing, creating a relentless momentum enhanced by Howard Shore's heavy music.
Actually all the technical achievements above are glued together by Howard Shore’s ominous and brooding score. Before scoring films Shore was best known as the original musical director of Saturday Night Live. He then began his feature film career collaborating on all of David Cronenberg’s pictures starting with “The Brood”. Shore’s trademark sound, in what I can only describe as a soundscape of slow, pulsating, ambient noises, which increases in volume and power with the intensity of the emotion, helped Cronenberg achieve the ungodly squirm inducing terror of his great 80’s films. Though he composed a few scores for other directors in the 80’s, it wasn’t until Demme tapped him for ‘Lambs’ did he reach a new level in his career. David Fincher recognized the power of his music and got him to essentially recreate his ‘Lambs’ score for ‘Se7en’. Shore, of course, reached his career pinnacle winning three Oscars for his “Lord of the Rings” music.
I think we take “Silence of the Lambs’ for granted. Horror/thrillers are a genre which encourages stylistic flourishes. And so Demme's muted style makes 'Lambs' an enigma for auteur enthusiasts (me included). Unlike Michael Mann, or David Fincher’s films we can’t track the stylistic or thematic evolution of this film through Demme’s filmography. Even after ‘Lambs’, Demme hasn’t attempted anything like this picture again.
Perhaps the proliferation of its quotable lines, the subsequent exploitation of the Lecter character for more sequels, the numerous DVD releases of the film and it’s healthy supply in Wal-Mart dump bins has overexposed this film. Well, another version is out in the market, a MGM-packaged Blu-Ray Hannibal Lecter Collection, containing ‘Lambs’, ‘Manhunter’, and ‘Hannibal’. At least its in Blu-Ray decently transferred to high definition. The belle of this bunch certainly is 'Silence of the Lambs'.
'Silence of the Lambs' is available on Blu-Ray from MGM Home Entertainment in 'The Hannibal Lecter Collection'
Hazard (2008) dir. Sion Sono Starring: Jô Odagiri, Jai West, Motoki Fukami, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Rin Kurana
**1/2
By Alan Bacchus
Shinichi is a restless Japanese youth bored of his saccharine lifestyle in suburban Tokyo and looking for excitement. He picks up a handbook of the most dangerous places on Earth and finds New York City. So there he goes, an adventure in the urban and exotic environment many Japanese youths only know by its Hollywood depictions and it’s once sordid reputation.
Quickly Shin finds himself an alien in the big city and even gets mugged on his first day. But when he meets Lee, a Japanese-American hustling on the street with a coterie of minor gangland troublemakers he finds his way into the subculture of urban anarchy he’s been looking for. Imagine a mash-up Kubrick’s droogs, Trainspotting’s Begbie and those crazy Italian youths from 'Gomorrah' with Lee as their ‘Artful Dodger’.
We’re in the strange world of Japanese extreme cinema here and this one is off-the-wall even by Japanese standards. The New York in this picture is a cinematic impression of the city completely outside of reality but that peculiar Japanese point of view of a big, bad, alien and thus hazardous environment.
Of course, we don’t get traditional storytelling either, instead Director Sion Sono coasts on constant flow of freewheeling narrative chaos. He shoots the film using a mixture of English and Japanese on location in New York with super grainy lightweight cameras. I imagine few if any permits or organized crowd control was involved and Sono has his actors often interacting with local New Yorkers on the streets with an kinetic run and gun, ‘let’s steal the shot’ attitude.
There’s an exhaustion which sets in somewhere at the midpoint when social disturbance after social disturbance becomes repetitious as Lee and his gang, seemingly without an off-button, continue to throw their hands in the air and yell ‘whoooo’ in praise of their disdain for authority. 'Hazard' is definitely not for the mainstream, but might pique the interest of fans of Japanese cinema and urban subculture, or fans of the edge-pushing filmmakers like Larry Clark or Harmony Korine.
The Evocative Films disc is well packaged with a healthy liner notebook of thoughtful essays and stills about film. The special features include a behind the scenes making of documentary (in Japanese only) and an informative interview with Sono discussing his inspirations for the film.
Clubland (2009) dir. Eric Geringas
