With my recent invite to Letterboxd, I’m a bit afraid this column will go the way of the dodo. It’s clean, smooth, collaborative and a great way to keep a film diary. You guys who don’t have access however? I’ll keep this up, JUST FOR YOU. This post has turned into a biweekly bit so I want to change the name but have no idea. Any suggestions? This Fortnight and a Week I Watched? Films in a Fortnight or So? Fortuitious Fortnight? Hrm, I need to work on this…

This week had a lot of revisiting, some new documentaries and my review of The Woman in Black, the biggest yawn of 2012.

Grease Sing-A-Long
TIFF has done me in with their sing-a-long as of late. While I already had a ticket for the February 25th Grease Sing-a-long I was invited to attend the “practice session” with media and invited guests and belted along to Greased Lightning and Beauty School Dropout with the best of them. I was worried it would satisfy my appetite but no, if anything I’m even more excited for round 2! Join me on Saturday February 25th at 7pm. Tickets are still available!

The Eyes of Tammy Faye
As a Canadian who was a child when all of the Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker and the PTL Club went down, I just knew Tammy Faye as the evangelist with the eyelashes. My boyfriend grew up in North Carolina and insisted I watch this documentary. This was a very dark, but interesting documentary about a woman who suffered quite a bit of misfortune in her life. A woman I’d previously only recognized as a batty Christian. Tolerant and friendly to gays and lesbians, not afraid of perma-tattoos (her lipline, eyebrows and more) and in love with Jesus, she’s an enigmatic figure. I’m seriously glad they made this movie to at least try to explain some of the history of her madness.

The Kid Stays in the Picture
Robert Evans’s riches-to-rags-to-documentary is a great, if not narcissistic look at a producer who shaped some of America’s most iconic pictures of the sixties and seventies. From Rosemary’s Baby to The Godfather and Chinatown, Evans put the wheels in motion for some of the most successful and important American films of all time. All the historical stories are great, it’s just too bad he’s a sexist jerk. “Discovered” by Norma Shearer, one of the more sexually and gender progressive classic film stars, I’m sure she’d roll her eyes at the way he describes women in this documentary. Oh well.

Oh Brother, Where art Thou?
Probably my second favourite Coen brothers movie, although it depends on the day of the week. Sometimes it’s Barton Fink, sometimes I love No Country for Old Men, sometimes it’s Raising Arizona, but really? Lebowski is my first and this is my second. I really enjoyed the inanity this time around, I hadn’t actually watched it in maybe 3 or 4 years. Ulysses intentions are just as nefarious as ever, and boy did I feel bad for Pete this time around. Also? I may have sang my way through the film…

The Woman in Black
This was a whim, I’m not usually a contemporary horror fan because most contemporary horror is terrible. This was no exception. The Woman in Black may be a moving, creepy play but that does not translate onscreen. Instead of attempting to draw a dark atmospheric mood, the film instead just allows Radcliffe to play his character as somebody so desenstized to death and ghosts that he has balls the size of watermelons but the personality of a mop. I didn’t care about him, truly. He’s a broken man and that is all. The scares were paint by numbers or, paint by watch. At a certain point mid-way through the film, the “AAHHH” ghost screams, reminiscent of The Ring and other movies that use that fake-scream to spook you, was playing every two minutes without fail. I was so bored I wanted to cry. Nothing was unique, nothing rang true, nothing was actually spooky and I figured out the story and the twist half-way through. Skip it, go see The Innkeepers instead, do NOT waste your time or money on this piece. Remember Harry Potter as he was, not as he is.

Easy Virtue
The Kristin Scott Thomas/Jessica Biel/Colin Firth film pairing I never thought I’d see. A young heir to a large manse finds love in all the wrong places in a widowed race car driver, a lovely American woman from Detroit who doesn’t ride horses or hunt or play tennis. Biel is surprisingly charming and interesting as the ‘older woman’ and this movie is anachronistic but funny as all hell.

Art & Copy
Do you like Mad Men? Do you like advertisements? Remember Just Do It and Got Milk? Listen and learn the backstories from the advertisers, the outliers and business-types who made those ads happen. An engrossing film for anybody who likes art, design and copy, especially for advertising, marketing and communications students. If anything was ever going to make me want to shill for ‘the man’ more, it was this film. It’s available on Netflix so there is really no excuse.

TV-Land
On the tv front, I’ve started watching The United States of Tara which is amazing. There are no adequate explanations for why I hadn’t dedicated myself to this show yet, everybody on it is great, they’re fucked up, it’s subversive and it’s not TOO Diablo Cody-ified. I watched a few episodes when it first came out and just let it go for reasons unknown to me, but I’m obviously an idiot because this is great television.

Also rewatching? The Rose of Versailles, a late 70′s anime about the start of the French Revolution through the eyes of a female commander of the Royal Guard. Melodramatic but entertaining, it features a super strong lead female character and has a bit of historical fluffiness too.

Every Little Step
This was a random Netflix choice, I’m a huge sucker for competitive documentaries and a film following the attempts to cast the full relaunch of A Chorus Line sucked me in entirely. On top of that, the film also featured the exclusive tapes from the initial creation of the musical, gleaned from real-life experiences of dancers and performers in the 70′s. Contrasting that to the struggle that the performers still experience today was a really effective measure. This is not a doc I’ll be forgetting soon.

Shorts That Are Not Pants
A GREAT series curated by James at Toronto Screen Shots, including international and domestic shorts. Th best part? I was given the chance to see Wild Life, a NFB documentary that was just nominated for Best Animated Short at this years Academy Awards. A great selection of films and hopefully we’ll see more from this series soon. Check out Shorts That Are Not Pants for more information.

Die Hard
See my Blind Spot post for this gem of a film!

Exit Through the Gift Shop
While I saw this in theatres, my lovely boyfriend John hadn’t. It was great reliving Mr. Brainwash’s rise to relative fame in Banksy’s doc once more. I was able to concentrate on more of the aesthetic elements of the film this time around, really recognizing pieces of work and street artists. John loved it, I’m glad.

Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel
For my Attack the Bloc post at blogTO, I was given some screeners to view to really improve my understanding of the obscure genre of film. Soviet sci fi is usually quite cerebral and complicated, but Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel? Not quite so. This was more of a schlocky homage to American cinema of the 70′s, and considering the late date of this film (1979) they had more than enough time to study those works. The protagonist belongs in a different film altogether, the hotel occupants are leftover psychadelic users and the sci-fi is weak at best. It’s kinda fun and weird, but it’s not good by any means.

The Secret of the Kells
This was for a friend of mine, she’d never seen this work, a film that snuck into the Best Animated Feature in 2010 despite being relatively ignored this side of the Atlantic ocean. I quickly made myself known of this work and have been singing it’s praises ever since. The studio has a new work out next year, Song of the Sea and the teaser is gorgeous.

Test Pilot Pirxa
I wish this film could get remastered and put together with some more footage from the cutting room floor because there is a FANTASTIC story in here that seems to get lost due to budget. Pirxa is a great paranoid thriller about a captain piloting a test ship half made up of robots and half of humans but doesn’t know who is who. When one of the crew begins to torment him, he becomes distrustful of just about everybody on-board, which is deadly when the tormentor decides to strike. Political, topical, I just wish the weird car chase at the beginning was halved.

So I’m caught up to the 22nd of January which was only, what, 2 weeks ago? Crap.

So I’m an obsessive list-builder and to-do lister and have decided to lump myself in with these crazy people and create my own Blind Side/Blind Spot series. (I prefer the latter because the former makes me think I’ve been hit with a truck or a lawsuit.) It’s a completely self-directed monthly list that encourages, nay, forces us to watch movies we should have, by all accounts, seen by now. This could be films we’ve purchased and left aside, classics we’ve ignored, auteurs we’ve avoided or pop culture we’ve passed on.

I’ve not yet determined my full set of films, I think it’ll be a more organic process, discovering films I’d genuinely like to discuss will be key. But this month, we can all agree that this girl really, really, really needed to finally see Die Hard.

Just to get some things off my chest. I’ve NEVER ADMITTED I’VE SEEN DIE HARD. I’m constantly reminding people that I’ve yet to see this film and in almost five years of dating my boyfriend who supposedly looooooves it, has never even sat me down to watch it. So to cap off this holiday break, while everybody else was watching the Golden Globes, I decided to finally knock one off my list and live-tweeted the entire thing.

I still don’t see why this movie is special, it’s an action flick, John argues it was good in comparison but I still don’t get it. There are some clever bits but this is utterly forgettable for me. I must still be missing something. But I will treat you to my tweets from the evening peppered with some telling stills. Enjoy!

Did my writing early, now for Die Hard and then on to Champion Day! #endofweekendblues

The Nakatomi Building is still ridiculous 24 years later, the hair is huge but the glasses are amazing! #DieHard

Alan Rickman why you so hot and w/ such a confusing accent? Also, Bruce Willis must’ve spent the duration of this movie dehydrated #DieHard

Trussing up a corpse with a message? Morbid, Bruce Willis! Oh well it’s just generic German villains! #DieHard

Falling down an elevator shaft into an air vent? I call bullshit. Also? He’s more believable when he isn’t quipping endlessly. #DieHard

Protip: If you are a stupid coke head, don’t negotiate with terrorists. Sigh. #DieHard

For those just tuning on, I’m live tweeting my first ever viewing of #DieHard and its about 50% fun, 50% stupid.

Bruce Willis, you so stupid! His accent is totally fake! Don’t fall for it! #DieHard

I do enjoy this slow burning thriller part, camera angles askew, a little Hitchcockian dialogue, and now back to the machine guns! #DieHard

Glass in feet, glass in feet, ugggggh! #DieHard

But whats in the corporate safe? Oh, just a shit ton of fucking antiques and art, private collection? Wtf? Ohhhhh and bonds, gotcha #diehard

Now for the reformed badboy to realize he loves his wife, oh yeah! Are those real tears Mr. Willis? D’awww. Love those crazy kids! #DieHard

What’s with the movie’s subtle racism? Lets assume the nanny is illegal. Booo. #worstnewsanchorever #DieHard

Willis has his crazy eyes now! The FBI is even worse than the godawful LAPD. Now he’s rappelling down the building w/ a fire hose? #DieHard

Carl Winslow just shot somebody, cue the E.T. music! Now Argyle comes to take the happy couple home. But why not the hospital 1st? #DieHard

So obviously, as you can tell, this was not the stunning film I thought it would be, let’s only hope the next few months will expand my horizons a little more thoroughly.

Next up for The Blind Spot?

February 2012 – Eyes Wide Shut
March 2012 – Gate of Flesh
April 2012 – Hoop Dreams

My New Years resolutions were simple, stop procrastinating and write more, so hopefully this helps.

January 3rd – Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Extended Cut, TIFF Bell Lightbox, $0
I joined Corey, Lindsay and Paolo on this adventure which was Paolo’s first viewing of the LOTR series. I didn’t realize I was in the theatre with a virgin until he started jumping at the Ring Wraiths and then it was just a fun game after that. (It’s very, very hard not to make a jumpy person jump just before a scare, only to make the real scare twice as bad, very hard.) It was nice seeing the extended in theatres again, it really goes to show that a good, long film doesn’t have to feel extended. I can’t say the same for Return of the King, but the extended versions of the first two are quality releases for their lengthiness.

January 4th – You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, followed by Bring it On, Netflix
After truly enjoying Midnight in Paris I decided to revisit a contemporary Woody Allen flick that WASN’T Whatever Works (because, fuck that movie) and YWMATDS had me going for the first half and then loses the plot and my interest mid-way through. I stopped knowing whether I felt sorry for these characters, or if I was enjoying their suffering and after you hit that point you just move to not caring whatsoever. To counter that feeling, I put Bring it On up next, a predictable, cutesy comedy with Kirsten Dunst. It’s no Drop Dead Gorgeous but it was sufficient to wipe away my unease.

January 5th – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, AMC Yonge/Dundas 24, $0
Funny story, me and Ms Kelly had tickets for The Devil Inside which I won through an email contest, we walked into the cinema which was FULL and hot, mouldy and sweaty and decided instantly to see another film. This turned out to be the BEST IDEA OF THE WEEK as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a genuinely well-crafted, atmospheric spy film with ‘all of my mens’ in it (Firth, Oldman, Hinds, Strong, Cumberbatch, HARDY? C’mon, so good) and super immersive set and costume design that really puts you in a specific time and place, that time and place being London in the seventies. Also, The Devil Inside is supposedly the worst film of the year that happens to have the best ROI for marketing that cinema been seen in years, so, bullet dodged?

January 7th – Raiders of the Lost Ark, TIFF Bell Lightbox, $7 (student memberships rock!)
A film I had considered writing in-depth for ‘Classics Revisited’ became a little pointless after I realized that despite the magic and the wonder that I remember about Indiana Jones, it’s not perfect. It’s perfectly enjoyable but there are problematic character representations, sequences, plots, basically the more you think about it, the more it unravels. To stay perfectly sane I just decided to let it lay and just go along with the ride.

January 7th – White Christmas, computer
I downloaded this a week or two ago when I planned to watch a Christmas movie a day (which didn’t happen) and knew I just had to find time for this feature. While Vera Allen’s tiny waist and anorexic costumes still unnerve me, her dancing is just as impressive as it was the first time I watched it, and oh, Rosemary Clooney, you do shine. While I can never get behind how old Danny Kaye and Bing are, courting women in their mid-twenties, it’s a classic for good reason.

January 8th – Up, CBC
We caught the last hour of the Sunday Disney feature (which starts at 5pm now, weird) on CBC which was The Lion King, only to find Up on at 8pm! Yay, double bill of great Disney films (well, Pixar, but you know) in HD for free! I can’t lie, I teared up a bit and then proceeded to throw Up quotes on twitter like an annoying fiend. Oh, Up!

Next up, who knows? There is a bunch of films from the 2011 CAST list I still need to see, I suspect schoolwork will skyrocket soon so I’m going to see as many films as I can before that happens!

Oh yeah, I may have watched about 15 episodes of The West Wing this week, half of Tapeheads and 2 episodes of Community but who’s counting that?

First up? Frank Capra’s sentimental masterpiece It’s a Wonderful Life.

This heartwarming holiday story is really about a man pushed to the edge and considering suicide. This after living a life where he gave everything he had to others, only to see it blow up in his face. And honestly? It’s not the first thing that I might have thought of as a Christmas classic. For a film that I often hear people passing over as mushy and sentimental, it’s a dark tale about life’s disappointments and misfortunes, as experienced by the moralistic everyman George Bailey.

I’ve watched this film at least once or twice a year for some time now, so I had assumed I’d seen everything it had to offer, but once again I was proven wrong. Also, as the years roll by, I notice my understanding and empathy levels change, I notice different characters and the struggles they undergo, I relate differently to people and I appreciate the story more.

The Children
But let’s start at the beginning. The charming young actor who plays young George Bailey gets me every time. Sweet, motivated and caring, he really does a job making you connect to George as an adult. Because, let’s be honest, the first time you see early 20-something George he’s a bit annoying, as only a young man cooped up at home can be. Also, the young actresses who play Violet and Mary offer more than I noticed before too, Violet, even at a young age, fawning over what a great catch he is, to Mary, sweet and warm to George and legs open, aggressive and hostile to Violet. It’s adorable and it’s telling. The two have no other negative interactions in the film, so I never saw it as a comment on women fighting over men. They simply play a fantastic role in warming us up to the adult versions of their characters, particularly Violet’s.
Adult Violet resonated with me more, this time around, she’s truly a kindred spirit to George I realized. She wants to leave Bedford Falls and strike out on her own, but doesn’t quite know the way. I do love their first on-screen adult interaction that we witness however, “This old thing? I only wear this when I don’t care how I look!” Pure Violet!

George Bailey & His Dreams
It’s clear that on this viewing, I focused more on the themes and emotions of George Bailey. His internalization of all the monetary problems around his family, the fragility of the Building & Loans and his town and how he puts himself forward, often without taking any heed for himself. He suffers from an adventurer’s mind but a small-town heart, inspired by stories and his friends who are all staking claim for themselves. It’s a struggle that many of us face, whether to stay close to home or fly as far from the nest as we can. I think this time, I really understood his predicament. His own strengths and skill really situation him in his town but he doesn’t want to admit it. There’s some form of defeat in George, he doesn’t appreciate his own worth, that is, until it’s all taken away.

I think one of the most dramatic things I witnessed this time around was the literal destruction of his dreams. In the scene where he snaps at his children after the money goes missing, yelling at Janie to stop playing the piano, he turns to the corner and breaks some models and objects. Previously I thought he was breaking his children’s art projects, so I just thought he was being cruel. But I paused the film at this moment only to realize the items he broke were his own. A scale model of a bridge, a tall building and other architectural designs litter the corner of this room and are only in view for a second. He destroys them, apologizes to his family and then runs off.

Potter
One thing I took for granted before was Mr. Potter. I was struck in this rewatching by the moment he decides to fight dirty, even illegally to strike a blow at the Building & Loans. In all their previous entanglements, Potter was acting within his full legal rights. Smarmy but untouchable. When he finds Uncle Billy’s deposit, (that Uncle Billy fully leaves in a burst of pride, spite and misdirected vengeance) his subsequent mockery of George and his phone call, he transforms from an unapologetic curmudgeon into a cruel criminal conspirator.

Grain of Salt
Every time I watch this film, I feel the morals and lessons need to be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, George wasn’t around to save Harry or stop Mr. Gower from accidentally poisoning those children, or around to take Mary for a spin on the dance floor, but who’s to say that the person in his place instead (another boy on the ice, another clerk for Mr. Gower or one of the MANY men mentioned who were interested in Mary) wouldn’t do that instead? I’m always a bit nonplussed when they show spinster Mary, she was lauded as having men falling all around her, Sam Wainwright, the guys at the dance, why would a lack of one boy in town drag her down so? My partner had a comment, that perhaps she shone because she truly found a good man to love in George and was always pining for him, but I don’t think that’s enough reason. It still irks me every time.

Conclusion.
But when it comes down to it? This film still makes me cry, every time. Religious and moral lessons aside, “Life is only what you put into it” reigns supreme. Don’t judge yourself by your material wealth but from the value from your family and friends, and in George Bailey’s world? By the love of a town that comes together to save the man who made them all feel worthy. I love this movie.

Melissa George stars in this fast-paced action thriller about a group of mountaineers who discover a girl locked in an underground cell and uncover a kidnapping plot. After securing the child and planning to get her off the mountain into the safety of the city, the group is set upon by the cold and calculating kidnappers who see no reason to keep anybody but the child alive. Picked off, one by one, they scramble to save not only the child but themselves.

The film sets this all up and kicks up a swift pace early on, and while I was worried that the quality of the film would decline once they left the mountain (pun somewhat intended) I was pleasantly surprised, stakes were raised higher as the kidnappers moved closer and closer to regaining their charge. Visually this movie is the tops, the mountain shots and scenes in the gorge are powerful, gripping and intimidating, while a street parade in the city uses fire and crowd scenes to induce a kind of claustrophobia in the audience after the first half of the film includes so much open space. But tight spots are just as hard to hide in as giant forests, our protagonists unfortunately find out.

On the other side, we have a group of negotiators/counter kidnappers headed to the city to hand over the ransom and assess the situation. With three interested parties, the mission is certain to get a bit messy. Director Julian Gilbey has a real crowd-pleaser with this film, my lack of nails after the screening can prove it.

The Divide

For so many reasons, I wanted to like The Divide. For Michael Biehn, the original heart-throb Kyle Reese from The Terminator, for post-apocalyptic horror cinema and as the most sci-fi horror film of the festival.

But I should have known better.

Michael Eklund was the hilariously bad ‘Father’ in The Day which I saw at a TIFF and almost walked out on, Milo Ventimiglia was my least favourite Heroes character, Rosanna Arquette hasn’t been relevant in over a decade and Lauren German is the Michelle Monaghan of horror films. All in all, none of the cast inspire and director Xavier Gens settles for watching them implode in a gross and offensively unoriginal manner rather than give us something interesting to watch.

The idea that a nuclear weapon of some sort has devastated the Earth is always interesting, the idea that there are survivors who are safe and clean abandoning and test-tubing infected survivors is creepy, locking sociopaths in a room with each other for months is less so. The film may have been better if they had seemingly NORMAL people locked together, but when two characters are hateful from the beginning, their descent into madness and horror isn’t shocking, it’s when the nicer characters snap that we pay attention. Gens forgot this and in turn, lost me entirely. Nobody is strong, nobody is interesting and when the filmmaker decides he wants the film to fall into chaos, he neuters Biehn and shoves him off to the side for almost 30 minutes while we wait for him to come back, desperately. The Divide is all style and no substance, a slick shadow of the movie it could be.
More – Indiewire has a great write-up about The Divide as well, I’m not alone!

VS

I really and truly wanted to like VS. It showcases the dark side of super powers, the feeling of invulnerability wrapped in the all-familiar ball of insecurity. Unfortunately VS is bursting to the seams with ideas but has neither the writing chops, talent nor the subtlety to make it work.

Jason Trost may have bit off more than he can chew, deciding to go the director/writer/lead actor route which rarely runs smooth. While he’s not the actor he seems to think he is, he’s not even the worst cast member. While he portrays John/Charge, the apparent leader in the group, the team is rounded out by his potential ex-girlfriend Jill/Shadow, Ben/Cutthroat (Lucas Till of X-Men: First Class) and Charlie/The Wall. All four superhero leads stumble into each other during the film, without realizing that their delivery has me (and others) unintentionally in stitches. “Vitamin C isn’t going to remove his 12-inch stab wounds,” is such a funny line, but said completely seriously, which is sad. So back to the plot, tension exists between the bunch, as it’s made clear very early that Jill has slept with Charlie but before we even know that she was with John. But really, this relationship becomes very important for the rest of the movie and WE.JUST.DON’T.CARE.

For a film about superheroes, they really do a great job of appearing to be pathetic without their powers. I understand the point is to humble them and show that superheroes are really just poorly adjusted teenagers under it all, but we should have seen some flashbacks or scenes of them BEING bad ass to realize what a shock it is for them to be depowered. Also? Forced romantic connections are so lame, Sophie Merkley can’t act her way out of this bad script and is clad in the sexist superhero standards of heels, tight leather pants and no identity coverage while all the men don the most ridiculous masks I’ve seen since Green Lantern. She looks like she’s going to a punk show and they, Halloween.

Meanwhile poor James Remar is acting inside a box as the jovial and terrifying Rickshaw, the arch nemesis of the teens. While not his most memorable role, he does his best with the script and almost seems pained at times to recite some of his lines. What has he done to deserve this?

What it comes down to, I disliked VS for almost the opposite reason that I hated The Divide. While it’s true they both lose me while they pit uninteresting characters against each other, VS actually has interesting ideas while The Divide just regurgitates them. Give VS the budget and script supervision of The Divide, while giving the latter a unique angle, completely revamp the cast and both movies could be so many times better.

The Innkeepers

While I had some disappointments for the latter half of the festival, all was forgiven thanks to the closing night gala The Innkeepers. A ghost thriller that doesn’t sacrifice character development for cheap and gory scares, director Ti West knows that a true ghost story needs scares that are more psychological than visual. The film really comes together due to the lead Sara Paxton, as Claire, a clumsy twenty-something slowly coming to the realization that working at the dilapidated hotel she’s been at for a few years may not be conducive to a successful future.

The film takes place in the last few days of the Yankee Pedlar Inn, a hotel creepy enough to put the Overlook Hotel of The Shining to shame. With just two staff left to man the desk for the last weekend, and only 3 rooms occupied, the two get some ghost hunting under their belt before all the hotel’s spooky history is torn down. Ghost hunter Luke has been analyzing the hotel for months trying to find proof that the dusty corridors are full of ghosts. For their last weekend of fun, unbeliever Claire helps out with his research and experiences situations that force her to reevaluate her opinion. A spooky piano, a cluttered basement, a drafty room, are they simply pieces of a broken-down hotel or has something spooky checked in and never checked out?

West knows how to pull a fast one, while the first half of the movie features Claire as a charming, bratty and spirited desk clerk, the latter half cements her as a fearless ghost hunter. Her lack of inhibitions and curiousity about the potential ghosts in the hotel terrifies the audience more than any scare can. As the humour ebbs away and the scares REALLY begin, you will crave the carefree girl we met earlier in the film. While some were disappointed by this shift in direction for West, as this film is not nearly as scare-filled as his previous works, the lightheartedness in the beginning creates a perpetual and unshakeable feeling of dread in the final half of the film, a sinking feeling I won’t soon forget.

Previously: Deadheads and Love
Monster Brawl

Deadheads is also quite fun when you realize the only characters that are fleshed out in the film are the ones with their flesh falling off. All of the human characters are pleasantly one-dimensional caricatures who merely cross the zombies paths and act to help develop the two leads into rather interesting bro’s. The execution is goofy and it shows, but after awhile it’s almost unnoticeable, as most of the gags are strung out to the logical ends. Items that seem like bad continuity lead to laughable conclusions and you’re left just amused at the whole thing. Once again, this film is smarter than it has any right to be and I would gladly see whatever director/writer sibling pair Brett Pierce and Drew Piece do next.

Love

Prior to seeing the film, I had described Love as ‘astronaut gets stuck in space and goes crazy’ film, lumping it in with 2001, Moon and Solaris and after a viewing, have determined it to be most like the latter, just with a wicked smaller budget.

Love is contemplative, Love is curious, Love is multi-disciplinary and Love is a triumph. Love is about astronaut Lee Miller, alone aboard the International Space Station as the distorted communications devices leave him silent while he loses connection with Houston and with anybody else on Earth. We know something bad has happened, but the most infuriating thing is that we don’t know what happened and we don’t exactly know WHEN. We’re left in the dark just as much as Lee is and we watch insanity creep in, almost as a coping mechanism for him to stay alive and thriving. As the days turn to weeks, months and years, he doggedly rations his food and obsesses over a leather bound book he found hidden behind a panel. The book contains the story of another abandoned soldier, one from the Civil War, on a mission to find an unknown object in the desert, something strange and alien, something that could be connected to Lee’s mission now.

Unlike many of the aforementioned films, Love does offer an answer, but an answer that just brings forth more questions. Execution-wise, the film has the heart and talent of something that usually costs 10 times as much, shot on a micro-budget. The civil war scenes were shot in two parts, one part costing about $50,000 and being the best damn Civil War battle you’ve ever seen for that little. The space station used in the film was created in the backyard of director William Eubank and a major set piece for the viewing screen of Earth was an LCD screen TV. Authenticity is how you make it.
The film is likely being distributed through an online source in Canada, hopefully iTUNES so check back for updates.

Next Up: A Lonely Place to Die, The Divided, VS and The Innkeepers.
Previously: Monster Brawl

What could’ve been a very slick throw-back to the old days of televised pay-per-view wrestling entertainment/creature feature, turned into a bit of a drag at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Don’t get me wrong, Monster Brawl is a great IDEA, especially in this age of this rather bland MMA-style, overly disciplined/meticulous caged fighting. Unfortunately, the film has all the style but none of the heart or substance of the industry it’s aping. What it gains in creativity it loses in execution.

The film is almost doomed from the get-go. The film begins in true WWE style, providing snippets of background for each of the fighters, but while the announcers and wrestling seems pretty tightly deveoped, these introductory vignettes don’t have the same quality about them. Witch Bitch’s back-story is especially terrible, her entire character really seems as if somebody thought it was an interesting punny name and just rolled with it. This is unfortunate and it drags down the interesting Cyclops character as well. Never mind that there are lots of classic monsters they could have included instead. Maybe a succubus or Medusa to counter the Cyclops? So many options, wasted.

Don’t get me completely wrong, the things that worked, worked well. The interactions between Dave Foley and Art Hindle are actually funnier than they have any reason to be and some of the best parts of the whole film are the ACTUALLY the wrestling matches. I felt that Lady Vampire vs The Mummy was probably the most thrilling fight of the bunch. The two seemed to really go at each other and appeared to be a balanced blow-to-blow battle, not just a gimmicky pre-determined fight. With all other match-ups it felt like the winner was obvious but this fight was a change, it felt like a real WWE-style wrestling match. In true WWE style though, middleweights are more charismatic and interesting than heavyweights, so this simply might stand true to form. Another smart bit was the introduction for Swamp Gut, done in true ‘Planet Earth’ David Attenborough-style narrative, it was almost too clever for this film!

Unfortunately for the last third, the film took a turn for the gimmicky. What they gained in continuity with vignettes, introduction speeches, stat comparisons and entrances, they lost in pacing. By the end we don’t CARE to see these introductions anymore, the film stopped feeling like a film and the charm of the homage is lost completely. I genuinely thought this was a 2 hour film and was shocked to realize it ran just under 90 minutes, that’s how long the last 20 minutes felt to me. Also, the obligatory ‘breakdown’ of events that almost always happens in a pay-per-view event wasn’t even properly addressed. When I was a kid, I always thought it was funny that in EVERY pay-per-view event, the timeline is almost always gummed up by some wrestler pulling a stunt, usually to the audiences benefit. By the time Monster Brawl finally pulls an interesting punch at the end of a really long dull bit the film just ends! Just like that!

While Monster Brawl wasn’t quite the battle I was looking for, I truly enjoyed the home-brewed special effects in the film. Lots of face smashing and prosthesis were used to make these creatures and I thought they looked spectacular. Especially Swamp Gut! Hopefully this crew will continue to add to Canadian cult cinema and we can expect something a bit tighter next time around, because this shows real potential, it just needs some work.

Next up, I watch a buddy comedy about two zombies attempting to live life to the fullest in Deadheads on Saturday.

Until then… Top 5 Films to See at Toronto After Dark 2011 from myself @blogto

But in all seriousness, this does seem to be the extent of my social life, at least for the rest of the school year. I make the occasional cinematic outing but have seemingly backed away from the requisite fall releases and retrospective screenings to hang at home and seemingly finish more work. (Which somehow ends with me spending hours reading news sites.)

But when I’m not staring at the internet, I’m hooked on The West Wing. “But Danielle, why the West Wing? Why not just watch the same episodes of Community until your dvds fall apart?” you may ask. Well, the show itself is almost more about PR than it is about politics and throughout ONE SEASON it has reinforced much of what I’ve learned in class and provided me with all types of examples (albeit, fictional) of some risks and issues I’ll be forced to reckon with in a mere year from now. Let’s just hope I remember these lessons and not just CJ’s steamy chemistry with Danny.

I’ve almost completed season 1, that’s 22 episodes in just under 25 days. That is quite a bit of tv, but if I use this as yet another research method, I can stare at young(er) Rob Lowe, take down some mental notes and have fun while I do it, what do I have to lose?

Here are 5 things I learned about PR, good or bad, from The West Wing Season 1.

1. Once it’s Out There, it’s Out There!
   
   Pilot episode and the White House is already in scalding hot water, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman stuck his foot in his mouth on LIVE TELEVISION while being antagonized by a Christian activist. After taking quite a few personal hits, he gives the media what they want by dishing out a barb of his own, and the fallout is tremendous. A television clip is played through all the news cycles and Josh is schooled and lectured about his public manner which, unfortunately, won’t improve any time soon. Lesson learned: Take the high road and don’t feed the trolls.
   

2. There is no ‘Off the Record’.
   I can’t number enough of the scenes in which this phrase is uttered. My favourite would be from Take Out the Trash Day. A distraught CJ (White House Press Secretary) has been hit by an order from the Communications department that she can’t abide. A story about gay rights and a hate crime bill is being squashed and it’s her opinion that it’d be the right thing to do to leak it. She attempts to reveal key information to a reporter who quickly talks her down, letting her know that anything she leaks now could cost either of them their job or their friendship. I couldn’t find a video but it’s a great scene. Lesson learned: Being ‘Off the record’ can hurt BOTH sides of the equation, so don’t trust it.
   

3. Always Respect Your Press Secretary!
   
   In Celestial Navigation, a typical day at the White House is dissected by the Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman for a captive audience of University students. Once again, he stuck his foot in his mouth, but this time it was entirely his own fault. When CJ becomes unable to do a press briefing due to an unscheduled root canal, Josh takes it upon himself to take over the press briefing, wholly unprepared and with a bossy, cocky and insulting attitude. Needless to say all hell breaks loose. Lesson learned: A press secretary/media relations staffer is TRAINED to deal with the media, whether it be their personal beats, their sense of humour or their attitudes. Do not disrespect the media and do not overstep your bounds into the carefully constructed environment that is the press room!
   

4. Do NOT Withhold Information From Your Press Secretary!

In the Lord John Marbury episode, a potentially deadly invasion is underway between India and a Pakistani-held territory and all the senior staffers, except the Press Secretary CJ are in on the briefing. When she pops her head by the office to see what the meeting is about, they wave her off and tell her she’ll know in the morning, without releasing any details and advising her to close off the press for the day. Of course, she gets ‘The question’ about the event, an event she knows nothing about and she answers that ‘She was just in the Oval Office’ and that the claim was a joke. The next day the tables are turned and she looks like a fool to the press, when in actuality it was White House staffers who failed to release the information. Lesson learned: Your media relations officers are your eyes and ears and, more often than not, your mouth. Keep them alert and informed.


5. If in Doubt, Ask.

A confused press secretary is a bad press secretary, CJ has to swallow her pride and get some extra information from a colleague to assist in her briefings, to ensure she doesn’t look like a fool when questions are thrown at her. While it was a topic she should have already some knowledge about, it was of a necessity to confirm her understanding. While it was embarrassing at first, it caused less humiliation later. Lesson learned: it never hurts to ask, it’s better to be chided by a co-worker than by a member of the press, they hold no prisoners.

I gleaned all these myself, but found a few other people who have thought of this before me. Petroianii has a great youtube page with clips that are specifically geared to key PR questions.

On top of that I was lucky enough to see 6 preview films so all in all, I saw 26 films for $200 and I blew past my number for last year by 9 films! While I missed many major films and had a few stinkers, I have seen a great variety and can’t wait to see the ones I’ve missed in theatres!

Afghan Luke – Not Recommended
Freelance journalist Luke has just returned to Canada from his umpteenth visit to Afghanistan, following soldiers and researching potential war crimes to show the real grit and dark side of the peace-keeping mission that Canadians are engaged in overseas. After another failed attempt to document any sort of evidence of his allegations, he’s left high and dry back home, and that was where I wish he’d stayed. Afghan Luke has a disassociated narrative and our protagonists and antagonists are undefinable, which are usually strengths in a film with more substance. Every time I thought the film was approaching an interesting take or viewpoint on the ‘situation’ in Afghanistan, it turned a corner into highly ridiculous forced comedy that was almost offensive in its inability to make an audience connect and laugh in a natural way. This whole movie feels like a misstep and it’s a bit sad that nobody realized this sooner.

Arirang – Recommended..?
A highly personal self-documentary about Kim Kiduk, director of 3 Iron and blah about his self-imposed exile in a cabin in a small town. He resides without santitation but a tangled collection of electricity, building his own appliances and living inside a tent WITHIN the cabin. Kiduk has internalized his pain and confusion, spending so many years on the periphery of the film industry in Korea, only finding appreciation from his country once the world took notice instead. He spends most of the film talking and interviewing himself, it’s almost intrusive. He ends the film on a fictional level, but maybe it feels real in his head.

Cafe de Flore – Highly Recommended
Jean-Marc Vallee does it again, the director of C.R.A.Z.Y and The Young Victoria is a master at subverting your expectations with his films, making the programming folks scratch their heads as they attempt to create a concise description of his work. Cafe de Flore is no exception, we’re introduced to two seemingly unconnected storylines; a young mother in France in the late 60′s struggling with raising her son with Down’s Syndrome and a middle aged DJ in 2010 who is struggling with his conscience after leaving his wife of twenty years for a new love, his assumed soulmate. Music plays a key role in this film, precisely those songs that stick with you deep down in your bones and envoke pain, love, calm and adrenaline. The story ebbs and flows as characters have dream-like visions when they’re not careening against each other, struggling to control their own happiness and holding onto the people they love with all their might. The first hour of the film is a more whimsical and lovely tale of love and devotion but it’s the second hour, when love takes that obsessive turn, that darkens the mood. While I’m still questioning the sequence of events, I MUST implore you to stay through the credits.

Countdown – Recommended
Countdown is an interesting little film, one part hilarious action-filled caper and one part bogged-down melodrama. I obviously enjoyed the former, which had hints of the Ocean’s trilogy in the editing style, but was a bit bored by the latter. I’d recommend it however, because it is a good film, it could just have been more focused. The parts that are great comedy don’t tie in as well with some of the darker, depressing backstory.

Drive – Highly Recommended
It’s Drive, I love it. The hyper-stylized soundtrack, the quiet, stoic and slightly autistic lead, the obviously doomed romance, the focus on people who are trapped in lives they never imagined or desired. The entire movie is filled with desperation but also reeks of hope, for a time. You have this sinking feeling in your gut that nothing is going to end happily but you stick it out to the end regardless. You let your hope get the better of you, you’re fooled.

Fable of the Fish
Director Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr introduced his film as a tabloid story that attracted his attention as a child, the story of a woman who gave birth to a monkfish instead of a child and paraded it around on tabloid news shows. While the story was obviously a hoax, the seed of his film was there. Set in the garbage heap slums in Manila, middle aged couple Miguel and Lina move into a small shack and begin working as garbage sifters. When Lina finds herself pregnant, the two are overjoyed and make plans for the future. Unfortunately these plans are derailed when her child is born a fish. The struggle between faith and love comes to a climax in this film, as Lina’s husband, who didn’t witness the birth, does not believe her story and their once strong relationship begins to drift. The film has a very careful tone, it is never mocking or laughing at Lina, and gives the film a freshness that sticks with you.

God Bless America
Director Bobcat Goldthwait’s manifesto against contemporary American TV culture is one part scathing criticism, and one part bloody mess. His every-man is Frank (Joel Murray) a middle-aged office worker who has daily struggles with his consumerist child, vapid co-workers and dead-beat neighbours. After a particularly bad week, Frank snaps and decides to murder a reality show star for the betterment of America, and somehow attracts up a young, sociopathic and hateful teenager along the way. The first half of the film is much like other anti-status-quo films we’ve seen before (Office Space for example), with multiple montages of advertisements and tv spoofs, but the second half of the film veers into melodrama, stops being funny, and the message begins to fail. For a final verdict I’m torn, I agree with Bobcat on so many levels and I want the best parts of this film to get out there, but I dislike being preached to, especially when it’s been done more skillfully before.

The Incident
My only walk-out of the festival was unfortunately one that appeared promising, but after 70 minutes I decided that nothing could happen to alter my opinions toward this film. The incident in The Incident is a power outage that throws an asylum for the criminally insane into chaos once the inmates take advantage of the situation to maim and torture the staff. A story like that could be paced and maximized for extra thrills, but with a small lead cast we’re left waiting and WAITING for 60 minutes for action and then our ‘reward’ is a grisly and almost offensive and stupid onslaught of torture porn. There was nothing fun or shocking about the violence, it was typical and gratuitous. The film has absolutely no idea how to properly keep an audience invested in the situation at hand or give us that glimmer of hope. My walkout point was when it became clear that female background characters with no names or lines, were only bait for rape.

Livid – Recommended
If there’s anything I learned from Livid, it’s to never expect the same thing twice. By the directors who created Inside a few years ago, I thought I was going to be in for a ghastly violent time, but instead was presented with a different kind of horror film. The film follows a trio of would-be burglars who are interested in changing their lives by finding an old lady’s jewels or treasures and instead find something that nobody ever should have locked away in the first place. The film has some gory bits but focuses instead on creeping you from start to finish, a creepy mansion, a mysterious mirror and occult themes pervade. The ending is a bit strange, but with a few days to think about it, I like it better this way.

A Letter to Momo – Highly Recommended
A young girl loses her father and the last words she speak to them are childish and hateful. As she and her mother move their lives to get over the tragedy, she realizes her new house may be haunted by ancient spirits. Extremely touching and full of mirth, this film had me in fits of laughter and fighting back tears. Wonderful.

Lovely Molly – Recommended
By the director of the Blair Witch Project, this film is about demonic possession and it is terrifying. A woman, Molly, and her husband move into her family home and slowly discover that something is just not right there. As Molly takes a turn from terrified to worse, her husband and sister are charged with the grim task of keeping her from hurting herself or others, as she turns into a paranoid spectre of her former self, haunted by memories of her father, long dead, and possibly another entity as well.

Machine Gun Preacher – Recommended
Guaranteed to be some serious Oscar bait, Machine Gun Preacher is based on the real-life experiences of one Sam Childers, an ex-con-turned-preacher who went to Sudan as a church building missionary and ended up becoming involved in child welfare in the war-torn country. Gerard Butler does an interesting turn as a flawed man who through extremely strong faith, struggles with his new-found sobriety and moral code in a country ravaged by war and violence. Michelle Monaghan adds another ‘suffering wife/girlfriend’ role to her resume, but this is really Butler’s show. The film is surprisingly tight but does suffer from some scenes that really try to play on your sympathy, as if you didn’t think landmines and machine guns and child soldiers were bad enough they give you some unnecessary gore. On the flipside, there are some interesting juxtapositions with the American and Sudanese sequences that really emphasize how Childers found himself truly split on opposite sides of his psyche and the world.

Monster’s Club
Upon first glance, this film seems to be about a serial killer with an anti-establishment manifesto and may seem as if it is centered upon his most recent slayers. But that would be a wrong assumption, Monster’s Club is, if anything, a philosophical and cultural manifesto that is appropriately Japanese. There is quite a bit of navel-gazing in this film, as we watch Ryoichi, who has already removed himself from society, turn darker and deeper into himself and his misery, reminiscing about his dead brothers while alienating his last remaining family member, his younger sister. The film spends quite a bit of time talking at you and uses flowery language to get the point across, and contains some stunning imagery that is seared into my mind days later. Not for those who fall asleep easily, but it is rewarding if you pay attention.

Mr Tree – Recommended
A small-town simpleton, beloved by his family and friends, with always a smart word for everybody, is stuck reliving memories of his older brother and father, until the point where he becomes clairvoyant in the matters around him. As neighbours and family congregate and ask for his insight on things, his connection to the world around him becomes more strained and tenuous. Is he really a prophet come to life, or is it all a terrible coincidence?

The Raid – Highly Recommended
I don’t need to write too much about this, The Raid won the People’s Choice Midnight Madness award for a reason. An intense workout of martial arts and choreography, I was yelping and cheering along with the entire audience as a swat team attempts to make it’s way out of a drug dealers den. Bone crunching, wall climbing, eye gouging all come guaranteed!

Sleeping Beauty – Not Recommended
Waif-like Lucy is a lovely yet dissatisfied university student down on her luck and desperate for cash she works as a filing clerk in an office, a server at a restaurant and a clinical trial participant. When she answers an ad for what seems like an escort business she’s so seemingly disillusioned and accustomed to being exploited for labour she takes the invasive interview in stride as well as the subsequent tasks asked of her. Julia Leigh paints a bleak, dull world for Lucy, she’s an emotionless drone throughout the film and the few times she shows any particular interest in another person it’s selfish and off-putting. You don’t LIKE her and as the film meanders on, one begins anticipating chaos at every corner and almost wishing some sort of menace to propel the plot further. All in all, the film mimics reality in the way that sometimes situations don’t really go awry and just unfold naturally with no fanfare or excitement. Unfortunately this makes a drab, dull story but at least the set design was lovely.

Sleepless Night – Recommended
Sleepless Night takes the classic story of a good-cop-doing bad, throws in a half dozen chase scenes and double crossings and serves it on a platter in a giant warehouse-style-club. The French crime thriller has some experience at its back to cover all that madness as the cinematographer is Tom Stern, the cinematographer who has worked with Clint Eastwood for decades and is currently shooting The Hunger Games. The story follows Vincent, a morally ambiguous cop who finds himself in the worst situation imaginable when his son is kidnapped by an angry mobster. Why is the mobster angry? Vincent and his partner stole his drugs, that’s why. With nowhere to turn, the only way for him to get his son back is to deliver the drugs directly to the mobster at his glitzy club, but unfortunately for Vincent, there are other players in the game. With all the odds mounting against him, the film is a frenetic chase after chase in an enclosed space as Vincent continues pulling any punch possible to save his son.

Tyrannosaur – Highly Recommended
A dark, haunting tale of two broken people who meet under extenuating circumstances, Tyrannosaur is a film that hits you to the bone. Personal demons are the main characters in this exploration of civilized culture gone terribly wrong. But for a film that starts dark and gets worse, somehow a happy ending is found and it’s neither cheesy nor surreal.

Undefeated – Recommended
Manassas High School is an inner-city school in Memphis, Tennessee that doesn’t have much going for it. The surrounding area is depressed, plants have closed and businesses and jobs have never quite moved back. But thanks to volunteer football coach Bill Courtney, some things are going to change. This is Courtney’s 6th year coaching the football team which has never won a playoff game in its 110 year history, but this year he believes things will be different. With a strong squad comprising of some talented seniors, Courtney trains and teaches his players what it is to play for a team and for the betterment of yourself and other people. His line has some rather spectacular players such as O.C., a 300lb player who has no right being as fast as he is, Money a tiny right tackle who is on the honor roll and looking for a scholarship and Chavis, a juvenile delinquent back on team after spending a year in a youth penitentiary. With starting players as diverse as this, things aren’t easy and throughout the year Courtney is challenged time and again, pushed to his breaking point to help this team. A riveting sports documentary that puts emphasis on character building more than playbooks, and support and courtesy rather than brute strength, it’s an extremely moving story that’s worth every minute.

You’re Next – Highly Recommended
From the creators who brought A Horrible Way to Die to the festival last year (one of my favourites) comes You’re Next, a locked-house cat and mouse game set during an awkward family dinner. The film begins with a fantastically large cast of characters, which is always fun in a horror film because it results in a more carnage. The directors have quite a bit of fun with this and don’t waste any time upping the stakes. Our heroine is the savvy and resourceful Erin, a guest in the house who turns out to be a whole lot more than the killers were expecting. Despite a mounting body count, she outwits the intruders in creative and gutsy ways and had the audience cheering to the rafters for her during my screening. High tension aside, the film maintains it’s humour right up until the last scene, I don’t remember the last time a horror film had me so terrified yet so amused for all the right reasons.

Some of the films didn’t get the summary they deserved, I’ve put this post off too long to correct it now. Hopefully this will give some insight into these films as they slowly roll out into theatres, and now I can look ahead to more films to come.