Nice job.

Kudos to Joe and Kris for their excellent ongoing coverage of the Midnight Madness program at TIFF. The posts come so fast and furious that it's hard to provide the positive comment they warrant. I look forward to them everyday and wanted to pass along how much I was digging them.

On a side note, I was going to suggest fewer photos, or at least doing them as smaller thumbnails so they didn't take up so much blog real estate. Panning down past them all is boring for us “readers”. That said, one of the photos from the Vanishing on 7th Street post probably better captures the sheer, unadulterated banality of TIFF and the cult of celebrity better than any snap I've ever seen.

It's an accidental masterpiece of colossal disinterest. You can almost hear the B-cast's inner dialogue on their faces.... Please God, kill me now.

Hell, even the little kid is bored out of his fucking mind.


A seriously brilliant photo.

..and keep up the fabulous posts boys. They're a treat.

Sporgey.

Robin Hood: Prince of Queens

In a complete departure from Dropkick and Coleslaw's fascinating Midnight Madness posts, I've been trying to catch a few films that made the “most-watched” list in a blog entry Withnail started a few months back. For whatever reason, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves made the list 3 or 4 times and again for reasons that I can't explain, I never saw this Costner version of the Robin Hood story back when it came out in 1991. A good call as it turns out.

At the risk of wasting time and energy over-analyzing a nearly 20-year-old popcorn epic, this version of Robin Hood is so spectacularly awful as to demand at least some effort to put it in perspective. First things first... in 1991 Kevin Costner was Hollywood's crown prince. He had just won his Oscar for Dances with Wolves and had chalked up a string of All-American doofus roles that had made him a box office darling. Costner used his new-found currency to produce and star in a series of bombs that remain positively stunning in retrospect. In the space of a few years, his fall from the highest echelons of Hollywood royalty would be complete.... and it all started right here... in Sherwood Forest.

The Knights on Broadway

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves struggles in every department and falls apart in most. The script is monumentally hackneyed and banal. The direction is truly uninspired. The bizarre acting so over-the-top as to suggest the entire cast was fucking with us, trying to prove we'd watch anything, no matter how ludicrous the characterizations. Morgan Freeman... Morgan Freeman!... is awful as a sort of spotted Moorish Chewbacca to Costner's Hans Solo-hood. Alan Rickman plays the Sheriff like he's a supervillian from the '60s Batman TV series, made up to look like an evil Barry Gibb. It's like Shakespeare meets the 3 Stooges. Based on his performance here, Christian Slater would have been finished in Hollywood were it not for a return to form a couple of years later in True Romance. His Will Scarlet is a giant whinging cock. And the HAIR.... Jesus Christ... it must have taken 6 hours to blow dry everybody before shooting could commence. It often seemed as though Glass Tiger was fighting Bon Jovi in the woods.

But the biggest problem with Robin Hood, and that's saying something, is Costner himself. He plays Robin Hood as a gooey Californian liberal, a veritable extension of his Dances with Wolves character. What Costner lost track of was what made him a star in the first place....and that was being a big doofus. He was best when he played the slightly-dimwitted, mid-western American slacker with loads of charm and not much going on upstairs. He simply can't pull it off a British aristocrat and forest civilization architect. Mel Brooks would have a field day a few years later dialing up everything that's wrong with this ridiculous movie and calling it Robin Hood: Men in Tights. If ever a pompous, overwrought movie needed a fast Brooksian skewering, this is it. Rickman could have pulled off the identical Snidely Whiplash role in the later satire and nobody would have been the wiser. I miss Mel Brooks and can only imagine what he'd have done with Avatar.

The gay subtext of this Robin Hood seems so obvious that it's hard to imagine it wasn't intentional. There are simply no moral ambiguities here, not even in the post-feminist figure of an armour-claded Maid Marion played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. She observes our fairy lad showering under a waterfall and proclaims at regular intervals that the only things she needs to defend herself against the wolves dancing in the woods are her dagger and her uber-butch nanny. It isn't a problem that Marion has a bigger dick than Robin, since howlers like "Save it for the ladies" followed immediately by "Give the man some meat", coupled with some seriously-puzzling editing choices, suggests that Robin has company enough in his all-man, tree-fort forest commune-club.

A truly spectacular film in the so-bad-it's-almost-but-not-quite-worth-watching kind of way. As for the other masterpieces on your lists that I haven't seen yet, I think it'll just have to stay that way.

I don't think I could do another of these anytime soon.

Sporgey

Midnight Madness 2010 day 4: Vanishing on 7th Street (2010)

Brad Anderson's newest film, Vanishing on 7th Street, is a somewhat post apocalyptic horror. When everyone in the world simply vanishes, leaving behind only their clothes where just a moment before they were existing, four survivors find each other in a dive bar and attempt to justify what is happening around them. It becomes apparent that the only thing keeping them from becoming "vanished" themselves is their proximity to sources of light. Whatever is taking people seems to be in the shadows, or possibly is the shadows themselves.

The film has an extremely eerie atmosphere to it. Anderson uses wide shots exposing the recently vacated landscape and while scanning the background you may see evidence of  life that must have been there seconds earlier. Say like a wheelchair gliding into frame and slowly coming to a stop. Almost every shot features shadows and there are two different entities that linger within the unknown. There is the impending shadow that moves like an ink blot on paper trying to smother all light it can grasp and then there are shadows of the people that should be existing but are not. The film's sound design is covered in whispers and calls, putting hope in sound in this situation is a big no no. The shadows call to the survivors, sometimes talking forms of lost loved ones while at other times it seems like the shadows are strangers doing nothing more than observing always echoing whispered sentences that end in "... I exist"

While the film is worth the watch just to immerse yourself in this situation, the character driven story is problematic and feels weak. For the first half of the film the writing is very awkward and stiff yet, by the time the pace quickens the snags seem to work themselves out. This is not due to the performances, everyone here does a great job including Hayden Christensen who I have yet to forgive for Star Wars. There's just no way to say some of these lines and not have it feel awkward.

Also a big wag of the finger to once again having a film where a kid does something frustratingly stupid putting the lives of others in peril. Kids in post apocalyptic scenarios are just bad news. If the world was fucked and you are luckily enough to survive and come across a child, i don't care how long it's been since you've seen another human being, shoot them. They'll only bring you trouble.

Overall, Vanishing has a terrifically terrifying atmosphere and has some great existential ideas. The script could have been smoother, and the children could have been non-existent. A good, not great, film that plays like a better Twilight Zone episode.

-dropkick
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Well, I suppose it had to happen.  It was merely a matter of time.  Last night was the first film in the Midnight Madness program that didn't leave me completely satisfied.  An ok - not great - film from director Brad Anderson.  What is perhaps most frustrating is that Anderson's career trajectory has thus far been ascendant.  Recall Session 9, in my top 5 (if not 2 or 3) North American horror films of the oughts.  Then came The Machinist, a super taut and unsettling work of psychological and physical horror. Transsiberian was next, and while it didn't really break new ground, it was a decent, if unspectacular little thriller in the Hitchcock mould.

His latest film, and the one we saw last night, is Vanishing on 7th Street.  It stars Hayden Christensen, John Leguizamo, Thandie Newton, and newcomer Jacob Latimore.  There is a power outage early in the film and pretty much everyone goes missing, the only remains are the deflated clothes that people were wearing at the time of their vanishing.  Like the characters in the film, we are kept very much in the dark (excuse the pun) as to the wherefore and why of the mysterious and menacing disappearances.  What we do know, is that the days are getting drastically shorter, batteries are draining, and if the characters find themselves engulfed by the darkness (which itself seems to always be oozing toward them, grabbing with inky tentacles at them...soul?  existence?), they too will vanish, becoming a part of the darkness itself.  Creepy.  And the film was.  Creepy, I mean.

In what is essentially a zombie-less zombie film, the 4 characters remain holed up in a generator-powered bar, the last bastion of light in the darkness.  They don't know if day is ever going to come again.  With Leguizamo concussed, Christensen hobbled, and the other two characters crippled by youth or religious convictions, the group is going to have a tough time surviving.  But the trouble is, not much happens - we get the menacing darkness, and there is much in the way of each character's attempts to rationalize the vanishings to his or herself.  However, no one is really compelling, and cryptic references to the Roanoke Colony that are supposed to be forboding instead kind of fall flat.  In fact, many of the intended "scares" don't really work (although there are tow quite effective ones, the better one being ripped almost comically directly from Session 9).  I think this is less Anderson's fault and more that of scriptwriter Anthony Jaswinski.

There is a good sense of eeriness in the shadows themselves, but overall the film left me wanting.  Not a horrible film, but not great either.  The open-ended and ambiguous aspects of the film are intended to make the works more mysterious, and we were told afterward by Anderson that you can basically project whatever you want onto the thing.  Ok, that works sometimes, but here is just smacked of laziness, or a kind of cop-out.  If the director doesn't care about what happens to the characters, why should we?  Anyway, hopefully this is a minor blip on Anderson's CV, and he recovers with his next film.  John Carpenter tonight!!!!

-the coelacanth

fotos copywrong Kris

"They're here already! You're next!"

Kevin McCarthy 1914-2010.

Midnight Madness 2010 day 3: Bunraku (2010)

The words "stunning", "spellbinding", and "revelation" are all terms that anyone who is critiquing a film should shun away from. However, in the case of Guy Moshe's Bunraku there are no more fitting words to describe this gem of a film.


The term "bunraku" comes from a 400 year old form of Japanese puppet theatre, and Moeshe uses this classic art form as a muse to paint us a lush visual universe set 400 years in the future, or past, or now... A universe made of origami and string, where guns are replaced by swords, where classic tales of good vs. evil are retold over and over, where killers must move with the lightness of Fred Astaire and strike like Bruce Lee in order to become the best.

Bunraku follows two heroes. First, there is the classic drifter character who is out for revenge, ripped right from the frames of some of Sergio Leone's best. The other hero is the honorable Japanese samurai come to reclaim a stolen family medallion as it is his fathers dying wish.
Both men have come to the same town, on the same train, unknowing that their destinies are intertwined.

You can tell Moshe is a giant fan of Leone and Kurosawa, the main characters here play out their fates just like Eastwood and Mifune. It is this dual storytelling that is one of the strengths of the film, the film changing tone constantly keeps you intrigued right through its two hour run time. If you happen to find the storytelling stiff at least you have something pretty to look at. The art design of the film is, yes... here goes, "stunning" to say the least. The entire film is one giant feast for the eyes, a myriad of colours and practical magic effects that transports you into this fantastic world. The action and fight  sequences are heavily influenced by Broadway musicals and are both beautifully choreographed and brutal.

However, there are a few hiccups in the film that cut it short from being perfect. An unseen narrator is at times funny and informative yet for the most part the narrator's longer rants make the film start to feel more The Spirit than Sin City. There's also some secondary character arcs that feel unfinished. If these were left that way intentionally or not is a mystery but the film leaves us some messy holes that would have been better filled.... if you know what i mean. Case and point is Demi Moore's character who plays a woman who is being forced to be with the villian... or is she? She has a backstory that seems interesting and is presented in a 10 second animated segment that leaves a lot of room for questions. Her story is obselete by the end of the film and serves no purpose to the overall film. The same could be said about Woody Harrelson's bartender character, if it wasn't for the fact that he's just so much damn fun to watch.

Overall Bunraku is unlike anything you've ever seen. Where the story gets bogged down there are more than enough sequences that will leave you in awe to not mind so much. Josh Hartnett is fantastic in the lead and plays "the drifter" character like he deserves; dark and brooding. Gackt gives us the picture perfect honourable disciplined samurai. Together they make up any cinephiles cream dream duo.

It is a fantastic, beautiful, whimsical "revelation" of a film that has it's hiccups but overall is entertainment of the highest degree.

... "Spellbinding"

-dropkick

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Paragraph breaks FTW.  After attending a shop opening in The Junction, Robyn and I ride our bikes through the driving rain down Dundas and into a hellish wasteland (aka Roncesvalles after dark), ready to pick up Kris from work and go grab a beer, then head over to the Ryerson for night of MM and Bunraku.  I don't know what that word means.  Upon arrival at the Buff, and after a quick "Hey Boys" greeting, Kris tells us he's forgotten his glue jar that he needs to huff occasionally in order to maintain his catatonic happy-high.  And that we have to go to his house to get it.  And that his house is...exactly....where...we....just...came...from.  FACK!  So off we pedal into the rain, up Rotten Roncey, back to the Junction for Kris to get his glue.  We're pretty soaked at this point, and the three of us decide to go the BQM on Ossington to have a quick beer and grab some food before the movie.  Byn and I share what is described as pulled-pork poutine, but in actuality is a bed of fries, a couple haphazardly tossed cheese curds, and a massive mound of sloppy joe filling.  Disappointment, she wrote.  In between bites of his delicious House Burger, Kris commences terror drinking in order to catch up to the buzz Byn and I had on from the previous party's free beer.  We exit BQM at approx. 11:40, and the rain has not let up in the least.  In fact, I think it has gotten heavier.  We say our goodbyes to trooper Byn, and as we grimly unlock our bikes, Kris mans up and declares he is going to take a cab.  I wish him well, and say I will catch up with him in line outside the theatre.  Then Kris says he will pay for the cab, and before his final word falls silent, my bike has been relocked and I am eagerly pulling Kris by the arm to the nearest bank machine.  We soon hail a cab and are on a slow crawl toward Gerrard and Yonge.  After Kris tries to assholishly cut into the line quickly filing into the theatre, and is stopped by a security guard who kindly urges us to try the back of the line instead (there is some weird guy in a hoodie frantically pushing Kris into the flowing line and urgently whispering "go! go! go!" into his ear, but I can't see who it is through the rain), we finally make our way into the theatre and to our seats, only marginally better than those at last night's Super screening (which is to say, in the front row, you have to move your head left to right in order to "read" the image onscreen).  Shortly after, the movie begins, and it is...different.  Like Super, I really have no idea what to expect with this one, and I think that's probably absolutely the best way to approach it.  So, let me tell you what to expect: in a land where guns are outlawed, Josh Hartnett is The Drifter, a Man With No Name sort, with lightning quick reflexes and a singular purpose.  Gackt is Yoshi, a samurai with skills to match The Drifter's, and a burning desire to reclaim the medallion that is worn around the neck of Ron Perlman's Nicola The Woodcutter, the man who long ago staged a coup and now rules the land with an entourage of 10(?) "Killers", highly trained and deadly henchmen who will stop at nothing to protect any enemies from reaching their master.  Kevin McKidd, the most deadly of the Killers, plays The Woodcutter's right hand man, although he himself is tormented by ambitions to the "throne".  Woody Harrelson is The Bartender, a sort of Fool, or court jester, who provides some comic relief and a narrative link between the characters.  Demi Moore is also in the film.  Incredibly ambitious with a previously unseen stylistic sense, Bunraku is a unique, and (I use the word carefully) groundbreaking piece of visual cinema.  Half martial arts epic, half spaghetti western, half revenge flick, half Blade Runner-esque dystopian future vision, half this is what Mortal Kombat the Movie should have/could have/would have been if Guy Moshe was at the helm (five halves do make a whole, right?), Bunraku is astonishing, simple on the surface, yet very complex beneath.  A staggering cinematic achievement, and the first live action film I have EVER seen where I've welcomed and applauded the CGI, so necessary and integral is it to the film as a whole.  The set design, fight choreography, visual FX and art direction are truly mind-blowing.  Wow.  After a mind-numbing Q&A (dear fellow audience members: "When is this going to be released in theatres/to DVD" is a question a simple internet search can answer for you, please stop stifling the theatre with your inane queries), and some real quick on the spot digital camera self-learning by Kris, we head out into the now non-raining night and leap into a cab which quickly veers into oncoming traffic as our driver screams and laughs.  We are shortly thereafter deposited at Dundas and Ossington, where we unlock our bikes, share a deep, passionate mouth-kiss and say "Good evening sir, please let's do this all over again tomorrow night".  I mean, at this point, we're hooked; it's not like we have a choice.

-the coelacanth

PS - Oh yeah, after I got home, I looked up "bunraku" (I guess everyone else in the audience knew what this meant, because no one inquired as much), and it's a traditional Japanese form of puppet theatre.  Once you see the film, this title makes PERFECT sense.

PPS - We FINALLY remembered to bring a camera, so here are a few photos, much thanks to paparazzo Kris:

L-R: MM programmer Colin Geddes, The Object of Joe's Affection (Ron Perlman), director Guy Moshe, The Object of Kris' Affection (Gackt), Woody Harrelson, Josh Hartnett (guy talks too much), Kevin McKidd.

Another night in the doghouse.

A sparse crowd congregated at my apartment this time for another of our east-end film nights, actually it was just Jules and I, but that's okay. Tiff's impending midnight madness screenings and a slew of colds and fevers has thinned the potential guest list but to make up for it Jules has supplied another amazing bounty from his last beer run to Buffalo. The highlight of which was the Sierra Nevada southern hemisphere harvest ale.
Last time out we watched the semi-atrocious Solarbabies, a kind of low budget Mad Max/Lacrosse/Rollerball mashup which supplied laughs and cries in equal measure, all unintentional. Finally though, back to the classics. The quality of the film this week is way up with a long overdue revisiting of Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior, on blu-ray of course.
Now, the guys give me a hard time over my hi-def advocacy ever since I spoiled our screening of Hard Boiled by whingeing all the way through the film about the fact it was only on DVD. Can I just say though, it would certainly have been better on blu-ray and Mad Max 2 is a case in point.
This new print looks so fresh and sharp that it feels like it was shot this year. What struck me most about this film is really how well it has stood the test of time. It was in fact even better than I ever remember it being. It is better than I had any right to expect. Somehow, I think they managed to get every element just right.
The cinematography is epic with huge panaromas of the outback "wastelands" of Oz. Some of the shots are so wide you can actually see the curvature of the earth.
The characters and costumes are timeless, gritty and disturbing and though it's pretty over the top it manages to avoid feeling camp and stays menacing. I think the gay biker vigilantes in bondage gear have only become more terrifying as I've gotten older and will continue to do so.
The road chase action sequences are just the best. All done for real and it pays off, you really appreciate the speed and danger of it all. The orchestral score is also a triumph. There's not much dialogue to worry about and what there is doesn't detract. Some of it is even really funny. And the cars, oh the cars are glorious.
The root of this films success though is Max, the quintessential nihilist wandering the wastelands and the fact that Max is so long gone he wants nothing from anyone, he won't let anyone near him. Atleast Travis Bickle had a plan, an aim. There's a beautiful girl, Max ignores her until she is pierced with a crossbow and lies bleeding on some barbed wire. Max doesn't flinch. The "Paradise" that they are heading for, Max knows it doesn't exist. He meets people who try and befriend him, he deletes them from his facebook. Max has really had enough. The only flicker of humanity shows in Max's relationship with the so credited "feral kid", whom is revealed as narrator right at the last moment. The credits rolled and I had to sit and take a moment. I had to watch it again the next day and enjoyed it even more without the distraction of Jules systematically spilling beer on each item of furniture in my apartment. I just love everything about Mad Max 2.
This film is more than just a kitsch cult item, it's a bonafide classic of the genre.

Midnight Madness 2010 day 2: Super (2010)

In the last few years there have been a few movies about ordinary people becoming superheroes, sometimes they have been more serious in tone a la The Watchmen and Dark Knight. While others have been light action romps such as Kick Ass and Defendor. Now there's a new film joining those ranks, enter James Gunn's Super, a film about a man whose wife is wooed away by a drug dealer and he becomes a superhero named Crimson Bolt to rescue her. However, the tone of this film is a little harder to place. It is first and for most a comedy yet the film has sharp tonal shifts throughout which makes the film in some ways disturbing. You may find yourself guffawing at one moment then feel your heartstrings being pulled in the next only to have it interrupted by an extreme act of violence. Anyone familiar with James Gunn's previous effort, Slither, can conjure up an idea of what the violent scenes will be like. What makes them alarming is that most of the more violent scenes are sandwiched between ordinary moments, making a quick shot of someone getting a monkey wrench to the face all the more shocking. For example a man and his girlfriend butt in line while our protaganist is waiting to get into a movie theatre, after asking them to get to the back of the line, to which they refuse, we watch our hero walk to his car and put on his super suit. Only his ass is hanging out the window as he's changing. This hilarious shot is followed by the hero promptly striking both of the butters with a monkey wrench over the head. Yes, shocking to say the least.

Rainn Wilson plays the lead as Frank and is terrifically cast as he's able to balance the comedic and dramatic shifts flawlessly. The always angelic Liv Tyler plays the distressed wife in complete dramatic excellence. Kevin Bacon is the evil drug dealer who is hilarious and terrifying all at the same time. However, the standout is Ellen Page who plays an eccentric comic book store clerk who becomes the Crimson Bolt's kid sidekick Boltie. I'm not the biggest fan of Ellen Page but that may have changed with this film. It's unlike any role I've seen her in. She's bat shit crazy, sexy, funny, and sweet.

If you write this off as just another Kick Ass or Defendor you'd be doing yourself a disservice. Super is a fun happy sad insane romp that needs to be seen to be believed.

-dropkick
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Super was not at all what I was expecting.  I thought it was going to be another entry in the growing Kick-Ass/Defendor/Watchmen superhero sub-genre of heroes sans superpowers.  And for that reason, I was kind of dreading it.  But it took me by surprise, and was less about a man as a superhero and more as about a man as a wounded, tragic figure, neither hero nor antihero, just a normal guy caught up in circumstances beyond his control...until they aren't.  Basically Falling Down with a cheesy costume.

Rainn Wilson as The Crimson Bolt does an extraordinary job conveying both the comedic and tragic sides of the mask, and Ellen Page is insane as his enamoured comic store clerk/sidekick Boltie.  The tonal shifts in the film between sly humour, heart-wrenching sadness, and gruesome (and I mean GRUE-SOME!  As Kris kept repeating, this one's a hard-R) violence at first take a bit of time to get into, but once you see where the film is going, it all somehow works.  That we actually feel deep loss and disbelief when Boltie is killed is testament to the great work the actors did towards creating believability and pathos in the characters that could have been caricatures.  The supporting cast, and blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos from the likes of Lloyd Kauffman (a tribute to Gunn's days in the Troma writer's mill) and others are superb.  All around, and excellent, strange film that defies expectations.

Director James (Slither) Gunn is batting 1.000 right now, let's hope he can maintain that pace.  Also MM 2010 is a very solid 2-for-2, a marked improvement over last year's opening "galas" that didn't quite deliver.  We're off to a wonderful start here, and I'm really looking forward to tonight's film, the beguiling Bunraku...

Midnight Madness 2010 day 1: Fubar 2 (2010) w/The Legend of Beaver Dam (2010)

TIFF 2010 is officially on and once again Joe and I will be in attendance for every Midnight Madness screening and will try our best to best to post some quick thoughts everyday of the fest. Wooo, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

The opening night gala featured two films, both Canadian. First was the short The Legend of Beaver Dam followed by Fubar 2.

The Legend of Beaver Dam:
The 12 minute short is a rock musical focusing around a group of camping children and a councilor telling ghost stories around a fire. Unfortunately the councilors story awakens the ghost he is speaking of and what follows is an epic battle between good vs. evil that is incredibly gory and catchy. All around this short was absolutely amazing, the acting was top notch especially from the young hero Danny, the music was rock opera gold, and all the blood just pushed this one into the sublime. Hopefully the creators expand on this idea, I would love to see a feature made out of this or better yet a rock opera. All around fantastic.

Fubar 2:
Terry and Dean return after an 8 year hiatus and it's good to see the time off hasn't softened the boys one bit. This time around the boys try to straighten up their lives by getting jobs out in the oil patch to hilarious effect. Unlike the first Fubar, the mockumentary angle has been dropped in lieu for more direct story telling. There still are talking head segments however the use of special effects and footage captured of private moments loses the illusion of documentary film-making. Fortunately this change of style doesn't hinder the laughs as they come at you at breakneck speed. The leads, David Lawrence and Paul Spence, are incredible improvisers and almost everything that comes out of their mouths will have you keeling over. The introduction of a new character to the group played by Terra Hazelton is a welcome one and she is equally impressive next to David and Paul. While at times the film does suffer from some dragging, especially in it's last act, it still is a lot of fun for anyone who enjoyed the first film.

-dropkick
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Toronto concert-goers are often criticized for their lack of enthusiasm during live music shows, often standing still, or at most lightly swaying as if it were Joni Mitchell and not Devo on stage.  What I witnessed last night was testament to the fact that critics are simply looking in the wrong places.  Attend any hard rock or metal show (I've done several in the past few months) and you'll see all kinds of movement and enthusiasm in the crowd, from solitary headbangers, to aggro moshers, there's always an exhilarating sense of vitality, physicality, and a little bit of danger.  Well, that's what we got last night at the premiere of Michael Dowse's Fubar 2, where the audience seemed much more like that of a rock show than a typical stuffy film premiere.  But then again, Midnight Madness audiences have always been a little...strange.

After a rowdy introduction by programmer Colin Geddes, we were treated to a delightfully twisted short film, The Legend of Beaver Dam.  Starring Sean Cullen as a camp councilor singing a campfire tale of Stumpy Sam, a deranged madman who appears out of the woods to kill you with his knife if his name is uttered 3 times. But Camp Rock this ain't - we get a death metal spewing slasher in Sam, a children's choral harmony, and lots and lots of blood.  Really enjoyable short with a neat twist, and the perfect "opening band" (as Geddes referred to the film) for the headliner...

Ahhh, Fubar 2...imagine Andrew WK staging an updated reimagining of Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road.  Terry and Deaner are BACK, and they're ready to party.  I kind of feared that this might be a tired rehash of the first film (which I loved), but it went somewhere else completely.  Absolutely hilarious, with many laugh out loud moments, and lots, and lots, and LOTS of beer.

This time around, Terry and Dean head up to Fort MacMurray on their friend Tron's recommendation.  Tron claims he can get the guys jobs instantly and they'll be making hundreds of dollars a day.  Well, things go a bit rough at first, but as Terry and Dean "settle" in, they find themselves raking in the dough, the majority of which is squandered at local dive peeler bar, called, er, Peelerz.  It is there they meet Trish, the voluptuous local talent of whom Terry quickly becomes enamoured, and things start spiraling out of control.  Hump dumpers on lube tube.

All the dialogue was improvised, and the hilarious (and sometimes disturbing/depressing) outcome is a credit to the actors who nail perfectly the dimwitted hoser humour and comic timing necessary to keep this franchise feeling fresh.  Props to all involved, a great film, a great crowd, and a night that allowed me, for a few moments anyway, to forget that I'm battling a nasty cold (don't envy the person sitting next to me....oh wait, that was Kris) and simply laugh without restraint.  There was a bit 3/4 of the way through where I felt the proceedings began to drag a bit, but the film soon regained its footing and we were off and running again.  The first Fubar is a modern day Canadian classic, and the sequel is every bit as good.  Canada now has a new comedy duo to match Bob and Doug MacKenzie.  I also liked how David Lawrence (in attendance) was wearing an Anvil t-shirt underneath his flannel.  Nice nod.

Already worn down by this cold, and exhausted from getting home at 3 am last night, and with Kris mentally imbalanced from reading House of Leaves, I'm not sure if we'll be able to last the next nine days.  Will we crack?  Which films will be the best?  I can't imagine any crowd being more raucous than last night, but it's Midnight Madness, so you never know...

- the coelacanth

Cannes Clogs

So, we have the Cannes festival wall and it's all great and everyone's looking at it but no one...NO ONE is picking up 'Tree of Wooden Clogs'. I don't understand it. It's a fantastic film about a community of peasants in Italy. We follow their everyday lives as they fend for themselves on this tiny farm out in the middle of nowhere. It's endearing to see how they care for each other. The films realism, with the actual slaughter of a pig and use of civilians not actors, was a continuous pulse keeping the film alive and entertaining through each slow scene. I am not a slower-paced film-goer, but I thought I gave it a go. I actually watched the entire thing! Almost twice! Wow.

All-in-all it's Al Pacino's all time favourite film. That has to count for something?

Moving from One Disaster to the Next... No Strings Attached

Nick and I were talking tonight and somehow got onto the topic of Sean Penn and his recent proclivity for popping up at disaster sites anywhere on the planet to lend a hand. I got to thinking that Penn's actions were actually quite similar to one of my favourite childhood programs, The Thunderbirds. I'm assuming that most of you know at least a little of the Supermarionette masterpiece of the mid-sixties from Brits Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, but for those that don't, here's a bit of a primer. The Anderson's conceived and created numerous TV shows starting around 1960, all starring on puppets and fabulous miniature sets. As goofy as all this sounds, The Thunderbirds was every boy's fantasy-world in the 1965 and at the risk of getting into some major geek-territory here, I'll resist the temptation to explore the minutia of Thunderbirds lore and instead focus on the basics.

The original Thunderbirds concept sprang from a real-life German mining disaster. The equipment needed to rescue the miners was heavy and far away (and Sean Penn was only 3 years old, so that option wasn't available). The Andersons struck on an idea for a new TV series. A family headed by a super-wealthy retired astronaut named Jeff Tracy and his five sons - Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John (incidentally all named after real-life Mercury astronauts – Scott Carpenter, Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper and John Glenn respectively) would operate a secret organization called International Rescue. The sons were led by Scott (naturally) who flew Thunderbird 1 and was the chief rescue coordinator. Virgil piloted Thunderbird 2, Alan was in Thunderbird 3, Gordon was the underwater specialist and aquanaut of Thunderbird 4 and John (who had the shittiest job) sat all alone orbiting the earth on the space station Thunderbird 5 masturbating. The characters were based on actors of the day. Papa Jeff Tracy was modeled after Lorne Green, Scott after Sean Connery (naturally), Alan after Robert Reed, whoever that is, etc, etc. They lived on a fabulous uncharted tropical island and maintained outside contact through their London agent, international socialite Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, and her Cockney butler/chauffeur Aloysius "Nosey" Parker. No, it was hardly Shakespeare, but it was pure gold to a five-year-old.

Could this also be Sean Penn?

Anyways...... International Rescue, fabulous wealth, popping up to save people trapped in burning buildings and flooded cities.... Sean Penn, n'est-ce pas? Like me, he's about the right age to have grown up on a steady diet of Thunderbirds. He's fabulously wealthy. He saves people. I think Penn is currently living out the fantasy every little boy had in 1965. He IS the modern version of International Rescue. I wonder whether his brother Chris Penn really did pass away, or is he instead manning the Pennderbird 5 orbiting the Earth and monitoring for new disasters, hurricanes and other acts of God. Aquanut James Cameron probably operates Pennderbird 4, the underwater rescue unit. Sean is the chief rescue coordinator and operates Pennderbird 1.

"The Rocket" by Doc Johnson

To my mind this leaves both Pennderbirds 2 and 3 currently unmanned. The original Thunderbird 3 looked like a big orange vibrator with it's own stand and was manned by the gayest of the Tracy boys, Alan. As the show wore on, Alan grew increasingly gay until he came out of the closet (instead of up through the centre of the circular living room in his flying dildo/spaceship) in the groundbreaking episode Alan Feels a Bit Queer in Episode 8 of the 3rd and final season.

Contrary to popular belief, Alan Tracy's outing preceded Burt Ward's Robin declaring his man-love for Bruce Wayne in Batman The TV Series by nearly 3 months.

Looking back, I should have noticed the now-fairly-obvious transformation Alan was undergoing at the hands of his puppet-masters... but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

Thank goodness there wasn't a fourth season. Lord knows what kind of Alan puppet they would have come up with for it.

Jesus Gerry.. Would a little subtlety have killed you? 

All that said, I think I'd prefer Thunderbird/Pennderbird 2, a sort of giant flying turtle that could poop out a little green garage at disaster sites with the push of a button. Sounds easy enough. I'm not sure what value that might have in Haiti, but Penn's in charge and I'll just do what he says …..emergency housing I suppose. My time will come.

My first landing. Total Success! Sean was impressed.

Virgil also had the best hair and the least offensive eyebrows, so I think I'll apply for his job.

So that just leaves Pennderbird 3 to “man”. Can anyone think of a currently-single, platinum-blonde Brit to be Alan and fly the big orange space-cock? Just thinking out loud here. I could certainly put in a good word with Sean if anyone's interested. We also need a butler, a really smart guy and an international socialite.

Hold it......brb

FYI I won't be in for a couple of days. Chris Penn up in the orbiting Pennderbird 5 Space Station says that CNN is reporting on a mining disaster in Chile.... and they need a green garage for some reason.

F.A.B. Chris.....Pennderbird 2 is Go!



Sporgey