MONTREAL + MEAT + MAYHEM + MASSAGES + MITCH = FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016 JE ME SOUVIENS!!! |
The Joys of Montreal and Fantasia 2016
By Greg Klymkiw
Montreal is the perfect setting for Fantasia. Just down the street from the festival's de Maisonneuve headquarters at Concordia University, one will often stumble into the Irish Embassy, the fest's main post-screening hangout on Rue Bishop.
Eventually, when one is in search of late-night comestibles to soak up all the Celtic Brew, what, pray tell, do cinephiles encounter on Rue Metcalfe? Two blazing blood-red signs, which share the same towering, grey wall.
One announces the availability of "Dunn's Famous Smoked Meat".
The other, ever-so quaintly beckons with the simple word "Massage".
This is Montreal.
This is Fantasia.
THIS IS Genre Cinema which smacks you in the face with a two-by-four of brilliance, all manner of brew to consider said cinema over, peppercorn-and‐fatdrenched slabs of meat (for sobering thoughts) whence one discusses tres cinema guignol with Fest Co-Topper Mitch Davis and for dessert, the tender touch of a masseuse (who may or may not offer added, shall we say, services).
The Film Corner's Greg Klymkiw recently sallied forth across Cyberland Street to the Canadian Film Centre (CFC) website where he reviewed a whack of celluloid delights from this year's edition of FANTASIA.