SPECTRE - Review By Thomas Zachary Toles - There Cannot Be Spoilers in this Review of Spectre Because You Already KNOW What Happens

Klymkiw hates Sam Mendes, hated every Bond reboot aside from Casino Royale and hates Spectre. Klymkiw's going to take a nap whilst Rhodes Scholar Extraordinaire, Thomas Zachary Toles, AVIDLY inspects Spectre.

Spectre (2015)
Dir. Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes

Review By Thomas Zachary Toles

I would like to formally congratulate Judy Dench for escaping the Bond franchise.

Early in the Dench-free Spectre, Bond (Daniel Craig) is suspended from MI6 for having the audacity to play by his own infinitely successful rules. Casting red tape aside as if it were a sexually frustrated woman, 007 walks defencelessly into a shadowy organization’s home-crater and murders legions of poorly trained goons, only to feel an arbitrary pang of mercy before finishing off their impossibly vile leader, Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz). As M (played by Ralph Fiennes, the pitiful rescuer of Judy Dench) explains, this proves to us that Bond, unlike a drone, knows when not to kill.

Bond vows to quit MI6 so he can settle down into a hollow relationship, mainly to provide him with fresh emotional baggage that might just propel him into another adventure in 2018.

Spectre’s absurdly cobbled together plot is meant to suggest that Oberhauser is the architect of all of Bond’s recent tragedies, the big final boss of Craig’s career as the secret agent. Oberhauser is interested in global surveillance, a contemporary paranoia that is pitted against the apparently unproblematic alternative: white male government agents with carte blanche access to exquisitely lethal weaponry.

The most amusing part of Spectre comes on the heels of the recent revelation that Daniel Craig hates playing Bond, despising the character’s misogyny nearly enough to turn down the tri-annual dump truck of money at Craig Manor. There is a [*ahem*] spectre of weary embarrassment behind Craig’s eyes even as he throws a man off a train or ejects himself from a car.

As a matter of fact, Sam Smith, the musician behind Spectre’s completely inappropriate theme, also seems intent on puncturing whatever remains of the Bond myth.

Spectre is far more comprehensible than Quantum of Solace (the opening scene is fairly strong) and, in some ways, less annoying than Skyfall (no childhood homes in sight), but it continues to spin the wheels of a franchise that really ought to be on its last legs. What a plunge from Casino Royale, which miraculously suggested that there might still be something to admire in a well-made, intelligently ironic Bond film.

Though the Mission: Impossible films do many impressive things that the Bond films fail to do, somehow the 007 brand keeps attracting audience members in droves. And I admit, Bond’s allure has sustained a certain nostalgic significance for me, despite the many dubious aspects of the franchise. If Idris Elba could somehow be cast as the interminable spy, my ears might perk up. Until then, I stand by Bond’s decision at Spectre’s conclusion to walk away from his thoroughly exhausted lifestyle.

Sadly, I know that Craig’s claim that he would rather slash his wrists than play Bond again is as unrealistic as his character’s departure from MI6. Both the actor and the character will undoubtedly reprise their roles in a forthcoming jaunt into the high-octane doldrums.

Sam Mendes, the director of Skyfall and now, Spectre, proves once again that he can kill James Bond as easily as he decimates most every movie he purports to direct. On the other hand, the producers of the Bond franchise, like Bond himself, are experts in knowing when not to kill something.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half stars

Predictably, Spectre is playing everywhere.

THE DROWNSMAN - DVD/BLU-RAY Review By Greg Klymkiw - Drowning Babes a Fetish?

Available May 12, 2014 on Blu-Ray and DVD from Anchor Bay &
Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada - for Drowning Fetishists ONLY!
No Extras on this at all, just the movie straight-up, nicely transferred.

The Drownsman (2014)
Dir. Chad Archibald
Script. Archibald & Cody Calahan
Starring: Michelle Mylett, Caroline Korycki, Gemma Bird Matheson,
Sydney Kondruss, Clare Bastable, Ry Barrett, JoAnn Nordstrom, Breanne TeBoekhorst

Capsule Review By Greg Klymkiw

A whole whack o' lean, trim, supple and oh-so pert babe-o-licious chickie-poos die at the hands of The Drownsman. He has absolutely no interest in stalking, hacking, raping and/or maiming his nubile victims. His needs are simple. He wishes to drown them. Like the old Commonwealth adage, "No sex, please, we're British," The Drownsman revels in its colonial roots with, “No bloodletting, please, we're Canadian, though drowning in cottage country north of Toronto will do very nicely with our maple syrup, thanks.” He's a Canadian serial killer, so whaddya expect?

READ THE FULL REVIEW

IN MY TORONTO AFTER DARK

FILM FESTIVAL COVERAGE

BY CLICKING HERE!!!

THE INTERVIEW - Review By Greg Klymkiw - KimJong-un AssassinationComedy not funny

The cast of
THE INTERVIEW
has way more fun
than its audience will.

The Interview (2014)
Dir. Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Scr. Dan Sterling
Starring: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Randall Park, Lizzy Caplan, Diana Bang, Eminem, Rob Lowe

Review By Greg Klymkiw

On paper, this must have sounded pretty good. The producer (Seth Rogen) and host (James Franco) of a highly rated sleaze-o-rama TV interview show specialize in outrageous shock-value exposes of American pop culture celebrities: for example, Eminem announces his homosexuality on the show, whilst Rob Lowe removes a toupee and there's talk of interviewing Matthew McConaughey about his sexual relations with a goat. When the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, a huge fan of the show agrees to an interview, our bro-mantic couple are not only going to be shipped all expenses paid to North Korea, but are approached and trained by the CIA to assassinate him.

THE BABADOOK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Much hyped TADFF2014 closer fails its rep

Who will the Babadook kill first?
Annoying Kiddie? Annoying Mommie?
Annoying Doggie? Or us, the audience?

The Babadook (2014)
Dir. Jennifer Kent
Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

God knows I want to see more women directing horror films, but Aussie Jennifer Kent is not one of them. This much-hyped, overrated and singularly limp psychological chiller thriller with a clunky on-its-sleeve feminist bent courtesy of Kent's underwhelming screenplay is gorgeously shot and competently acted, but there's nary a moment of this two-hander that isn't predictably tarred and feathered with a big old brush of been-there-done-that.

It also doesn't help that the whole affair is utterly humourless and annoyingly adorned with the kind of preciousness that gets festival programmers, film critics and pseuds of all persuasions, hot and bothered that they're seeing something resembling an art film dabbling in off-the-well-worn-genre-path. There's nothing original about this, unless you consider a film being new and exciting that's little more than a pallid, oh-so sensitive melodrama about a single Mom (Essie Davis) trying to cope with the death of her husband by taking up the cause of her child's (Noah Wiseman) potentially overactive imagination. The only and truly horrific thing about this film is that the first half features a child who is nerve-gratingly annoying and then, tables turned, a Mom who is even more aggravating than her son. Mixing in a whole lot of over-salted, powdered-soup-like grim fairy tale elements, the movie lets us share in Mom reading a bedtime narrative from a mysterious pop-up storybook of her son's choosing. She'll soon regret being such a progressive parent in such matters.

The storybook recounts the foul antics of our title's nasty monster and weirdly, the said volume she reads from has no ending. Blank pages fill its final third, but rest assured all of them will get filled as the movie's repeated "scares" and hauntings accelerate. Call me a jaded know-it-all, but there were virtually no plot points I didn't see coming and never once did I invest enough care in the characters or proceedings to feel even a single creepy-crawly moment and/or shred of sympathy for either Mother or Child. If anything, I empathized with the poor Babadook who might well, it seems, only be a figment of the damaged imaginations of our vexatious protagonists.

The hype accompanying this picture wants us to believe we're seeing a new horror classic, but all The Babadook really delivers is a horror movie to tickle the fancy of people who really don't enjoy horror movies. For those who should know better, its veneer of respectability will make all of them think they're seeing something special. If anyone cares to buy that, I can certainly sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. The rest of us will look forward to new films by the Soska Sisters, Karen Lam, Jovanka Vuckovic and the upcoming ShriekFest prize winning feature by Audrey Cummings.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half-stars

The Babadook was the 2014 Toronto After Dark Film Festival Closing Night Gala. It will be released by eOne Films, who will hopefully do more than a perfunctory limited platform or straight-to-home-entertainment, which, in spite of my reservations about the picture, deserves a bit more than that.

THE DROWNSMAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2014

The old "Red Rose Tea" slogan:
"Only in Canada, you say? A pity."

The Drownsman (2014)
Dir. Chad Archibald
Script. Archibald & Cody Calahan
Starring: Michelle Mylett, Caroline Korycki, Gemma Bird Matheson, Sydney Kondruss, Clare Bastable, Ry Barrett, JoAnn Nordstrom, Breanne TeBoekhorst

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Canuck creative team responsible for last year’s modest apocalyptic “infection” thriller Antisocial are virtual poster boys for the (not-so) stereotypical notion that Canadians are indeed quaintly polite. The Drownsman, their all-new idiosyncratic, almost politically mindful and artistically fetishistic lunatic will never fill the mighty shoes of 70s/80s slicers-and-dicers like Jason Voorhees, Freddie Kreuger and Michael Myers. He has, it seems, no interest in stalking, hacking and/or maiming his nubile victims. His needs are simple. He wishes to drown them. Like the old Commonwealth adage, "No sex, please, we're British," The Drownsman revels in its colonial roots with, “No bloodletting, please, we're Canadian (though drowning will do very nicely with our maple syrup, thanks).”

Delivering what amounts to an origin story for a fatally flawed franchise-to-be, the opening few minutes find us in a dank chamber where our title wacko (Ry Barrett), a hulking, greasily bedraggled rogue hauls a fetching babe into a metal tub. He shoves her head into the water, but it turns out to be the fruitcake's lucky day. Our harassed honey, desperate to survive, proposes he make love to her. The sneaky vixen allows the bounder to expunge his unholy seed within her loins. Whilst he shudders in post-orgasmic bliss, the lithe lassie is able to plunge the creep into the water and drown him.

Twenty-or-so years pass. Hannah (Caroline Korycki) hustles her hot BFF Madison (burgeoning Canuck Scream-Queen Michelle Mylett from Antisocial) to a dock just below the country home where an engagement party is raging. The gals look deeply into each other's eyes and though Sapphic gymnastics loom tantalizingly, we’re instead treated to a "bestie" hug. Hannah asks Madison to be her Maid of Honor then immediately excuses herself to go off and take a slash, thus allowing Madison to conveniently slip, fall, whack her noggin on the floor of the dock and roll into the water. A rotting ghostly version of the drowned psycho-water-fetishist from the picture’s opening offers Madison a malevolent howdy-doo, but she’s plucked handily out of harm’s way by a gaggle of rescue-minded babes. How safe she or her friends will eventually be remains to be seen when it's revealed that the purulent, waterlogged drowning-aficionado is her biological Dad (lest we forget the vaginal pounding he delivered).

One year later, on the night of Hannah's wedding, Madison quivers under the blankets in her bedroom as it rains cats and dogs outdoors. Hannah unexpectedly bursts in. It seems our troubled heroine has skipped her Maid of Honor duties and the blushing bride is crimson with anger. Since her brush with the Drownsman, Madison has been a basket case. She's now so terrified of water that she can't even drink it, requiring a constant I.V. to keep her flush with fluids. Since her fear of water nixes showers and bathtubs, why Hannah would want a foul, rank, unwashed Maid of Honor, albeit one who looks surprisingly scrubbed and gorgeous at all times, is perhaps the film's greatest mystery. The next evening Madison’s babe pals plan to cure her hydrophobia once and for all by dunking her in a tub full of H2O.

At this point, one might be thinking, "Horror movies don't all have to be stupid, do they?"

Though it’s tempting to applaud the film’s makers for trying to create a new 70s/80s-style signature killer, there’s something a touch imbecilic about one who literally sucks babes through the drain pipes of pretty much any receptacle that holds water so he can drown them. Sadly, he never once has the good humour to use a toilet bowl or bidet. This is indeed, the trouble. The movie is so deadly serious and completely without humour (a hallmark of classic horror-meisters, especially Wes Craven) that the meandering screenplay by helmer Chad Archibald and co-scribe Cody Calahan barely generates any shivers. Worse yet, The Drownsman doesn't even qualify as unintentionally funny. It’s simply a style-bereft misfire.

Some of its tech credits hold up admirably under the weight of the film’s low budget and general artistic malaise. The design of the title psycho ghost is suitably grotesque, the lensing and lighting prove adequately sharp, a creepily effective musical score manages to rise above its stock origins and leading lassie Michelle Mylett is clearly a decent actress whom the camera truly loves. She’ll no doubt be in demand for much better work. The uninspired film’s life, however, seems destined to play-off for bamboozled horror fans who make the mistake of choosing to partake via the usual home entertainment platforms this should be handily relegated to.

And you know, it seems somewhat egregious when filmmakers deliver a no-to-low-budget horror movie that's ultimately a dreadful idea with bad writing, but is replete with babes and none of them are naked - or hell, even attired more aggressively in their undies. This is the nadir of stupidity.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half-stars.

The Drownsman has its Toronto Premiere at the 2014 edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. It will be released via Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada.

DIRTY WEEKEND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Crime-triple-hander not just lame, but legless.

The movie is as good as its poster.

Dirty Weekend (2013)
Dir. Christopher Granier-Deferre
Starring: Kirsty Oswald, Jamie Parker, Pierre Perrier, Bernard Blancan, Didier Vinson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A singularly unattractive British couple (Kirsty Oswald, Jamie Parker) - not just skin-deep ugliness, either - have their weekend of illicit amore in a country cottage in France scuttled by the appearance of a murderous scumbag (Pierre Perrier) who's in possession of a whack of stolen gold coins. The couple sees dollar signs in their eyes and a drawn-out cat and mouse game ensues, replete with a surfeit of poorly-scribed (by Geoffrey Gunn) yakking, familiar story tropes and clumsily-wrought "suspense".

The only respite from this plodding mediocrity is the appearance of two seemingly bumbling gendarmes (Bernard Blancan, Didier Vinson) who bring some wit to the proceedings. The performances of the leads are imbued with competence, but the characters give them little to do but try to breathe life into ever-so familiar stick figures.

This dreadfully inconsequent film might play for bleary-eyed viewers with little taste in the middle of the night on VOD. The rest of us, should probably cut our toenails instead.

THE FILM CORNER RATING:
*½ One-and-a-half-stars

levelFILM will release Dirty Weekend on VOD & digital in Canada & the USA on October 14, 2014.

STILL ALICE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2014 - TIFF SPECIAL PRESENTATION

Hanky Honking Alzheimer's Soap/Slop

Still Alice (2014)
Dir. Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Starring: Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth

Review By Greg Klymkiw

If watching the great Julianne Moore stumble about in an early-onset cloud of Alzheimer's Disease turns your crank, have I got a movie for you! For me, there's a greater disappointment than watching Moore give her all in a shamelessly by-the-numbers disease-of-the-week movie.

Seeing as she stars with Robert Pattinson (Twilight's Edward) in David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars and Kristen Stewart (Twilight's Bella) in Still Alice, I was kind of hoping for a Julianne Moore Twilight hat-trick this year, but alas, there appears to be no movie at TIFF 2014, nor anywhere on the immediate horizon in which she co-stars with (a preferably shirtless) Taylor Lautner (Twilight's Jacob). I, for one, would have been thrilled to bits if an adult remake of Shark Boy and Lava Girl with Moore and Lautner had surfaced for this very purpose. It was, however, not to be.

What we get is Moore in Cronenberg's creepy, brilliant magnifying glass hovering over the emptiness of contemporary Hollywood and sadly, Moore coupled with the dour and increasingly unwatchable Kristen Stewart in a glorified disease-of-the-week movie that has no business unspooling in major film festivals, much less any big-screen venue.

And make no mistake, Still Alice is wretched - so much so that it actually doesn't hold a candle to some of the best disease-weepies from the 70s movies-of-the-week, which offered up one Camille-like sobber-o-rama after another for the edification of North American housewives not satiated with their afternoon overdoses of soaps on the television and thus allowing them to sit on their plastic-covered chesterfields adorned in curlers stuffing bonbons down their gullets twixt a few solid honks into their hankies.

So do it, ladies (and gents of the appropriate persuasion): don those curlers and pop those chocky-treats into thine respective maws (loaded up with plenty o' Kleenex). You'll be well-equipped to waste more of your lives. Moore plays a brilliant linguist who turns 50 and still has a glorious life and career ahead of her. She's married to a wildly successful Alec Baldwin, a handsome (albeit with a paunch) doctor. On top of this, the lady's got three grown up kids. Two of the three are making her mighty proud. One of them is going to be a lawyer (and is a twin-popping, happily married breeder) and the other, a promising young doctor in med school. The one disappointment to Moore is - you guessed it - Kristen Stewart. She wants to be an actress (in this movie, not real life). It doesn't take the movie long to have Julianne forgetting a whole whack of stuff and when she's diagnosed with Alzheimer's, all hell breaks loose.

Adding even more fodder to inspire tear-gushing and snot-dribbling is that Julianne's strain of Alzheimer's is genetic which means - you guessed it - all three of her kids are prime candidates for the same thing. Oh, woe!

The movie goes through all the motions of our gal getting worse, but trying desperately to hold onto remnants of her sanity. And guess what? The disappointing child, turns out to be a champ and her closest ally during this horrendous time. Who'd a thunk it, eh?

Moore is, of course, terrific. Anyone who knows anyone with Alzheimer's will see a whole lot of truth in the performance she delivers, but that's simply not enough to carry a picture that's so ploddingly predictable and jam-packed with all manner of hackneyed elements. Directors and screenwriters Glatzer and Westmoreland manage, between the two of the them, to serve up all the requisite cliches with very little resembling a discernible style beyond standard camera jockeying.

Adapted from a bestselling novel (which I've happily not read), Still Alice scores points for being about adults and not full of chases and explosions, but it's reverted to the more egregious elements of filmic storytelling for mature audiences. It's not only pure soap suds, but its melodramatic qualities are marched out in the most by-rote fashion imaginable. What seems even more horrific is that after 20+ years of astonishing work as an actress, Moore finally stands a good chance of winning a coveted Oscar for good work in a terrible picture.

The movie does attempt to add a veneer of poeticism, especially during its final minutes, but it's too little too late and frankly, feels false within the context of the rest of the picture. All through Still Alice, I kept thinking, "Yeah, Moore is great, but so what?" This thought, of course, was in the context of Todd Haynes' masterpiece Safe, made 20 years ago (!!!) and starring Moore as a woman afflicted with massive environmental illnesses. That was truly poetic and harrowing and never once conceded to the needs of standard, obvious plot points and dialogue to make the whole thing audience-friendly. On its own, Still Alice stinks, but in contrast to Safe it's as bad a picture as one could ever imagine.

Oh, and not only is it dreadful, but it's sickeningly bourgeois. Moore and her family get to suffer in expensive homes, cottages and all adorned in the finery of the nouveau riche. I guess this is what makes the suffering palatable. God knows poor people are never afflicted with this horrendous disease and if they were, I can't imagine anyone wanting to make or see it.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half Stars

Still Alice is a Special Presentation at TIFF 2014.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ORDER ANYTHING FROM AMAZON BY USING THE LINKS BELOW. CLICKING ON THEM AND THEN CLICKING THROUGH TO ANYTHING WILL ALLOW YOU TO ORDER AND IN SO DOING, SUPPORT THE ONGING MAINTENANCE OF THE FILM CORNER. BUY MOVIES HERE FOR SOMEONE YOU LOVE! OR HELL, BE SELFISH, AND BUY THEM JUST FOR YOURSELF

AMAZON.CA

AMAZON.COM

AMAZON.UK

THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2014 (TIFF GALA)

Boob Job Fonda,
Cuckold Bateman.
Dysfunctional
Shiva Sitters.
Rose Byrne
Cutesy-pies it up.

This Is Where I Leave You (2014)
Dir. Shawn Levy
Starring: Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Ben Schwartz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It would take a death in the family to get the Altmans under one roof again. Luckily the loving hubby of Hilary (Jane Fonda), a famous sex therapist with a new boob job, has just died. His last request, in spite of not being religious, is that his surgery-enhanced wife and his kids sit Shiva for him. Oy! The kids have their own problems. Judd (Jason Bateman) a recently-cuckolded radio producer, the unhappily married Wendy (Tina Fey), Phillip (Adam Driver) the womanizing baby of the family and Paul (Corey Stoll) the eldest son who's not only a dullard but drawing blanks with his wife to have their first child, all agree to seven days of mourning and reflection, and all living in their parents' house.

Needless to say, this dysfunctional family spars endlessly, but in so doing, they come to new understandings and discover how much they all really love each other.

Isn't that special?

Uh, not really. In spite of a few good lines sprinkled throughout and a uniformly fine cast, This Is Where I Leave You is pretty much a case of been-there-done-that. Playing like an extended TV sitcom episode, it even rushes to a climax where everyone and everything converges to tie up most of the loose ends into relatively neat bows. Director Shawn Levy, who surprisingly generated a solid science fiction action-adventure romp, 2011's Reel Steel and the fun fantasy of A Night At The Museum, falls back on his competent, but unexciting camera jockeying comfort zone from such unexceptional comedies as Cheaper By the Dozen, The Pink Panther and Date Night.

It would take an incredibly indiscriminate audience to swallow this with anything more exciting than the kind of blank passivity one reserves for time-killing, pure and simple. For me, the only thing that piqued my interest were some strangely coincidental items which inspired a bit of conspiracy theory conjecture on my part. I found it mildly annoying that this attractive cast living in an upscale environment were engaging in all manner of boozing and ingestion of both illicit and prescription drugs. At one point, Jane Fonda's character quips that she's popping Xanax like candies. My mind started to reel. Isn't Jane Fonda married to Ted Turner, I thought? He's the multi-zillion-billion-kajillion-aire who has been advocating all manner of culling poor people from the face of the planet in order to save it. I'm watching the movie and doing the math. Hmmm. Jane Fonda. Xanax as candy. Rich, attractive people engaging in addictive behaviour. TED TURNER. Population Reduction. Eugenics. Oh My God! Hollywood, the propaganda machine of the rich and famous.

All of this was floating through my head while watching this movie to alleviate the been-there-done-that boredom I was feeling, which certainly says A LOT about this picture's numbing mediocrity.

Then it occurred to me that Fonda and Turner divorced some time ago.

Still, I thought. Anything's possible.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half stars

This is Where I Leave You is a Gala Presentation at TIFF 2014 and a Warner Bros. release.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ORDER ANYTHING FROM AMAZON BY USING THE LINKS BELOW. CLICKING ON THEM AND THEN CLICKING THROUGH TO ANYTHING WILL ALLOW YOU TO ORDER AND IN SO DOING, SUPPORT THE ONGING MAINTENANCE OF THE FILM CORNER

AMAZON.CA

AMAZON.COM

AMAZON.UK

THE DROWNSMAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canuck Babes slaughtered by maniac ghost @FantasiaFest2014

As you can clearly see,
perfectly normal receptacles for water
can mean death to babes in The Drownsman.
Sadly, none of the babes is sucked into a toilet.

The Drownsman (2014)
Dir. Chad Archibald
Script. Archibald & Cody Calahan
Starring: Michelle Mylett, Caroline Korycki, Gemma Bird Matheson, Sydney Kondruss, Clare Bastable, Ry Barrett, JoAnn Nordstrom, Breanne TeBoekhorst

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This kinder, gentler, stupider Canadian horror film features a psycho killer who has no interest in slashing his babe victims. His more interested in drowning them.

Like the old "Red Rose Tea" slogan used to go: "Only in Canada, you say? A pity."

Or not.

In the space of about 15 minutes, The Drownsman takes us through a couple of decades of activity. We begin with the title psycho attempting to drown a babe until she begs to be raped in order to grab a few spare minutes of life. When the nasty fellow climaxes, she manages to turn the tables and drown him instead. About 20-years later, we're at a party in cottage country and the hostess (Caroline Korycki) asks her BFF (Michelle Mylett) to be Maid of Honour at her impending nuptials.

When the bride-to-be skitters off to take a slash, her BFF stumbles into the cold, Canadian water whereupon she meets the title character - only now, he's a rotting-corpse-ghost. Luckily, she's rescued in time by her gal friends.

THEN, a year later, she's been so traumatized by her scare, she misses her pal's wedding and soon, all her girlfriends who try to cure her of her basket case hydrophobia, end up being victims of the waterlogged ghost with the drowning fetish. He politely, being Canadian, you see, sucks them down whatever drain pipe is convenient so he can drown them.

Are you laughing yet? You should be, but alas, none of this is done with even a smidgen of humour and finds itself bereft of brain. There's a certain competence and technical proficiency to the whole affair, but this does not a good horror movie make.

And you know, isn't it egregious when you deliver a no-to-low-budget horror movie replete with babes and none of them are naked - or hell, even attired more aggressively in their undies? Oh, and get this nadir of stupidity, a psycho ghost who simply desires to drown his victims? Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

You know, call me jaded, but this really doesn't seem like a good idea for a movie.

THE FILM CORNER RATING:

*½ One-and-a-half-stars.

The Drownsman had its World Premiere at the 2014 edition of the FantAsia International Film Festival in Montreal.

THE ZERO THEOREM - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Gilliam Masturbatory Splooge 4 Pseuds

Not even a babe in nurse regalia
will make this watchable.

The Zero Theorem (2013)
Dir. Terry Gilliam
Starring: Christoph Waltz, Lucas Hedges, Mélanie Thierry, David Thewlis, Tilda Swinton, Matt Damon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In a dystopian future (where and when else?), Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz) is an eccentric mathematician who slaves in front of a computer for a faceless corporation. Joby (David Thewlis), his direct superior, sweetens the pot for the hairless-pated worker bee when he brings him a mission from Management (Matt Damon). Qohen has been assigned to crack The Zero Theorem, an equation which has broken and eluded the finest geniuses. It's no wonder, though, since the goal is to prove the ultimate mystery of the universe - that everything is meaningless. Plunking away at his computer in the privacy of a dank, old cathedral converted into his home and private work station, our hero is respectively assisted and distracted by a precocious teenage computer whiz (Lucas Hedges) and a hot babe (Mélanie Thierry). The latter seduces him, but he's only allowed to taste her ample wares within a virtual world. Ugh! Don't bogart the keyboard, bud.

The first twenty-minutes-or-so of this lame, pretentious final chapter in Gilliam's trilogy, which began with Brazil and sandwiched Twelve Monkeys is not without his trademark visual flourishes and some semblance of interest-level, but it soon descends into the kind of cerebral nonsense that plagues Gilliam's worst work and will only appeal to pseuds of the highest order. Not even a few blasts of the finest wacky tabakky is going to make this dull mess palatable for anyone but the most severely brain-damaged and/or those seeking enlightenment via Gilliam's masturbatory splooge in order to make themselves feel like they're smarter than those who could care less for this trifling nonsense.

The Zero Theorem enjoyed its Canadian Premiere at the 2014 FantAsia International Film Festival in Montreal and is now playing theatrically via Mongrel Media at The Royal Cinema in Toronto followed by a DVD release. If you're going to bother seeing this at all, you'll be better off seeing it theatrically. At least the big screen and big sound will offer some respite from the picture's numbing emptiness.

FILM CORNER STAR RATING: *1/2 One and a half stars.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Spidey Reboot Cash-Grab Strikes Back Again

Lovers Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone)
share a chuckle over not requiring much genetic Oscorp shenanigans
to transform them into a spider monkey and pekinese respectively
in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 CASH-GRAB STRIKES AGAIN.

FOXX ROXX ELECTRO

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) *1/2
Dir. Marc Webb
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Sally Field, Colm Feore, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Paul Giamatti

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I expected the worst and got the almost-watchable. In this day and age, that's something resembling a blessing with the cacophony blaring from multiplexes across the world, thanks to a seemingly endless parade of comic book movies. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this shamelessly unnecessary cash-grab reboot, so soon after Sam Raimi's iconic trilogy, is something that pleases me, but it's a smidgen better than its immediate predecessor and has a few meagre offerings to keep one from slashing one's wrists.

This is basically the mushed-together take on the Marvel Comics' "The Death of Gwen Stacy" (Emma Stone) story arc that shoehorns itself into the picture with the addition of two new villains to the silver screen (Jamie Foxx's Electro and Paul Giamatti's The Rhino) and dabbles with the Spiderman/Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Harry Osborn/Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) friendship/rivalry. Given that most of these woeful comic book adaptations feel like grocery lists, allow me to respond in kind.

On the plus-side:

- Marc Webb's direction seems a pubic-hair more sure-footed than the last outing. He directs one of the major action set pieces with a great deal of skill (Electro's first showdown with Spidey in Times Square), holds back on indulging himself in a ridiculous number of music video-style montages (which, in the last picture made me want to punch someone in the face) and whilst not displaying (save for the horrendous music-vid habit) a discernible voice as a filmmaker, he appears to have all the makings of a hack (hinted at in ASM 1). All that said, maybe that one action sequence was directed by second-unit dudes.

- Jamie Foxx is a terrific villain in the grand tradition of this comic book. In his pre-villainous stages as the cretinous computer geek engineer who is mercilessly exploited by the evil Oscorp assholes, he elicits a modicum of sympathy. Foxx also brings any number of subtle, intelligent hints at bearing an obsessive psychopathy mixed with the easily-manipulated traits of geekery prior to his transformation into Electro - shadings of character that will fit very nicely once he's terrorizing the Big Apple.

- Paul Giamatti is hilarious as The Rhino. Alas, I miss the notion of this character looking more like a real rhinoceros (albeit upright on two legs) than a high-tech robotic incarnation.

On the down side:

- The entire affair continues to be lacking in anything resembling necessity, other than yielding huge grosses.

- Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is starting to lose what little appeal she held in ASM 1. Seeing her in the role last time out had some novelty appeal, but here, her character is saddled with a few too many whiney "I've got to find myself" traits which she only redeems when she proves to be an invaluable ally to Spidey and is sacrificed to his crime-fighting efforts. Worst of all, her makeup and hair handlers have somehow accentuated her Pekinese qualities which would be fine if she literally transformed into one, but as she doesn't, it's more than a tad boner-deflating (unless one's a practitioner of zoophilia).

- Andrew Garfield is still a woeful Peter Parker. I find it almost impossible to look at him. He's quite repulsive with an annoying hedgehog tuft of hair upon his oversized gourd-like cranium, further accoutred with a thin, misshapen long face that's seemingly being winched to ground level, then topped off with weasel-like eyes, crooked smirk and shrivelled proboscis with its perpetually upturned tip, all of which result in a seemingly irremovable sneer. I won't even get started on his spindly Ichabod-Crane-like body. Feel free to discover that all on your lonesome. Upchuck with abandon.

- The movie is 142 minutes long. There's no apparent reason for this save for ineptitude on the part of the filmmakers not realizing that the entire narrative, such as it is, had a lot of excisable material.

- Like ASM 1, the movie is sans snarling newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson. Considering how much time is wasted on longueurs, it's an egregious omission if there ever was one.

- The entire buried flashback plot involving Parker's Dad (Campbell Scott) is ultimately way more interesting than anything else in the movie and seems to demand its own movie.

- Sally Field wants us to really, really like her, but we just want to really, really slam her face against a water fountain. Repeatedly, 'natch!

- The film's attempts at humour are forced, not funny and furthered in vomitous qualities due to Garfield's horrendously pinched vocal range - especially when he's tossing off the one-liners.

There you have it, smart shoppers, the ultimate critical grocery list representing this relatively useless comic book movie with useless leads, terrific villains, hack direction and too many dull stretches that were entirely avoidable.

If this all sounds like your trough of slop, knock yourself out.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is in every multiplex all over the world.

Please consider supporting the maintenance of this site by ordering direct from the links below in case you are planning to buy the spectacular Blu-Ray box set of the Sam Raimi "Spider-Man" trilogy or the individual titles on Blu-Ray that include an Ultra-Violet Digital Copy (though best to buy from Amazon.com than the stupid Amazon.ca that seems to have its links mixed up as per usual) or the DVD box set of the phenomenal and very strange animated Spiderman cartoon TV series from 1967:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Will I EVER like a comic book movie? Well, if they're directed by the likes of Sam Raimi, Zack Snyder and Robert Rodriguez, the answer's YES!

This is MY Captain America Golden Age and no movie has yet come close.

Scarlett (UGH!!!) Johansson
in a Captain America movie is
SACRILEGE!!!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) *1/2
Dirs. Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson,
Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I do have a bias when it comes to comic book movies and it's simple: I want them to capture the spirit of the comics I loved when I first discovered them. I am, however, not curmudgeonly-narrow-enough to dismiss said pictures if they're directed by real directors with something resembling panache. God knows I love all three Sam Raimi Spiderman movies (even part 3) because they not only capture the essence of Marvel during MY primetime enjoyment of the comics during the 60s and early 70s, but they're all superbly directed. Zack Snyder's Man of Steel rocked my world because it not only captured the DC items I loved in the 60s, but came closest to the first brilliant season of the George Reeves TV series which was dark, nasty and noir-like. Oh yeah, and Snyder can direct rings round most filmmakers. His work on graphic novels like 300 as well as that of Rodriguez's top-dips into such adaptations like Sin City kick major, royal ass from stylistic standpoints.

All the others pretty much stink (though Jon Favreau's first Iron Man was watchable, Kenneth Branagh's Thor was decently written and even well directed except for the action scenes and Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk had tons of visual panache, decent tone, though a disappointing script). The big reason the contemporary comic book movies drive me nuts is that they usually offend my bias, but are also miserably directed.

Captain America: The First Avenger fell into a disappointing, but not terribly offensive middle ground for me. Director Joe Johnston is an agreeable enough hack. His action scenes were relatively comprehensible (though a tad dull) and thankfully weren't of the herky-jerky variety (used by losers who mask their directorial incompetence with way too many poorly composed closeups and ludicrous lightning cuts). Unfortunately, aside from the great Hugo Weaving as The Red Skull, the movie seemed woefully all over the place in terms of tone and, of course, the screenplay left a lot to be desired.

And so, that brings us to the equally humdrum Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Tonally, it offends my bias, but at least the action scenes have some decent fight choreography that Anthony and Joe Russo manage to shoot in focus with a few nicely composed fixed-camera positions and minimal rapid-fire cuts. Like the first instalment, it features a terrific villain, though here it's not the super-villain, but the slimy political weasel played really well by Robert Redford.

Alas, the rest of the movie stinks.

At least the Russos keep the camera still enough to display the fight
choreography. Not that it matters much, since the movie is Dullsville.

The I-could-care-less plot involves Cappy Am (Chris Evans) embroiled in some tiresome hijinx involving Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) being assassinated by Bucky-Barnes-incarnation The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and slimy Redford being behind a plot to take down SHIELD and the Cap needing to team up with the tediously uninteresting Black Widow (Scarlett "UGH - get off the screen, already" Johansson) and the ridiculous Falcon (Anthony Mackie), a character who, in the 70s Marvel Comics started to turn me off to Captain America. This all results in a bunch of decently directed action scenes with virtually no dramatic investment for us since the plot is as perfunctory as they get, lacking any of the truly haunting tone the pre-Falcon Marvel comics had.

Call me a sourball. I don't care. I'm getting sick of these pictures. Given how dreadfully directed The Avengers, Iron Man III, Thor: The Dark World and the completely useless Amazing Spiderman reboots have been (and don't get me started on the Christopher "One Idea" Nolan Dark Knight garbage), I'm feeling like life is getting too short to watch anymore of these unless real directors are attached to them.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is in wide release from Walt Disney Pictures.

STAY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - No matter how much one tries to gussy it up, twee is as twee is and always will be. Twee, that is.

Stay (2014) Dir. Wiebke von Carolsfeld *½
Starring: Aidan Quinn, Taylor Schilling, Michael Ironside

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I always liked Aidan Quinn, but he really hasn't had a decent role since Barry Levinson's Avalon almost one quarter of a century ago. As such, I was kind of looking forward to seeing him in this movie - one I knew little about, save for the fact that he was in it and had a starring role opposite Taylor Schilling (an actress of dubious gifts, but not without some screen presence displayed in a clutch of bad movies like The Lucky One, Argo and (Ugh!) Atlas Shrugged). Alas, my heart sank a tiny bit when a head credit popped up which read: "With the financial participation of Telefilm Canada". I thought, oh, perhaps this won't be a real movie after all, but a Canadian movie pretending to be a foreign film with pig-in-a-poke "names" as window dressing to sucker audiences in to see it. Still, I was willing to give this a shot. Unfortunately, the movie's staggeringly stereotypical Canadian preciousness announced itself right at the outset as Quinn kicks a tin can along the ground as he walks along a lovely big-sky aquatic vista.

Great way to open a movie - kicking a can, looking forlorn against a topographical backdrop that might as well have been some Maritime Canadian locale. Luckily, it's not Canada, but Ireland. I recall thinking, "Well, at least I won't have to listen to Maritime fiddle music or Newfie rugby songs."

Well, maybe luck isn't with me. The soundtrack began to swell with some sickeningly twee folk song with the twittering voice of an Irish lass as Quinn enters his home, prepares a lovely tray of breakfast-in-bed and saunters gently into the boudoir where a gorgeous, young Taylor Schilling sleeps ever-so soundly.

Ack!

The movie then veered into territory I fully expected it to (based upon the initial letdown of the Telefilm Canada credit) and it does so with all the typical, uh, flair of a Canadian movie that values studied, ambrosial flatness.

Based upon a novel I haven't read by Aislin Hunter, I think perhaps I can't heap all my disdain for this flaccid movie and its ho-hum narrative upon screenwriter-director Wiebke von Carolsfeld since she did a perfectly decent job with Daniel MacIvor's Marion Bridge. But damn! This is one rink-dink sojourn into Dullsville that not even the presence of Aidan Quinn can quite save.

Quinn plays a semi-retired Archeology professor who lives in this relatively obscure small Irish community with his best gal, the supple late-20-something Schilling whose cradle he robbed during a trip to nearby Galway. It turns out the lassie is preggers with Aidan's seed and due to a deep, dark secret (revealed later on), he's not too keen on having kids. Schilling, conveniently from Montreal (allowing for a co-production twixt Canada and Ireland for this movie), decides to travel back to La Belle Province to engage in some soul searching with her Dad (Michael Ironside, looking very uncomfortable without automatic weaponry in his arms). Quinn does his fair share of soul searching too. We basically bounce back and forth between the Emerald Isle and French Canada's very own City of Lights as both characters spend a lot of time thinking about their relationship as well as the notion of having a child.

The lion's share of this whole-lotta-ruminating-going-on takes place in the Land o' Leprechauns where we get treated to subplots involving a young lad who is fatherless, a young preggers Momma who is motherless and Quinn learning a few lessons from both of them. Schilling learns a few lessons from friends and relatives in Montreal and even more sickeningly, we discover that her own Momma buggered off long ago because she didn't want a child. Wow! So many people abandoned by their Mamas and Papas. It's no wonder all these conveniently converging plot lines require a fair bit of mulling over.

If any of this had been treated with some good old fashioned passion and panache, it might have been palatable - maybe even, uh, good - but of course, since the movie is ultimately Canadian and not directed with any of the oomph Canadians can deliver (Cronenberg, Maddin, Veninger, the Soska Sisters, etc.), we're treated to little more than a limp, precious meander that doesn't even have the sort of TV-movie watchability that many Canadian dramas are infused with. In spite of some potential for roiling melodrama, all we get is a movie that's not edgy enough to be art, nor narratively competent enough to be entertaining.

Like many Canadian films (and, in fact, resembling much of the country's ethos), Stay sits rigidly on a fence post - the tip of it, and beyond, lodged firmly in that place where the sun don't shine.

"Stay" is distributed by Alliance VivaFilm in Montreal and is enjoying a limited run in that otherwise magical city and the not-so-magical city of Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

THE BLIND SIDE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - On the precipice of Sandra Bullock possibly winning another Oscar for an awful movie, perhaps the time is right to look at the awful movie that started it all.

"Look, a lot of rich White people, but mostly me, have been really, really
kind to you and I think you better start winning some games - not for
us, but for yourself. Well, and for me, too. Mostly for me, okay?
But mostly, TO BETTER YOURSELF!!!"

The Blind Side (2009) *½
dir. John Lee Hancock
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Jae Head, Kathy Bates

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Watching people be nice to other people is, for the most part, pretty boring. It's simply and unequivocally not very interesting and as such, makes for poor drama. In fact, it pretty much makes for NO drama at all. As Frank Capra proved on so many occasions, the only time in the movies that seeing people be nice to other people had anything in the way of dramatic impact was when the feel-good cinematic epiphanies were preceded by pain, suffering and/or conflict of the most unbearable kind.

The Blind Side is pretty unbearable, too, but not because the movie drags us through hot coals to get to the nirvana of feel-good, but because it's just so unbearably... feel-good.

Based on the true story of rich White people who helped a poor Black boy become a football player,The Blind Side could have been unbearable on the same kind of political grounds that so many movies have been where rich White people are seen as the real heroes in the salvation of Black people from their "lowly" station. This, however, is the least of the movie's problems.

The picture's biggest failing is that a lot happens, but for most of the film's running time it feels like not much of ANYTHING has happened.

Real-life football legend Michael Oher (surname pronounced like "oar") is fictionally presented to us in his adolescence as a big, quiet, seemingly oafish, physically powerful and possibly retarded Black boy - kind of like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. His Momma is a crack addict, but luckily, a kindly neighbour from the wrong side of the Memphis tracks has not only provided him with a home, but is especially kind to him by taking the lad to a high-toned private Christian school to get an education and possibly a sports scholarship. The Coach at the school also proves to be very kind to Michael and fights the good fight with the school administration to let him be admitted as a student. Some of the teachers are not pleased with his lack of academic prowess, but sooner than you can say, "White people are the saviours of Black people", the Science teacher realizes how smart he is and becomes very kind to him. Soon, all the teachers are kind to him (with the exception of the nasty English teacher who thinks he is an illiterate moron).

Alas, Michael becomes homeless when the kindly fellow from the beginning of the movie is unable to extend further kindness since his offscreen wife (like in Diner where we hear, but don't see Steve Guttenberg's wife-to-be) wants this large homeless boy off their couch. Michael sleeps where he can, hand washes his clothes in a laundromat and dries them in dryers left spinning and unattended. Still, this is a minor setback since by this point, so many people have been kind to him, that it's merely a matter of running time before someone will be kind to him again.

In the school yard, for example, when Michael sees some cute little girls on the swings and tries to give them a push, they run away - thinking, perhaps, that he's Chester the Child Molester. Well, sooner than you can say, "White people say wise things to Black people they could never have thought of by themselves," in walks a horrendously cute little White boy (Jae Head) who is quick with the wisecracks and overflowing with precocity. "Try smiling," Whitey says to the hulking, dour Black boy. And Goldurn' all ta' hail, if'n dis' don't work wonders. Michael smiles and soon, this 200 pounds of brawn is happily pushing pubescent girlies on the swings. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but this CAN work for child molesters, mais non?)

At this point in the proceedings, things could be going a lot worse for our hero, but so far, people have been kind to him. Then one night, the rain comes down like cats and dogs. The White boy and his family drive by our drenched hero and the Mom (Sandra Bullock) is shocked that this boy is homeless. Quicker than you can say, "Rich White people are the only ones who can put roofs over the heads of homeless Black people," she lets him sleep in their suburban mini-mansion. At first, he sleeps on the couch, but when his girth threatens to collapse it, Mom kindly buys a bed and gives him his own room.

Mom takes a real shine to this silent oaf and proceeds, for most of the film's interminable running time, to be... you guessed it!... kind to him. Her kindness is overflowing. One scene after another follows where Mom is not only kind to him, but gets others to be kind to him to.

One of Mom's friends remarks, "You're really changing that boy's life." Mom stares off wistfully and says, "No, he's changing mine." How he's changing HER life is a tad beyond me. She's gorgeous, has a gorgeous husband, two gorgeous kids, a gorgeous mansion and a gorgeous wardrobe. Since she's been very kind to him already, one can only suspect that her life changes since she becomes even MORE kind to him. Eventually, everything this Black boy deserves is handed to him on a silver platter - thanks to the kindness of Mom and so many other kind White people.

But wait! Conflict is on the horizon! To get into college to play football, our hero needs a higher Grade Point Average.Well, you might be surprised to hear this, but Mom hires him a private tutor (Kathy Bates). Damn, this tutor is good! And most of all, she is so kind to him. Even more surprising is that his teachers are kind to him and give him the support he needs to get the grades he needs.

But, hark! Do I hear the sound of even more conflict a-rumbling?

You bet! Remember that mean English teacher? Well, he's still pretty mean and it looks like he might not give our boy the grade he needs.

Oops, false alarm! He's kind too. Those pesky English teachers may seem like old sticks in the mud, but deep down, they're very kind - especially when they're White and want to teach some hard academic lessons to Black people that other White people are afraid to teach.

During the last few minutes of the movie, there is one final bit of conflict when a mean Black lady puts some bad ideas into our hero's head about the rich White lady who is so kind to him and he goes back to the Projects where he meets some not-very-nice Black boys and things get a tiny bit too unpleasant for all concerned.

Thankfully, this does not last long. Kindness rules and all is well again.

Written (I use the term loosely here) and directed (so to speak) by John Lee Hancock, The Blind Side is a movie that has very little going for it - no drama, virtually no conflict or tension, a running time that feels at least forty five minutes too long, a vaguely foul odour of racial condescension and globs of un-earned feel-good.

If, however, there is a plus-side to this odious trough of pap, it's oddly displayed in the presence and performance of Sandra Bullock. She is someone I always found incredibly hard to take. Her earnest perkiness, a perpetually stupid grin plastered on that long, horsey face and a yippy-yappy voice that made me long for the incessant barking of a rabid chihuahua always inspired in me a considerable expulsion of bile.

These feelings eventually shifted from nut-sack squeezing to admiration and, I must shyly admit to a regained firmness of a key appendage at the very sight of her. Somewhere around the time of her appearance in Paul Haggis's heavy-handed, overrated glorified TV-movie Crash, Bullock blossomed into something far more palatable and genuinely appealing. Some age, some maturity, some well-placed heft on her frame have all contributed to the enhancement of her ability to woo the lens of the camera. She also invested her peformance in Crash and the flawed, but underrated Alejandro Agresti film The Lake House with the kind of chops I never realized she had. In the latter title, she actually moved me. And no, it wasn't a bowel movement. The girl made me cry. And Christ Almighty! I even found her sexy and funny in "The Proposal".

In The Blind Side, she commands the screen like a pitbull - ravaging the lens with the kind of intensity I wish the movie itself had. Her performance has Oscar-bait written all over it, but within that context, I'd have to say it's entirely deserved.

If her second Oscar win is for Gravity, it will be for an equally intolerable movie, but at least The Blind Side is moronically entertaining instead of the dull, dour and idiotically overrated sudsy space opera. The Blind Side works very hard to be as awful and stupid as it is.

SEX AFTER KIDS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Fine Cast Wasted in Lame Bourgeois Feature Length TV Sitcom

Sex After Kids (2013) *½
Dir. Jeremy Lalonde
Starring: Gordon Pinsent, Zoie Palmer, Paul Amos, Mary Krohnert, Kate Hewlett, Jay Brazeau, Mimi Kuzyk, Katie Boland, Kris Holden-Ried, Amanda Brugel, Peter Keleghan, Shannon Beckner, Ennis Esmer

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I've said it before, I'll say it again: "Who wants to go to the movies to watch TV?" Sadly, there have been any number of lame comedies released during the new millennium - both indie and studio - that are little more than feature-length TV sitcoms and sadder yet, some of them actually do decent numbers at the box-office. This Canadian feature film is probably not the worst, nor especially egregious example of this - Lord knows some of the more disgraceful efforts in this genre of inconsequence have come from entities that should know better.

Some of the all-time worst seem to star the revolting Sarah Jessica Parker - films like Failure to Launch, Did You Hear About the Morgans and, of course, both loathsome Sex and the City movies have rubbed our noses in the dog doo-doo that is the woefully galumphing creature of the equine persuasion who, thankfully, is nowhere to be seen in Sex After Kids, but oddly, about the best that can be said for this trifle of a movie is that one could imagine a bigger budget version of it starring that toothy, horrendous version of Old Paint on two legs.

There is a clearly attractive and talented cast of terrific Canadian actors in this ensemble piece and while it is mildly pleasing to see some of them do their best with the sitcom dialogue to the point where one could imagine some of it being funny, the fact remains that none of it ever is.

The series of stories here all deal with the problems bourgeois couples face in the sack after they have kids. Tying it all together is the almost-funny presence of the wonderful Gordon Pinsent as a sex therapist. I say, "almost" funny only because the idea of the stalwart Canuck having to talk about various sex acts is a lot more amusing than the execution. It's not Pinsent's fault that the funniest thing for me is imagining him use sex terms adorned in his RCMP outfit from "Forest Rangers", but the writing here is generally sub-par - even by the standards of - ahem - CBC-TV comedy. Pinsent gives it the old CBC-try, but I'd frankly rather watch him in The Rowdyman for the umpteenth glorious time.

Basically, what we get here is a clutch of couples post-birth, struggling through the dilemmas of keeping the old-boink-flames going. We have a lesbian couple, various straight couples, single moms, Lothario-types, oldsters with the empty nest syndrome, etc. and we watch them go through the ropes and tropes of their flawed sex lives as the picture grinds away in its by-the-numbers fashion that reminds one of a feature length pilot for a Canadian version of "Love American Style".

And gosh golly gee, they all learn to spice things up and/or get the passion and lovin' back in their inconsequential lives.

That the world pictured is so offensively bourgeois is bad enough, but that we have to see so many good actors wasted is borderline sickening. Given that the movie was made for a crowd-funded pittance makes me feel like I'm kicking a cripple by dumping on it, but the bottom line is that the movie was made, it's out there in the world and it's really not very good.

That said, I reiterate my aforementioned point that the movie is so inconsequential that it might stand a decent enough chance to have the remake rights sold to a studio and then we can get an even more empty version not unlike one of those awful Working Title sitcoms with the likes of Hugh Grant traipsing through the silliness for female audiences comprised of steno-girls, mall workers and their suffering dates. Then they too can get all warm and cuddly, get some boinking in, get married, have their loathsome children and then have the same sex-after-kids problems afflicting the characters of this TV movie.

"Sex After Kids" is inexplicably playing in theatrical venues via Indie-Can Entertainment. Look forward to it on pay-per-view if you miss it on the big screen and maybe, just maybe, we'll see a long-running series on CBC and maybe even a Working Title version with Liam Neeson in the Gordon Pinsent role. I can imagine it now - "You folks better get boinking or I'm going to find you and I'm going to kill you."