THE DEEP BLUE SEA (now on BLU-RAY and DVD from Mongrel Media) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - If you missed it theatrically, now is the time to catch up on this sumptuous screen adaptation of Terrence Rattigan's play by Terence Davies, the UK's most important living filmmaker. Available on an extras-packed Blu-Ray from Mongrel Media.

The Deep Blue Sea (2011) dir. Terence Davies
Starring: Rachel Weizs, Simon Russell, Tom Hiddlestone

****

By Greg Klymkiw

I used to think Terence Davies might well have been one of the most important living British filmmakers. I was wrong. He is, without question, Britain's most important living filmmaker. From his trilogy of mesmerizing shorts to his latest work, The Deep Blue Sea, Davies is easily as important to the history of Great Britain's cinema heritage as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger or any of the greats of the 1960s British New Wave were.

Working in a classical style with indelible compositions, creating a rhythm through little, no or very slow camera moves and infusing his work with a humanity seldom rivalled, Davies recognizes the importance of cinema as poetry – or rather, using the poetry of cinema to create narrative that is truly experiential. (I doubt any audience member will forget the haunting underground tracking shot during the Blitz in this new picture – as evocative to the eye, ear and mind as anything I’ve seen.)

I’d go so far as saying that Davies might well be the heir apparent to film artists like Alexander Dovzhenko and Sergei Paradjanov – exploiting the poetic properties of cinema in all the best ways.

The Deep Blue Sea is a heartbreaking, sumptuous and tremendously moving adaptation of Terrence Rattigan’s great play of the same name. Rattigan’s theatrical explorations of class and sex have made for rich film adaptations, most notably The Browning Version, Separate Tables, The Winslow Boy and The Prince and the Showgirl.

Rattigan, given the discriminatory criminalisation of homosexuality in England (his frequent collaborator, the closeted director Anthony Asquith, was the progeny of the man who signed Oscar Wilde’s arrest warrant) chose to primarily reflect on gay issues and culture by utilizing a critical dramatic look at the often troubled lives of straight couples.

Nowhere is this more powerfully rendered than in The Deep Blue Sea, which Davies has adapted with considerable homage to the play’s tone and themes while using the source as a springboard for his own unique approach to affairs of the heart. (While Davies oddly reduces the role and importance of the play’s one clearly gay character, one suspects he did this to focus more prominently on the trinity of its central characters.)

Here we feel and experience the tragic tale of Hester (Rachel Weisz), who leaves her much older, though loving husband, the respected judge Sir William (Simon Russell) when she meets the handsome, charming Freddie (Tom Hiddlestone), a former RAF pilot who allows her the joys of sex for the first time in her life.

Alas, Freddie’s a bit of a rake and soon tires of domesticity, and Hester is driven to seriously contemplating suicide. Sir William, of course, wishes desperately to have her back. The eternal dilemma is that Freddie doesn’t love Hester as much as she’d like, nor does Hester feel as much love for Sir William as he does for her.

This is a beautifully acted piece through and through. Most astonishing is the performance Davies coaxes out of Rachel Weisz - it's as infused with heartbreaking tragedy as the great work he pulled from Gillian Anderson in his perfect film adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.

Davies dazzles and moves us with his humanity and artistry. His attention to period detail is, as always, impeccable. He plunges into a world far removed from our own and creates a double ice cream scoop for those who love his work. Both art direction and cinematography evoke both the period of post-war Britain and the movies of the period - specifically the melodramatic womens' weepies.

His use of music is equally impressive. He plays out the ill-fated triangle to the gorgeous underscoring of Samuel Barber's exquisite violin concerto and another double ice cream scoop comes via his trademark stylistic touch of presenting period songs. Yes, we indeed do get a welcome return to pubs thick with smoke and filled with songs sung by its inebriated denizens. Harking back to Distant Voices, Still Lives, the songs here are not so much a counterpoint to the drudgery of the characters’ lives (like they were in the aforementioned), but directly reflect the overwhelming malaise born out of repression and class.

It doesn’t take much to give over to Davies's stately pace, and when we do, we’re drawn into a world that can only exist on a big screen, while at the same time providing a window on the concerns of days gone by that are more prevalent in our contemporary world than most of us would care to admit.

"The Deep Blue Sea" is now available on a gorgeous Blu-Ray release from Mongrel Media. Thankfully, the transfer maintains the gauzy, grainy, low-contrast drabness of post-war England that was so striking on the big screen. Those looking for the usual "crisp" qualities, need not bother, though I'd suggest the transfer does exactly what Blu-Ray should so and capture the theatrical experience for the home market as opposed to the sort of annoying "cleaning up" some transfers unimaginatively and erroneously provide. The extras are knockouts - from a fine moderated commentary with Davies to a bevy of excellent interview material, it's All-Davies-All-The-Time. One superb extra is a Davies master class and it's both fun and edifying to SEE his enthusiasm as he speaks eloquently about the filmmaking process. This is definitely a keeper. For those interested in purchasing the film, feel free to click directly upon the Amazon links below and assist with the maintenance of this site.

THE DEEP BLUE SEA - Review by Greg Klymkiw - Terence Davies: The poet as filmmaker.

The Deep Blue Sea (2011) dir. Terence Davies
Starring: Rachel Weizs, Simon Russell, Tom Hiddlestone

****

By Greg Klymkiw

I used to think Terence Davies might well have been one of the most important living British filmmakers. I was wrong. He is, without question, Britain's most important living filmmaker. From his trilogy of mesmerizing shorts to his latest work, The Deep Blue Sea, Davies is easily as important to the framework of Great Britain's cinema heritage as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger or any of the greats of the 1960s British New Wave.

Working in a classical style with indelible compositions, creating a rhythm through little, no or very slow camera moves and infusing his work with a humanity seldom rivalled, Davies recognizes the importance of cinema as poetry – or rather, using the poetry of cinema to create narrative that is truly experiential. (I doubt any audience member will forget the haunting underground tracking shot during the Blitz in this new picture – as evocative to the eye, ear and mind as anything I’ve seen.)

I’d go so far as saying that Davies might well be the heir apparent to film artists like Alexander Dovzhenko and Sergei Paradjanov – exploiting the poetic properties of cinema in all the best ways.

The Deep Blue Sea is a heartbreaking, sumptuous and tremendously moving adaptation of Terrence Rattigan’s great play of the same name. Rattigan’s theatrical explorations of class and sex have made for rich film adaptations, most notably The Browning Version, Separate Tables, The Winslow Boy and The Prince and the Showgirl. Rattigan, given the discriminatory criminalisation of homosexuality in England (his frequent collaborator, the closeted director Anthony Asquith, was the progeny of the man who signed Oscar Wilde’s arrest warrant) chose to primarily reflect on gay issues and culture by utilizing a critical dramatic look at the often troubled lives of straight couples.

Nowhere is this more powerfully rendered than in The Deep Blue Sea, which Davies has adapted with considerable homage to the play’s tone and themes while using the source as a springboard for his own unique approach to affairs of the heart. (While Davies oddly reduces the role and importance of the play’s one clearly gay character, one suspects he did this to focus more prominently on the trinity of its central characters.)

Here we feel and experience the tragic tale of Hester (Rachel Weisz), who leaves her much older, though loving husband, the respected judge Sir William (Simon Russell) when she meets the handsome, charming Freddie (Tom Hiddlestone), a former RAF pilot who allows her the joys of sex for the first time in her life.

Alas, Freddie’s a bit of a rake and soon tires of domesticity, and Hester is driven to seriously contemplating suicide. Sir William wishes desperately to have her back. The eternal dilemma is that Freddie doesn’t love Hester as much as she’d like, nor does Hester feel as much love for Sir William as he does for her.

This is a beautifully acted piece through and through. Most astonishing is the performance Davies coaxes out of Rachel Weisz - it's as infused with heartbreaking tragedy as the great work he pulled from Gillian Anderson in his perfect film adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.

The triangle in The Deep Blue Sea is played out with Davies’s trademark style and a welcome return to pubs thick with smoke and filled with songs sung by its inebriated denizens. Harking back to Distant Voices, Still Lives, the songs here are not so much a counterpoint to the drudgery of the characters’ lives as something indicative of an overwhelming malaise born out of repression and class.

Davies dazzles and moves us with his humanity and artistry.

It doesn’t take much to give over to his stately pace, and when we do, we’re drawn into a world that can only exist on a big screen, while at the same time providing a window on the concerns of days gone by that are more prevalent in our contemporary world than most of us would care to admit.

"The Deep Blue Sea" is currently in theatrical release via Mongrel Media.

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STRAW DOGS (2011) review by Greg Klymkiw - Incompetence Incorporated generates pathetic remake of Peckinpah Classic. Rod Lurie relieves himself upon audience and Peckinpah with rancid après botulism-infused burrito from Panchito's Whorehouse and Chimichanga Parlour in glorious Ensenada.

Straw Dogs (2011) dir. Rod Lurie
Starring: James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgard, James Woods

*

By Greg Klymkiw

God knows I love a good remake. When a great story can be repositioned to present the same tale in a completely different time and place and is rendered by a director with vision, it can generate really fine work. Genre pictures are especially ideal for remakes - horror, sci-fi, suspense, mysteries and on occasion even musicals. The first three film adaptations of Jack Finney's cold war sci-fi novel "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" rendered three excellent and thoroughly distinctive films in the '50s, '70s and '90s - directed respectively by such diverse talents as Don Siegel, Philip Kaufmann and Abel Ferrara. Howard Hawks' classic '50s production of The Thing eventually yielded John Carpenter's bone chilling 1982 remake. And frankly, if it weren't for remakes, John Huston's 1941 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart (the THIRD film version of Dashiell Hammett's novel) wouldn't exist, nor would George Cukor's exquisite Judy Garland-James Mason version of A Star is Born (also the the third screen telling of the classic tale that began with the film What Price Hollywood?)

Some movies aren't so perfect for remakes because they are so tied to a specific time and place. The filmmaking techniques aren't necessarily dated, but the inherent values infusing the era are so inextricably linked to the story that applying contemporary mores half-cocks them. A good example of this is the great J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear with Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck where the clear divisions between good and evil are what contribute to the horror and suspense. When Martin Scorsese updated the film for his remake, he tried to be clever and blur those lines. That's why his remake doesn't work. Sure, it has his astounding direction and a few visceral moments that pack a punch, but ultimately, by creating moral ambiguities in the character of the lawyer, you actually end up muddying something that was, in its very simplicity, far more complex and, frankly, a lot more terrifying.

Some movies, however, are so perfect, so universal, so AHEAD of their time, that the necessity of a remake is simply uncalled for. In fact, the very notion of remaking them can only be pure commerce, pure greed and worst of all - pure and utter stupidity.

Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs is such a picture.

Based on the terrific pulp novel by Gordon Williams, the original 1971 shocker has, in my estimation, not dated one bit. It's as powerful and universal in its disturbing ambiguities as it ever was. (Unlike the original Cape Fear, for example, it is ambiguity that DRIVES Peckinpah's engine.)

The story of both the original and remake are simple enough, and on the surface, are identical. An intellectual and his sexpot wife move to a house in the country where the woman grew up. The husband is a dyed-in-the-wool city boy, but looks towards the solace of country living to complete his work. The wife's self-perceived inadequacies fall from her shoulders once she's back in her old stomping grounds - she's on familiar turf, hubby is not.

The local rednecks, one of whom had a passionate affair with wifey before she left for greener pastures in the big city, chide the city slicker hubby and drool over wifey. What wifey wants more than anything is her hubby to stand up and be a man - to rise (or in his mind, lower) to the level of the inbred ruffians. Eventually, the couple's pet kitty is strung up in the bedroom closet, wifey is raped and in a final showdown, the rednecks lay siege to the couple's farmhouse where hubby proves his manhood and defends his home with a brute force resulting in the savage deaths of the crazed marauders.

Peckinpah's film worked on two basic levels. Number one, it was a slowly stomach churning thriller that exploded into an orgy of bloody violence. Number two, it worked as an intense study of a marriage on the brink of extinction. Rod Lurie's remake works on neither level, though it pathetically attempts to deliver the goods with the former.

Lurie's film is shot and lit with all the artistry of a television drama. The genuinely suspenseful situation is never tense. The explosion of violence is on the level of a lower-drawer low-budget action picture. Worst of all, the acting is borderline incompetent - Marsden and Bosworth in the roles originally and so brilliantly played by Dustin Hoffman and Susan George prove to be such non-entities that they don't even appear to belong in this movie at all. And what can one say when even the king of supreme cinematic scumbaggery, James Woods, looks severely bored and in need of a paycheque as the drunken, psychotic redneck villain.

One of the remake's many boneheaded decisions is to set the film in America. Peckinpah's version works so well BECAUSE it is about an American and his British sex pot wife moving to a tiny village in England. Though Hoffman's character is, on the surface an educated, Liberal pacifist, he is American - he's left the New World behind and brought his trophy wife to the Old World - her home turf. It's the journey across the Atlantic that helps create the divide necessary for the film to work. Lurie, on the other hand, has no great cultural and geographical chasm to deal with. Granted, Los Angeles and rural Mississippi are regionally distinctive locales, but this is never explored in any intelligent, tangible way.

As a Canadian who has visited many corners of America, one of the most indelible impressions left emblazoned on my psyche was the genuinely alien feeling I had in Mississippi. No matter where I went I was greeted (as it were) with a malevolent sounding “Y’all nawt frum ‘round heah!” That, of course, was what I only vaguely understood when I could ascertain what belched from within the mush-mouthed chewing-tobacco-plugged maw of the speaker – lazily muttering words that appeared to be in the English language. The greeting (as it, uh, were) was never a question, but a statement of fact – one hurled with as much bile as possible. One of my visits occured soon after the free trade agreement between Canada and the USA had been signed, sealed and delivered. A common refrain from Mississippians was: "Whut's with yew'all Kun-ay-dee-yuns? Yew all wants to trade witch us fo' free?"

God bless Mississippi!!!

Racism, in addition to general ignorance and brain deficiency in Mississippi also ran shockingly and openly rampant. I could, for example, walk into a restaurant and the greeter would manage expel the aforementioned salutation with a somewhat more modest degree of literacy than gas station attendants and convenience store clerks and proceed, once confirming that I indeed was “not from around here” lead me into a section of the restaurant where I was surrounded by African-Americans. The other side of the restaurant was where Americans of the NON-African-American persuasion were sitting. A dark-skinned family seated in the next table made a point of offering words of welcome. One of them leaned over in my direction, smiled, and said in a FRIENDLY way, “I see, Sir, that you are not, in fact, from around here.” I confirmed this fact to him. He laughed and said, “That’s good. You’re in good company on this side of the restaurant.” I could only concur heartily.

The bottom line is this: Tied with the equally horrendous state of Alabama, Mississippi was one of the most dementedly scary places I'd ever been.

Not surprisingly, the woefully untalented Lurie captures none of this in any REAL way. His movie TELLS us that “White Trash” Mississippians are ignorant rednecks, but if it didn't, they'd all look like affluent city slickers playing dress-up.

One of the things that MIGHT have allowed a Straw Dogs remake to soar is the very idea that in one's own country one can feel like a foreigner. This is, in America, not at all difficult to swallow. Lurie, however, glances upon this potential with a vague, "Oh-must-I?" nod and moves on to "better" things. What those things are I can only guess at because whatever they might be they're invisible to me.

The other boneheaded decision is to turn hubby into a screenwriter instead of Dustin Hoffman's egg-headed mathematician in the Peckinpah film. Making the character a city slicker academic in the original made far more sense in terms of how he'd be viewed with disdain by the locals. In Lurie's version - especially in the context of contemporary society - I doubt a screenwriter for Hollywood movies would be viewed with so much contempt. I'd suspect the opposite. He'd be welcomed with pretty open arms. Everyone loves the movies - even inbred rednecks.

Where Lurie completely drops the ball here, though, is in making use of hubby's screenwriting prowess during the final showdown - or rather, NOT using it. Peckinpah made brilliant use of Dustin Hoffman being a mathematician - numbers, formulas, patterns: all the stuff that go into assisting his character in crossing over from benign academic into blood-lusting killer.

So why, oh why, oh why, does Lurie turn the character into a screenwriter, then have the knot-head express a prissy, "Oh, I don't do action or horror movies." Uh, why the fuck not? What a lost opportunity. It might have been very cool to have hubby utilize his "screenplay" to carry out his carnage. As it is, Lurie does have his screenwriting character working on a war picture set in Stalingrad.

Uh, Rod! Hello? Stalingrad? One of the bloodiest battles in history?

Uh, screenwriting 101 opportunity for cool shit here, Rod.

It's not surprising he doesn't exploit this. Lurie pretty much screws everything up. He drops the ball on all the brilliant religious allegory; he makes the evocative title literal and can't direct action to save his life. Where he really blows it is with the rape scene. In Peckinpah's original, it's shocking to see how Susan George expresses conflicting feelings of revulsion and lust when her ex-boyfriend rapes her.

This, Mr. Lurie, is called complex characterization. You, on the other hand have the somewhat moronic-looking Miss Bosworth ONLY reflecting revulsion when her ex forces himself upon her. I'd suggest, however, that the conflicting feelings Peckinpah displayed in the face of Susan George during the rape scene are precisely what plunged her into the sort of horror that would reside deep within for the rest of her life - especially when the culmination of succumbing to her ex-boyfriend results in being violated by his friend. Having all those feelings of anger at her husband, deep-seeded remembrances of the ex-boyfriend she once loved, having someone take charge in the lovemaking department are the things seared on her brain in Peckinpah's rendering and this is why audiences have never been able to forget the scene.

In comparison, Lurie's rape scene IS exploitative in the worst possible way. It’s lurid and nasty and in fact, simplifies everything so that her husband’s explosion at the end could be seen as inadvertent vengeance for the rape when, in fact, it is asserting his right as a man to defend his home, his family and his ideals. None of this comes through in Lurie’s version. Lurie has essentially transmogrified the tale into pornography – pure and simple. Anything resembling the deeper mechanics of story telling are ignored – as if they would sully the porn.

As well, Peckinpah's film is at its most bloodcurdling when it's quiet. Lurie replaces that with dull, meandering, misguided filler. This is no surprise. It’s exactly what happens when a hack is unleashed on remaking a classic that had no reason to be remade in the first place.

We've got enough hacks making movies and unlike Lurie and his particular ilk, at least many of those hacks have something resembling craft under their belts. Lurie has none. Under Lurie's belt lurks whatever's filling his lower intestines and waiting to be expunged into a toilet bowl.

I say: Loosen thine belt, Mr. Lurie.

Let it flow, brother.

Only next time, please try not taking a crap on someone like Sam Peckinpah.

"Straw Dogs 2011" is currently available on Bluray and DVD on Sony. Skip it and buy the Peckinpah which is available on a myriad of editions (new Bluray via MGM and amazing Criterion DVD).

CORIOLANUS - Stunning Shakespeare screen adaptation from Ralph Fiennes is bloody, blistering and topical. Most of all, though, it's just plain bloody COOL!

Coriolanus (2011)
dir. Ralph Fiennes
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Brian Cox,
Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, James Nesbitt, John Kani, Paul Jesson

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

"What's the matter, you dissentious rogues
That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,
Make yourselves scabs?" (I.i.150-152) - William Shakespeare, Coriolanus

Coriolanus: My name is Caius Marcius,
who hath done to thee particularly...
Great hurt and mischief;
thereto witness may
My surname, Coriolanus.
Butt-head: Huh huh huh. He said, "Anus."
Beavis: Coriolanus. Anus. Oh, yeah.
Butt-head: Uh, yeah. Anus.
Beavis: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I heard it, too. Anus.
Coriolanus: The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood
Shed for my thankless country are requited
But with that surname -- a good memory.
Butt-head: What a dork.
- With Apologies to William Shakespeare and Mike Judge

Ralph Fiennes, easily one of our greatest living actors, makes an impressive feature film directorial debut with this action-packed Paul (Bloody Sunday, United 93, The Bourne Supremacy) Greengrass-like political thriller. That it's a superb, vibrant and topical adaptation of William Shakespeare's great tragedy Coriolanus is a double-layer of icing on the cake. It's an extraordinarily riveting feast for the mind and senses.

The phenomenal screenplay adaptation by John Logan (Hugo, Rango, Sweeney Todd, The Aviator) retains the glorious iambic pentameter styling of Shakespeare's rich dialogue (with de rigueur, though always exceptional cuts to the Bard of Avon's text) and sets the action in a contemporary (or very near future) Rome. Given the current financial crisis worldwide (and in particular, the utter mess Italy is currently mired in), as well as the war-zone that our world has become thanks to George W. Bush, Logan's script and Fiennes's first-rate direction of it, delivers a movie that's not only relevant to the here and now, but is proof-positive of the universal qualities inherent in great writing - no matter where and when it's written. (This movie, along with Roman Polanski's Macbeth is a sure-fire way to get any doubting-Thomas high school student - or, for that matter, just about anyone - to devour Shakespeare ravenously.)

The film is set in a Rome that has degenerated into the sort of fractioned warfare that plagued (and continues to plague) many of Europe's Balkan countries. Caius Martius Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes) is a great warrior who has brought glory to Rome in a battle with a breakaway revolutionary force led by Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler). Loyal to the State to a fault, he's not done himself any favours by exerting brute force on his own people who, during the war, have been starving while stores of grain have been guarded fiercely by the forces of Coriolanus.

When our hero is offered the position of consul, he maintains his stance as a warrior, refusing to play any political games. Unable to "lower" himself to currying favour with Rome's populace, several treasonous power-hungry tribunes and senators seize this opportunity to slant things against our hero and force him into exile. Burning with rage, Coriolanus joins forces with his previous nemesis Aufidius (an equally great warrior) and together they march on Rome, decimating everything in their path.

This is quite a magnificent picture. The battle scenes are unremittingly chaotic, violent and alternately sickening and exciting. Fiennes makes excellent use of cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker, Green Zone) whose whirly-gig camera captures the battlefields of both the war zone and the political arena. Veteran editor Nicolas Gaster keeps things moving with verve while the superb percussion-heavy score by Ilan Eshkeri (Kick-Ass, Centurion) adds drive, emotional/dramatic context and flavour to the proceedings.

Blending newsreel footage with TV roundtable interviews and straight-up drama, Shakespeare's period dialogue never feels incongruous with the contemporary setting and storytelling techniques. Fiennes elicits phenomenal performances from his key cast - notably the great Brian Cox as the loyal, but doomed Menenius and an astounding Vanessa Redgrave as Volumnia, the manipulative Mom of Coriolanus.

Given that he's both behind the camera and in-front of it for so much of the film's running time, his own work as an actor never suffers. It's great looking at Fiennes's aquiline facial features and listening to him spit out his lines as if his life depended on it.

Cast-wise, the revelation here is probably Gerard Butler. I've always had a soft spot for him as an actor - especially in his kick-butt action pictures like 300 and RocknRolla, but as Fiennes' nemesis-turned-ally, he acquits himself with skill and power. His explosive line readings as Tullus Aufidius knocked me on my ass and I loved it when his Scottish brogue kicked in on overdrive.

The movie is full of great touches, but one of the more powerful moments is when Fiennes has his head shaved into full-on warrior-dome and all his men follow suit. They become an army of skinheads - bent on bloodlust, pillage and vengeance. This is what happens when men of action are betrayed by weaselly bureaucrats and it ain't a purty sight.

I had a few minor quibbles with Fiennes's mise-en-scene. While the Greengrass-like herky-jerkiness is well handled and quite appropriate for much of the action, there's a great moment where Coriolanus demands mega-mano-a-mano with Tullus Aufidius. The movie primes us for one major kick-ass head-stomper of a fight between Fiennes and Butler. Alas, where Fiennes errs as a director is continuing the herky-jerky rather than trusting in the clearly superb fight choreography.

There's also one unfortunate God's-eye-view longshot of the market when Coriolanus is led to address the "rabble". Given the care taken to make the multitudes look old-movie-style gargantuan, we unfortunately see less people on the periphery than we should. Nitpicky, yes - but so much of the movie is so good, less-than-stellar moments stick out like sore-thumbs.

Finally though, Coriolanus rocks bigtime! We get a great play rendered magnificently by a first-rate cast and one setpiece after another to remind us of the urgency, importance and magic of movies - and most of all, that of William Shakespeare.

Coriolanus is nothing if not cool, and it sure isn't nothing and it's most certainly cool.

"Coriolanus" is playing theatrically in most major cities in North America and is presented in Canada via D Films.

BUG - Collaboration with playwright Tracy Letts yields homerun for William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, French Connection & Cruising

Bug (2007) dir. William Friedkin
Starring: Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr.

****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Without question, Bug is one of the most compelling, terrifying and compulsively watchable pictures to grace the screen in quite some time. Directed by William Friedkin, that venerable master of all that can be deliciously and artfully nasty-minded in cinema, it is a picture that some might even view as a bit of a comeback for the filmmaker who unleashed, among many others, The Exorcist, The French Connection and Cruising. I am, however, not all that fond of the notion of comebacks – especially as they relate to men of Friedkin’s talent and vision – as Norma Desmond said, “it’s the pictures that got smaller”, and certainly in the case of Friedkin, the motion picture industry and the marketplace itself has changed, and certainly not for the better.

Bug tells the seemingly simple tale of a lonely working class woman (Ashley Judd) who finds a glimmer of happiness with a mysterious handsome stranger (Michael Shannon), only to be drawn into his web of paranoia. By finding love, they also discover pain, and eventually true happiness proves to be as elusive and delusional as their respective and, finally, collective states of mind.

In the end, does this really sound that simple? To be frank, it isn’t. In fact, one almost wants to avoid lavishing too much (or even any) attention to the plot since, for most of the picture’s running time, Bug careens madly into very dangerous and surprising territory. So surprising, in fact, that one of the minor disappointments is that the script by Tracy Letts (from his play of the same name) veers into some not-so-surprising territory in the last third of the picture’s running time.

However, for the first two-thirds of the picture, one never really gets a handle on where it is going. And in an age of cookie-cutter story telling, being surprised with every turn is not only rare, but in the case of Bug, supremely engaging and, even during some especially stomach-turning moments, entertainment of the highest order.

Friedkin is responsible for so much of this. Based on a theatrical piece, the movie wisely does not betray its roots but enhances them in a wholly cinematic way. Since most of the picture involves two people (with a handful of occasional “interlopers”) in one motel room, this could have (in less capable hands) been a dull, dreary mess. Friedkin keeps us glued to the screen with a keen eye that makes every shot a pleasure to look at, but also resonating with dramatic intensity. Not that the style is intrusive or obvious – it is, in fact, a delicious bird’s eye view of two people spiraling into a pit of insanity presented with verve and honesty.

This should come as no surprise to Friedkin followers. His early career as a documentary filmmaker in addition to his years of experience as a visual storyteller serves him very well. He has also adapted theatre to the big screen – most notably with the slightly dated, but still groundbreaking motion picture of Mart Crowley’s play The Boys In The Band. Friedkin is not one of those filmmakers who fall into the cliché of having to unnaturally “open up” a theatrical work and/or gussy it up with overly fussy visual details. Friedkin embraces the proscenium in a variety of inventive ways – preserving the claustrophobic intensity of the piece, but allowing it to still breathe as a work of cinema.

But perhaps Friedkin’s greatest gift as a storyteller is his audacity. When necessary, he will push the boundaries, up the ante and shove us headfirst into territory that most filmmakers who prefer to hide from or even worse, try to mute. Not Friedkin. He ‘rub our noses’ in the worlds of his various films and succeeds admirably.

Can anyone forget how far Friedkin took us in The Exorcist? Developing compelling characters and charting their journeys with the precision of a master documentarian and slowly building to a series of crescendos in which he earned and flung all manner of visceral atrocities in our face. Friedkin ensured that The Exorcist would be a true classic with lasting value by never forgetting that movies are a rollercoaster ride and that one must build to the peaks and valleys of terror with skill and precision to make sure that the moments of viscera stay with us forever.

With Cruising, Friedkin blended the tried and true ‘policier’ with a descent into a sexy, thrilling, Bosch-like world of gay S&M clubs. Some found this offensive and/or homophobic - too bad for them. They lose. It was supposed to be thrilling. And so it was.

And in The French Connection who can ever forget the moments of utter terror behind the wheel of Gene Hackman’s speeding car as it tore through the grubby, crowded streets of New York in pursuit of a train?

With Bug, Friedkin takes us on an equally compelling rollercoaster ride. As thrilling and memorable as the ride is, there is a point in the story where one gets a nagging feeling that it could go in a certain and potentially ho-hum direction, but because the picture has been surprising you all along and because the ride has been so happily infused with style, you repress your doubts and believe it will go into more unpredictable directions. The ride continues and it is still thrilling, but the eventual outcome was what you will, no doubt, have predicted at that earlier juncture. This is a bit of a drag.

But no matter: there are so few movies around these days as provocative and stunningly directed as Bug that one can forgive a flaw that would sink most other pictures.

The performance Friedkin coaxes from a slightly de-glammed, but still delectably sexy Ashley Judd is a tour-de-force – ranging from shy submission to out and out over-the-top insanity. Michael Shannon has had plenty of time to perfect his performance as the paranoid war vet on the stage, but he seems as fresh as if he were doing it for the first time. And in a supporting role as Judd’s psychotically abusive ex, Harry Connick Jr. shocks and surprises with a performance that is as sexy as it is terrifying.

Bug is a must-see motion picture. Even if you end up hating it, you’ll probably admire it anyway for both audacity and Friedkin's relentless directorial virtuosity.

A DANGEROUS METHOD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cronenberg's boring Masterpiece Theatre episode of "Jung and the Art of Spanking" is now in theatrical release. Please avoid it!

A Dangerous Method (2011) dir. David Cronenberg
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley

*

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When David Cronenberg is good, he is very, very good.

When he is bad, he’s cerebral.

A Dangerous Method is dour, dull and decidedly humourless. That said, the first few minutes do suggest we’re in for a hootenanny of the highest order. The score, oozing with portent over a twitching, howling, clearly bonkers Keira Knightley, thrashing about in a horse-drawn carriage as it hurtles towards Carl Jung’s Swiss nuthouse, initially suggested a belly flop into the maw first pried open by such Cold War wacko-fests like The Snake Pit or Shock Corridor.

Alas, Cronenberg seems to have abandoned his pulp sensibilities and instead appears to be making an Atom Egoyan movie fused with Masterpiece Theatre. Sorry David, Atom Egoyan makes the best Atom Egoyan movies. And Egoyan has never, nor will he ever make Masterpiece Theatre. However, if Cronenberg himself genuinely fused Masterpiece Theatre with The Snake Pit and, say, Salon Kitty or The Story of O, with dollops of the madhouse scenes in Ken Russell's The Music Lovers, then he might have generated something not guaranteed to induce snores.

Cronenberg’s unwelcome return to the cold and clinical approach from his pre-Eastern Promises and A History of Violence oeuvres quashes all hope for a rollicking good wallow in lunacy.

Come on, David, we’re dealing with psychoanalysis and sex here.

A little oomph might have been in order. (Or as Norman Jewison is wont to say, "A little bit of the old razzle-dazzle.")

Lord knows Cronenberg’s dealt deliciously with psychoanalysis and sex before – most notably in The Brood. It starred a visibly inebriated Oliver Reed, crazily cooing about "the Shape of Rage" amid spurts of horrific violence laced with a riveting creepy tone. Most notably the movie provided us with the indelible image of a semi-nude, utterly barmy Samantha Eggar adorned with monstrous pus sacks dangling from her flesh, licking globs of gooey, chunky afterbirth from a glistening mutant baby expunged from one of the aforementioned pus sacks.

Now, THAT'S entertainment!

Annoyingly, no similar shenanigans are on view in A Dangerous Method. It’s pretty much a Masterpiece Theatre-styled period chamber drama with with Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) jousting with his mentor-rival Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) betwixt spanking sessions with Keira Knightley, a daft want-to-be-psychiatrist with Daddy issues.

Sadly, no proper views of open palms connecting with buttocks or slap imprints on said buttocks are afforded to us.

A pity.

THE NEW CENTURIONS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Richard Fleischer's screen adaptation of former LAPD cop Joseph Wambaugh's first bestselling novel delivers a dramatic, but realistic front-lines approach to a world that most of us couldn’t even begin to imagine.

The New Centurions (1972) dir. Richard Fleischer
Starring: George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Jane Alexander, Clifton James, Scott Wilson, Erik Estrada, Rosalind Cash, Isabel Sanford, James Sikking and William Atherton

***

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It’s always a pleasure to extol the considerable virtues of Richard Fleischer, one of the most overlooked and underrated American directors, even when the picture in question is not one of his best works. The New Centurions is a movie that, at least for me, plops squarely into the category of work I loved as a kid that hasn't held up as well as I’d hoped. That said, it has much to recommend it – most notably, a great George C. Scott performance and a generally fine first two-thirds. If there are major problems with the film, they probably lie with Stirling Silliphant’s erratic screenplay adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh’s groundbreaking, best-selling novel.

Wambaugh is, of course, the former LAPD cop-turned-novelist whose books captured the day-to-day grind of police life sans shoot-em-up glorification – a dramatic, but realistic front-lines approach to a world that most of us couldn’t even begin to imagine. Fleischer’s movie version, from a directorial standpoint, often does an excellent job in this respect. Taking us from the graduation of rookie cop Roy Fehler (Stacy Keach) and his on-the-job training under the tutelage of grand, old man of the force; the wizened, cynical Andy Kilvinski (George C. Scott), a good part of this journey offers considerable entertainment value. With the dark grainy lighting and camerawork of Ralph Woolsey, Fleischer gets us through the nightly grind of patrol cops in an almost documentary-like flavour.

For the most part, this is no standard-issue genre fare as we follow the cops on a series of almost mundane adventures – domestic disputes, child abuse cases, petty theft, grifting and in one of the movie’s more amusing segments, the rounding up of streetwalkers, shoving them into the back of a paddy wagon and getting them boozed up so they can’t ply their trade. The film also focuses on the cops’ bouts with alcoholism and marital strife. All of this is peppered with George C. Scott's Kilvinski who regales his rookie charge with all manner of crusty wisdom and gallows humour.

For 1972, this was certainly groundbreaking material.

My first helping of the picture was at the tender age of 12 and I saw it with my ex-cop Dad. As a movie, it was definitely unlike the usual father-and-son fare in the de-glamorization of the cops’ lives and I also recall my own father responding very positively to the movie in that it had “less bullshit” than other cop pictures. Seen now, though, it’s a movie that scores points for being the first of its kind in the mainstream, but alas, loses considerable steam as Silliphant’s script maintains the episodic structure of Wambaugh’s book without finding a compelling enough backbone to hang it on cinematically. The script also adds, all on its lonesome, clunky and clichéd verbiage in strange contrast to the dialogue that crackles as well as plot elements that feel too stock.

This seems especially odd since Silliphant did such a fine job adapting the classic cop novel on which Norman Jewison’s In The Heat of the Night is based. With that film, Silliphant was able to deftly sift the best and most cinematic elements in the original source material by John Ball, while adding the proper connective tissue to make the picture a cohesive whole. The New Centurions by comparison is messy, lurching from one episode to another and never quite capturing the sense of time passing in a smooth manner.

There are other problems with the picture. When the character of Kilvinski tragically departs from the story, the rest of the movie can’t quite rise to Scott’s level of performance and his presence, or lack thereof in the latter third. Scott's rendering of this character is so powerful it almost seems like movie’s only raison d'être.

Alas, the marital difficulties portrayed border on soap opera. It's bad melodrama, pure and simple. It doesn’t help that actress Jane Alexander portrays Stacy Keach’s wife with such ramrod-like seriousness that she comes off like a harridan on lithium. Equally unexceptional is a subplot involving the gorgeous Rosalind Cash as Keach's fresh love interest. In theory, both of these SEEM necessary, but feel shoehorned in to the proceedings rather than flowing naturally from them.

Even more bothersome is the rather interesting cast of supporting characters who are introduced, then dropped, with no visible effort to fully integrate them into the whole. Part or this is definitely a script issue, but in fairness to Siliphant, this and some of the other structural failings could well be coming from studio-imposed cuts to bring the movie closer to traditional cops n' robbers fare. (There is even a well directed, but completely out of place car stunt that feels like it belongs to another movie.)

All this said, though, Fleischer keeps the action moving with his typical efficiency and he works overtime to deliver a sense of the streets and the day-to-day aspects of police work. Some of the banter of the cops themselves (both on patrol and in the station house is gorgeously rendered. There are individual scenes and sequences that soar in spite of the screenplay's flawed structure. Some are simply unforgettable.

Scott’s rendition of “Kilvinski’s Law”, the character’s off-the-book sage advice, is a marvel to behold. Nobody but Scott could do full justice to nuggets like: "Treat everybody the same - white, black, brown. Be civil to everybody, courteous to no one. We're supposed to use equal force. If a dude uses his fists, you use your stick. If he uses a knife, you use your gun - cancel his ticket right then and there. If everything else fails, hit him with a brick."

Other fine moments include a terrifying scene where the cops rescue a baby from being burned and beaten by its neglectful mother, an especially hilarious sequence involving the entrapment of a seven-foot lumberjack “fruit” seeking manly amore in a local park and George C. Scott’s final monologue which is not only heartbreakingly performed, but one of the few moments that achieves what the whole movie aspires to.

Besides, where else is one going to see Mrs. Jefferson herself (Isabel Sanford) playing a foul-mouthed, fat-assed, soul-infused street whore? That gal definitely was “a movin’ on up”.

Oh, and have I mentioned the movie has one major-league groovy Quincy Jones score?

“The New Centurions” is available on DVD from Sony Pictures in their Martini Movies series.

CARNAGE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Roman Polanski Delivers The Goods! First Run Engagement is the Cherry on the Sundae of TIFF Bell Lightbox Retrospective of the Claustrophobia Films of Polanski

Carnage (2011) dir. Roman Polanski
Starring: Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz

****

By Greg Klymkiw

I had to see Carnage again to experience everything I missed the first time. It's the funniest movie of the year, so be prepared to laugh so hard that you too will need to see it a second time. Then, you'll probably want to see it a third time - just because it's so terrific.

The movie is also blessed with the distinction of being one of the best stage-to-screen adaptations ever committed to film. Based on Yasmina Reza's award-winning play "God of Carnage", the author could not have asked for a better director than the great Roman Polanski to guide its four characters through a mud-swamped, mustard-gas-infused battlefield of nasty sniping - not in Beirut, mind you, but within the upscale luxury of a lovely New York apartment.

So much of Reza's ferocious knee-slapping dialogue is worthy of that which pulsates through Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". Though overall the play/movie as a whole is not as dangerously devastating as Albee's classic four-hander, (nothing ever could/would be) Carnage is, as a movie, so much more honest and brilliant than, say, the fake nastiness of such overrated crap as Alan Ball's screenplay for American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes. With American Beauty and his loathsome screen adaptation of Revolutionary Road, the marginally talented Mendes specializes, it seems, in rendering drama that purports to expose all the raw nerve endings of human existence, but does so for those who only pretend they like the lower depths of domestic bile puked up on a platter - but really don't.

Carnage, on the other hand, expunges its smorgasbord of bilious goods with Polanski's trademark aplomb and sheer delicious, vicious glee. (There's even a great moment in the movie that comes close to the shock and hilarity of the now-famous Trelkovsky-in-the-park sequence in The Tenant.) This picture is possibly even more claustrophobic than all of Polanski's previous "apartment" pictures combined - though it's brilliantly bookended with (and scored by the wonderful Alexander Desplat) by two phenomenal exterior sequences. Other than those, though, we're smack dab in the living room, kitchen and hallway of an apartment.

Two relatively affluent 40-something couples meet over coffee and cobbler to discuss, in a civilized manner, the fisticuffs which broke out between their respective pre-teen sons. The conversation zig-zags between several topics, all related in some fashion to the initial offending action. However, once the coffee and cobbler is abandoned in favour of a bottle of scotch, the relative restraint gives way to a no-holds-barred, rock-em-sock-em, to-the-death cage match of verbal assaults and, much to everyone's surprise, an uncorking of everything that's wrong with both marriages.

The hosts of this afternoon meeting of minds are clearly the odd couple of the two. Michael (John C. Reilly) is a borderline boor who runs a successful wholesale firm that specializes in fixtures. His wife Penelope (Jodie Foster) is a pinched prig with a penchant for fine art catalogues and coffee table books and labours in her not-so successful career as an author (her latest book is about the suffering of Darfur). The guests of the host couple seem, on the surface, a perfect fit. Alan (Christoph Waltz) is a sleazy lawyer who represents dubious pharmaceutical companies and Nancy (Kate Winslet) is a chicly-attired trophy wife.

As the afternoon progresses, battle lines are drawn, re-drawn and the balance of power shifts ever so deftly from one side to the other. In no time, the blades come out. The eviscerations are at first levelled from hosts to guests and vice-versa, but when each respective husband and wife begin on each other, the nasty accusations and finger pointing become far more revelatory than any of the characters bargained for that day.

When Michael, the seemingly happy-go-lucky schlub opines, "We're born alone and we die alone," he quickly adds, "Does anyone want a little scotch?" Offering booze to quell a tense situation, is frankly akin to aiming a thermonuclear device at the Hoover Dam.

The cast is uniformly fine. Reilly plays on his goofy, hangdog appeal but brings a heretofore unexplored malevolence to his bag of thespian tricks. Jodie Foster delivers another trademark slender thread performance, but reveals a terrific sense of humour. Kate Winslet beguiles us with her full-figured beauty, but eventually lets rip with her fair share of verbal daggers. Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) proves again why he is one of the best actors working today - he careens from cutthroat to pathetically needy and everything in between.

Some critics who should know better (my familiar refrain), have admired the movie grudgingly, but toss it off as a "filmed play". Nothing could be further from the truth. Polanski is a master of enclosed spaces (Repulsion, The Tenant, Rosemary's Baby, etc.). His deft camera placement and movement is pure cinema. More importantly, he adheres to what ultimately makes the best big-screen adaptations of theatre - he refuses, by and large, to "open-up" the action.

This knee-jerk attempt by filmmakers to render their work more cinematic serves - more often than not - to dilute the power of the text and thus rendering it MORE lacking in the hallmarks of cinematic storytelling. (Let's NOT forget the moronic decision on the part of director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Ernest Lehman to "open up" the otherwise GREAT film version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by shifting the locale briefly to a nearby roadside bar. The sequence sticks out like a sore thumb.)

Polanski refuses to take the easy way out. He throws us into the four walls of this apartment and forces us, for eighty minutes, to engage in the superb verbal jousts which, I must assert are plenty nasty and screamingly funny. Carnage is ultimately a class act all the way and once again, Roman Polanski proves he's one of the great living filmmakers.

Oh, and guess what? It's about adults.

"Carnage" is being released by Mongrel Media and will be seen in both mainstream cinemas and at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as the cherry on the sundae of a superb mini-retrospective of Polanski's claustrophobic masterworks.