BECOMING BOND + 78/52 - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - 2017HotDocsHotPicks - About Movies

PSYCHO dissected. BOND Lazenbyed. Movies on Movies.

Becoming Bond (2017)
Dir. Josh Greenbaum
Starring: George Lazenby, Josh Lawson,
Kassandra Clementi, Jeff Garlin, Jane Seymour

78/52 (2017)
Dir. Alexandre O. Philippe
Starring: Walter Murch, Peter Bogdanovich, Guillermo del Toro, Jamie Lee Curtis, Danny Elfman, Eli Roth, Elijah Wood, Richard Stanley, Scott Spiegel, Leigh Whannell, Bret Easton Ellis, Illeana Douglas, Marli Renfro, Tere Carrubba, Stephen Rebello, David Thomson, Karyn Kusama, Neil Marshall

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Movies about movies are certainly a treat for movie aficionados, critics and fanboys, but all those nuts can be the toughest to crack since most movies worth making movies about hold a special place in the hearts of the "converted" being preached to. Becoming Bond is an in-depth biography of George Lazenby, the only actor ever to play 007 once (in one of the greatest Bonds of them all) and 78/52 (the number of setups and cuts in the Psycho shower scene) examines the three-minutes of watery, bloody Hitchcock mayhem with more anal detail than Oliver Stone (no doubt) studied Abraham Zapruder's footage of JFK's assassination. Both documentaries have merit, but both also have a few bones to be mercilessly nitpicked at by geeks.

Walter Murch analyzing the editing of PSYCHO. Wow!

"I felt I'd been raped," says Peter Bogdanovich after describing his first helping of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. He's one of many worthy interview subjects to talk about the shower scene in Psycho. His description of the audience reaction to the sequence in the Times Square cinema he saw it in, is alone worth the price of admission to 78/52.

Happily, Phillipe's documentary offers a sumptuous buffet of perspectives.

Some of the best include:

- an astonishing dissection of the editing from Walter Murch (so amazing that one could have simply made an entire film of Murch discussing it with clips);

- a series of insightful analyses from the brilliant Hardware director Richard Stanley whose passion and appreciation seems so deliciously bonkers (and spot-on) that his demeanour seems almost malevolent in its glee;

- Janet Leigh's nude/stunt body double Marli Renfro who not only provides a cornucopia of production tidbits, but does so which such natural zeal and talent one wonders what we lost from her not being a more prolific actress in movies herself;

- filmmakers Eli (Hostel torture-porn-gore-meister) Roth, Neil (The Descent) Marshall and Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy), all proving they've got the chops to be film professors of the highest order if directing ever turns out to be a dead-end for them and;

- ace composer Danny Elfman brilliantly discussing Bernard Herrmann's game-changing, shriek-and-heart-attack-inducing string score.

Of course, no such documentary would be complete without a stellar passel of eggheads and Phillipe doesn't disappoint in this regard by including film critics/historians Stephen Rebello and David Thomson, PLUS an art history expert casting light on the strange Baroque painting Hitchcock chose as the instrument by which Norman Bates would, peeping-Tom-like, spy upon Janet Leigh.

Oh, but there are several questionable inclusions in the picture which only serve to add unnecessary longueurs and head-scratching to the whole affair. I mean, really. Was it absolutely necessary to waste our time with the "insights" from those responsible for the Saw sequels and Hostel IV? And come on, why even acknowledge that Gus Van Sant's idiotic remake of Psycho exists, much less spending any time on it whatsoever?

However, this is kind of like picking out undigested bits of corn and peanuts from a good, healthy turd deposit and 78/52 is, for most of us fanboys, robust and satisfying.

The Many Facets of George Lazenby in a kilt.

Not so with Becoming Bond. This biography of actor George Lazenby has so much going for it; namely Lazenby himself, that one wonders why director Josh Greenbaum made the decision to tell this fascinating man's story with dramatic re-enactments.

To be in the up close and personal sphere of Lazenby, the 77-year-old former-model-turned-actor, is to be in the presence of a master raconteur. He tells a marvellous tale of his life as a mischievous kid, auto-mechanic, master cocksman and finally, one of the biggest movie stars in the world. We're privy to the most intimate details of his prodigious sexual hijinks and very movingly, the story of the first love of his life (and how he blew it, big time).

The story of Lazenby's wild days as a male model and the extraordinary turn of events that led to him being cast as James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter Hunt's film is still one of the greatest Bond pictures ever made) is the stuff of legend. Even more astonishing is the aftermath - when Lazenby did the unthinkable and walked away from a multi-picture, multi-million-dollar offer to continue in the role as a very worthy successor to Sean Connery.

The elder Lazenby is a joy. One doesn't want to take one's eyes of the guy, except when the picture cuts to film clips and archival footage. Whenever we're flung into the dramatic re-enactments, our hearts sink. We can hear his voice, but alas we're forced to watched a strange amalgam of Richard Lester London Swing with sniggering Gerald Thomas Carry On shenanigans. It's not that I have a problem with either, nor do I have a problem with blending them, but the overall tone of these sequences seems tonally off and too often comes across as pallid, by-the-numbers recreations of a particular period of film history as well as Lazenby's life. (In fairness, there are two excellent performances in these recreations - Jeff Garlin as suitably bombastic producer Harry Saltzman and Jane Seymour as Lazenby's sexy, no-nonsense agent.)

Look, I don't want to be one of those assholes who wishes a filmmaker had done a different movie, so ultimately, I won't. My hat is off to Greenbaum for doing something this audacious, but sadly, it's all too close-but-no-cigar.

I am, however, going to be an annoying movie geek, though. How could someone make a documentary biography of George Lazenby and not refer to the lunch he was supposed to have with Bruce Lee that never happened on the very day the martial arts star died? Or the three Golden Harvest action pictures he starred in? And, most notably, one of Lazenby's strangest post-James-Bond roles in Peter Bogdanovich's masterpiece Saint Jack? (In Bogdanovich's amazing film adaptation of the Paul Theroux novel, Lazenby played the politician with a penchant for little Asian boys who is tailed by Ben Gazzara's Jack Flowers, the two-fisted Singapore pimp-turned-stoolie.)

Well, movies are like life. We can't have it all.

THE FILM CORNER RATING (for 78/52) ***½ Three and a Half Stars
THE FILM CORNER RATING (for Becoming Bond) *** Three Stars

78/52 enjoys its Toronto Premiere and Becoming Bond, its International Premiere at Hot Docs 2017.

DOC OF THE DEAD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Ho-Hum feature-length doc on zombies a lame DVD extra at best.

How can a self-respecting documentary purporting to be the ultimate of its
kind, not deal with the astonishing zombie output from poverty row studios
that gave us classics like KING OF THE ZOMBIES with Mantan Moreland?

Doc of the Dead (2014) Dir. Alexandre O. Philippe *

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I have no idea who this movie is for.

By purporting to be the ultimate feature-length documentary about the zombie phenomenon in popular culture, it sets itself up for the big fall. This woefully inadequate picture fails miserably on all counts. It doesn't even cut the mustard as a glorified DVD extra which it most closely resembles. On the zombie movie front, it includes nothing any self-respecting genre geek wouldn't already know (leaving out tons of important references) and worst of all, meandering all-over-the-place when it leaves the movies behind and delves into the cultural aspects of zombies.

The historical and anthropological notions of zombie-ism (eg. voodoo and its relationship to zombies in Haitian culture and the like) gets short shrift in favour of ludicrous notions about apocalyptic zombie visions coming out of 9/11. Spending way too much time dealing with fan-based loser-dom is also beyond the pale. If the movie is not just supposed to be about zombie movies, then sadly, it doesn't even begin to the scratch the surface of what would have been truly fascinating. Never mind voodoo, what about Santeria, somnambulism and other weirdness in the real world that are tied ever-so fascinatingly and inextricably into the whole fabric of living dead activities?

As far as its attention to zombies in the movies, Doc of the Dead pretty much blows chunks. It spends far too little time on early zombie movies of the White Zombie variety and commits the ultimate sin by proclaiming it as the first to delve into the "living dead" when such elements like corpse reanimation and (yup, my favourite) somnambulism run rampant through silent cinema (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, anyone?). The doc indulges in an equally egregious blasphemy by skipping over a wide swath of zombie or zombie-like elements in 40s, 50s and early 60s movies, especially some truly great work from the poverty row studios and independents. It doesn't delve deeply (if at all) into the Italian, Spanish, Asian, Mexican and even Soviet zombie cinema until finally settling into the birth of the contemporary zombie movie phenomena via George A. Romero's 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead and onwards.

Not that Romero's film is a slouch in that department. I first saw it as a kid on a 16mm film print at the age of ten and it not only scared the living shit out of me, but it holds up to this day as one of the creepiest horror movies of all time. My major quibble is just how much zombie material in cinema Doc of the Dead ignores.

Of course, it's always fun to listen to irascible old masters like George Romero, Tom Savini and Bruce Campbell talk at length and happily, the movie doesn't skimp in this direction. I could, however, have used less footage from panel discussions and I found the whole fast zombie versus slow zombie and infection versus reanimated corpses debates, deathly dull - wearing out its welcome to distraction.

I could also have used less of Simon (Shaun of the Dead) Pegg. I love the man's movie, but his manner of addressing the subject annoyingly wavers twixt self-serious and tongue-in-cheek and proves to be more bothersome than insightful. I pretty much even objected to dealing with the "World War Z" phenomenon, especially considering that the film version ranks as the worst zombie movie of all time.

And really, I've always had no use for the knot-headed fans who doll up in their zombie finery and engage in zombie parades (or zombie walks as they're most often referred to). I'm sorry the movie even bothers with them. If I wanted to attend a Star Trek convention on film (but with zombies instead of Kirk and Spock lookalikes), I'd probably be in the market for a cheap razor and hot bath.

Life, even after death, seems a tad too short for this movie. I had to see it. You don't.

Doc of the Dead is in theatrical release via Kinosmith.