COLD HELL (aka Die Hölle) - Fantasia 2017 Review of Stefan Ruzowitzky Thriller by Greg Klymkiw at "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema"

A WITNESS. AN EXTREME MUSLIM SERIAL KILLER.

Read Greg Klymkiw's **** 4-Star Fantasia 2017 review of Stefan Ruzowitzky's terrifying thriller Cold Hell (aka Die Hölle) at "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema" HERE.

I, OLGA HEPNAROVA ***** 5-Star Contemporary Masterpiece - Revised Fantasia 2016 Review By Greg Klymkiw at Electric Sheep Magazine

The astonishing young actress Michalina Olzanska delivers one of the great screen performances of the new millennium.

I, OLGA HEPNAROVA
Dir. Petr Kazda, Tomas Weinreb
Starring: Michalina Olszanska

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A grim, superbly realized feature-length dramatic biography about the last person ever executed in Czechoslovakia. Writer-directors Petr Kazda and Tomas Weinreb have crafted a compulsive, moving and shocking film about mental illness as a genuine affliction. It can result in evil actions, but the perpetrators are, more often than not, sick in mind, body and soul. Healing and caring has escaped them. I, Olga Hepnarová speaks not just for one, but all of them.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *****

Read the full review at Electric Sheep HERE.

Revised and Expanded review of SHE'S ALLERGIC TO CATS - Fantasia 2016 Review By Greg Klymkiw at Electric Sheep Magazine - Link to new review enclosed below

She's Allergic To Cats (2016)
Dir. Michael Reich
Starring: Mike Pinkney, Sophia Kinski

Review By Greg Klymkiw

An all-new expanded review at Electric Sheep Magazine of this endlessly dazzling, deliriously perverse and rapturously romantic comedy about a part time dog groomer who dreams of being a filmmaker by remaking Brian De Palma's Carrie with cats.

Read the full expanded review HERE.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ****

She's Allergic To Cats enjoyed its World Premier at Fantasia 2016

WHITE COFFIN - Fantasia 2016 Review By Greg Klymkiw at Electric Sheep Magazine

Argentinian Shocker with babes and blood.

White Coffin (2016)
Dir. Daniel de la Vega
Scr. Bogliano Brothers
Starring: Julieta Cardinali, Rafa Ferro,
Fiorela Duranda, Damián Dreizik, Veronica Intile

Review By Greg Klymkiw at Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema

Imagine a strangely perverse reworking of George Sluizer's classic 1988 shocker The Vanishing, wherein a smelly guy searching for his mysteriously missing girlfriend is substituted with a mega-hot babe searching for her sweet little girl amongst a sect of evil-infused torture-hounds. Add plenty of supernatural frissons, a wham-bam no-nonsense 70-minute running time and some to-die-for action and you get the rich cocktail of powerful 100-proof homebrew that is White Coffin.

READ KLYMKIW'S FULL REVIEW HERE.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½

White Coffin enjoyed its world premiere at Fantasia 2016.

DEMON - FANTASIA 2016 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Polish Dybbuk Terrorizes Montreal

Demon (2015)
Dir. Marcin Wrona
Starring: Itay Tiran, Agnieszka Żulewska

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The dybbuk has always been one of the most bloodcurdling supernatural creatures, yet its presence in contemporary horror films has, for the most part, been surprisingly absent. Rooted in Jewish mythology, it is the spirit of someone who has suffered a great indignity just before death and seeks to adhere itself to the soul of a living person in order to end its own purgatorial suffering. Alas, it causes as much nerve-shredding pain to the spirit as it does to the body of the one who is possessed. Invading the physical vessel in which a fully formed spirit already resides is no easy task and can result in a battle of wills, which not only implodes within, but tends to explode into the material world with a vengeance.

Demon successfully and chillingly brings this nasty, unholy terror to where it belongs, upon the silver screen, as opposed to the natural world. The late Polish filmmaker Marcin Wrona (who died suddenly and mysteriously at age 42, just one week after the film’s world premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival) hooks us immediately and reels us in with an almost sadistically gleeful use of cinema’s power to assail us with suspense of the highest order.

On the eve of his wedding to the beautiful Zaneta (Agnieszka Żulewska), the handsome young groom Peter (Itay Tiran) discovers the remains of a long-dead corpse in an open grave on the grounds of his father-in-law’s sprawling country estate. He becomes obsessed with this ghoulish treasure lying within the unconsecrated earth of a property bestowed upon the couple as a wedding gift. Not only will the nuptials be performed and celebrated here, but the happy twosome have been blessed with this gorgeous old house and lands as their future home.

Much of the film’s stylishly creepy events take place over the course of the wedding day. Wrona juggles a sardonic perspective with outright shuddersome horror during the mounting drunken celebrations at this extremely traditional Polish wedding. As the band plays, the guests dance between healthy guzzles of vodka, whilst the dybbuk clings to the poor groom, his body and soul wracked with pain.

When Peter begins to convulse violently, the lone Jewish guest at the Roman Catholic wedding, an elderly academic, is the one person who correctly identifies the problem.

Wrona’s camera dips, twirls and swirls with abandon as the celebratory affair becomes increasingly fraught with a strange desperation. Are the guests merely addled with booze, or is the estate a huge graveyard of Jews murdered during the Holocaust?

Is it possible that an army of dybbuks is seeking an end to their lonely, painful purgatory?

Demon raises many questions, but supplies no easy answers. What it delivers, however, is one of the scariest, most sickeningly creepy horror films of the year. If anything, the dybbuk has finally found a home in the movies, and we’re the beneficiaries of Wrona’s natural gifts as a filmmaker, as well as the largesse of this ancient supernatural entity, which so happily enters our own collective consciousness as we experience its nail-biting havoc over a not-so-holy matrimonial union.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

DEMON enjoys its Montreal premiere at Fantasia 2016 in Montreal. This review was first published at Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema.

DEMON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF 2016) - The late Marcin Wrona's dybbuk thriller one of the scariest, sickeningly creepy horror films of 2015

Demon (2015)
Dir. Marcin Wrona
Starring: Itay Tiran, Agnieszka Żulewska

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The dybbuk has always been one of the most bloodcurdling supernatural creatures, yet its presence in contemporary horror films has, for the most part, been surprisingly absent. Rooted in Jewish mythology, it is the spirit of someone who has suffered a great indignity just before death and seeks to adhere itself to the soul of a living person in order to end its own purgatorial suffering. Alas, it causes as much nerve-shredding pain to the spirit as it does to the body of the one who is possessed. Invading the physical vessel in which a fully formed spirit already resides is no easy task and can result in a battle of wills, which not only implodes within, but tends to explode into the material world with a vengeance.

Demon successfully and chillingly brings this nasty, unholy terror to where it belongs, upon the silver screen, as opposed to the natural world. The late Polish filmmaker Marcin Wrona (who died suddenly and mysteriously at age 42, just one week after the film’s world premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival) hooks us immediately and reels us in with an almost sadistically gleeful use of cinema’s power to assail us with suspense of the highest order.

On the eve of his wedding to the beautiful Zaneta (Agnieszka Żulewska), the handsome young groom Peter (Itay Tiran) discovers the remains of a long-dead corpse in an open grave on the grounds of his father-in-law’s sprawling country estate. He becomes obsessed with this ghoulish treasure lying within the unconsecrated earth of a property bestowed upon the couple as a wedding gift. Not only will the nuptials be performed and celebrated here, but the happy twosome have been blessed with this gorgeous old house and lands as their future home.

Much of the film’s stylishly creepy events take place over the course of the wedding day. Wrona juggles a sardonic perspective with outright shuddersome horror during the mounting drunken celebrations at this extremely traditional Polish wedding. As the band plays, the guests dance between healthy guzzles of vodka, whilst the dybbuk clings to the poor groom, his body and soul wracked with pain.

When Peter begins to convulse violently, the lone Jewish guest at the Roman Catholic wedding, an elderly academic, is the one person who correctly identifies the problem.

Wrona’s camera dips, twirls and swirls with abandon as the celebratory affair becomes increasingly fraught with a strange desperation. Are the guests merely addled with booze, or is the estate a huge graveyard of Jews murdered during the Holocaust?

Is it possible that an army of dybbuks is seeking an end to their lonely, painful purgatory?

Demon raises many questions, but supplies no easy answers. What it delivers, however, is one of the scariest, most sickeningly creepy horror films of the year. If anything, the dybbuk has finally found a home in the movies, and we’re the beneficiaries of Wrona’s natural gifts as a filmmaker, as well as the largesse of this ancient supernatural entity, which so happily enters our own collective consciousness as we experience its nail-biting havoc over a not-so-holy matrimonial union.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

DEMON can be seen at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF 2016). My review was first published at Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema.

THE UNWANTED - Review By Greg Klymkiw @ Electric Sheep Magazine UK

William Katt ("Carrie") delivers an Oscar-Worthy performance as a repressed White Trash South Carolina psychopath in documentary filmmaker Bret Wood's feature drama debut THE UNWANTED,
a perverse antebellum-ish New Millennium Gothic adaptation of "Carmilla", Sheridan Le Fanu's classic tale of vampirism and lesbo action.

Read Greg Klymkiw's full review at the ultra-cool UK movie mag
ELECTRIC SHEEP - a deviant view of cinema:

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL REVIEW

FEBRUARY - Review By Greg Klymkiw at "ELECTRIC SHEEP - a deviant view of cinema" - TIFF 2015: Atmospheric Babes in Peril Thriller with Lewton-like touches.

Read Greg Klymkiw's TIFF 2015 *** review of FEBRUARY at "Electric Sheep - a deviant view  of cinema" by clicking HERE.

DEMON - Review By Greg Klymkiw at "ELECTRIC SHEEP - a deviant view of cinema" TIFF 2015: Chilling Polish Dybbuk Horror Thriller by 42-year-old Director who died one week after World Premiere at TIFF

Marcin Wrona, the brilliant young Polish filmmaker presented the World Premiere of his chilling horror film DEMON in the Vanguard Series at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2015) one week before his sudden death in Poland on September 18, 2015. My **** 4-Star review can be read at Electric Sheep by clicking HERE.

PINK FLAMINGOS - Review By Greg Klymkiw in "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema"

PINK FLAMINGOS is screening as part of
It isn’t Very Pretty…
The Complete Films of John Waters (Every Goddam One of Them…)
6, 19, 25 September 2015 at BFI Southbank

Here's an excerpt from Greg Klymkiw's review of
John Waters' Pink Flamingos featured in the
latest issue of UK's coolest online movie mag

‘Just look at these,’ the Egg Man beams proudly. ‘Eggs so fresh you could hardly believe it. How about it, Edie? What will it be for the lady that the eggs like the most?’ Though Edie is placated, her ‘egg paranoia’ seems to rear its head once more, this time in the Egg Man’s presence as she begins to shudder desperately, almost orgasmically, screaming ‘Oh God, Oh God!’ However, the Egg Man will have none of it when he declares, ‘Miss Edie, as long as there are chickens laying and trucks driving and my feet walking, you can be sure that l will bring you the finest of the fine, the largest of the large and the whitest of the white. ln other words, that thin-shelled ovum of the domestic fowl will never be safe as long as there are chickens laying. I am your Egg Man and there ain’t a better one in town!’

So, does anyone reading this summary of egg obsession feel like the events are perfectly normal?

Oh, good. I’m glad you think so too.

READ THE FULL REVIEW BY CLICKING HERE

VIDEODROME - Review By Greg Klymkiw at "Electric Sheep - A Deviant View of Cinema" (UK's premiere online journal of the most aberrant, heretically perverse and downright divergent motion picture product).

David Cronenberg, along with the likes of Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin, Peter Mettler and a clutch of other visionary filmmakers in English Canada, generated product which can be viewed as Canadian by simple virtue of the fact that both the style and content of the films could only have been made in a North American context that prided itself on uniquely indigenous qualities in spite (and perhaps even because) of the southerly Behemoth of Uncle Sam. And though plenty of Canadian dramatic product was (and often continues to be) almost unbearably tasteful, this has happily never been a problem for any of the aforementioned filmmakers – especially not David Cronenberg. “Tasteful” has seldom reared its ugly head anywhere near his films. Videodrome is as Canadian as Maple Syrup, beavers and the MacKenzie Brothers, but with the added bonus of almost hardcore sadomasochistic snuff-film-style torture weaving its way throughout the picture as narrative and thematic elements.

Read Greg Klymkiw's
full review at:
Electric Sheep
- a deviant view of cinema
HERE

Here are the full specs on the Arrow Video release: LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Original uncompressed mono audio tracks for all films, Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for all films, Limited Edition packaging, fully illustrated by Gilles Vranckx, Limited Edition Exclusive Extras

VIDEODROME – BLU-RAY DISC 1 AND DVD DISC 2:
Restored high-definition digital transfer of the unrated version, approved by director David Cronenberg and cinematographer Mark Irwin, Audio commentary by Tim Lucas, the on-set correspondent for Cinefantastique Magazine and author of Videodrome: Studies in the Horror Film, David Cronenberg and the Cinema of the Extreme – A documentary programme featuring interviews with Cronenberg, George A. Romero and Alex Cox on Cronenberg’s cinema, censorship and the horror genre, Forging the New Flesh – A documentary programme by filmmaker Michael Lennick on Videodrome’s video and prosthetic make up effects, Videoblivion: A brand new interview with cinematographer Mark Irwin, A brand new interview with producer Pierre David, AKA Jack Martin – Dennis Etchison, author of novelizations of Videodrome, Halloween, Halloween II and III and The Fog, discusses Videodrome and his observations of Cronenberg’s script, The complete uncensored Samurai Dreams footage with additional Videodrome broadcasts with optional commentary by Michael Lennick, Helmet Test and Betamax – Two featurettes by Michael Lennick on effects featured in the film, Camera (2000) Cronenberg’s short film starring Videodrome’s Les Carlson, Fear on Film: A round table discussion from 1982 with Cronenberg, John Carpenter, John Landis and Mick Garris, Promotional featurette with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Cronenberg, James Woods, Deborah Harry and Rick Baker, Original theatrical trailer

DAVID CRONENBERG’S EARLY WORKS: BLU-RAY DISC 3 AND DVD DISC 4 [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE]: High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of four Cronenberg films, Transfer (1966) & From the Drain (1967), Cronenberg’s previously unavailable short films newly restored by the Toronto International Film Festival [7 & 12 mins], Stereo (1969) & Crimes of the Future (1970): Cronenberg’s early amateur feature films, shot in and around his university campus, prefigure his later work’s concerns with strange institutions (much like Videodrome’s Spectacular Optical) as well as male/female separation (Dead Ringers) and ESP (Scanners). Newly restored from original lab elements [65 & 70 mins], Transfer the Future – Author and critic Kim Newman discusses Cronenberg’s early works

COLLECTOR’S BOOKLET [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE]
An illustrated 100-page hardback book featuring new writing including Justin Humphreys on Videodrome in a modern context, Brad Stevens on the alternate versions, Caelum Vatnsdal on Cronenberg’s early works, extracts from Cronenberg on Cronenberg featuring Cronenberg’s reminiscences of getting started in filmmaking and shooting all the films in this collection, plus more, illustrated with original archive stills

DETAILS:
Region: B
Rating: 18
Cat No: FCD1133
Duration: 6/13/63/63/89 mins
Language: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1/1.33:1/1.66:1
Audio: Mono
Discs: 4
Colour/B&W

COFFY - Review By Greg Klymkiw @ Electric Sheep Magazine - Pam Grier Cleans Up Good

PAM GRIER is COFFY, a lean, mean, KILLING machine with a soul that’s ALL WOMAN. By day, she’s a caring, highly skilled inner-city nurse, but by night, she transforms into a DEADLY show-no-mercy VIGILANTE who takes on the whole underworld --- thug by thug --- pusher by pusher --- gangster by  gangster --- corrupt politician by corrupt politician --- john by john & PIMP by DIRTY, STINKING PIMP.

READ GREG KLYMKIW'S blistering **** RAVE REVIEW @ ELECTRIC SHEEP - a deviant view of cinema by clicking HERE.

READ GREG KLYMKIW'S REVIEW @ ELECTRIC SHEEP - a deviant view of cinema by clicking HERE

GREG KLYMKIW interviews JOHN BOORMAN on QUEEN AND COUNTRY at ELECTRIC SHEEP

Greg Klymkiw Interviews the legendary director
JOHN BOORMAN about QUEEN AND COUNTRY,
the sequel to his much-beloved Hope and Glory
at Electric Sheep Magazine. Read it by clicking HERE

GREG KLYMKIW interviews TONY BURGESS on EJECTA at ELECTRIC SHEEP MAGAZINE in UK

Greg Klymkiw and Tony Burgess
share pulls from a jug of Peninsula shine
and discuss writing, aliens and EJECTA,
the latest screenplay from the writer of
PONTYPOOL, SEPTIC MAN & HELLMOUTH
Read on by clicking HERE

BURT'S BUZZ - Review By Greg Klymkiw - One of Canada's Most Dynamic Filmmakers Shoots the King of Bees.

In addition to having it's World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013, Burt's Buzz, Jody Shapiro's fine documentary portrait of Burt Shavitz, the public face of Burt's Bees health products, was released by FilmBuff theatrically and via iTunes download in the USA on June 6, 2014 and will begin its theatrical launch in Canada on June 13, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox (the year-round home for all of TIFF's activities, including the Toronto International Film Festival). After you read the review, please note that just below it on this page is a preview and link to a major feature length story entitled Jody Shapiro: A Guy For All Seasons in "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema", focusing upon the director of Burt's Buzz, Jody Shapiro, one of Canada's most legendary young filmmakers.

Burt's Buzz (2013) ***1/2
Dir: Jody Shapiro
Starring: Burt Shavitz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Jody Shapiro began his career in film as one of the truly genuine creative producers in Canada, or rather, as a producer, he was always easy to look upon as a filmmaker (as opposed to the annoying assumption that a filmmaker and a producer are two different things).

Working with Guy Maddin in the latter stages of the great surrealist's career, Shapiro brought his artistic instincts to bear and was never shy about leaping into the fray with a movie camera and shooting like a madman. That Shapiro went on to be Isabella Rossellini's chief collaborator as a co-director and producer on her utterly insane Green Porno series of shorts speaks volumes about why he might have been the perfect director to document the life of Burt Shavitz.

Any producer attracted to as many eccentric projects and working closely with as many genuine eccentrics as Maddin and Rossellini has proven indeed that Shavitz could not have been luckier than to have someone like Shapiro infuse Burt's Buzz with his keen eye for the joys of, well, eccentricity. Shapiro's feature documentary is a loving portrait of the famed old bearded hippie whose face has adorned the packaging of the Health Store mainstay products "Burt's Bees". Though Shapiro interviews associates, sponsors and family, the film is mostly all Burt all the time - which is great because the camera loves him and he has a nice low key irascibility.

Shapiro delivers all the fascinating biographical details of how this city boy made his way to the backwoods of Maine and eventually became an avid beekeeper. With the assistance of the woman he loved, the company grew to gargantuan proportions. There's a melancholy to the tale also since Burt by his own admission was not happy nor especially cut out for corporate life and he sadly sold his shares in the company and his "brand" for peanuts. Considering Burt's Bees sold to the Clorox Corp. (I kid you not!), the sale was worth over 900 million dollars. Burt's not seen a cent of that and makes his living as a kind of travelling personal appearance spokesman.

Shapiro bounces between the solace of Burt on his farm and the genuine adulation he receives during live appearances. This is a simple, but effective juxtaposition and was the wisest way to present contrast, conflict and the two sides of the current coin that is Burt Shavitz.

Given the ubiquity of the Burt's Bees brand, you'd think we were dealing with a typical hippie-turned-corporate-sellout, but Shavitz is anything but that. He's a man of nature who's happiest on his farm in Maine and it's within the context of this that Shapiro trains his camera. Though there's probably a film to be made about a natural health company being owned by one of the most heinous producers of environmentally unfriendly consumer goods - this is NOT that film.

It's a sweet, funny and loving portrait of a man, his dog and his farm and how he needs to drag himself out to trade shows and malls to do a horse and pony act for the privilege of living a life of solitude amongst the hills and the trees.

And, of course, his bees.

He might not be a multi-millonaire, but you know, it could be worse.

Burt's Buzz was released by FilmBuff theatrically and via iTunes download in the USA on June 6, 2014 and begins its theatrical launch in Canada on June 13, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox (the year-round home for all of TIFF's activities, including the Toronto International Film Festival). AND NOW, HERE'S ALL THE INFO YOU NEED ON HOW TO ACCESS MY FEATURE LENGTH STORY ON JODY SHAPIRO, THE DIRECTOR OF BURT'S BUZZ:

JODY SHAPIRO: A GUY FOR ALL SEASONS by Greg Klymkiw

can be read in Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema

by accessing UK's coolest online film magazine HERE

JOURNEY

with Jody Shapiro
into the very heart, soul and mind of Burt Shavitz

DISCOVER

the special bond twixt two men
from two generations

who share one object of affection

LIVE

the humble beginnings of a nice Jewish Boy

in the neighbourhood of Mel Lastman's North York

EXPERIENCE

Shapiro's post-secondary adventures at York University
and his STRICT tutelage under Niv Fichman

ENJOY

an ALL-EXCLUSIVE Guy Maddin pitch
for a highly-charged erotic scene involving
Jody Shapiro

BASK

in the glory that
IS
JODY SHAPIRO
as STEVE GRAVESTOCK,
ISABELLA ROSSELLINI
and GAY MADDIN
extol the Great Man's
considerable virtues

DELVE

into Shapiro's most intimate personal fantasy
involving culinary arts and wildlife

SHARE

a rare fantasy with two men among men

ALL THIS AND MORE WHEN YOU READ:

JODY SHAPIRO: A GUY FOR ALL SEASONS

BY GREG KLYMKIW at ELECTRIC SHEEP

JODY SHAPIRO GETS A SMOOCH
FROM FORMER GF
LOUELLA NEGIN.

TIFF 2013 - Electric Sheep Report by Greg Klymkiw on MISCELLANY - The final report to coolio UK Film Mag Electric Sheep in my column, Colonial Report on Cinema from the Dominion of Canada - Includes Reviews of Tracks, Le démantèlement, Shivers, L’intrepido, Border and Child of God

TIFF 2013 offers up a Cornucopia of Cinema for ALL! 

Greg Klymkiw's COLONIAL REPORT
from the Dominion of Canada
on the Toronto International Film Festival 2013
for ELECTRIC SHEEP UK - a deviant view of cinema

Miscellany is the theme of this final colonial report on the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, for this is ultimately the fest’s greatest stock in trade. One of the truly delightful activities during the Dominion of Canada’s greatest cultural event (bar none) is watching a variety of motion pictures from EVERYWHERE. So here, dearest scavenger of all things cinematic, is a grab bag of product I snuffled up during 10 days of movie gluttony. No better place to experience a whack of movies than in the colonies.

THE FULL REPORT CAN BE ACCESSED HERE!!!

TIFF 2013 Report for Electric Sheep Magazine on Scadic/Nordic Cinema - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - CONCRETE NIGHT, WE ARE THE BEST, SEX DRUGS & TAXATION

One of the best things about the Dominion of Canada is that for much of the year, about 80% of its land mass inspires such delightful Weather Channel warnings as: ‘Exposed skin will freeze in under 30 seconds’. I am certainly acquainted with the effects of the weather in the colonies, but save for very few examples, the cinema seldom captures the effects, or rather, the results of said meteorological joys. These delights include the important cultural implementation of physical/ psychological abuse, alcoholism, gambling addiction, criminal activity, suicidal tendencies, devil-may-care iconoclasm, mordantly perverse humour and my personal favourite, deep numbing depression. Luckily, the magisterial Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was, this year, engorged with such cinema – all hailing from the Nordic regions and Scandic cultures of Europe, mostly programmed by the very fine curator and critic Steve Gravestock, who is not only an international programmer specialising in said Nordic fare, but holds the related position of being topper of all things cinematically Canuckian at TIFF. Here in this report, you’ll find a nice sampling of my thoughts on a variety of Nordic bonbons I saw at TIFF 2013.

Read the Full Report HERE