Wonder Woman - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Lame, voiceless direction sinks WW solo effort

I am Wonder Woman! I kill to bring peace to mankind.

Wonder Woman (2017)
Dir. Patty Jenkins
Scr. Allan Heinberg
Starring: Gal Godot, Chris Pine, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Robin Wright,
Ewan Bremner, Saïd Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock
Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya, Lucy Davis

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Though I refused to read any reviews of Wonder Woman before seeing it, I was unable to avoid knowing that "critics" (I use the word loosely these days) have enthusiastically raved about the film. That the picture is such a huge hit, another fact I was unable to avoid knowing, adds insult to injury. Granted, the injury afflicted is to me (and seemingly me and me alone), but it is an injury nonetheless.

Watching the loathsome Wonder Woman was one of the more painful acts of self-flagellation I've recently engaged in. Let me assure you, my flesh is now mighty raw from that scourging. My soul is empty and again I felt bereft of hope for the future of movies. (Luckily, hope was restored one day after suffering through the dross by watching Jean-Pierre Melville's Two Men in Manhattan and David Miller's Sudden Fear - both made when people made real movies.)

I made a point of seeing Wonder Woman in 70mm. Though preferable to unwatchable 3-D, the glorious widescreen film-format ultimately added nothing to the experience. I found myself limping out of the movie theatre after having to yank the nails from my feet, which I was forced to use in order to affix myself in place for the entirety of the loathsome 141 minutes of Patty Jenkins's interminable miserably directed sewage tank of wasted celluloid.

If you must know, Wonder Woman retches up the origin of Diana Prince (Gal Godot), D.C. Comics' lithe raven-haired superhero. We're forced to endure her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood on the all-female-populated island of Themyscira, a kind of Isle of Lesbos without the lesbo action (not even submerged). Here a race of powerful Amazons created by the Gods of Mt. Olympus, endlessly train in the art of killing in order to eventually bring peace to the world.

When an insufferably handsome American pilot, Captain Steve Trevor (the sickeningly smirking Chris Pine), crashes his plane, he's rescued by our heroine. She learns that World War I is raging and as it's her birthright to restore peace to humankind, she joins him on a pilgrimage to Dear Old Blighty. She's convinced the war is not the fault of Kaiser Wilhelm and the Germans, but rather, by Ares, the nasty nemesis of Zeus who has supplanted himself in the body of British politician Sir Patrick Morgan (David Thewlis). (Some might consider this a "spoiler", but if you can't figure it out from the moment you first lay eyes on him, then I suspect you might require a brain transplant.)

Morgan is in cahoots with General Erich Ludendorff (the vaguely amusing, scenery-chewing Danny Huston) and his facially-deformed chief mad-scientist Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya) who are concocting a super-deadly cocktail of mustard gas in the hopes that Germany will bring the world to its knees.

Wonder Woman and the annoying American join forces with a dog's breakfast of wily rascals to kill a whole mess of Germans to bring peace to the world.

Ugh!

I first read the D.C. comic "Wonder Woman" when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s. Unlike the critically-maligned (and boneheadedly so) Zack Snyder-directed Man of Steel and Batman v Superman movies, Patty Jenkins has no feel for the essence of these grand comic books of yore, but even worse, she clearly has no idea where the camera needs to be placed during action scenes. They are the typical contemporary hodgepodge of poorly composed multiple camera setups that the editors are forced to breathe life into (and mostly in vain) by creating sound-based cut-points instead of dramatic "action" cut-points.

The jury is out on whether Jenkins has any genuine talent. Her first film was the competent, decently acted Monster which dramatized the tale of real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos (who was the focus of two great documentaries by a real filmmaker, Nick Broomfield). On the basis of Monster and now Wonder Woman, I see no evidence of a genuine directorial vision. It's little more than a (mostly) badly acted catalogue of dull action scenes. I simply don't understand why the studios keep hiring directors with no feel for action (I'm looking at YOU: Christopher "One Idea" Nolan and Sam "I'm from the thay-uh-tuh" Mendes). When you think of the Zack Snyder DC films, one can at least marvel at the painterly compositions of every shot and even though the cutting is rapid fire, he has actually put thought into creating action set pieces as units of dramatic action, not merely "action".

Just because they gave a woman a shot at directing means nothing. They should have thought of hiring a woman who knows how to direct with some panache. Much as I hate all of the Twilight movies, the very first film in the franchise was at least directed by a woman who has obvious directorial talent/vision. Catherine Hardwicke's distinctive voice as a filmmaker is what raised the level of the 2008 vampire soap opera from a simple "event" movie to that of a genuine work of first-rate pop-art.

Audiences don't care about "voice" or "skill" anymore. They've been systematically indoctrinated into not caring about much of anything other than ADHD-infused pyrotechnics, which Wonder Woman is over-stuffed with.

Also, that the movie threw away an opportunity in the first section with the Amazons by avoiding a healthy infusion of lesbian subtext is beyond the pale.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

Wonder Woman is in wide release via Warner Brothers.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Saved By Great Monsters, John C. Reilly

John C. Reilly: The only thing resembling a human being.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Scr. Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly
Sty: John Gatins
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson,
John Goodman, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Why it took four writers to come up with the lame, dull Kong: Skull Island screenplay is beyond me. Then again, given the sheer emptiness of most studio pictures these days, it shouldn't surprise anyone since it takes a whole lotta boneheads to generate a whole lotta stupid. An American President called Donald Trump is proof of that.

If truth be told, I can almost even forgive inept imbecility. What I can't forgive is tedium and this mostly horrendous reboot of the Kong franchise is nothing if not mind-numbingly boring for most of its interminable 118-minute length. Much of what makes the movie dull are the missed opportunities it took four writers to conjure up.

Things begin promisingly enough with the pre-credit sequence. It's WWII and two soldiers - one American, the other Japanese - crash on the remote Skull Island. Ah, tantalizing! Perhaps we will be afforded a lovely action-packed nod to John Boorman's Hell in the Pacific? But, no. We're handed two dull anonymous actors - no Lee Marvin or Toshiro Mifune here. Jesus, I'd have even settled for something resembling Peter Sellers/Burt Kwouk Pink Panther martial arts slap-schtick shenanigans. That, however, would be too politically incorrect by contemporary standards (and sadly, the movie's endlessly shoe-horned P.C. sensibilities are another big problem with the picture). So instead, we get a dull sprint up a mountain and our warring soldiers meet with a far more formidable enemy - Yup, you guessed it, King Kong, the big hairy ape. (But don't worry, ain't nothing too Eugene O'Neill about this hirsute monkey.)

Our movie launches into an annoyingly wham-bam credit sequence detailing American history from the last Great War and eventually leading up to the turbulence of the 1970s. Thank God it stops here - a real decade. Alas, the period detail, in virtually every respect, is woefully inadequate - most annoyingly with the contemporary-speak of the dialogue and the decidedly 2017 timbre of the delivery of said dialogue.

Of course, this being 2017, in spite of the movie being set in the 1970s, we don't get to meet a cool adventurer seeking passage to Skull Island, say along the lines of showman Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong in the 1933 version, Jack Black in Peter Jackson's 2005 entry) or even a delectably sleazy oilman like Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin in 1976). What we get is the supremely unimaginative, ineffectual government hack Bill Randa (John Goodman) and his earnestly plucky African-American geologist Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins). Randa is such a useless schmo that it takes his right-hand Houston to convince a Senator to bankroll the expedition.

Welcome to 2017. And not that I have a problem with this smooth young Black male weaselling dough out of the Senator instead of boss man Whitey, but it might have been far more interesting to have a character like Randa, written-for and played by someone with some balls, like Laurence Fishburne for example. The role of this character, or character-type, requires - Nay, demands someone in his august years (or at least in the case of 1976's Grodin, one of those 30-something guys who feels like he's in his 50s or 60s) and more importantly, someone who has the smarts to squeeze oil out of an empty drum.

But, I remind you - it took four writers to generate this screenplay.

Can't go too wrong with a cute prehistoric muskox.

So, off to Skull Island we go. Randa assembles a stock, boring team that includes former British Special-Ops mercenary James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston, a great actor in a nothing role), gung-ho army dude Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson, a great actor, but more boring than usual in this stock role), looking for more carnage now that the Vietnam War is over and perhaps most sickeningly, Mason Weaver (Brie Larson, a great actress with a completely idiotic role), a self-proclaimed "Anti-war photographer" (whatever that's supposed to mean). Of course the team is replete with other soldiers, scientists and bureaucrats in order to provide ample food for the monsters.

The movie plods through all of its uninspired machinations as our team essentially needs to get off the island as soon as they land on it - there are monsters, after all. Our leading lady is, of course, not the "beauty who killed the beast", but rather, the beauty that the beast thinks is kind of okay and not a danger to him. Our leading man is boring and does little more than argue with the gung-ho army guy and acquiesce to the madman's needs to kill monsters to avenge the deaths of his soldiers. Of course, the ineffectual adventurer Randa is so useless that we almost forget he's in the movie until he gets eaten. Then, we get to forget about him all over again.

Happily, the movie introduces us to Lieutenant Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly, playing the older version of the American soldier introduced at the beginning of the movie). Marlow has been living on the island since WWII in the protective custody of the island's indigenous Native population. Thank God! A real character with an irascible sense of humour. Reilly not only makes us laugh, but he's really the only person we care about. Stupidly, the writers have relegated Marlow's Japanese counterpart to that of a corpse - someone who is talked about fondly, but whom we don't get a chance to know. It would have been amazing to have a great veteran Asian actor quipping with Reilly and doing battle with the monsters, but you know, there were only four writers, so you can't expect creative miracles.

Even more boring than most of the film's non-characters are the island's tribesmen. What a ho-hum lot. They appear to be pseudo-Buddhist types who do little more than cast inscrutable glances every which way. This is strangely even more ethnocentric (and perhaps even downright racist) than the previous incarnations of "ignorant", "bloodthirsty" "savages" in the 1933 and 2005 versions. At least those people had something resembling "life" infused in their ooga-booga personae.

Kong looks forward to some yummy octopus tentacles.

Other than Reilly's delightful performance, the only thing else left are the monsters. I won't bother attributing any of the picture's "success" in this regard to the by-rote direction of Jordan Vogt-Roberts (his boring nods to Apocalypse Now notwithstanding), but rather, all the magnificent SFX geniuses who designed the myriad of creatures. Kong's battles with the other behemoths are pretty damn spectacular and perk things up ever-so thrillingly. There's a phenomenal aquatic cage match twixt Kong and a humungous octopus which culminates in a wonderful moment in which Kong slurps up a few tentacles. One can, I suppose, attribute this to one of the four writers. Kudos, dudes!

That said, all previous incarnations of the Kong story were a whole lot more than just the monsters. They had, uh, characters, a solid story arc and were chockfull of wonder. They were sheer magic. There's nothing like that here - just a whole lotta tedious expository (and stupid, 'natch) nonsense to setup the inevitable sequels and franchise "universe". I'm coming to hate that word. "Universe" should conjure up feelings of expanse and possibility - not more of the same.

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

Kong: Skull Island is in wide release via Warner Brothers

BATMAN v SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - ***** 5-Star Snyder

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Dir. Zack Snyder
Scr. Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer
Starring: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Scoot McNairy, Callan Mulvey, Tao Okamoto, Kevin Costner, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Ezra Miller, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Soledad O'Brien, Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace, Charlie Rose

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There is an absolutely breathtaking and dynamically nightmarish sequence about 90 minutes into the 151-minute theatrical version of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice which had me gripping the armrests of my front-row-centre chair as I experienced mega-shocks of joyous gooseflesh. The synaptic charges coursed through me with such acute ferocity, that I gasped repeatedly. There's not a single cut employed here - just superb choreography and dynamic cinematography. I sat there in awe. Once again in this (and so many of his films), director Zack Snyder's virtuosity as a filmmaker battered me senseless into glorious submission.

He is the real thing and then some.

Without spoiling the context of the aforementioned sequence, let's just say that its centrepiece involves one single shot of Batman (Ben Affleck) leaping into action against a veritable army of deadly soldiers adorned in steel helmets and uniforms not unlike those from Nazi Germany, whilst flocks of winged demons descend upon the Earth from the sky. (One can't go wrong with the picture's blend of Totalitarianism and monsters.)

Of course, there was plenty to admire in the picture prior to this gorgeous dazzler of a sequence, plenty! However, it was here where I marvelled how easily Snyder crushes his competition in the action/fantasy sweepstakes. There isn't a single sequence to top it in any of the action films non-directed by the "visionary" poseurs or by-the-numbers hacks who've been assaulting cinema for the past fifteen to twenty years with their supreme mediocrity.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a dazzler! Beginning with a concise and powerful re-imagining of the Batman origins, Snyder offers a stunning evocative shot of Mom and Dad Wayne's coffins being led in a slow procession into the Wayne Estate's crypt (eerily resembling a crumbling family resting place straight out of a Hammer Horror and/or Amicus picture). This is followed by young Bruce's mad dash into the woods, and then, an astonishing "God"-shot flashback of Bruce and his family making a similarly-timed procession on a sidewalk beneath a movie marquee boasting the upcoming opening of John Boorman's Exclalibur. (There are so many gorgeous, breathtaking cuts like this in Snyder's stunningly edited film.)

This dates the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents some 35-years before the events of Snyder's film (happily eradicating/ignoring the existence of Tim Burton's dated, overrated  DC toe-dips into the Batman mythology and Joel Schumacher's subsequent grotesqueries) and places Affleck's (superbly realized) Batman firmly in his mid-40s. Snyder has made this universe all his own with only the tiniest passing nods to the previous efforts of Christopher Nolan.

Though the 1981 date of the murders is not without merit in and of itself (especially given that it's the horrid beginning of Ronald Reagan's presidency and during Margaret Thatcher's fascist rule of UK), what's especially evocative here is how Snyder, with screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, let us know immediately that we're in the realm of myth as it relates to 20th century political realities and beyond. The Batman mythology is as attached to our contemporary consciousness as any of the great historical myths of yore and certainly not excluding those of the Arthurian legends as mediated through John Boorman's great film. The filmmakers cannily choose to invoke this detail in the flashback as it places us firmly in the sword and sorcery world of Sir Thomas Mallory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" which Boorman adapted so stunningly.

We all know what happened in the horrific origin story of Batman, but never have these events been so hauntingly captured as they are here - the horrifying murder of Bruce's mother and father is simply, effectively juxtaposed with Bruce's fall into the mysterious cave of bats who then surround the grieving child who witnessed his parents' snuffing-out on the dirty streets of Gotham City. Even more throat-catching are the images of the bats lifting young Bruce up to the Heavens, arms outstretched like a Holy Christ-child ascending to the glories of eternal life as his bitterness-tinged adult voice intones:

"In the dream, they took me to the light, a beautiful lie."

A beautiful lie, indeed, as the white light of "Heaven" dissolves into the white light of the clouds overlooking Metropolis, the dominion of The Super Man (Henry Cavill), a world in which an older, more grizzled, more pain-infused Bruce Wayne descends from the heavens and we're shuttled back to the closing minutes of Snyder's Man of Steel. During the climax of that tremendously dark and stylish film we witnessed the brutal duel (pas de deux) to the death between Superman and General Zod (Michael Shannon), both beings driven by hatred and vengeance as their deadly battle extended to massive collateral damage of Metropolis and its citizens.

This time, though, we are privy to the collateral damage from the perspective of humanity and Batman himself as the aliens cause thousands of human deaths and the massive destruction of buildings (including that of Wayne Tower in nearby Gotham City - both cities not unlike a bay-separated San Francisco and Berkeley). The reality is that Superman is indeed driven by hate, revenge and the need to rescue his lady love Lois Lane (Amy Adams), but most importantly, he must destroy General Zod at any cost in order to save the Earth. (Perversely, Superman/Clark Kent is obsessed with taking down Batman. He fussily believes the Bat's penchant for branding sexual offenders so their time in prison will be a living Hell, is, to his way of thinking, conduct most unbecoming of a gentlemanly crime fighter.)

This won't change the minds of those caught in the collateral crossfire, nor will it assuage Bruce Wayne's hatred-infused desire to destroy Superman, the entity that's "murdered" so many for reasons Bruce perceives as strictly personal.

And this is what sets Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice apart from any previous film versions of the DC comic book legends. Hatred, in a world already driven by hatred and terrorism, is the wedge driving these entities apart when we desperately need them to be on the same side. From a contemporary standpoint, this film and Snyder's previous foray into the world, not only provide a perfect mirror's eye view into the post-9/11 ennui, terror and the overwhelming sense of New World Order dominance over everything, but will, I suspect, have far more resonance as cinema, not just now, but in future decades. I'd argue this approach does, in fact, encompass the full scope of human-inflicted horrors of the 20th and now 21st centuries and by rooting the comic book legend (albeit subtly) in Arthurian legends, is what brings us smack into the Judeo-Christian realm of Man, God and the Devil - a world where man must battle real monsters, but also the monsters within. (And yes, Snyder eventually delivers a big banana of New Testament imagery much later in the film, invoking the sadness and "joy" of Christ's Passion and extermination upon Calvary/Golgotha.)

Yes, this is a comic book on film, but whoever said comic books could not be infused with depth?

Snyder's film is certainly rich with details and one suspects its 151-minute running time might well be too slight to encompass all the narrative and thematic details it needs. (A much longer version will happily be available when the film is released to the home entertainment market.) That said, everything we need for now, is on-screen, but it's also worth noting that Snyder's immeasurably dense visual style also creates a wholly sumptuous and integral level which, we must ingest, nay: embrace wholeheartedly to see the considerable layers beneath.

For a tentpole studio blockbuster, this is unheard of, yet Snyder has somehow fashioned a multimillion dollar art film - one which offers everything great cinema requires to have lasting, as opposed to, ephemeral value.

Yes, we get all the details a DC film adaptation might need, but ultimately, its heroes are anti-heroes, not unlike those so prevalent in both 40s/50s film noir and American cinema of the 70s. If anything, both Superman and Batman are, to put a fine point on it, presented here as major-league pricks. No matter what their "noble" intentions are, they are still driven by old hatreds and the machismo of vengeance.

It's a beautiful thing, really.

And yes, we get to have our DC cake and eat it too with the inclusion of the megalomaniacal psychopathic villain and New World Order/Bilderbergian represented so delectably in Lex Luthor (as brilliantly, hilariously and creepily rendered by Jesse Eisenberg). For good measure, we get plucky "girl-reporter" Lois Lane and the grimly monstrous Doomsday creature created from the alien DNA of General Zod and the foul, diseased human blood of Luthor. Also on hand is Bruce Wayne's loyal manservant Alfred, delightfully rendered by the dryly witty Jeremy Irons. Hell, we even get Jimmy Olsen, though represented in a completely shocking and unexpected fashion.

However, we also get added elements like middle-eastern arms dealers, dirty Russian mobsters and double-dealing politicians looking to feather their own nests by jumping in the sack with powerful villains like Luthor. "Good" politicians are represented by the well-meaning "Liberal" senator, gorgeously played by Holly Hunter (with her still-sexy overbite/lisp). Of course, those with "good" intentions in the world of the film (as in our own world), are far more doomed than those who are either purely infused with evil or, like our superheroes, pricks muddled with ambiguity.

Another gorgeous touch in the picture is the notion that a race of "super" aliens exist, waiting to rear their heads. Will they be heroes or villains? Or, better yet, both?

Even cooler is that we not only get to meet Wonder Woman (Gal Godot in a perfectly fine rendering of the role) but she is presented within the context of being so "immortal" that she's seen in early photographs from the First World War.

Ultimately, what drives the film in terms of content is its sheer darkness and political context. The narrative exists, but is ultimately a coat hanger by which Snyder and team can dazzle and provoke us. That Superman and Batman are "unlikeable" is a huge point in the film's favour. In fact, who cares if we "like" them or not? What we respond to is their humanity, the Jekyll and Hyde nature of their personae. Hell, even Satan was God's most beloved, then sadly, His most fallen Angel.

Something I'll never forget from my childhood is that the first season of the immortal, long-running "Superman" TV series (starring the doomed George Reeves) was one nasty, post-war noir-infused piece of work and if anything, both Man of Steel and now Batman v Superman invoke the joys inherent in that pitch black of darkness. Curiously, my prime time for discovering and religiously reading comic books was between the mid 60s to mid 70s and while I was primarily a Marvel fan (notably Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, The Silver Surfer and Spiderman) I was occasionally drawn to D.C. I don't recall Superman and Batman being quite as dark as the Marvel material, but they still seem, in retrospect, plenty dark to me.

Speaking of Satan, and via Lex Luthor's character, Batman v Superman portends the greatest darkness of all. He is on His way, along with His minions. The giggling, manic, totally wacko, richie-rich man-boy so gorgeously etched by Eisenberg points out that the Devils and Demons do not come from below, but from the skies, the Heavens above (like aliens/superheroes). I have no problem with this. I accept it wholeheartedly and look forward to more of the same, and then some.

Finally, what I especially love about Snyder and this film, is that he genuinely is a film artist with cinema hard-wired into his very DNA. There are seldom any shots in any of his films which are less than painterly. Best of all, even though he might employ a myriad of shots designed to be cut lighting-quick, they are never boneheaded masses of celluloid Play-Doh mushed together the same way most of Hollywood's current breed of hacks and poseurs slap their pictures together with. The cuts in Snyder's films are always designed and driven by VISUAL cues whereas many of the aforementioned non-filmmakers set up as many shots as possible without even knowing what precisely they're shooting (unlike the bonafide genius inherent in mega-shot, multi-camera masters like Sam Peckinpah or George Miller). The new breed leave their poor editors adrift to create forward movement within the cuts by using sound cues to almost always drive them forward, rather than relying upon the important and far more saliently appropriate elements of visual storytelling.

When Snyder needs to create visual and aural cacophonies, we know he's doing so intentionally. It's not there to hide his lack of filmmaking artistry as in the case of so many of his contemporaries.

Thankfully, one of the upcoming DC pictures will have another real filmmaker at the helm and I'm chomping at the bit to see it. Though I'd be happy if Snyder did ALL the DC movies, one respects he might wish to move on. Suicide Squad, however, is directed by one of America's great contemporary filmmakers, David Ayer, and this is happy news indeed. He's generated some of the most evocative, stylish and deliciously-dark crime pictures of recent years and though I imagine he'll bring his own unique approach to the proceedings, I'm predicting it will have the same power to dazzle us as Snyder has brought to the fore here.

Another thing worth noting about Batman v Superman is that it's available in several different formats in the theatrical marketplace. I've seen them all.

I highly recommend seeing it in the rich 70mm (yes, real FILM) which is happily without 3-D of any kind. Regular 3-D and 2-D digital should be avoided at all costs - especially the Real-D 3-D. The 3-D just gives one a headache and the digital 2-D lacks the obvious richness of the 70mm (whether or not one sees it in the overrated Ultra AVX or the lesser auditoriums).

If you get a chance to see the film in The IMAX Experience, know that the IMAX experience is NOT consistent. In the city of Toronto, for example, the IMAX in the Cineplex Entertainment Scotiabank Theatre is phenomenal and replete with the gorgeous sense of height true IMAX should have, whereas in the Cineplex Entertainment Yonge and Dundas cinema, the IMAX is a pale imitation and barely more watchable than than the Real-D Ultra AVX presentations. Also, though I prefer the IMAX Experience sans 3-D, the IMAX 3-D used in Batman v Superman is not as egregious as I thought it would be.

I have not wasted my time seeing the film in D-Box. I've seen other films in the shake and bake format and all I can say is that it's easily the most moronic cash-grab yet invented for the movies. None of the motions ever seem wired realistically into the action and are little more than a novelty for the feeble-minded.

While writing this piece, I have refused to read any reviews of Batman v Superman. All I know is that the critical consensus is on the lowest possible rung. I'll be curious to read these reviews, if only to bolster my belief that mainstream film criticism is utterly dead.

I also know that the CinemaScore audience response to the picture is extremely low. I'm not sure where or whom or when these paragons of taste are polled, but each public screening in Canada that I've enjoyed has been packed to the rafters and upon the final, exhilarating cut to black at the end, the picture was met with thunderous applause.

As for myself, I've been compelled to applaud each and every time. It's so seldom one sees this degree of craft, artistry and intelligence in contemporary blockbusters - especially in super hero movies, most of which I find intolerable (save for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films), that I'm completely and utterly without shame in admitting my undying love for this great picture - one I will see many more times and a picture that I strongly suspect will be seen, loved, studied and appreciated, long after all of us are little more than food for maggots.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is playing everywhere in the world via Warner Brothers.

THE DARK STRANGER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Blood in the Snow Film Festival

Katie Findlay in a star-making performance.
The camera absolutely loves her.

The Dark Stranger (2015)
Dir. Chris Trebilcock
Starring: Katie Findlay, Stephen McHattie, Enrico Colantoni,
Jennifer Dale, Mark O'Brien, Alex Ozerov, Emma Campbell

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Art and horror make for strange, but thoroughly appropriate bedfellows in life and art. True artists must be imbued with obsessive, self-reflective and often selfish qualities to create work of both originality and lasting value. Mental unbalance is not a pre-requisite, but comes in mighty handy amongst the best of the best.

The Dark Stranger is a curious and original genre film which delicately blends the elements of family drama, fairy tale (with literal graphic novel qualities) and outright horror (of the psychological and paranormal variety). Call it an everything including the kitchen sink motion picture experience which is buoyed by a superb cast and an overall one-of-a-kind directorial hand.

Leah Garrison (Katie Findlay, in a terrific star-making performance), is a young comic book artist in recovery from deep depression, a nervous breakdown and self-afflicted cutting. She lives with her loving university professor Dad (Enrico Colantoni) and typically goofy, but equally loving younger brother (Alex Ozerov) in a gorgeous, refurbished old house in one of the tonier (and leafier) neighbourhoods of downtown Toronto.

So, you might ask, what's this babe's problem?

Well, you'd possibly go bunyip too if your late mother (Emma Campbell), an acclaimed artist who passed mega-wads of talent DNA to her daughter, became increasingly agitated, irrational, roiling with rage and finally, exploding like Vesuvius - not only coming close to murdering her daughter, but in despair, offing herself. (It's also possible Leah inherited some wacko-psycho genes from Mommie Dearest to compliment her artistic gifts.)

Yup, I accept this.

During Leah's convalescence, a series of incidents converge to create a heady brew of horror. Witness: an art maven (Stephen McHattie) wishes to mount a show of her late mother's work, a series of nightmares involving an evil entity who serves as both artistic inspiration and tormenter and finally, an explosion of creativity that yields magnificent work, but in so doing, extracts the payment of self-mutilation.

Is this a psychological manifestation of the young Leah's despair, or is it something much more sinister and downright unholy? Or could it be both? Whatever it proves to be, we're offered a slowly mounting creepy-crawly terror that eventually releases a geyser of outright dread.

The Dark Stranger will certainly feel a bit oddball to audiences accustomed to a lowest common denominator story structure. The family drama elements border on an After-School-style special, the fairly tale aspects (reflected by gorgeously animated renderings of Leah's art) feel more suited to that curious blend of Grimm darkness and gentle naiveté inherent in the classic Soviet Gorky Studios fairy tales of the 60s and the horror itself blends David Cronenberg-like body mutilation with dollops of Clive Barker and Italian gialli thrown in for good measure. Add to this mix a dash or two of romance twixt Leah and her father's Teaching Assistant (Mark O'Brien) and the occasional visits from a well-meaning, but alternately annoying and sinister psychiatrist (Jennifer Dale).

And yes, there will be blood.

Veteran character actor Stephen McHattie.
Villain? Or hero? Or both?

In industry parlance, the movie might be seen as a "tweener", a film lodged between genres, but for those with a more discerning eye, the pleasures are varied and in summation finally create a wholly unique experience. At its most basic level, we have a movie with well-shaded characters and a compelling narrative which seems familiar, but takes turns surprising us just when things get too recognizable.

On yet another level, whether consciously intentional or not, the film provides a unique villain - the sort of entity many artists, especially in the film business, must face - the bureaucrat, the executive, the holder of the purse strings - that soul-bereft entity which causes the greatest confusion and turmoil within genuine creative people. Here our villain takes on properties of split-personality-like malevolence. (Like I said, not unlike the aforementioned gatekeepers.)

On one level, I did wish the more naturalistic aspects of the story had been tempered with a slightly otherworldly mise-en-scene to deflect from the more conventional family drama tropes which stick out like moderately sore thumbs. Ultimately though, this potentially fatal flaw is overshadowed. The Dark Stranger gradually and eventually takes hold with a vicelike grip, offering as many moments of genuine terror as it serves up genuine heartfelt emotion.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three-and-a-Half-Stars

The Dark Stranger is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

NIGHT CRIES - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival

Night Cries (2015)
Dir. Andrew Cymek
Starring: Colin Mochrie, Andrew Cymek, Brigitte Kingsley, Dillon Baldassero

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This movie is completely and utterly insane. I mean that in the most positive manner. At times it's almost ridiculously cheesy and suffers from being about twenty minutes too long, but it is clearly a work of imagination, talent, ambition and an infectious love for movie-making. Surprisingly, it's a movie with considerable heart and romance that will most likely appeal to genre fans who don't mind their horror-fantasy tempered with a dour touchstone upon reality as it delves into its otherwise phantasmagorical world.

In a nutshell, it tells the tale of a brave cowpoke adorned as if he escaped from a Tarantino western who becomes the hero and protector of a staggeringly gorgeous missy (gloriously played by Brigitte Kingsley) costumed like some valkyrie who jumped from the pages of a Robert E. Howard novel. There are horrible monsters and ogres threatening our damsel in distress and it's up to the cowpoke to see that she's safe.

Unfortunately, there is a prissy villain (a creepy AND funny Colin Mochrie) who runs this weird underworld with all the power of a dark overlord. Seeking a new babe for his harem, perhaps one who will grace his boudoir for an eternity, our heroine is in dire straights. Even our hero has his work cut out for him against this mincing, dastardly, floridly accoutred whack-job.

But, hold the phone, folks! This is no mere demented bit of sword and sorcery, but is rooted in the real world where a husband loses his wife to cancer (in a series of deeply moving scenes) and involves his journeys into the afterlife to save her soul. I'm not kidding.

You see? I told you the movie was going to be completely and utterly insane. But that's A-OK: this bizarre hybrid is replete with plenty of derring-do, first rate special effects, nicely directed action sequences, some mind-blowing and eye-popping visuals, and, thanks to the welcome relief of Mochrie's great performance, a deliciously demented sense of humour.

One wishes director Cymek would have taken the shears to this a bit more since it might have had way more oomph if it didn't feel like it was occasionally lolly-gagging. Still, I'll take a bit of dawdling when a low budget genre film is as ambitious and imaginative as this one is.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

Night Cries is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2: Review By Greg Klymkiw: Finally! It's Over!

"Hmmm, shall I shoot or make another tedious speech?"

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)
Dir. Francis Lawrence
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth,
Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks,
Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Claflin

Obnoxious Preface and Review By Greg Klymkiw

Preface - Death Be Not Proud

Though I've suffered through every single Hunger Games picture, I only bothered to write about the first film. Life is, after all, short and none of the movies ever got any better. In 2014, I almost blew this perfect record when I found myself visiting my old hometown of Winnipeg to spend a few weeks watching my mother die from one of the most virulent, painful forms of stomach cancer.

One night, I was in one of those desperate-to-see-a-movie moods and the only film playing in the entire city that I had not seen (Winnipeg has little in the way of movie-viewing choice these days) was The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1.

This might be the late, great Phillip Seymour Hoffman's
very last on-screen appearances. Death be not proud.

Upon watching it I was flummoxed as all get out because the movie seemed to work for me. Yes, it was full of the idiotically-monickered characters I'd come to detest (Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are, amongst many others, some of the stupidest character names in the history of cinema). And yes, the movie was replete with all the inanities money could buy.

However, for some reason, its dour tone, relatively-measured pace and accent upon the theme of war propaganda were almost enough to make me think I was watching a movie I liked - perhaps even loved.

I began to pen a rave review, but then, my mother finally died and I became otherwise indisposed with funeral arrangements, et al. When I finally decided it was time to return to my review, I snuck in a second screening to refresh my grief-addled memory before putting cyber-pen to virtual-paper.

Oops! The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 WAS dreadful. Everything I thought I loved about it was finally exposed as by-the-numbers and cinematically intolerable. As I'd recently had a similar experience with the execrable Birdman (loving it pre-Mother's-death and hating it post-Mother's-death), I chalked it all up to mortifying despair and heartache.

And now, here I find myself on the one-year-anniversary of my Mother's long, pain-wracked death. My decision was clear. Since I had only bothered to write about the first in the franchise, it made perfect sense to write about the last.

"To make another speech or not to make another speech?"

The Review

Beginning precisely where the first cash-grab left off, we're introduced to our plucky heroine Katniss Everkleer (Jennifer Lawrence) as she gets some much needed physical therapy to restore her voice after brainwashed lover Peetmoss Larkvomit (Josh Hutcherson) tried to viciously strangle her.

Thankfully, our beloved Katnip's dulcet tones are restored just in time to participate in a new assault upon President Snowball (Donald Sutherland) and the Capitol. This also allows her to make more monotonous speeches throughout the entire movie.

"Just call me PizzaPocket Malarkey."

Accompanied by her other lover Gaylord "Jacob Black" Hawberry (Liam Hemsworth), the hunky antithesis to the spindly Robert Pattinson-like Pitabread, Katnap is shocked when the rebels begin to mercilessly shoot the refugees while she's trying to deliver a propaganda speech. She puts a stop to this foul nonsense by putting herself in harm's way, only to be kidnapped by a refugee who threatens to kill her. When she tells him she'd welcome death, he understands why she's the genuine rebel Queen and lets her go.

As she begins one of many tedious propaganda speeches, she's shot.

We are shocked - not.

It's early in the movie and only an idiot would believe she's dead.

In the movie, however, one of those idiots is President SnowballAficianado as he raises a glass to toast her assassination. Oh, Woe! Would Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H ever fall for this one? Of course not, but that was a great character, in a great movie, by a great director. This picture, of course is the complete opposite of anything resembling greatness, plus with all that white hair adorning the old man's pate, it's obvious both Sutherland and the character he plays here is in a kind of dementia-addled dotage.

Just one of many poorly directed action scenes.

Dead, our heroine, is not. Katnipple wants to desperately return to the fields of battle, but is ordered to stay-put by the seemingly supportive, but ultimately fascist President Llama Coil (Julianne Moore) and her bumboy Plufeltch Heavenswasp (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Dejected, Katsass attends an insufferable wedding celebration replete with Newfie-style fiddling and clog dancing. This is enough to sicken anyone, but luckily, she's given an idea on how to sneak away and continue with the campaign to take over the Capitol.

A sickening wedding celebration.

From here, we're treated to endless poorly directed action scenes (of the herky-jerky lack-of-spatial-geography variety) until (no surprise) the Capitol is breached and the complete cash-grab of the Hunger Games films finally draws to a predictably sleepy close. (There's a surprise moment during a final execution scene that will only surprise complete dimwits.) Worse yet, we're treated to a bile-inducing montage of Katnutts and Peeboy reuniting as lovers, having kids and our heroine thinking back on the horrors of the past in order to move forward with the future.

One can only hope and pray it's all over, but frankly, I suspect our prayers will not be answered. As long as there are millions of suckers out there, Hollywood will continue to deliver endless variations on the Twilight and Hunger Gamessagas. This, of course, only makes us look forward to more Transformers films.

And that, my friends, is truly sad.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 is, predictably, gobbling up far too many screens worldwide and come to Canada courtesy of E-one, Entertainment One.

THE LAST WITCH HUNTER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Hopefully the first and LAST!!!

"I'm hoping this franchise can transform me into a Steve Reeves for the New Millennium."

The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
Dir. Breck Eisner
Starring: Vin Diesel (dubbed "Not His Real Name" by the late, great film critic John Harkness), Michael Caine, Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One doesn't go to a movie entitled The Last Witch Hunter expecting a masterpiece, especially when its lead is played by Vin ("Not His Real Name") Diesel, the bald, vaguely simian wiseacre star of the Fast and Furious and XXX franchises who, it seems, is seeking a whole new persona to exploit in yet another potential franchise. In fact, one expects something considerably lower on the rung when its revealed that the director will be Breck (Sahara, The Crazies) Eisner, a man who has yet to direct anything resembling a good movie.

In spite of these strikes against it, one grits ones teeth and hopes the movie will at least be fun on the level of 50s/60s Italian sword and sandal epics starring the likes of Steve Reeves. For the first few minutes, with Diesel traipsing about some Middle Ages fantasy setting with a ludicrous bushy beard and wielding a humungous sword, one believes that the modest hopes one had going in might blossom into something a bit more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, Diesel's character is defeated by the head honcho of all witches and cursed with eternal life and banished to an eternity of always remembering he didn't avenge the murder of his wife and child. That said, he becomes a witch hunter and, for a few hundred years he's been decimating "bad" witches all over the place.

"Look, this babe behind me has such a bad speech impediment I can't understand a word she says. Can we use some witchcraft to fix this up?"

For the rest of this movie, Diesel (sans beard) lives high atop the city in a swanky Manhattan pad and continues his vendetta against witches who refuse to live peacefully with humans. He even has a sidekick in the form of a Catholic priest played by Michael Caine (who no doubt earned a sizeable cheque to pay for a few more mansions in the sky). When Sir Michael is savagely tortured and left for dead, Diesel not only gets mad, he's going to get even. Related to this injustice is the fact that some bad witches are about to release a plague upon New York, so the Diesel-meister is going to have his hands full. The Catholics, always on top of such matters, give him a new Holy mortal sidekick in the form of a young priest (Elijah Wood) who means well, but is lacking the know-how of his predecessor.

Even all this might have been palatable if it wasn't for the fact that the movie gets increasingly convoluted and stupid. Stupid is fine, but once its commingled with convolutions, it becomes deadly. Add to this an uninspired villain (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) and a horrendous leading lady (Rose Leslie, she of the speech impediment which renders all her lines to mush and a grating high-pitched voice which is probably enough to send canines the world over into a tizzy rivalling the silent dog whistles one can buy from ads at the back of comic books) and worst of all, a character working both sides of the good/evil coin that we can see from the first minute he appears on screen, we know - beyond a shadow of any doubt - that this picture is going to be a boring stinker.

One of the most repulsive screen kisses in recent memory.

Eisner's non-direction proves he's not even grasped basic skill sets to put him in hack territory. He simply has no idea of where to place his camera and the action scenes are all a miss-mashed mess.

Diesel has apparently announced a sequel is in the works. Let's hope it quietly goes the way of the Dodo. That said, I'd be up for a Fast and Furious sequel which offers Diesel in full-on sword-and-sandal beard. Now that, could be a howler worth enjoying.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

The Last Witch Hunter is a Lions Gate production in release world wide via eOne.

ANT-MAN, JURASSIC WORLD, SAN ANDREAS - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - MySummer of 75 versus My Summer of 2015: What a Difference 40 Yearsmakes! Ant-Man also opening night gala at 2015 FANTASIA INTERNATIONALFILM FESTIVAL in Montreal

What a difference 40 years makes! My Summer of Love in 1975 was replete, as per usual, with going to the movies every single day. My three favourite films that summer also happened to be big box-office hits. JAWS, of course, made history with its humungously wide release (the largest of its kind back in those days) and lineups round the block for every show, for every day. The picture itself was a roller coaster ride (and then some), but it also had a plot, characters, great performances and a morbid sense of humour. LOVE AND DEATH filled smaller specialty houses that summer in all major cities. Woody Allen's hilarious take on Ingmar Bergman and Russian Literature had me rolling in the aisles. Then, of course, the horrifying eye-opener MANDINGO by Richard Fleischer, the movie set against the backdrop of a pre-Civil-War slave-breeding plantation and so brutal and ahead of its time that even now it makes the dull Oscar bait 12 Years a Slave look like a Sunday Picnic. Not only was Mandingo huge (lineups round the block), but it was aimed squarely at - GOD FORBID - adults.

In fact, all three pictures had far wider appeal than any blockbusters released this summer, the sad summer of 2015. Taking inflation into account, 1975's summer pictures had far more bums in seats in far fewer cinemas for longer periods of time than anything supposedly breaking box-office records this summer. Watching my three favourite blockbusters this year (Ant-Man, Jurassic World, San Andreas), all pleasantly entertaining, all very competent, but generally safe for anyone's consumption has proven to be especially disappointing. (I don't really include Mad Max: Fury Road in this list as it's a real movie and far more in keeping with pictures released during my 75 Summer o' Love.) These three films with their superhero, dino and earthquake shenanigans, are ultimately missing the kind of personal voices of filmmakers like Spielberg, Allen and Fleischer. The "Safety" factor with these films (and most movies out of the studios today) is borderline sickening. I can assure you, "Safety" was never an issue in the 70s. The more dangerous the pictures, the better - even those in the mainstream.

Ant-Man (2015)
Dir. Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lily, Michael Peña

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is yet another Marvel Comics Superhero extravaganza, not as awful as the others and relatively inoffensive. In this one, ne'er do well Daddy (Paul Rudd) gets out of the hoosegow and hooks up with old buddy (Michael Peña, as the de rigueur Spanish-American sidekick comedy relief) and agrees to pull a cat burglar job to get enough dough to win his daughter back from his ex-wife. Another ne'er do well Dad (Michael Douglas), an old scientist who abandoned his daughter when his wife died and allowed his assistant to take over his corporation is worried sick that his secret experiments will be discovered and used for nefarious purposes. The two Daddies team up to fight the power and a new superhero is born.

The movie is amiable enough, not without some laughs, a nice light leading man turn by Rudd and Michael Douglas is allowed a few sprightly moments. The direction of the action scenes is better than most of these things, but not once is there a moment where we feel the slightest hint of danger in the proceedings and the picture's denouement is as predictable as ingesting a Big Mac. There's certainly nothing genuinely dark, nasty or cynical in the film which, of course, is always the problem with these things and it's certainly lacking the magnificently manic Looney Tunes hi-jinx Sam Raimi brought to the Spider-Man franchise before the recent and utterly negligible reboots (and it is most certainly bereft of Zack Snyder's breathless visual aplomb and his hilarious destruction of humanity via collateral damage in Man of Steel).

Finally, like all recent superhero pictures, the predictability factor reaches a point where the whole movie starts to become dull and exhausting (though less so than the awful Avengers/Captain America/non-Raimi Spiderman efforts). If anything, Ant-Man comes a bit closer to the first Iron Man and the first hour of Thor, but is lacking those film's occasionally cynical sense of humour.

Safety and competence are the order of the day. Ho-hum.

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

Jurassic World (2015)
Dir. Colin Trevorrow
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Steven Spielberg's Jurassic franchise is interesting on a number of fronts. The first film in the series featured astonishing special effects - so real and tangible that today's reliance upon digital magic seems fake and ugly. Oddly, Spielberg eschewed the grim, grotesque, ultra-violent nastiness of Michael Crichton's novel and he delivered a movie that safely played to anyone and everyone. It was no Jaws. Kids were not eaten, the dinosaurs weren't especially cruel in their torture/decimation of their victims and there was nary a real character amongst the entire all-star cast. How one missed the likes of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. The Lost World took a lot of heat from critics and audiences for its derivative nature, but frankly, it was an improvement over the dullish Jurassic Park, featuring plenty of feeding frenzies which were closer to the nastiness inherent in the Crichton books and though lacking the genuine edge of Jaws, was still plenty vicious.

There's no viciousness in Jurassic World, save for the fun supporting performance of Vincent D'Onofrio as the park's crazed militaristic director of security. Here director Colin Trevorrow jockeys the camera with relative efficiency as this reboot of the franchise has the park up and running successfully. We get a pleasing leading man by way of the raptor expert and dinosaur trainer (Guardian of the Galaxy's Chris Pratt) and though there are plenty of children to die miserable deaths in the jaws of the romping Dinos, no such kiddie buffets occur.

All we get is the plodding predictability of the new hybrid of dinosaur escaping and Chris Pratt rescuing two fucking kids who deserve to die.

Seriously, who wants to see a movie with Dinosaurs where no children get torn to shreds (a la Jaws or even Joe Dante's hilarious Jaws rip-off Piranha)? If there are going to be bloodthirsty dinosaurs we want to see as many innocent children (and adults) being eaten and crushed as possible.

No such luck, though. We're living in kinder, gentler times where the new generations of movie viewers are the progeny of wimps.

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

San Andreas (2015)
Dir. Brad Peyton
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Giamatti

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When the San Andreas fault genuinely wreaks some real havoc, the level of death and destruction is going to be so massive and vicious that I was hoping to see some delightful over-the-top (and, of course, hilarious) carnage in this contemporary disaster film. Given that the picture is directed by the crazed Edward-Gorey-Tim-Burton-influenced Canadian Brad Peyton, I had every reason to suspect the kind of nasty, funny dollops of humour he infused Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island with.

No such luck here. Peyton handles all the derring-do of helicopter rescue man Dwayne Johnson with expert efficiency and effortlessly juggles the melodramatic sub-plot of our hero re-connecting with estranged wife Carla Gugino and rescuing his daughter Alexandra Daddario from certain doom. Yes, we get to see mega-destruction of property, but frankly, the movie is lacking the kind of super-delightful up-close-and-personal deaths of live humans which, of course, one demands from a disaster movie.

A year earlier than my aforementioned Summer of Movie Love, the huge 1974 summer blockbuster was Mark Robson's magnificent Earthquake which not only had lots of gruesome deaths and on-screen body counts, but also featured a 59-year-old Lorne Greene playing 52-year-old Ava Gardner's father and Charlton Heston playing her 50-year-old husband. This insane casting allowed us plenty of time to do the math twixt the carnage and realize that Lorne Greene was about 7-years-old when his wife gave birth to Ava Gardner.

Herein is my disappointment. Peyton's first two Hollywood efforts were chock-full of personal touches and his unique voice that he established in his legendary short film Evelyn The Cutest Evil Dead Girl and What It's Like Being Alone, his madcap Canadian comedy series (all rendered in stop-motion animation) and set in an orphanage full of FREAKS!!! Yes, FREAKS!!!

So here he's doing a disaster movie and I was definitely expecting carnage and insanity to rival that of Earthquake since Peyton is a clear lover of all the right retro stuff. But no, nothing of the sort. Just "The Rock" stalwartly rescuing his goddamn daughter.

Where, pray tell, was the equivalent to the delectably offensive running gag of an alcoholic played by Walter Matthau, giddily surviving the disaster whilst belting back booze as everything crumbled around him? Why, do we see "The Rock" using his steely resolve and expert training to rescue people? Couldn't Peyton have found it in his heart to include a moment a la Earthquake where Lorne Greene ties a hysterical woman to a chair, then lowers her to safety with - I kid you not - PANTYHOSE!!!??? And horror of all horrors - was it not possible to create a role for the legendary George Kennedy (who not only starred in Earthquake, but has the distinction of having starred in all four Airport movies)? Hell, even though Kennedy's 90-years-old and might not have been up to a major role in San Andreas, surely there was an obvious choice here. Given the ridiculously huge amount of CGI in San Andreas, was it not possible to render s digital version of George Kennedy to be "The Rock's" cigar-chomping sidekick?

Ah, the disappointment. The shame. Peyton was the one director with the genuine potential to drag us through the 70s muck of blockbusters from 40-years-ago and instead we get a safe, efficient disaster movie instead.

Whatever is this world coming to?

THE FILM CORNER RATING **½ Two-and-a-half Stars

Full disclosure: Brad Peyton was a student of mine at the Canadian Film Centre. Not long after he was snatched up by Hollywood in 2009, Peyton revealed the following in the National Post:

"[Peyton] credits director in residence John Paizs and producer in residence Greg Klymkiw with being particularly helpful. "I went in with a very distinct idea of what I wanted to do," he says, "and they were supportive of my creative risks. I was handed the strange stuff because I was considered the weirdo in residence."

He laughs, "I was doing Coen brothers homages to Gone With the Wind on a $500 budget in a small room . . . they embraced what I wanted to do and supported me wholly as a creative person." Peyton further paid homage to his old mentor by creating a character for his TV series called "Greg Klymkiw" (an actual stop-motion doll resembling me in every detail, although representing my circus freak days when I was 300 lbs. heavier than I currently am) who shows up as an expert on all things cinema-related to render advice during a filmmaking competition within the orphanage of freaks.

Ah, surely you understand my pain.

Especially the George Kennedy thing.

All three films are in mega-wide-release worldwide. Ant-Man enjoys its premiere as an Opening Night Gala at the 2015 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in Montreal. For Times, Tix and Dates Visit the festival website HERE.

LIZA THE FOX-FAIRY (Liza a Rókatündér) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - NIFF 2015 MUST-SEE Wacko Winner from Hungary gets Canadian Premiere during the legendary Bill Marshall's 2nd Annual Niagara Integrated Film Festival in Southern Ontario Wine Country

Liza The Fox-Fairy aka Liza a Rókatündér (2015)
Dir. Károly Ujj Mészáros
Starring: Mónika Balsai, Szabolcs Fazekas, David Sakurai

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Watching Liza The Fox-Fairy, I felt like I had died and sailed up to Heaven. It's also proof-positive how great publicists genuinely understand the writers they work with. I didn't even bother including this title on my list of films I'd requested to screen in advance of the 2015 Niagara Integrated Film Festival and the gentle words of the veteran flack handling NIFF's press relations, "I think you might want to see this one, too," led me to this terrific motion picture (at first, wearily, in spite of not ever really being led astray by said flack's almost placid urging), which not only appealed to my taste, but did so with the kind of artistry and imagination I continually long for in the movies.

This magnificently mordant fantasy is also a deeply black comedy, an utterly insane musical and perhaps one of the most unexpectedly sweet and melancholy love stories I've seen in quite some time. That it also blends an old-style Eastern European sense of realism, an occasional use of a fluorescent-dappled post-modernist visual palette and that this Budapest-back-dropped ode to ghostly apparitions, murder and Japanese culture oddly joins a splendid cinematic coterie that includes Canada's brilliant Winnipeg-infused, Hungarian-heritaged John (Crime Wave) Paizs and the Colorado=spawned Zellner (Kumiko The Treasure Hunter) Brothers (with dashes of Otto Preminger's Laura), all yielding globs of rich icing on this delicious cake of celluloid dreaming.

Liza (Mónika Balsai) has toiled for twelve long years as a personal slave/caretaker to a morbidly obese old lady in Hungary who once lived with her deceased husband, a consular official, in Japan. She not only teaches Liza Japanese in their endless days, weeks, months and aeons together, but insists her jane-of-all-trades endlessly spin tunes by the old gal's favourite Nippon pop star Tomy Tani (David Sakurai). Frumpy Liza, having never known true love, magically becomes the recipient of numerous visitations by the ghost of Tomy who croons and converses endlessly with her. Some might call him an imaginary friend, but he is, ultimately, an all-too-real a presence in Liza's life.

On Liza's 30th birthday, everything changes. Whilst enjoying a celebratory greasy burger and fries at the grim Hungarian fast food eatery, MEKK BURGER, the old lady dies and in her will, leaves the loyal, dowdy au pair her apartment and a small amount of money. Liza immediately becomes a beacon for male suitors. Alas, one-by-one, the men begin to die "accidentally" in Liza's presence. Though each death is clearly accidental, the Budapest Homicide Department smells something fishy and assigns Detective Zoltán Zászlós (Szabolcs Fazekas) to stakeout her comings and goings.

Zoltán slowly falls for Liza in a big way, even though men are dropping like flies around her. Melancholy Liza, who transforms herself into a Cosmopolitan Magazine babe, feels like she's become the reincarnated Japanese "Fox-Lady" whom, a legend has it, could never know true love as all men who courted her died horrible deaths. As Liza's apartment becomes insanely plastered with crime scene tape body outlines, the jealous ghost of Tomy appears to be the real culprit.

He loves Liza and wants her all to himself.

For eternity.

What's a girl to do?

To find out, head down to St. Catharines and surrounding environs to see Liza The Fox-Fairy at the Niagara Integrated Film Festival. Who knows when you'll have a chance to see this thoroughly delightful picture on a big screen with an audience.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

Liza The Fox-Fairy enjoys its Canadian Premiere at NIFF 2015. For info, dates and tickets, visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Now's My Time to Weigh-in on This

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Dir. George Miller
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron,
Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's no need at this point to make much of the perfectly-wrought slender plot of George Miller's spectacular ode to the glories of cinema via its wham-bam ultra-violence, save for the fact that Tom Hardy's Max Rockatansky, the immortal road warrior of the three movies starring Mel Gibson, hooks up with the hot, head-shaved, one-armed Imperator Furiosa (the hot, head-shaved, not-really-one-armed Charlize Theron) to make her way back to the paradise of her childhood homeland whilst rescuing a clutch of gorgeous babes held as breeders by the post-apocalyptic mutants who've carved out a massive kingdom of slavery and brutal repression.

The most interesting aspect of the tale is that our hero is initially captured by the mutants, forced to become a perpetual blood donor and then secured to the front of warrior Nux's (Nicholas Hoult) car as a "blood bag" (to explode in a shower of crimson if and when the roadster slams into something). For at least 30 of the film's 120 minutes, its hero is forced to wear a mask and trussed into complete immobility. He does, however, have a perfect view of the mad chase and carnage that ensues, happily giving us, the loyal audience, more than a few delectable points of view.

Then for another 30 of the film's 120 minutes, Max plays second fiddle to Furiosa until the final 60 of 120 minutes whereupon he's finally able to fully engage in the heroics Mel Gibson was allowed to indulge in during Mad Max and The Road Warrior.

The first hour of the film contains some of the most stunning, nail-biting chase sequences ever committed to the edification of action fans since the very dawn of cinema as well as imagery in the mutant kingdom which is so eye-poppingly grotesque that it rivals that of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which director George Miller is clearly indebted to. At 72-years-old, director George Miller manages to easily take several huge dumps of superiority upon every other younger director in recent years who've purported to direct action blockbusters. This includes, but is not limited to the execrable Sam Mendes, J.J. Abrams, Bryan Singer, Joss Whedon and Christopher "One Idea" Nolan.

Miller's mise-en-scene is thankfully sans herky-jerky camera moves, ludicrously endless closeups, picture cutting that's almost solely dependent upon sound cues rather than visual dramatic action, an over-reliance upon digital effects and tin-eyed spatiality. His eye for action and his sense of rhythm is impeccable, his eye for the grotesque (the mutant villains, the earth-mother breast-milk slaves, the mohawk hairdos, body piercings, tattoos and the grandly retro mechanisms in the fortress) has seldom been paralleled, his commitment to driving everything dramatically because he's wisely utilized a simple narrative coat hanger to add all the necessary layers; all this and more points to his innate genius as a REAL filmmaker as opposed to most of the poseurs making blockbusters in contemporary Hollywood.

Though a part of me would have preferred if Miller had continued using the great Mel Gibson in the role of Max and added the layer of age to the character's bitterness, guilt and weariness, I'm happy enough with his selection of the strange stalwart intensity of Tom Hardy and the fine actor's chemistry (thankfully non-romantic or even vaguely sexual) with Charlize Theron's tough-as-nails-exterior masking her long-ago lost innocence of childhood.

And yes, though another part of me wished Miller had tried to bring his film's running time down to the 90-95-minutes of Mad Max and The Road Warrior, I was never bored during the 120 minutes of Fury Road, only occasionally fatigued by its relentlessness.

I love the first two Mad Max films so much that I'm grateful to Miller for not abandoning the spirit of them and using his previous work as a natural springboard into both the familiar and the fresh.

That the villain Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) is equally foul to such previous villains as The Toe Cutter and Humungous makes me very happy. Even happier to me is that Hugh Keays-Byrne played Toe Cutter AND Immortan Joe.

That the movie, by including a kick-ass female lead who is not just a woman pretending to be a macho Rambolina figure, but a woman driven to fight for the rights of fellow women and lay claim to a part of her that she lost, is what allows Miller to take his place as a genuine artist who heartily grasps the comfort of the familiar whilst building upon that and allowing it to blossom into a wholly new hybrid of insanely magnificent splendour.

That Miller has attempted a different approach to colour with Fury Road is also pleasing. I'll admit to always loving the occasional dapples of almost fluorescent colours amidst the sandy, dusty Australian outback, but I also love the high contrasts Miller employs here with varying shades to lighten or darken the proceedings when necessary.

That the movie uses real souped-up cars, trucks and motorcycles which are really driven by real stunt drivers and really smashed-up-real-good is the biggest bonus of all. (Porcupine-like killer cars, a big-wheeled monstrosity outfitted with banks of speakers and a heavy metal guitarist whose guitar shoots out flames and the terrifying gas tanker commandeered by Furiosa and Max are but a few of the vehicular delights on display.)

Finally, though, I do wish the film had had far more dystopian 70s-style melancholy infused into its a-bit-too-hopeful ending, especially since there's a sense of Max's final look to Furiosa, and to us, resembling the final looks of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) in John Ford's The Searchers.

But, really now, who am I trying to kid?

I fucking loved this movie.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **@** 5-Stars

Mad Max: Fury Road is in wide-mega-release all over the world via Warner Bros. It is presented in 3-D. I refuse to see it in that format as it annoys me. I've only watched it in normal 2-D and was quite satisfied with that, though I'll admit the 3-D might be less egregious to me than it normally is, given Miller's superb direction.