Greg Klymkiw at The Film Corner Proclaims: HYENA ROAD on BLU-RAY/DVD not worth buying due to omission of Maddin short

Home entertainment release of
dreadful Paul Gross film sans the
only reason one would ever want to
buy it. Soon to be available in
$5.00 Walmart Bargain Bins!!!

Hyena Road (2015)
Blu-Ray/DVD Review By Greg Klymkiw

Though the Paul Gross Afghanistan War folly Hyena Road is a disgrace, its real problem is that it's just plain bad as opposed to being the unmitigated stinker Gross's WWI tiptoe through the trenches Passchendaele was. That film at least had a passel of unintentional howls. This one, is bereft of even those meagre pleasures. Though Hyena Road was a theatrical flop, the Elevation Pictures/Universal Pictures Home Entertainment Blu-Ray/DVD has even more reason to tank and quickly find its way to the WalMart $5 bargain bins.

The admittedly well-transferred Blu-Ray comes on a pathetically extras-light edition. In addition to the risible film itself, it is accompanied by a few lame "making-of" featurettes which bear the unmistakeable stench of EPK. I was actually excited that the home release would be accompanied by the actual "making-of" film that the producers commissioned, the astonishing Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton: The Making of Hyena Road by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson.

Alas, the makers and distributors of Hyena Road have chosen to NOT include the only thing that would have made the home entertainment version worth buying.

Feel free to read my trashing of Hyena Road itself HERE, my rave review of Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton: The Making of Hyena Road HERE and my delightful reports on how the film flopped at the box-office HERE and HERE and HERE.

Even more reasons to NOT waste your money buying Hyena Road on home video.

Cineplex Entertainment Honcho Mike Kennedy extols virtues of floperoo HYENA ROAD!

SIMON HOUPT in the Toronto GLOBE & MAIL shills Gross Canadian FLOP "Hyena Road", one day before the same newspaper issues their immortal endorsement of Canada's Conservative Party to win another mandate, creating history by issuing the most moronic editorial ever written in Canada - Commentary and Report By Greg Klymkiw

THE REAL CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES:
Globe and Mail SHILLS Gross FLOP Hyena Road

Commentary and Report By Greg Klymkiw

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift in "Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting"

You would think Jonathan Swift might well have penned the aforementioned words as a kind of prescient reference to Canadian "filmmaker" Paul Gross, whose grotesquely bloated Afghanistan war picture Hyena Road enjoyed a World Premiere Gala at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2015). Opening theatrically soon after, with an unprecedented amount of publicity courtesy of Cineplex Entertainment, various levels of provincial and federal marketing assistance (the Canadian taxpayer) and the film's Canadian distributor Elevation Pictures, the film was a resounding FLOP!!!

One would assume this latest effort by Mr. Gross, known the world over as Constable Benton Fraser, the scarlet-uniform-adorned Mountie in the inexplicably long-running TV series Due South, would have been assailed by a Swiftian Confederacy of Dunces; but no, Mr. Gross was instead hailed by a decidedly non-Swiftian Confederacy of Dunces in the form of virtually every member of the Canadian media and critical establishment.

One can forgive the professional shilling of supposed entertainment "journalists" in print and broadcast media, since that is what arts reportage has been reduced to in these Dark Ages. One might even be tempted to forgive the ludicrous number of positive notices the movie received from Canadian film critics, since many of them could care less about the genuinely great Canadian cinema that takes the world by storm and long to accept something vaguely commercial. That said, there's virtually nothing commercial about Hyena Road, save for its dull levels of borderline competence. Essentially, the picture is bargain basement war-pornography extolling the virtues of all the Canadian soldiers whose lives were wasted in a completely unnecessary war and certainly one in which Canada should never have succumbed to participating in.

Is there, then, anyone we should not forgive? Of course. Canada's purported "newspaper of record", the Toronto Globe and Mail has been part of an obvious shill effort to canonize Paul Gross and his dreadful film(s) and career for some time now. The most egregious act of shilling occurred in the Globe courtesy of "reporter" Simon Houpt in the article headlined: "Hyena Road’s battle at the box office brings in $486,000", followed by the puffery of a ludicrous lead which reads: "Hyena Road, the new Canadians-in-Afghanistan war drama, scored the biggest opening of any Canadian film of the year last weekend, bringing in $486,000 at the box office."

This is all well and good, but he merely swallows this dubious honour based upon the bumph supplied to him by the Canadian distributor Elevation Films who are quick to point out how well the film did in Western Canada (where the deservedly-trounced Conservative party remained the strongest after the recent election to become the Official Opposition to Justin Trudeau's new majority government of Liberals).

Though Houpt hammers home the historic grosses of this $12.5 million effort (a nice chunk of which was borne by Canadian taxpayers), he also benevolently allows the distribution company to make excuses for the film's performance by suggesting that Canadian grosses for all films were down right across the board for the entire Thanksgiving weekend due to the Toronto Blue Jays and their playoff bid. We furthermore find out that there was, in fact, only a small drop in the grosses twixt the holiday Monday and Tuesday which, according to Houpt, "may augur well for sustained business."

Alas, as the numbers played out, it did not auger well, but Houpt is forgiven for not being clairvoyant. He does, of course, include the ludicrous comment from Elevation Pictures that this drop in box-office “goes to show that people wanted to see the film, but they weren’t rushing out.”

"Not rushing out" seems a whopper of an understatement.

The film's second weekend turned out to be even MORE dismal.

What Houpt fails to point out in his obvious shill piece is what any reporter worth their salt might have noted. In his box-office report for Movie City News, veteran film critic and film industry reporter Len Klady notes: "In Canada Afghan war saga Hyena Road was unenthusiastically received with a $337,000 gross." Granted, Klady is referring to the three-day weekend and not Houpt's four-day long weekend numbers, but Klady, instead of slanting a shill in favour of Hyena Road presents his comments, not on the misleading cumulative grosses, but on what (I reiterate) ANY REPORTER WORTH THEIR SALT would have noted:

The per-screen average of Hyena Road was dismal. Even going by Houpt's numbers, a cumulative gross of $486,000 and a screen count of 184, tells a much different story than Houpt's shill-prose: The film grossed an average of $2600 PER SCREEN. Let's be generous here and say that the average ticket price is $10 (quite conservative, but we'll use it). This means that Gross's film's grosses were so pathetic that a grand total of 260 people went to see the film in each cinema over FOUR DAYS, FOUR SHOWS PER DAY!!! Doing the math even further, an average of sixty-five (65) people saw the film on each screen over the same period - PER DAY!!! Let's do the math even further: Sixteen (16.25 to be precise) people saw the movie each show over the same period. I won't even bother doing the math on how many people saw the movie per show, per day - that would be cruel.

These, of course, are averages. Granted. They especially do not accurately represent the numbers in cinemas located in the redneck Conservative enclaves of Western Canada, but even those numbers could not have been that much higher than the rest of the country. The fact remains that the film's distributor, its exhibitor (primarily the monopoly known as Cineplex Entertainment) and the Canadian Taxpayer forked out a whopping amount of dough, not to mention effort, for a promotional budget which was up there with any major release (at least in Canadian terms).

The film's second weekend per-screen average was a mere pubic hair over $1000. As for its third weekend, I didn't even bother looking for grosses, but I couldn't help but notice that many screens had already dropped the film entirely or reduced its daily runs to two shows a day.

In spite of the movie flopping so obviously on its opening weekend, it's a bit distasteful to see that Houpt, not only shills, but turns himself into an apologist for Gross, the film, its distributor and all those who backed this spindly Thanksgiving Turkey when he writes:

"...the strong theatrical opening positions Hyena Road well for a video-on-demand run, and would likely increase viewership when it appears on the pay-TV channels TMN and Movie Central. The film has also been sold to CBC-TV.

'This is a Canadian film that now has huge awareness, which will play out for the life of the film,' he [the film's Canadian distributor] said."

Great! The movie will play on TV. We might even see DVDs and Blu-Rays in the Wal-Mart $5.00 bargain bins across the country. In spite of crappy box-office grosses, there is a "huge awareness". Really? Huge?

And why, oh why, does Simon Houpt's Globe article accept what the film's Canadian distributor says at face value? Had this reporter never thought about scouring the trades outside of Canada? Or taking a look at the numbers via Rentrak Corp., the world's most prestigious viewership data and analysis companies? Was there any thought at all to perhaps getting a quotation from either the industry scribe Klady or, for that matter, RentTrack's topper Paul Dergarabdian who offers opinions/analysis to virtually any outlet that asks him for it?

I can only assume that Houpt chose not to do any of the aforementioned because he is a shill and/or not an especially good reporter.

However, let's not blame the messenger 100%. Surely Houpt's editors at the Globe had something to do with this. They're either shills themselves or don't care or worse, are part of the Moron Club at the Globe who green-lit the most idiotic editorial in the history of journalism in Canada. One day after Houpt's shill for Hyena Road appeared, the Globe urged all Canadians to give the fascist Conservative party another mandate to govern. This would be bad enough, but that the Globe would idiotically suggest Canadians vote the Conservatives to a majority and in the same breath call for ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper's resignation is tantamount to gross stupidity.

Yeah, right! If the Conservatives had won, Herr Harper would have listened to the Globe editors and resigned - NOT! Love him or hate him, Stephen Harper is/was the Conservative Party of Canada. He's also more intelligent than all the knot-heads who make up the rest of the party combined.

The election is over. The Conservatives have been defeated. Harper has resigned as party leader. BUT NOT because of the Globe.

And Hyena Road is the stinking flop nobody wants to admit to.

Oddly, I feel like the Swiftian Confederacy of Dunces. I have dared to piss on the genius that is Paul Gross as well as the utter failure of his film at the box-office. It seems, publicly, that I am a Confederacy of one on this front.

That said, I offer the following by asking: Who comprises the genuine, non-Swiftian Confederacy of Dunces?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

My review of Hyena Road is HERE.

My review of Guy Maddin's Hyena Road "making of", Bring Me The Head of Tim Horton is HERE.

My review of Guy Maddin's The Forbidden Room which was partially finished by monies funnelled to Maddin for his Hyena Road "making of" is HERE.

My editorial commentary "The Unbearable Promotion of War: Buying Grosses for Wasteful Gross Film" is HERE.

My editorial commentary "Maddin Fêted in New York with Fine Single-Screen Opening Weekend Numbers While Gross Multimillion Dollar Canadian Pro-War Film a FLOP with Paltry Per-Screen Average" is HERE.

My review of Paul Gross's execrable Passchendaele is HERE.

Simon Houpt's article in the Globe and Mail is HERE.

The Globe and Mail's moronic editorial endorsement of the Conservatives is HERE.

SCREEN LEGEND TAB HUNTER watches new film by Canuck Guy Maddin! Grossmultimillion dollar PRO-WAR Canadian film BOX-OFFICE FLOP. HYENA ROAD'sper-screen average decimated by opening numbers of brilliant,imaginative and LOW-BUDGET Guy Maddin film THE FORBIDDEN ROOM -Report/Commentary by Greg Klymkiw

GUY MADDIN with delighted FORBIDDEN ROOM
New York audience member, screen legend TAB HUNTER.
In other news, Paul Gross abomination HYENA ROAD is a
BIG FAT FLOP

Maddin Fêted in New York
with Fine Single-Screen Opening Weekend Numbers

Gross Multimillion Dollar Canadian Pro-War Film a FLOP
with Paltry Per-Screen Average

Report and Commentary By Greg Klymkiw

Millions upon millions of dollars towards the production and extensive marketing budget of the Paul Gross propaganda war film Hyena Road, much of it plucked from the purse-strings of Canadian taxpayers, opened this past long weekend on 174 screens across the Land of Beavers and Maple Syrup. Meanwhile, Guy Maddin's insane, brilliant, meagrely budgeted avant-garde contemporary classic The Forbidden Room, garnered numbers at the ticket-wicket to put its trough-gobbling Canuck big brother straight into a hand-shoveled latrine in Afghanistan.

On one screen in New York City, Maddin's movie collected an impressive 4-day long weekend tally of $7000 whilst Gross's Folly struggled to garner a mere $2500 per screen average during the same period. If one includes the admittedly soft Toronto numbers, Maddin's per-screen average grosses over the same period come out to $4200, still besting the gross-per-screeners of Hyena Road's $2500.

The bottom line is this, even if Hyena Road holds steady in Canada at these numbers, it will do so through the sheer force of will of all those responsible for backing this lame pony - more money in marketing, perchance, added screens, uh, more money - but given that the picture is a style-bereft slab of pro-war propaganda, mediocre to the max and an already out-of-date Middle-Eastern sand-and-turban slaughter-fest, one cannot see its theatrical life outside of Canada being all that impressive. Its home video prospects might prove somewhat better, but the reality is that this is the kind of ephemera which will have virtually no shelf-life where it counts - as a work of art, and certainly not even in a commercial sense.

For my fuller commentary about the moronic waste of promotional resources on Hyena Road entitled "The Unbearable Promotion of War: Buying Grosses for Wasteful Gross Film", click HERE.

In many ways, the best bet when it comes to taxpayer-supported culture in Canada (particularly English-Canada) is work like Guy Maddin's The Forbidden Room. His fans at the box-office (and critically) will always be there for his work and will usually not be too disappointed (save perhaps for the ambitious, but clunky Twilight of the Ice Nymphs). Given the sheer madness (or if you will, "Maddin-ness") of this latest fest-o-fetishes, I'm especially delighted how crazed the American critical scribes have been (even the normally staid New York Times had to succumb). Its shelf-life will last long beyond the traditional windows of exploitation.

Maddin's earliest work is well over one-quarter-of-a-century old and still shows no sign of abatement in terms of its long-time admirers who've become even more slavish in their devotion. Even now, the work is harvesting huge swaths of new fans every year. Maddin's art is celebrated and written about in a seemingly infinite number of prestigious books, magazines and journals.  On that front, the accolades and scholarship for his films show no sign of ever easing up..

If a government is going to back film culture, especially film culture, shelf-life is everything. Immortality should be the goal. Art, TRUE art, delivers a much better bang for the buck. There are audiences out there for it too. Alas, our domestic exhibitors (not indies, but major chains, of which there is really only one, a monopoly allowed by the current Harper Conservative government), have the strength to show a real corporate responsibility to committing themselves to genuine Canadian culture of a lasting quality. To date, this has not happened in any significant manner.

The bottom line, is that the players who invested their time, money and elbow grease in films like Guy Maddin's (or Atom Egoyan's or Peter Mettler's or Albert Shin's or Igor Drljača's or Ingrid Veninger's or David Cronenberg's or . . . the list goes on and on) - these are the players who are investing in our cinematic equivalents to Da Vinci, Turner, Modigliani, Picasso and . . . the list goes on and on. The players investing in the likes of filmmakers like Paul Gross are doing little more than investing in the cinematic equivalents to velvet paintings.

The one good thing about Hyena Road is that it is responsible for apportioning a sliver of its grotesquely huge budget on the commissioned "making of" documentary by Guy Maddin and his collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson. Bring Me The Head of Tim Horton is not only a bonafide masterwork, it's probably one of the few, if not only "Making Of" doc that far exceeds its subject in terms of quality and lasting value. Feel free to read my review of Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton HERE. If you want to know why The Forbidden Room is a contemporary masterwork, read my review HERE.

If, you need to read about wise decisions to finance Canadian cinema during the past year, feel free to read my review of Hurt HERE, my review of of The Waiting Room HERE, my review of Sleeping Giant HERE, my review of The Rainbow Kid HERE, my review of Fire Song HERE and the list, go on, and on, and on.

If you want to read about the kind of overpriced, empty, overblown crap that should never be made in Canada (unless completely financed by the marketplace), feel free to read my review of Hyena Road HERE.

And I reiterate, TAB HUNTER, for God's Sake, came to see The Forbidden Room. Paul Gross can eat his heart out.

Hyena Road is playing on 174 screens across Canada. The Forbidden Room is playing at the Film Forum in New York and the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.

Wanna see something really GROSS? Here are just a few of the disgusting items on the Cineplex Entertainment website wildly promoting the crummy Paul Gross pro-war film HYENA ROAD + links to Greg Klymkiw's reviews of HYENA ROAD and the brilliant "Making of" Documentary by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson which is light-years better than Paul Gross's film itself. Enjoy!

Here's something GROSS!
Win a Trip to Ottawa in honour of
the pro-war film HYENA ROAD
Visit the Nation's Capital
Governed by RACIST FASCISTS
You paid for a good chunk of this
with your tax dollars under the aegis
of the aforementioned RACIST FASCIST
government, so ENJOY!!!

The Unbearable Promotion of War:
Buying Grosses for Wasteful Gross Film

Editorial Commentary By Greg Klymkiw

The new Canadian war film Hyena Road tries to mask itself as anything but a pro-war film, but as it extols the virtues of Canada's involvement in a war which killed, maimed and shell-shocked too many of our nation's soldiers for reasons that had everything to do with buttressing the financial goals of corporate pigs, it's clearly one of the most foul pieces of garbage foisted upon us courtesy of several million Canadian taxpayer dollars.

When writer-producer-director Paul Gross sallied over to Afghanistan for a morale-boosting "meet and greet" with our fighting men and women a few years ago, he realized it was necessary to make a film about Canadians and for Canadians. Rather than focusing upon the war machine and America's perverted desires to lie to its people about extremist Muslims being the real threat, he chose instead to give us some good, old rah-rah with oodles of war pornography.

He decided to tell of a joint Canadian-American initiative to build a road through hostile territory to ensure safe back-and-forth passage through hostile "enemy" territory. Make no mistake, Canada was the enemy in Afghanistan. Gross, however, clearly had no interest in the agendas of the New World Order, the 1% of the wealthiest, who used terrorism as the excuse to murder its own soldiers and Afghans.

According to a sampling of the reams of promotional bumph on the Cineplex Entertainment website:

"...Gross felt a calling to present a very real slice of the Canadian military’s efforts in Afghanistan. This wasn't just to use film as a means of educating those who don’t really understand Canada’s role in the war. [Our role was a spurious one, but Gross has no interest in this.] It was also to give a voice, and humanity, [Humanity! Hah!] to not only the soldiers risking their lives every day to protect the sanctity of freedom [Sanctity of FREEDOM! Who the fuck are they trying to kid?], but the Afghan warriors typically villainized. [Another yeah right! The film shows one "good" Afhghan warrior and most of the rest are the typical Snidely Whiplash villains, especially a sleazy two-faced Afghan villain.]

Here's the real GROSS part to all this. The amount of promotional support for this film on the Cineplex website and in its theatre lobbies and on its screens is huge. On top of this are all the millions of dollars from Federal and Provincial coffers to produce, market and distribute this film. I have no problem with Canadian films receiving this - not even Hyena Road. However, how many Canadian films get this kind of promotional support? Not many. How many Canadian films are supported to such a degree by Cineplex Entertainment? Not many. In fact, how many Canadian films does Cineplex Entertainment bother to even show? Not many and it's getting worse, not better.

Enjoy 300 SCENE Loyalty Points from
Cineplex Entertainment when buying
a ticket to the Canadian War Pornography
HYENA ROAD during its first week!!!

What's essentially happening with Hyena Road and a handful of other "anointed" Canadian films is that both the government and corporations like Cineplex Entertainment are buying grosses to put bums in seats. This allows everyone to pat themselves on the back, publicize big grosses (which usually aren't that big to begin with) so that a whole whack of folks can save face by backing these few horses. And then, based on these spurious numbers, the producers of said pieces of garbage are giving green lights to keep gobbling from the troughs and make more shitty movies.

In addition to the hilariously pathetic Cineplex Entertainment contest to send two - count 'em - two lucky people to Ottawa, they're also offering Scene loyalty card bonus points if people see Hyena Road during the first week. 300 points to be exact. This represents almost one third of an eventual free ticket to see a movie. Again, I have no problem with this. It offers a decent promotional incentive to patrons and if it works, it assists in top-loading the first week of release with more paying viewers. However, how many Canadian films are afforded this great promotion? Uh, not too many.

The amount of promo material for Hyena Road on the Cineplex Entertainment website is staggering. Just for fun, here is another ludicrous quotation taken directly from Cineplex.com:

These are stories that are often overlooked, as Canada’s participation in the war is not something that is often depicted on film. The cast discuss their respect for Gross, who is telling important historical stories that our nation deserves to have heard.

Excuse me, did I just read that correctly? The cast of Hyena Road "discuss" on the Cineplex Entertainment website "their respect for [Paul] Gross"? Why, pray tell? For "telling important historical stories that our nation deserves to have heard."

You know, what our nation deserved to hear is not the war porn bunkum Gross craps onto the screen. We don't need this propaganda. We need to know the truth behind what our veterans from Afghanistan and every other war have had to suffer because they were duped into fighting for freedom.

If Paul Gross had any concern at all about the bravery of Canada's armed forces, he might have thought to tell the stories of how our fighting men and women have been treated like shit by our own government. How about stories of Canadian soldiers and their applications for assistance to the Department of Veterans Affairs taking 5 years or more? How about stories of same said veterans being denied assistance after waiting for so many years? How about the fact that this mean-spirited incompetence directed at these members of our armed forces are a result of the Canadian Fuhrer closing nine Veterans Affairs offices across the country, firing 900 Veterans Affairs staff members, not using one billion dollars earmarked for veterans' assistance, ignoring a detailed and damning Auditor General report condemning the Harper Reichstag for doing virtually nothing to help our veterans?

How about Der Fuhrer Stephen Harper removing the right of a maimed, injured, shell-shocked veteran to a lifetime pension?

These are the real Canadian stories of war that have been swept under the rug by our government and even the media to a large degree. What the fuck is Paul Gross, Cineplex Entertainment and various levels of the Canadian government doing making propaganda and ignoring the war stories that really matter?

Sadly, for Canada, not even American filmmakers have ignored the maimed, the mad and the disenfranchised thanks to Oliver Stone (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July), Francis Coppola (Apocalypse Now). Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter), Samuel Fuller (Steel Helmet, The Big Red One) and, well, I could grind out a few thousand words just listing them. Even worse, for Canada, is that Gross has, with two pictures, burned through millions upon millions of dollars to make films that not only have much to say, but range from incompetence to borderline incompetence.

So go. See the movie this week. You'll get loyalty card points and contribute to supporting lacklustre filmmaking and lies. I hope Gross and anyone responsible at any level for this wad of nothingness are proud of themselves.

We can all feel proud. Hyena Road is what "we stand on guard for thee" for.

Lies, lies and more lies. And cruddy filmmaking also.

The link to my review of Hyena Road is HERE.

The link to my review of Bring Me The Head of Tim Horton, The Making of Hyena Road is HERE.

"Stay tuned. We're going to go beyond the scenes."
- Michael Kennedy, Executive Vice-President,
CINEPLEX ENTERTAINMENT

HYENA ROAD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2015 - Yet another Gross Canadian movie

This is not a scene from HYENA ROAD.
It is a scene from the genuinely brilliant
BRING ME THE HEAD OF TIM HORTON:
The Making of "Hyena Road"

Hyena Road (2015)
Dir. Paul Gross
Starring: Paul Gross, Rossif Sutherland, Christine Horne, Niamatullah Arghandabi

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Even though the word "Hyena" is in the title, try not to confuse the abomination that is Hyena Road with the superb 2014 Hyena. The former is yet another dreadful Paul Gross war film, the latter a grim, gritty UK crime picture about police corruption and the Albanian Mob in contemporary London. The former will be released wide across Canadian screens later this year, whilst the latter has disappeared without a trace. Both films, however, played at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The former this year, the latter last year.

Canadians have a real treat in store for them. They will not see Hyena. They will, however, see Hyena Road. This is primarily thanks to the largesse of the Canadian taxpayers themselves, who forked over a good chunk of the $12.5 million needed to put this rah-rah slice of propagandistic pro-war excrement on the screen and, of course, the ever - ahem - visionary Cineplex Entertainment theatre chain (monopoly) which would prefer to exhibit endless prints of awful studio pictures and, naturally, Paul Gross movies, rather than genuinely great Canadian films (or, for that matter, the very best indie foreign films).

Hyena Road has one thing going for it, though. While it's genuinely awful, it's not quite as laughably horrendous as Gross's previous war picture Passchendaele. That said, it might even be worse - not in terms of craft - but the fact that it extols the virtues of Canada's role in a war the country should never have become a part of. There isn't a single war in the Middle East which should have happened, never mind with the assistance of Canada's Armed Forces, but happen they did AND with Canada's help (not to mention the senseless deaths of our soldiers and those of innocent Afghanis and Iraquis).

So, what does the director of Men With Brooms (a witless purported comedy about the sport of curling) do? As he proved successful enough with Passchendaele, his WWI anti-war effort (a film which had its box-office grosses in Canada bought and paid for with oodles of marketing assistance from the Canadian taxpayer and the screen-count-largesse of the - ahem - visionary Cineplex Entertainment), Gross scratched his noggin and crapped out the fine idea of a pro-war propaganda film in Afghanistan.

Oh Canada. We stand on guard for thee by wiping out Afghani villages to ensure the safety of the American armed forces.

Yup, this is what we get with Hyena Road:

Pete Mitchell (Paul Gross) is the Canuck in charge of safely building a road through Taliban territory to allow for the safer passage of coalition forces (America, really). Mitchell, however, is no mere lean, mean, fighting machine, he's a military intelligence (a bit of an oxymoron, mais non?) officer. His real goal is to ferret out The Ghost (Niamatullah Arghandabi), a mujahideen who could prove to be an excellent ally. To this end, Mitchell puts the brave sniper (a bit of an oxymoron, mais non?) in the role of front man for this operation.

Ryan Sanders (Rossif Sutherland) has scruples, however. He doesn't like being manipulated and he refuses to kill children. Isn't that special? Good thing too, since he's been boinking Jennifer Bowman (Christine Horne), the film's token female window dressing who runs the command centre (and also appears afflicted with - horrors - morning sickness). It sure would be Gross if he killed kids whilst his girlie-pie is carrying his eventual progeny (to no doubt grow up to kill more people in battle during the next senseless war).

Amidst the simplistic military maneuvers and soap suds outlined above, Gross stages several big violent action set pieces with both Jordan and Manitoba's Carberry Desert nicely standing in for Afghanistan. Here is one aspect that the film modestly excels at. Gross wisely crews up with artists who've plied their trade on good, if not great Canadian films.

Thanks to one of Canada's most gifted cinematographers Karim Hussain (We Are Still Here, Hobo With A Shotgun), and the equally gifted Canuck editor David Wharnsby (Guy Maddin's Saddest Music in the World and Sarah Polley's Away From Her), the action more-than-ably rip-snorts along, providing superb war-porn for action aficionados.

Where these sequences fail, however, is Gross's awful screenplay which puts dull dialogue in the mouths of the characters - if one can even call them characters as opposed to simple types - and, of course, unlike genuinely great (if not even good war pictures) we have no human being to hang our hopes and dreams upon as they march forward into the carnage of battle.

Though Hyena Road is a disgrace and has no business receiving taxpayer financing and even less business being featured as a Gala Presentation during TIFF, one of the world's most prestigious film festivals, its real problem lies in the fact that the movie is just plain bad as opposed to being the unmitigated stinker Passchendaele was.

That film was so awful I blessed it with my lowest Film Corner rating imaginable: THE TURD FOUND BEHIND HARRY'S CHARBROIL GRILL & DINING LOUNGE. But WOE! I could not even bring myself to affix my second-lowest Film Corner Rating to Hyena Road, the ever-famous, ONE PUBIC HAIR (which I proudly bestowed upon Sharknado).

Nope. Hyena Road belongs to a special class of bad movies - a picture so dull and mediocre it rates the most dull and mediocre of all the Film Corner Ratings.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

Hyena Road enjoys its World Premiere as a GALA at TIFF 2015. For further info visit the TIFF website HERE. It will be seen all across Canada via Elevation Pictures.

PASSCHENDAELE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cineplex Entertainment's - ahem - Continuing Commitment to Canadian Cinema: Cheap Cineplex Store Rentals on one of the WORST Canadian movies ever made! (Actually one of the worst movies - EVER!)

Cineplex Entertainment, the "proudly" Canadian movie theatre chain has always displayed a solid commitment to Canadian Cinema by not playing most Canadian Films, by providing no information on the few independent Canadian films they've pathetically played (referring to directors on their app as "Names Not Available"), charging small distributors exorbitant "virtual print fees" to play Canadian films in their theatres and, of course, playing Canadian films by the most acclaimed and beloved auteurs like Paul Gross. Now, in honour of Canada Day, Cineplex Entertainment's Cineplex Store is offering Canadian movies (they especially like) for rent in digital formats at cut-rate prices. Let us review one of these Canadian films which broke box-office records in Cineplex Entertainment cinemas with bought and paid-for grosses thanks to marketing assistance from the Canadian Government's Telefilm Canada.

NOTE: "PASSCHENDAELE" is pronounced as "pashin-dale". In honour of this fine film, herewith is a lovely witticism: A cabbie picked up a drunk lassie and she told him she needed to get to the Beer Vendor, but she didn't have enough money to take the cab there, so she would, in fact, provide him with a blow-job if he'd waive the fees. He happily agreed. As he drove to the Beer Vendor and the lassie worked upon his member prodigiously, the cabbie began to moan aloud. The young lassie looked up at him and said, "Oh, hey buddy, yer passionate." He replied, "Why thank you, indeed I am." She responded in her drunken slurring twixt slurps: "No buddy! Yer pashin it. Yer pashin the fuckin Beer Vendor."

Passchendaele (2008)
dir. Paul Gross
Starring: Paul Gross, Caroline Dhaverna

Review By Greg Klymkiw

How anyone could suggest with a straight face that Passchendaele is any good at all, renders me agog. I originally had no right to even comment on the movie a few years ago when I staggered out after the first miserable hour at its World Premiere in 2008 at the Toronto International Film Festival, but rest assured, I eventually suffered through the entire sewage bath when it opened theatrically to confirm my initial feelings.

The full dosage of Paul Gross's directorial followup to his risible curling (Yes, Curling!) "comedy" Men With Brooms (and preceding his monumentally sickening Western "comedy" Gunless) forced me to nail my feet to the floor. I have the scars to prove it.

This $20,000,000.00 war film (a bit of an oxymoron in this day and age, anyway - even before going in you know you're in for some bargain basement carnage) is one of the most embarrassing, poorly written, miserably directed excuses for something purporting to be a motion picture that I have ever had the utter displeasure to waste precious hours of my life on. The first few minutes of this Dollar-rama Saving Private Ryan had a few visceral shocks to be sure (thanks, no doubt to a decent second unit team), but once the stiff-jawed leading man (Gross, 'natch) settled his sorry shell-shocked ass back on the homefront, I pretty much had to nail my kneecaps to the seat to stay for entirety of this jaw-droppingly wretched picture.

The paper thin characters/caricatures all deliver mind-numbingly awful dialogue as the contrived story plods interminably along its dreary way - treading heavily into the territory of melodrama of the worst sort. Don't get me wrong - I love war pictures and I especially love war pictures that have both melodrama and sentimentality. That said, there is good melodrama and bad melodrama and there is sentimentality that resonates with the emotional heartache that someone like John Ford was able to master with his eyes sewn shut.

Alas, Paul Gross is most certainly not John Ford - Garry Marshall with a severe migraine, perhaps, but not much more than that. Gross directs with the grace of a faulty jackhammer that keeps missing its mark. Perhaps he might have made a good picture if he'd produced and starred in it and let a real writer and director do their respective jobs.

Gross is definitely a good actor and the camera loves him, but in this movie he lopes about like some pretty boy Gary Cooper over-dosed on Maple Syrup, uttering dialogue that not even Ed Wood would have been capable of writing. In fact, let it be said now that as a writer, Ed Wood was pretty much Clifford Odets compared to Gross.

The movie, for all its utter stupidity, reached some kind of nadir when Gross chose to crosscut between graphic descriptions of what shrapnel can do to the human body whilst a loving couple bang each other with youthful abandon. Spielberg did a similar thing in Munich. I applauded Spielberg for the audacity, but couldn't really forgive the stupidity - especially since he had his lead character boinking wifey whilst having flashbacks to violent killings he was not even present to have experienced. I was even convinced nobody could have topped such idiocy, but Paul Gross managed to do it. Alas, bereft of Spielberg's panache, which made Munich barely watchable, Gross has little to offer as a director save for complete incompetence.

If only Gross had been able to rise to the level of M.O.W. competence, I might have been able to avoid putting holes in my feet and kneecaps (in addition to not having the taste of bile in my mouth, which comes up on me even when I think about the picture). Alas, my desires fell upon deaf ears. Between those deaf ears, however, I can only assume plenty of air resides happily and fetidly within.

Happy Fucking Canada Day!

THE FILM CORNER RATING:
TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHARBROIL & DINING LOUNGE

This is a rating The Film Corner delivers to films too bad to garner one-star (*). Said films would normally then receive the "One Pubic Hair" rating, however, not to besmirch the fine pubic hair recipient Sharknado by lumping it in (so to speak) with genuine turds, I was forced to create a critical rating even lower.

The Rating is, quite simply and evocatively:

"TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHARBROIL & DINING LOUNGE".

As pictured, this an actual turd found by myself and Project Grizzly filmmaker Peter Lynch in the illustrious Parkdale parking lot behind Harry's wherein the two of us had just dined with writer Geoff Pevere.

Now, please feel free to acknowledge, as I do, pictures displaying the most appalling ineptitude, exceeding that of even Sharknado. It is a critical rating which will, one hopes, seal the selected work's fate in some manner of infamy.

FILMS WHICH HAVE RECEIVED THIS RATING

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CORNER GAS - THE MOVIE

OCTOBER GALE

DEAD BEFORE DAWN 3-D

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

GODZILLA 2014

VERONICA MARS

ENDLESS LOVE 2014

SEX AND THE CITY 2

THE COUNSELLOR