SID AND NANCY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Classic Punk Biopic on Criterion Collection

Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb as punk lovers
Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in Cox classic.

Sid and Nancy (1986)
Dir. Alex Cox
Scr. Cox and Abbe Wool
Starring: Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb, Drew Schofield, David Hayman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It seems inevitable that the wildly, strangely romantic tragic biopic Sid and Nancy would be Alex Cox's sophomore feature after his astonishing 1984 debut with the punk masterpiece Repo Man. Veering from an almost neo-realist 70s-style nihilism to a whacked-out druggie comedy to a borderline surreal presentation of a world gone completely nuts, Repo Man now feels like the ultimate 80s American film. Cox's picture, with its aimless punk played by Emilio Estevez finding his niche as a repo man with the sage Harry Dean Stanton, virtually spat in the face of the feel-goody-two-shoes of the execrable John Hughes teen dramedies and the sprawling, noisy, state-of-the-art macho action and adventure films that populated that often-wretched decade of cinema.

The hallucinogenic properties Cox brought to bear upon his first feature continued unabated with this grim, grimy love story twixt the legendary Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman), bassist of The Sex Pistols and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb). Though the screenplay by Cox and co-writer Abbe Wool hits many tried and true biopic beats, the film ultimately excels during its many flights of fancy and the clearly oddball properties of a loving, domestic partnership against the backdrop of addiction, substance abuse and the sheer anarchy of the late 70s period of punk rock.

The film begins with the early rise to success of the band managed by Malcolm McLaren (David Hayman) and doesn't waste time getting Sid together with Nancy. They're young, they're in love and they're hooked on heroin. They're also inseparable - so much so that their couple-status begins to upset the applecart of the band. Once The Sex Pistols are on tour in America, things go from bad to worse. The group breaks up. Sid and Nancy continue as a couple whilst Sid attempts to launch a solo career.

And then, tragedy strikes in the squalidly legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York City. Love hurts and it most definitely doesn't last forever and death - violent death at that, has a bad habit of ending the joy and most of all, the pain.

As with Repo Man, Cox has a definitely unique eye on America and in Sid and Nancy, he delivers a skewed world through the eyes of these loving drug addicts (thanks to the astonishing work of cinematographer Roger Deakins and especially, Gary Oldman's star-making performance).

One of the most poignantly addled moments in the film comes when Nancy declares: "I hate my fuckin' life." Loving Sid responds: "This is just a rough patch. Things'll be much better when we get to America, I promise." Nancy looks blankly at him and matter-of-factly responds: "We're in America. We've been here a week."

Oh yeah.

Love hurts, alright. Especially when you don't know where you are. Or who you are.

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

Sid and Nancy is available as DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION on the Criterion Collection in a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray, an alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray, Two audio commentaries: one from 1994 featuring cowriter Abbe Wool, actors Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, cultural historian Greil Marcus, filmmakers Julien Temple and Lech Kowalski, and musician Eliot Kidd; the other from 2001 featuring cowriter-director Alex Cox and actor Andrew Schofield England’s Glory, a 1987 documentary on the making of Sid & Nancy, Infamous 1976 Bill Grundy interview with the Sex Pistols on British television, Rare telephone interview from 1978 with Sid Vicious, Interviews with Vicious and Nancy Spungen from the 1980 documentary D.O.A.: A Right of Passage, Archival interviews and footage, plus an essay by author Jon Savage and a 1986 piece compiled by Cox about Vicious, Spungen, and the making of the film.

THE PUNK SYNDROME - Review By Greg Klymkiw - SEE IT OR DIE, YOU MOTHER FUCKERS!

In anticipation of the upcoming 2015 Toronto Hot Docs International Festival of Documentary Cinema, The Film Corner continues its thrill-packed countdown to said event with a review of The Punk Syndrom.

Since its debut at Hot Docs 2012, a hoped-for Blu-Ray or even DVD release of The Punk Syndrome did not come to pass. The picture is currently available for rent or download at iTunes via Kinosmith which is better than not seeing it at all, but this is a movie that DEMANDS either theatrical screenings and/or home viewing via the highest resolution possible (which, ultimately, is Blu-Ray).

Given that the film's subjects, "Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day" (PKN) have been selected to represent Finland in this year's Eurovision Song Contest, I'm hoping for an enterprising home video release at some point which not only features the best picture and sound, but a whole whack of extras. All the oddsmakers are putting their weight behind these guys as they've made history with having the first punk song ever invited into this prestigious competition.

The film itself is not only superbly crafted, but PKN are hardcore punks who embrace the anger-charged musical form to create the most phenomenal insight into what it means to be mentally disabled and forced to live in a world of fluorescent lighting, rigid control, shitty food and seemingly random rules as prescribed within the cold, institutional world of their homes for life.

The Punk Syndrome (2012)
dir. Jukka Kärkkäinen & J-P Passi
Starring: Pertti Kurikka, Kari Aalto, Sami Helle, Toni Välitalo
("Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day" AKA "PKN")

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day" is, without question, one of the greatest punk bands of all time. They are the unforgettable subjects of The Punk Syndrome, a breathtaking feature documentary that declares: "I demand your immediate attention or you die, motherfucker!" I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I had never heard of the band before. Now, I'll never forget them! Neither will you. This quartet of hard-core, kick-ass, take-no-fucking-prisoners sons of bitches pull no musical punches. They slam you in the face with repeated roundhouses - turning your flesh into pulpy, coarsely-ground hamburger meat. In true punk spirit, they crap on hypocrisy, celebrate a shackle-free life and dare your pulse not to pound with maniacal abandon.

The band is, of course, from Finland. This is the great land of the brown bear, the Capercaillie grouse and the nearly-extinct, but damned-if-they'll-go-down-without-a-fight Saimaa Ringed Seal - a country with one of the largest land masses and smallest populations in Europe that spawned the great glam group Hanoi Rocks, the brilliant hockey player Veli-Pekka Ketola and one of the world's greatest filmmakers, Aki Kaurismäki.

And now, Finland can boast of generating one the world's great punk bands, "Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day". With Pertti Kurikka's grinding lead guitar, Kari Aalto's powerhouse vocals, Sami Helle's muscular bass and Toni Välitalo on drums (a veritable punk rock Gene Krupa), this tight unit commands audiences with a power that borders on mesmerism.

Their songs - many of them ripped straight from Kurikka's diaries - take aim at government corruption, mindless bureaucracy and pedicures. Yes, pedicures!

Early in the film, Pertti Kurikka explains:

Writing a diary is important to me. I can release my anger. It is especially helpful to have a bad day. I’ll write in my diary that Pertti is a shithead, that Pertti is an asshole and that Pertti is a faggot and a shit-goddamn-asshole. Pertti will be stabbed. Pertti will be punched in the face. Pertti will be strangled to death.

Not every song the band sings spews venom, though. Giving a concert in a public square, the jaws of old ladies hit the ground, while young party animals hoist their fists in the air as the band extols the considerable virtues of mundane, but pleasant activities with the following lyrics:

It was a Sunday
I went to church
I had coffee
I took a dump

Three kick-ass chords and four glorious lines and we're hooked.

The movie follows the band from practising to recording, from jamming to performing, relationships with family, friends, fans and women. There are the usual creative differences between the band - some serious, and others, a bit more tongue in cheek. At one point, Kari complains to Kurikka, "When you write riffs for songs, don’t write such difficult ones. Write easy ones."

One of the most powerful sequences in the film, one that enshrines the picture as one of the truly great rock documentaries, is when the band plays a gig at a club in Tampere. The performance is mind-blowing and the audience is electric.

The band sings:

Decision-Makers lock people up
In closed rooms
But we don’t wanna be in those rooms
Nobody looks after us
Nobody comes to visit us
What’s going to happen
To us orphans in those rooms?
Decision-makers cheat
Cheaters make decisions
They don’t give a shit
About us disabled
Decision-makers cheat
Cheaters make decisions
They don’t give a shit
About us disabled

In the dressing room after a truly intense performance, the band is triumphant. A beaming Kurikka declares, "This is as good as it gets".

And WHAMMO!

A breathtaking cut to a shot worthy of Ulrich Seidl - one that captures a terrible beauty of the character-bereft building the band lives in, a blue sky and a magic hour sun.

And yes, this is a band that writes and performs songs from the pits of their respective guts, from experience - their unique experience in the world as mentally disabled men.

Brave, passionate and talented men.

And yes, mentally disabled.

And they are so cool.

How cool?

They recorded their first single on vinyl.

And now, they are competing in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest.

That's how cool!

Just like this movie!

"The Punk Syndrome" is available via Kinosmith on iTunes

THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN FullyLoadedDVDreviewedByGregKlymkiwAsBruntonPapputsPunkDocSlavetosMyDick

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WE ARE THE BEST - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Video Services Corp. Theatrical Rollout Across Canada Now On

One of Greg Klymkiw's 10 Best of 2013 and Mira Barkhammar his pick for Best Actress of 2013. COOL!

We Are The Best (2013) *****
Dir. Lukas Moodysson

Starring: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Three very special little girls on the cusp of puberty are horrifically surrounded by conformist girlie-girls and immature boys toying with societal expectations of machismo. Two of the young ladies are self-described punk rockers, while a third comes from a goody-two-shoes ultra-Christian background (but with punk desires roiling beneath her veneer).

Joyfully and with great satisfaction, the trio find each other in an otherwise antiseptic Sweden where most of their peers, teachers and family are still clinging to outmoded values, yet pathetically attempting to inject cliched tropes of modernism into their otherwise prissy protected worlds.

Our pre-teen rebels form a punk band which results in a happy hell breaking loose, which, however is threatened by a combination of their newfound overt expressions of non-conformity and all the normal conflicts of puberty (especially within the context of an antiseptic society that’s poised to become even more bereft of character). The journey these little girls take is fraught with all manner of conflicts that have a potentially disastrous effect upon their quest to prove, to themselves and the world, that, as the film’s title declares: We Are The Best!

I’ve read a lot of nonsense lately that claim this film is a “return to form”.

“Hogwash!” I say. “Harumph!”

As if one of the great contemporary filmmakers of our time needs to find his way back to his earlier roots when he has, in fact, never abandoned them. Moodysson is one of contemporary cinema’s great humanist filmmakers and all of his films have generated - at least for me - levels of emotion that are rooted ever-so deeply in the richness and breadth of humanity. We Are The Best is, however, Moodysson’s most joyous film and furthermore is an absolutely lovely celebration of a time long past and the virtues of non-conformity that - for better or worse - created a generation of really cool people.

The screenplay, co-written by Moodysson and his wife Coco Moodysson is based on the latter’s graphic novel “Never Goodnight” and though, I have yet to read it myself, the movie wisely feels like a top-drawer graphic novel on film - great characters, wry observations, keen wit , a perfect balance between visual and literary story beats and several entertaining layers of “Fuck You!”

On one hand, I feel like I might be reading far too much into the movie - that my take on it is based too closely upon my own experiences during the cultural cusp years of 1978-1982. You see, as fun and celebratory as the picture indeed is, I couldn’t help but feel while watching it - not just once, but twice on a big screen - a very gentle hint of melancholy running through the piece.

Ultimately, I do feel this melancholia is intentional since every aspect of the film’s setting is pulsating with the horrendous sort of conformity that needed to be challenged. Set in 1982, a period which for me felt very much like the beginning of the end - not just at the time, but certainly in retrospect (which must certainly be a place the Moodysson’s are coming from themselves), one felt like the world was entering an intense phase of conservatism to rival the 50s, but without the cool repressive iconography of the 50s. The 80s were all about stripping everything down, yet in a kind of tastelessly garish fashion. Film critic Pauline Kael titled her collection of reviews from this period “State of the Art” - a horrendous phrase that came to describe everything that was so appalling about the 80s.

In spite of it all, there was, during this cusp period, a blip of hope. While it lasted, it was beautiful. Moodysson’s protagonists, like so many of us during that period, needed to affirm our non-conformity by declaring that we were, indeed, the best. What’s special about the film, is that every generation of non-conformists discovers this and Moodysson has very delightfully and, I’d argue, importantly delivered a tale of considerable universality.

Video Services Corp. (VSC) is releasing We Are The Best theatrically across Canada. Theatrical rollout begins at TIFF Bell Lightbox May 30, 2014. For showtimes and tickets visit the TIFF website HERE. Full Canadian playmate schedule for theatrical release below:

Opens May 30
Toronto – TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St. W
Montreal – Cinema du Parc, 3575 Avenue du Parc
Vancouver – VanCity, 1181 Seymour St
Opens June 13
Ottawa – Bytowne Cinema, 325 Rideau St
London – Hyland Cinema, 240 Wharncliffe Road South

Here is a lovely selection of VSC (Video Service Corp.) titles you buy directly from the links below, and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner:

PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Important Documentary details protests against Russia and Vladimir Putin's blending of patriarchal Eastern Rite religious Dogma with the heinous strategies of Joseph Stalin.

The Threat to Putin

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (2013) ****
Dir: Mike Lerner, Maxim Pozdorovkin
Starring:
Nadezhda (Nadia) Tolokonnikova
Yekaterina (Katia) Samutsevich
Maria (Masha) Alyokhina

Review By Greg Klymkiw

On the day Vladimir Putin, the most vile Russian totalitarian leader since Joseph Stalin was allowed to control the country by "appointment", not election, a clutch of intelligent young women immediately formed the Pussy Riot protest movement.

Not unlike the Stalinist show trials of 1937, Nadezhda (Nadia) Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina (Katia) Samutsevich and Maria (Masha) Alyokhina, three members of the Pussy Riot collective were charged with the criminal act of hooliganism, forced to endure months of incarceration between public legal proceedings, tried in what amounted to little more than a kangaroo court and sentenced to hard labour in Siberia. As the world is well aware, their "crime" involved storming the historic Christ the Saviour Cathedral, taking to the altar (where women are not allowed to go, apparently on God's orders) and singing a few bars of their anti-Putin song for about 30 seconds before being dragged away by burly security goons into the shackles of the Moscow police.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Modern Russia!

Unlike Stalin's show trials, Putin's war against women and free speech, completely backfired. Like all sexist, misogynistic Russian patriarchs, Putin and his thugs assumed these young ladies would fold under pressure and display simpering, submissive remorse for their "crimes" and beg for the court's mercy. Instead, the members of Pussy Riot remained defiant, committed and intelligent beyond their years and certainly far more progressive than their brain-dead captors.

Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin's fine documentary feature film Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer wastes no time in presenting a stirring portrait of the trial that captured the world's imagination. The picture lays out the political context, the act of defiance itself and the ludicrous legal proceedings wherein the three young women so passionately and intelligently condemn the Totalitarian regime that, in the name of God (and Putin), seeks to keep its populace under the thumb of subjugation by blending the Czarist-style coalition between Church and State with the Terror Tactics of Joseph Stalin's Communist Dictatorship. Utilizing actual trial footage, news reports, archival materials and new interviews, the filmmakers give us a stirring and expertly edited portrait of these women as individuals and though their journey is harrowing, it equally inspirational in spite of the film ending with their final conviction and sentencing.

Though Putin attempted to save face in December by releasing the women from prison, it was clearly a cynical move meant to deflect attention away from his horrendous new laws that seek to discriminate and criminalize homosexuality - this on the eve of the Sochi Olympics. The frustration one feels watching the film is palpable. Putin and his lawmakers are clearly condemning the Stalinist destruction of religion, yet equating the attempts at free speech employed by Pussy Riot with the heinous actions of a Totalitarian Butcher. Anyone familiar with Orthodox Eastern Rite traditions (which - full disclosure - I was brought up with) realizes how backwards and patriarchal the religion actually is. The very nature of organized religions is to subjugate and the Slavic Orthodox traditions are there as a control mechanism. That Putin, a former Communist KGB thug is all of a sudden so concerned with religious freedoms he once repressed seems just so obvious and disingenuous.

To vilify and criminalize the actions of these young women is appalling and there's no doubt the film, though slanted in their favour, is choosing the proper high ground in this controversy. That Putin is using religion to further the subjugation of the Slavic people - not only in Russia, but in Ukraine and other countries - makes perfect sense, but it doesn't make it right. The film might well be detailing the plight of artists and free-thinkers in Russia under this dictatorship, but the film stands as an important testament to how this tactic is being employed right across the board - not just in the East, but the West as well.

The women of Pussy Riot are, frankly, heroes. My own daughter - NOT in Russia, but in a publicly funded school in Canada - was subjected to the most horrendous patriarchal abuse at the hands of Eastern Rite religion. Singled out by a teacher as a sinner, this sweet, bright (then ten-year-old) girl who "dared" to ask questions in an educational institution was ordered to kneel in the centre of the classroom while the rest of the students encircled her and prayed for her soul - to keep her from going to Hell.

(Note: Another example of this idiocy perpetrated against her in a Toronto school is detailed in Alan Zweig's brilliant documentary 15 Reasons To Live, released by Kinosmith.)

What's happening in Russia can and does happen everywhere. Religion is an opiate, but it's becoming, more and more, a weapon. Pussy Riot is a symbol of all women - and men - who refuse to kowtow to the Status Quo, especially in the spurious name of God. Pozdorovkin and Lerner's film is just the sort of weapon free-thinkers will need to battle the scourge attempting to drown all of us.

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer should be required viewing in ALL schools for all young people - as both inspiration and a springboard for greater dialogue as to fighting the forces that want us all to be cogs in a machine - slaves to the power brokers who seek ever more wealth and power.


"Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer" is currently in theatrical release via Kinosmith. It's begun its run at the Bloor Hot Docs Theatre in Toronto and will roll out across the rest of Canada.

THE PUNK SYNDROME - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Finally Opens Toronto: SEE IT THEATRICALLY OR DIE, MO-FO!!!

Two fresh viewings of this phenomenal rock-doc have prompted me to reassess my star rating and boost it from **** to *****. The film is not only superbly crafted, but its subjects are hardcore punks who embrace the anger-charged musical form to create the most phenomenal insight into what it means to be mentally disabled and forced to live in a world of fluorescent lighting, rigid control, shitty food and seemingly random rules as prescribed within the cold, institutional world of their homes for life. This opens theatrically in Toronto at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas via Kinosmith and it MUST be seen theatrically. Hopefully more cities will follow before it's released (hopefully) to Blu-Ray.

The Punk Syndrome (2012) *****
dir. Jukka Kärkkäinen & J-P Passi
Starring: Pertti Kurikka, Kari Aalto, Sami Helle, Toni Välitalo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day" is, without question, one of the greatest punk bands of all time. They are the unforgettable subjects of The Punk Syndrome, a breathtaking feature documentary that declares: "I demand your immediate attention or you die, motherfucker!" I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I had never heard of the band before. Now, I'll never forget them! Neither will you. This quartet of hard-core, kick-ass, take-no-fucking-prisoners sons of bitches pull no musical punches. They slam you in the face with repeated roundhouses - turning your flesh into pulpy, coarsely-ground hamburger meat. In true punk spirit, they crap on hypocrisy, celebrate a shackle-free life and dare your pulse not to pound with maniacal abandon.

The band is, of course, from Finland. This is the great land of the brown bear, the Capercaillie grouse and the nearly-extinct, but damned-if-they'll-go-down-without-a-fight Saimaa Ringed Seal - a country with one of the largest land masses and smallest populations in Europe that spawned the great glam group Hanoi Rocks, the brilliant hockey player Veli-Pekka Ketola and one of the world's greatest filmmakers, Aki Kaurismäki.

And now, Finland can boast of generating one the world's great punk bands, "Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day". With Pertti Kurikka's grinding lead guitar, Kari Aalto's powerhouse vocals, Sami Helle's muscular bass and Toni Välitalo on drums (a veritable punk rock Gene Krupa), this tight unit commands audiences with a power that borders on mesmerism.

Their songs - many of them ripped straight from Kurikka's diaries - take aim at government corruption, mindless bureaucracy and pedicures. Yes, pedicures!

Early in the film, Pertti Kurikka explains:

Writing a diary is important to me. I can release my anger. It is especially helpful to have a bad day. I’ll write in my diary that Pertti is a shithead, that Pertti is an asshole and that Pertti is a faggot and a shit-goddamn-asshole. Pertti will be stabbed. Pertti will be punched in the face. Pertti will be strangled to death.

Not every song the band sings spews venom, though. Giving a concert in a public square, the jaws of old ladies hit the ground, while young party animals hoist their fists in the air as the band extols the considerable virtues of mundane, but pleasant activities with the following lyrics:

It was a Sunday
I went to church
I had coffee
I took a dump

Three kick-ass chords and four glorious lines and we're hooked.

The movie follows the band from practising to recording, from jamming to performing, relationships with family, friends, fans and women. There are the usual creative differences between the band - some serious, and others, a bit more tongue in cheek. At one point, Kari complains to Kurikka, "When you write riffs for songs, don’t write such difficult ones. Write easy ones."

One of the most powerful sequences in the film, one that enshrines the picture as one of the truly great rock documentaries, is when the band plays a gig at a club in Tampere. The performance is mind-blowing and the audience is electric. The band sings:
Decision-Makers lock people up
In closed rooms
But we don’t wanna be in those rooms
Nobody looks after us
Nobody comes to visit us
What’s going to happen
To us orphans in those rooms?
Decision-makers cheat
Cheaters make decisions
They don’t give a shit
About us disabled
Decision-makers cheat
Cheaters make decisions
They don’t give a shit
About us disabled
In the dressing room after a truly intense performance, the band is triumphant. A beaming Kurikka declares, "This is as good as it gets".

And WHAMMO!

A breathtaking cut to a shot worthy of Ulrich Seidl - one that captures a terrible beauty of the character-bereft building the band lives in, a blue sky and a magic hour sun.

And yes, this is a band that writes and performs songs from the pits of their respective guts, from experience - their unique experience in the world as mentally disabled men.

Brave, passionate and talented men.

And yes, mentally disabled.

And they are so cool.

How cool?

They record their first single on vinyl.

That's how cool!

Just like this movie!

"The Punk Syndrome" opens theatrically December 13, 2013 via Kinosmith at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas. If there is any justice in the world, it will play theatrically in many more Canadian cities before it is released to Blu-Ray. It's a movie that demands an audience!

THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - See this history of Toronto Punk or DIE, motherfucker!

THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN is a thrilling epic journey into Toronto's legendary punk rock scene. It's a Joseph-Conrad-like boat ride into some kind of Hell that always feels like a Heaven as imagined by Anton LaVey. Directors Colin Brunton and Kire Papputs are the two halves of Willard on a mission that seems to have no real end. And if there is a heart of darkness on display, a Kurtz, if you will, it feels like every Status Quo fuck-wad that ignored this exciting scene. "The Last Pogo Jumps Again" is playing theatrically in Toronto at the Big Picture Cinema, 1035 Gerrard St East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4M 1Z6, Tel. 416 466 3636. Friday November 1 through Wednesday November 6 at 7:30 pm. Matinees on Sunday November 3 and Thursday November 6 at 3:30. (NB: No 7:30 pm show the evening of November 7.) Tickets are $10.00; Thursday November 7 matinee at 3:30 is $5.00 for students and the unemployed. The fuck else you doing this week anyway? Jerking off? Thumbing your asshole? Or sticking your dick through a glory hole to get some chump to slaveto the fuck out of it? Just see the fuckin' movie!!!

The Last Pogo Jumps Again (2012) ****
Dir. Colin Brunton, Kire Papputs

Review By Greg Klymkiw

PREAMBLE - Winnipeg's Punk Scene

So, like, some dude who works on the docks, his name is Réjean, corners you in a stall at Jilly's and says: "Suck my dick". We've all been there before. Right? Both parties are too skint to hit the V.I.P. room for some private dancing and before you can say, "Gimme summa lovin'", you're greedily gobbling the knob of this bearded, seven-footer with a plaid shirt and hoping for a nice reach-around. We've all been there. Right? So, okay, what if the same dude traps you in the shitter and growls, "Slaveto my dick!" - you're going to be, like, "The fuck, Réjean? You want me to WHAT?" From the late 70s until I can't remember when, the aforementioned conversation played out in my mind whenever I drove by an old garment district building in the Market Square area of Winnipeg that featured this spray-painted graffiti prominently displayed on its grey cement wall:

 SLAVETO

 MY DICK

Moments after I first read those words (in double-take, mind you) I knew the graffiti was that great song "SLAVE TO MY DICK" by Vancouver punk band, The Subhumans. Some moron with a can of spray paint was shit-facedly inspired to splooge the words via aerosol in a prominent location. The bonehead placed the words "slave" and "to" too fucking close together. This might not be true, but I remember the graffiti remained for decades after it first appeared - a beacon at the entranceway to this 7 or 8 square blocks in downtown Winnipeg that had become the stomping grounds of artists, actors, filmmakers, junkies, drunks, hookers and, of course, punks. It was a scene, know what I mean? And for about four years, the punk scene fuelled the crazy alternative film making scene at the Winnipeg Film Group. I can't think of a single person in their mid-40s-50s from the 'Peg who makes movies and WASN'T part of that scene. Great 'Peg punk and new wave bands - and I mean GREAT bands - belted out the coolest sounds imaginable. Bars like the Royal Albert or, my favourite, the "Chuckles" (or to malcontent veterans, the St. Charles Hotel) featured gig upon gig with local Winnipeg Punk/NewWavers like the Popular Mechanix, Personality Crisis, Dub Rifles, Lowlife, The Stretch Marks, Discharge, The Psychiatrists, The Bristow Hoppers - the list goes on and on - and bookers (often Winnipeg band members themselves) peppered the local acts with whatever punks from Toronto, Vancouver or the USA who could get their shit together enough to play the 'Peg. I was running a West-End movie theatre that played mostly cult films, sometimes sprinkled with live acts ("Nash the Slash VS. Eraserhead" read one of the immortal handbills). The "Scene" would come see a movie or two, blast down to the garment district, catch a punk band, then head to Walter and Megan's Lithium Cafe to belt back joe with tired hookers and their hopped-up pimps. This happened pretty much every night for many moons.

It's funny now, how many film or media people frolicked about the punk scene. John Paizs directed the quaintly perverse cinematic equivalent to 'Peg Punk with his brilliant short film The Obsession of Billy Botski and, years later he used the great Popular Mechanix song "IceBox City" during a joyous dance sequence in his immortal feature length cult classic Crime Wave. Guy Maddin blew his inheritance from Aunt Lil (her beauty parlour became the studio set for Tales from the Gimli Hospital) on 78 recordings of fruity 20s/30s tenors from this amazing store in Minneapolis, but also collected the most amazing number of punk albums which he purchased from Winnipeg's immortal Pyramid Records. Guy would gather everyone round to his place, quaintly adorned with his late Aunt Lil's doilies, and spin Richard Crooks singing Stephen Foster's "Old Black Joe", then switching from 78 to 33rpm, he'd announce something a bit more "challenging" was on its way - code for: this is some good shit I got from Pyramid Records and it's going to blow you the fuck away. In delicious contrast to "Old Black Joe", the needle gently found its groove and the room swelled with the aural explosion of Feederz crooning "Jesus Entering From The Rear". Radio producer John Copsey (he wears suits now) led a punk band that devoted themselves to worshipping the survivalist movement as preached on Winnipeg's community cable station TV show "Survival" featuring yours truly and Guy Maddin as apocalypse-welcoming rednecks. Lead singer of several great Winnipeg punk bands was none other than heartthrob Kyle McCulloch who starred in virtually every early John Paizs and Guy Maddin film and eventually became a head writer on TV's South Park. And lest we forget, Canada's highly esteemed journalist and political pundit in all media, Mr. Andrew Coyne, took to the stage with several other burgeoning writers from the University of Manitoba newspaper and in punk tradition, nary a one of them could actually play, but they gave their all as The Nimrods.

Happy times for many. Times that led to even happier times - for some. All were ultimately inspired by Winnipeg's punk scene, but most of all, the brilliant local artists - the musicians who made you soar higher than a kite with kickass punk/new wave music were the big motivators who instilled a more anarchic, freewheeling, devil-may-care spirit in so many of us to push the limits of our own lives and artistic pursuits. The music, unlike the arts inspired by it, had NO outlets of support to take the music and musicians to the next natural level. There were a few limited tapes or EPs cut, a handful of extremely indie albums, but this genuinely brilliant period of Winnipeg music - post The Guess Who and pre The Crash Test Dummies - lives in the minds, memories and movies of all those who loved it deeply and were fuelled by seeing it LIVE - night after night after blessedly blasphemous night.

THE MEAT & CORNMEAL OF THE POGO STICK CALLED TORONTO PUNK: YEAH, NOW YOU GET YOUR FUCKING FILM REVIEW OF

THE COLIN BRUNTON & KIRE PAPPUTS EPIC DOC

It took about 30 seconds of screen time for me to feel a surge of the old excitement I used to get in my late teens and early 20s in the aforementioned Winnipeg Scene. Here I was, watching The Last Pogo Jumps Again, the alternately thrilling and depressing but ultimately powerful story of the Toronto Scene de la PUNK and it mattered not that it was Toronto. Hell, I kind of felt like I was back in Winnipeg all over again.

I embraced the crazy, scrappy, downright dangerous insanity of this terrific documentary and fully accepted its body, its blood - like an unholy sacrement drained and scourged from the everlasting soul of Sid Vicious himself who died, NOT for OUR sins, but for his own and for the rest of us who were willing to commit our own - no matter how heinous or benign. This downright wonderful picture by Brunton and Papputs is a sacrament and I accept its fuck-you-filmmaking-moxie as much as I allow its people, places and music into my very soul as if they were my very own.

On the surface - this is a movie that shouldn't work - at least not by the standards of many un-cool fuck-wads who make cultural decisions in this country at both the public and private sectors - propped up comfortably on the nests they feather atop the podiums they take their dumps-a-plenty from as if they were showering the Great Unwashed with gold. It shouldn't work, but it does. Some might say it is solely about a subject only 100 or so people might get into. They'd be wrong. Others will complain (usually without seeing it) that the movie is too long - 3 hours and 20 minutes PLUS an intermission. Again - WRONG. I saw a much longer version and then this shorter version and frankly, I wish the filmmakers stuck to the original length. In fact, they could have made it even longer for some extra-sweet fuck-you cherries on the ice cream sundae.

Some might say the movie is a mess. Yeah, it is - sort of, but brilliantly and subversively it's a documentary equivalent to the punk scene itself and that's one of the many things I admire about it.

Here's the deal, when legendary Canadian film producer Colin Brunton was a teenager, he worked as an usher at the Roxy Theatre in Toronto - a deliciously fucked joint on the East End that combined 99-cent double features of art films and art sleaze with a kick-ass music scene. This temple of all things anti-peace-love-and-prebyterianism-a-la-Toronto was the jumping off point for so many who would contribute to one of the most thrilling music in the country.

Eventually the Scene moved further west in the otherwise Presbyterian pole-up-the-ass city. Pockets of fuck-you exploded at the New Yorker Theatre, along Spadina, in Kensington and, of course, Queen Street West when it wasn't full of fuck-wit rich people pretending to be poor. And the biggest fuck you explosion in Toronto was the exciting punk rock new wave scene.

Brunton and Papputs focus on a two year window - beginning at the Roxy and New Yorker Theatre gigs and ending with the famous Last Pogo when the Horseshoe Tavern on Queen decided to flush punk off its stages forever and a legendary concert that eventually culminated with a visit from Toronto's Finest Porkers with their night sticks and guns to boot the bands off the stage and patrons out onto the street. In reality, the window of this history is probably a wee bit larger, but what happens within the period the filmmakers choose to focus on is pretty much the trajectory that occurred not only in Toronto, but Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal - anywhere in Canada that had a vibrant punk scene, lots of devoted fans and absolutely no support from most of the mainstream media and a total fucking from the music business (like, what else is new?). The music business - virtually non-existent in Canada anyway - chose to ignore the Scene and for the one or two bands they took a passing fancy to, they basically sucked them RAW and DRY.

Uh, and like, what else is new?

NO REACH-AROUND!!!

Brunton was fully enmeshed in the whole Scene and chose to document the Last Pogo concert at the Horseshoe with a 16mm camera ('natch). This resulted in a scrappy little movie called ... come on, give it a guess ... come on, you can do it - Yesiree-Bob!!! You win the fuckin' Kewpie Doll - it was called The Last Pogo.

That was then - this is now and during the past six years the filmmakers embarked on an odyssey to interview as many members of the Scene as possible and create a document that would serve as an artistic and living testimony to a slice of Canadian popular culture that many would prefer to forget and/or even refuse to acknowledge it even (or ever) existed.

And The Last Pogo Jumps Again is a joy - a real joy. Blending new and archival interviews and footage with all the onstage and behind the scenes players, the movie tells a tale as inspiring as it is sad - but what keeps the whole thing buoyant is the mad genius on view in both the words and performances of the likes of D.O.A., The Viletones, Teenage Head and all the rest of this Scene of gloriously talented purveyors of fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-fucking-rode-in-on. Some of those interviewed keep playing, others have morphed their love of music into other areas of the music business while some have chosen to grow up and get real jobs - and it's a testament to the obsessive qualities of the filmmaking itself that it's simply impossible to NOT like anyone in the picture.

Some of the interview highlights for me were poignant moments with the late Frankie Venom of Teenage Head, the brilliant, erudite Andy Paterson of The Government and without question, the vitriol-and-venom spewing Steve Leckie from the Viletones - a poet, an artist, a gentleman curmudgeon of the highest order.

The Last Pogo Rides Again definitely feels like a Joseph-Conrad-like boat ride into some kind of Hell that always feels like a Heaven as imagined by Anton LaVey. Brunton and Papputs are the two halves of Willard on a mission that seems to have no real end. And if there is a heart of darkness on display, a Kurtz, if you will, it feels like every Status Quo fuck-wad that ignored this exciting scene.

And it's an important film. So much of Canada's truly vibrant culture has been squashed or ignored. Here's a film that holds up a slice of it that not only created great work in and of itself, but was an inspiration and seed for so much that followed in a variety of artistic mediums.

Never mind the cornucopia of great artists, filmmakers, writers, playwrights, actors and other truly gifted iconoclasts who sprouted from Toronto's Punk Scene - they're out there, doing their thing - they know who they are and so do we. But a word about the visionary Colin Brunton: he might well be the true soul and pulse of indie filmmaking in the Toronto Scene and even to this day, one feels his visionary influence upon the first two great rock pictures directed by Bruce McDonald. Roadkill and Highway 61 feel very much like they're as much Brunton's sensibilities as they are McDonald's. What sets Brunto apart from most producers in this country is that he doesn't come from some bullshit rarified place - he's the real thing. He's been there. He's done that. And all his collaborations feel like they're moulded and charged by his love for film, his knowledge of ALL the rules - artistically AND practically - so he can motherfucking break them when necessary and finally, his genuine life experience which he injects into every project he undertakes.

He's all over The Last Pogo Jumps Again, but he clearly has a collaborator in Paputts that shares this crazy-ass vision. They clearly make a great team because they've made a great movie.

See it. Or die, motherfucker!

"The Last Pogo Jumps Again" is playing theatrically in Toronto at the Big Picture Cinema, 1035 Gerrard St East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4M 1Z6, Tel. 416 466 3636. Friday November 1 through Wednesday November 6 at 7:30 pm. Matinees on Sunday November 3 and Thursday November 6 at 3:30. (NB: No 7:30 pm show the evening of November 7.) Tickets are $10.00; Thursday November 7 matinee at 3:30 is $5.00 for students and the unemployed.

The fuck else you doing this week anyway? Jerking off? Thumbing your asshole? Or sticking your dick through a glory hole to get some chump to slaveto the fuck out of it? Just see the fuckin' movie!!!

I, for one, can hardly wait for some kind of deluxe Blu-Ray - a numbered limited edition Box-set with the full version of the movie I originally saw - maybe even a LONGER one, tons of the good shit that hit the cutting room floor, commentaries galore and, for good measure a two-by-four-across-the-teeth soundtrack. I expect someone like Kino-Smith or Indie-Can to do this. If they don't, I assume Brunton will do it himself anyway. Better that, actually. He and Papputs can divvy up the profits without a middleman.