Rankin's Feature Debut, World Premiere @ TIFF 2019 / By Greg Klymkiw

The Twentieth Century (2019)
Dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Dan Beirne, Louis Negin

Report and Review By Greg Klymkiw

The festivities surrounding the World Premiere of Matthew Rankin’s glorious feature film The Twentieth Century at TIFF 2019 got off to a delightful start when I received a communique from him hoping that I might be able to muster the added “psychic energy” to attend yet another social event.

You see, I’d been kvetching to Matthew about the ridiculous number of film festival social events I had been attending (including a four-hour-long stint at the Canadian Film Centre BBQ on Sunday in which I traversed my way through amongst the throngs on the lawns of the North York Windfields estate).

I was keen to celebrate Matthew’s formidable achievements and when he extended an invitation to a soiree hosted by his Quebec-based distributor Maison 4:3, I was, in fact, thrilled to accept his gracious entreaties. Though Matthew and I hang our hats these days, respectively in Montreal and Toronto, we are both Winnipeggers born-and-bred and any excuse to hang out in our homes away from our Prairie Hearts/Roots, is enough of a cause for celebration.

However, when Matthew provided the address to the fête, my jaw dropped and I wondered if he had concocted a friendly ruse to send me into the heart of darkness in the east end of downtown Toronto. You see, the celebratory event would be taking place just behind a notorious rooming house that doubles as a brothel for street hookers and a home for malcontent veterans.

This same location was also just across the street from a park filled with enterprising purveyors of crack cocaine, meth and other mind-altering delights.

“Seriously, Matthew, is this REALLY where the party is?” He confirmed the address. The cockles of my heart warmed to a comfortable level of Hellfire. 

Gotta love Montreal film distributors!

The party itself was on the top floor of a gorgeous brownstone and outfitted with all manner of delectable comestibles and libations. A special treat included an array of candies (which I filled my pockets with to eventually give to the daughter of Coppers director Alan Zweig).

And, get this: bowls of cigarettes were available.

This was truly a first.

I’ve been going to film festival parties for decades and I have NEVER seen oodles of free cigarettes available on the buffet tables. (Though, in fairness, during one of my sojourns to the Berlin Film Festival in the late 90s, the Berlinale marketplace was crawling with young ladies dressed as Cowgirls handing out mini-packs of Marlboro cigarettes.)

But this was indeed a first! Cigarettes with pita, dips and candies knocked this event right out of the park. Though I had quit smoking cigarettes months ago, I did indeed break down and join Matthew’s producers out in the back alley for several smokes, a grungy locale conveniently perched behind the aforementioned rooming house of dubious repute.

Curiously, given the wide availability of hallucinogens in the park across the street, no such treats were available at the party - at least not in plain view.

And then, on Tuesday came the main event - the official world premiere at the huge packed house at the Ryerson Theatre on Gerrard. This yielded yet another first. The Midnight Madness director of programming Peter Kuplowsky was adorned in full Royal Canadian Mounted Police regalia. Prior to introducing Matthew and the film, Kuplowsky took to the stage and sang “Oh Canada” in both English and French. Hundreds of audience members stood at attention and sang our national anthem along with him.

Needless to say, the movie was a huge hit - greeted with laughs, gasps and applause. Matthew was accompanied after the screening by his entire cast and a spirited Q and A ensued.

The movie is great, to be sure, but the film's mad inspired genius was matched by the showmanship of a truly magnificent party and premiere. Winnipeggers and Montrealers are an unbeatable combination, mais non?

And now, as to a few ruminations on the greatness of Matthew Rankin and the great movie itself...

I wish I could remember the precise year I first met Matthew Rankin, but I do recall it was on the grounds of the Windfields Estate which houses “Uncle” Norman Jewison’s Canadian Film Centre (CFC) during the annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) CFC BBQ. In those halcyon years I taught and mentored young filmmakers there, sharing an office (the late E.P. Taylor’s office, no less) with John Paizs (a pioneer of independent filmmaking in Winnipeg).

What I recall about first meeting Matthew was coming face to face with this insanely young, dashing, erudite gentleman and member of the Winnipeg Film Group (WFG) who sought me out amongst the throngs of TIFF denizens prowling the rolling lawns in search of free booze and hamburgers. Matthew might well have been in search of similar libations and comestibles, but I remember this first meeting very fondly due to the fact that I was in the presence of a filmmaker from Winnipeg, my old “Winter City” (a phrase I continue to coin and rip-off from Paizs who placed the term in the mouth of his immortal title character in the legendary WFG short The Obsession of Billy Botski).

I was immediately drawn to Matthew, this brilliant young fellow whose acute cinema literacy was at a highly advanced level, but that he also amazingly seemed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge and love of those in Winnipeg who came before him. He not only knew and loved the 100+ years of Cinema History, but he was able to rattle off scenes, shots and dialogue from a myriad of WFG films. And now, here we are in 2019. When I first got wind of the title of Matthew's film I assumed it would be an homage to the great 1934 Howard Hawks pre-code screwball romantic comedy Twentieth Century with John Barrymore and Carole Lombard (a movie I’m not embarrassed to admit to having 40+ viewings under my belt). Rankin’s film is definitely in the spirit of that magnificently insane movie - it’s decidedly screwball, wildly romantic and blessed with style to burn. However, as I used to say to all my young filmmakers, it’s important to ingest 100+ years of history to not only “rip-off cool shit”, but to take that influence and use it as a springboard for their own unique voice. Rankin’s film is easily just as funny as the Howard Hawks picture, but it’s pure Rankin.

Over the years I was so privileged to discover and revel in Matthew's work. The Twentieth Century brings me back to everything I loved and continue to love about his short films: the classic piece of prairie post-modernism, Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets (which Rankin co-directed with the estimable Mike Maryniuk and Walter Forsberg); the magnificence that is Mynarski Death Plummet, the only film to ever detail the bravery of that famous Manitoba “Moose Squadron” gunner (and with clear, glorious nods to Powell/Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death); and of course, Rankin’s Cannes Film Festival hit, The Tesla World Light which so grandly plunged us into the magnificent synaesthesia of the visionary Serbian-American engineer-inventor Nikola Tesla. (Of course for me, on a personal level, one of the cool things about The Twentieth Century was seeing Matthew pay homage to a number of films made in Winnipeg that I had actually produced.)

And here’s the amazing thing - Rankin’s work reflects elements of Canadian history that are all but forgotten and ignored. Though some might have a smattering of knowledge with respect to the clearly insane Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (Dan Beirne), the central figure of The Twentieth Century, Rankin plunges us into the early political life of that complete and utter madman in ways that no mere biopic would ever be able to do. (King's perverse relationship with his Mother played by the initimitable Louis Negin is definitely a high point in the film's perversity sweepstakes.)

The Twentieth Century is a kaleidoscopic dreamscape, the likes of which we’ve never quite seen. And it’s not only gorgeous to behold, but it’s laugh-out-loud funny. And yes, it is infused with love for the sheer joy of cinema. Seeing this movie reminds me of why I fell in love with movies in the first place.

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

The Twentieth Century: World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2019) Midnight Madness series

THE CRESCENT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2017: Lewtonesque Horror in Nova Scotia

Grief shared by a mother and son.

The Crescent (2017)
Dir. Seth A. Smith
Scr. Seth A. Smith, Darcy Spidle
Starring: Danika Vandersteen, Woodrow Graves, Andrew Gillis

Review By Greg Klymkiw

More often than not we choose to confront numbing grief with escape. Facing bereavement head-on is said to be the best way of dealing with the debilitation that loss inspires, but we're all only human after all and it's just so much easier to run away and repress. (And believe you me, repression is not always without merit.)

Beth (Danika Vandersteen) is a beautiful young (recent) widow who hightails it to a remote house at Silver Crescent Beach (outside of Halifax) with her 2-year-old child Lowen (Woodrow Graves, real-life son of producer Nancy Urich and director Seth Smith). They find themselves in a huge, stylishly imposing domicile overlooking the roiling seas of the Atlantic Ocean and live out a quiet existence of walking the beach, playing together and for Beth, a brilliant talented visual artist, losing herself in the creation of gorgeously disturbing pieces generated through the abstract printing process of paper marbling.

From time to time, there are a few residents they encounter. On the surface, these denizens of the remote environs appear relatively benevolent, but given the film's increasingly mounting creepiness and the simple fact that it's a horror film, it doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to figure out that they might not be who, or rather, what they appear to be.

As the events unfurl in a meticulous slow-burn pace, with plenty of cerebral mind-blowing explosions of visual fireworks, director Smith eventually unleashes all-out, drawer-filling scares and in one delicious set piece, the kind of sickening visceral splatter that horror aficionados will love. It's always lovely seeing a quiet, intelligent horror film that channels the energies and artistry of RKO's master of atmospheric chills Val Lewton (The Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, The Seventh Victim, The Body Snatcher).

If anything, the Lewton picture The Crescent most resembles in terms of both horror and deep emotional resonance is the Robert Wise-Gunther von Fritsch collaboration The Curse of the Cat People. Sometimes there's just nothing scarier and more disturbing than a child's loneliness and grief. And, of course, a Mother's. Lewton knew and pioneered the notion that horror was what we all faced in our daily lives. The Crescent picks up this torch very nicely indeed. Darcy Spidle and Smith generate a terrific screenplay. Writing "visually" is the greatest challenge contemporary scripts face and it's a joy to experience such purely cinematic writing that adheres to the needs of narrative beats and character, but does so with a kino-eye.

The performances in the film are all blessed with the kind of naturalism that is refreshing (artist Vandersteen in her motion picture debut is radiant, the camera loves her), but in particular, toddler Groves steals the show with a child performance to rival that of the extraordinary Victoire Thivisol in Jacques Doillon's Ponette and the astonishing Brigitte Fossey in René Clément's Jeux Interdits, both classic films dealing with childhood perspectives upon grief, to which The Crescent can proudly keep company with, but with, blood - and when it comes, plenty o' crimson ooze.

THE FILM CORNER REVIEW: **** Four Stars

The Crescent screens at TIFF 2017. If this film is any indication of what we can expect from new TIFF Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky in this, his inaugural solo year, I suspect we have a very worthy successor to former longtime MM toppers Colin Geddes and Noah Cowan.

DOG EAT DOG - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Schrader NailsBunker Book Bigtime

Dog Eat Dog (2016)
Dir. Paul Schrader
Scr. Matthew Wilder
Nvl. Edward Bunker
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Matthew Cook

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The first few minutes of Paul Schrader's sprightly and downright buoyant film adaptation of Edward Bunker's classic crime novel Dog Eat Dog plunges us into a kaleidoscopic, drug-fueled fantasia via Willem Dafoe (as the appropriately monikered "Mad Dog"). This juicily ramps up to one of the most shocking acts of violence imaginable, at least within the oh-so-tender context of Mad Dog promising his porcine "lady love" some good lovin' and a mess o' delectable short ribs. And then the picture forcibly butt-blasts us raw into an even more appalling "OH-FUCK-NO-REALLY?" salvo of horrifyingly hilarious carnage. At this point, it's obvious how terrific this movie is going to be.

This is no surprise, really. As the screenwriter of Taxi Driver and director of Blue Collar, Hardcore, Light Sleeper, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, American Gigolo, Auto Focus and the insanely brilliant and unfairly-drubbed The Canyons, the very idea of Schrader directing a Bunker adaptation makes the mouth water. The execution goes well beyond anticipatory salivation - he pins us to the floor and fiercely has his way with us. And we cum and we cum and we cum.

Troy (Nicolas Cage) is the snaky, charming mastermind behind the Holy Trinity of ex-cons which includes the aforementioned Mad Dog and the burly Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook). After performing a series of small-money scams, which they pull off by the barely competent skins of their wobbly teeth, Troy decides the time is right for the ultimate crime-fueled payday. The Greek (Schrader himself, in a gruffly funny turn) offers them the job of a lifetime; their lifetime, anyway. A scumbag gangster owes The Greek a whack of dough and the job is to kidnap the thug's baby for a princely ransom.

To say things go smoothly might be an understatement, but the major league fumbles guarantee knee-slappers aplenty and blood-soaked shenanigans of the most lovingly repellent kind.

Screenwriter Matthew Wilder deftly updates Bunker's book (a period piece would clearly have cost a small fortune and might well have been un-financeable given the film's darkly hilarious overtones) and shifting the locale from Los Angeles to Cleveland manages to up the ante on the sleaze factor most succulently. 

Schrader's visual palate is gorgeously achieved by the sturdy, no-holds-barred lensing of Alexander Dynan, and ranges from grimy 70s filthiness to fine-grained monochrome to out-and-out blasts of garishly happy 80s colour - splashing across the screen like Jackson Pollock on crystal meth. The cutting of Ben Rodriguez Jr. appropriately jettisons the action along without resorting to unnecessary wham-bam-thank-you-M'am gymnastics and both the music and design elements add oodles of panache to the proceedings.

Dog Eat Dog is one of the best crime pictures of the year, but most of all, it had me soaring out of the cinema feeling like a helium balloon (especially when Cage delivers a moving Bogart riff).

Oh yeah, and it has plenty of nudity. One can never go wrong with that.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ****

Dog Eat Dog plays Midnight Madness at TIFF 2016

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Slicing and Dicing in the Morgue at TIFF's legendary Midnight Madness series and this Christmas in movie theatres from Raven Banner and IFC Midnight.

Father-son coroners discover that a little something
has been removed "non-surgically, crudely"
from the comely maw of Jane Doe.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) ****
Dir. André Øvredal
Scr. Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing
Starring: Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, Ophelia Lovibond, Olwen Kelly

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Tommy Tilden (Brian Cox) and his son Austin (Emile Hirsch) deal in meat - dead meat, that is. Dad is a coroner and his son a skilled autopsy assistant. No corpse is too raw, decimated, burned and butchered for these men to slice and dice with skilled, stylish authority, often with a local FM radio station blaring rock n' roll amidst folksy chat and weather reports.

One especially dark night brings in the remains of a Jane Doe (Olwen Kelly), so named in the parlance of all matters dead as she has no identification, and weirdly, her body was discovered in the basement of a mysterious crime scene and even stranger still, appears unrelated to the grisly events within the home it's been extricated from.

The first order of business is an external examination. The beautiful young corpse has no outside signs of trauma, but closer inspection reveals internal shattering of the wrists and ankles, an uncommonly tiny waist (as if it had been corseted) and most alarmingly, within her pretty maw, the tongue has been sliced out - not surgically, but violently.

"I've seen something like this before," offers the wise, old Tommy. This is a line that comes out of his mouth like a veritable mantra. It's when he starts to say, "I've never seen anything like this before," that things get even creepier. (And believe me, the movie is plenty creepy from the get-go.)




Once the scalpels come out (and my favourite, the rib crackers), father and son discover a wealth of sickening items (yes, ITEMS!!!) and extremely distressing indignities within poor Jane Doe. When the radio keeps announcing an impending storm, flooding and power outages, there's plenty to add to the characters' (and audience's) increasingly queasy stomachs. When the radio begins to repeatedly blare out a cheesy song with the lyrics "open up your heart and let the sun shine in", we all know we're in for trouble.

Once the scalpels come out, father and son
discover a wealth of internal indignities.

When the movie forces us to go apoplectic is when we hear a bell tinkling. Tommy is an old school coroner, you see, and as such, affixes the big toe of each corpse with a bell (used in the "old days" in case a corpse is, well, not a corpse).

Now, just the thought of a movie starring Brian Cox (Manhunter, Adaptation) and Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild, Killer Joe) as father-son coroners is enough to tantalize the horror buds. That it's the first Engish-language film by the Norwegian Trollhunter director André Øvredal should send all horror aficionados into conniption fits of joy.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is one of the creepiest, scariest horror films of the year. It does not disappoint. The screenplay by Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing is both original and intelligent, but not without a few familiar horror tropes and frissons to keep everyone on the edge of their seats. With the uber-talented Øvredal at the helm, brilliantly utilizing the astonishingly designed set to maximum impact, we are drawn into a gloriously terrifying and happ-happ-happily sickening cesspool of sheer terror.




Cox and Hirsch are great actors to be sure and acquit themselves beautifully, but the really amazing performance comes from Olwen Kelly as the corpse. Playing dead might be one of the hardest things actors have to do, but given that Jane Doe is a corpse that begins to take on the chilling properties of an entity infused with the spirit of life, or afterlife, Olwen's command of both her body and face throughout the entire proceedings is thespian artistry of the highest order.

There is much I could further reveal about this terrific picture, but frankly, audiences owe it to themselves to experience every clever, shocking turn of the plot amidst an atmosphere of mounting doom, all on their lonesome. Well, preferably not on their own. It's worth seeing with someone you love, or for that matter, just someone.

Anyone.

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

The Autopsy of Jane Doe plays in the Midnight Madness section of TIFF 2016. It will be released theatrically for Christmas via Raven Banner and IFC Midnight.

BASKIN - Review By Greg Klymkiw at "ELECTRIC SHEEP - a deviant view of cinema" - TIFF 2015: Turkish Tarantino-esque Cops Meet Satan during Black Mass investigation

Read Greg Klymkiw's **** review of BASKIN, a TIFF 2015 Midnight Madness wad of depravity. Just visit "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema" by clicking HERE.

MOEBIUS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - South Korean Maestro Delivers Ultimate Date Movie via VSC @TheRoyal

Moebius (2013)
Dir. Ki-duk Kim
Starring: Jae-hyeon Jo, Eun-woo Lee, Young-ju Seo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Moebius is my idea of a perfect date movie because, frankly, any date who storms out of it in disgust is, quite simply, not someone you want to spend any time with anyway. Good riddance, I say! You don't like Ki-duk Kim? Find some loser who'll suffer through dinner at The Keg followed by a screening of The Fault in Our Stars.

Life's too short! Hasta la vista, baby! Granted, you might have to see Moebius by yourself, but that's just fine. Why see it with anyone unless you can see it with someone you truly love?

Love, by the way, is what this picture is all about. Love between a husband and wife, a husband and his mistress, a husband and his son and, well, in addition to a few other love couplings, each getting more perversely intense than the last, Moebius is ultimately focused upon the greatest love of all, love for a penis. Not just any penis, mind you. When a disgruntled wifey attempts to slice the penis off her philandering hubby, she's thwarted in her efforts by not quite being, uh, on the ball enough to do it properly. In frustration, she does the next best thing, she slices off the penis belonging to her teenage son. An aghast hubby thinks the penis might be salvageable, but wifey does what any Mother would do, she stuffs it in her mouth and eats it.

A teenage lad without a penis is a pitiful thing. He sprays urine all over his shoes in public washrooms, is teased by classmates and he can't even indulge in a gang rape properly. Dad teaches the lad how to make use of extreme self-inflicted pain as an erogenous zone and eventually does what any good father would do. Dad sacrifices his own penis so his Son can be a man again.

Alas, the penis truly belongs to Dad and can only give pleasure to those who received pleasure from it and can only receive pleasure from those who once pleasured it. Uh, Mom? We think you're needed in Sonny's boudoir.

To say Moebius might not be appreciated by everyone is probably an understatement, but it's a dazzlingly sickening and funny exploration of family, fidelity, love and, ultimately, the notion of anatomy taking on personal properties rooted (so to speak) in the spirit from whence it came.

The only guarantee I can ultimately offer, however, is that you'll have not quite seen anything like Moebius. The film is pitched to levels of extremity seldom matched and director Ki-duk Kim tells his perverse tale with no dialogue and plenty of over-the-top pantomime. This is nothing to discount. It's pure cinema!

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

Moebius is in limited release via VSC and is on display at Toronto's majestic Royal Cinema.

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THE GUEST - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF MIDNIGHT MADNESS - TIFF 2014

Good thrillers
ALWAYS have
BABES & HUNKS
(in addition to
being, uh, good)

The Guest (2014)
Dir. Adam Wingard
Starring: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This creepy, edge-of-you-seat thriller is a cool contemporary take on Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. It ain't Hitchcock (what is?) and The Master would never let scribe Simon Barrett get away with the disappointing, too-predictable "shocker" reveal that slides its way into the proceedings, but director Wingard more-than-ably puts his terrific thespians through decent blood-soaked gymnastics.

David's (Dan Stevens) an army pal of Caleb, a young fella who died bravely in battle. Returning from his tour of duty in lovely Afghanistan, he pays a surprise visit to the lad's grieving family to relay the verbal messages croaked out in his friend's death rattles. The family is so charmed by the handsome, but kind of "off" David, that he's invited into their home to stay as a guest.

Caleb's little sister, the babe-o-licious Anna (Maika Monroe, also leading the casting charge in It Follows) is certainly enamoured with David's buff, hunky good looks, but as the film progresses, she's able to see there's something not all together right with The Guest. Danger looms, as does the bloodletting.

When it's revealed that David might not entirely be telling the truth, she keeps her eye on him and eventually realizes her family might be at risk of being iced. This is not only a good deal for thriller fans, but it's a nice contemporary spin on Hitch's classic by utilizing the whole backdrop of psychos-in-the-army, post-traumatic stress disorder and, of course, America's ridiculous waste of human life in their moronic "war on terror".

Wingard's direction here is more taut and assured than his previous outing You're Next and even when the plot veers into please-don't-go-there territory (a similar problem that afflicted the aforementioned 2011 thriller), it's still a sheer delight to see how well the filmmaker manages the carnage, action and suspense. No need to be a total grumpy-pants like I was about the predictable turns eventually taken by the plot. The Guest is ultimately a corker of a thriller that'll more than satisfy one's need to accidentally expunge waste matter in one's panties.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

The Guest is a Dfilms and Picturehouse release launching in TIFF's 2014 Midnight Madness series.

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TUSK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2014 - TIFF MIDNIGHT MADNESS

WALRUS FETISHISTS
UNITE!
MANITOBA'S
INTERLAKE
A HOTBED
FOR TUSK LOVERS
FROM AMERICA!

Tusk (2014)
Dir. Kevin Smith
Starring: Michael Parks, Justin Long, Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez, Johnny Depp

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Beware of Bifrost, Manitoba. If he's not careful, a dude can be turned into a walrus in that neck of the Interlake Region. In fact, that's what's been happening thereabouts in a remote mansion in the woods. It's the home of serial killer Howard Howe (Michael Parks), a crusty, poetry-spouting ex-seaman who, as a lad, was rescued from certain death by a walrus, but forced by hunger to eat his blubbery pal. Since that fateful day, Howe returned to his home in Canada and traversed the highways and byways above the 49th parallel, luring young men into his clutches, drugging them, then butchering them on an operating table in one attempt after another to create a walrus out of a human being. When Wallace Bryton (Justin Long), a crass American podcaster comes to Winnipeg, he finds his way into Howe's clutches. Though he's butchered beyond recognition, the lad might find salvation in the form of his best friend (Haley Joel Osmont), his hot girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) and a dogged Quebecois detective (Johnny Depp) with a penchant for Gimli Sliders. Now, if any of this sounds remotely stupid, that's because it is. Written and directed by Kevin (Clerks) Smith, one of the more prolific indie American directors, but aesthetically, one of the laziest, Tusk takes the booby prize for being the best film set in Manitoba, but filmed in North Carolina.

Other than 70s icon Michael Parks deliciously chewing the scenery with a few genuinely hilarious monologues penned by Smith and an almost unrecognizable Johnny Depp mugging his way through a pretty damn funny performance as the Joual-spouting inbred from La Belle Province, I can't actually say this is a particularly good movie, but it is intermittently damn entertaining.

Part of it is surely the idea of walrus-obsession. They're damn cute creatures and look uber-cuddly with those rolls of blubber, long whiskers, sad eyes and humungous tusks, so already the movie has a bit of a leg up on pretty much any other movie. As well, the picture is jam-packed with all manner of stereotypical references to Canada and that's always worth celebrating. In fact, Smith even has the appalling poor taste to provide a backstory (and monologue) for Michael Parks detailing his own character's childhood of painful sexual abuse in orphanages.

For some reason, though, I can't find it in me to take a dump on Smith for any of this since the movie alternately creeped me out and made me laugh. I do, however, fault him for continuing to be an unbelievably lazy filmmaker. The movie is a structural mess and goes on for at least 15 to 20 minutes too long, but if you're in the right frame of mind and/or a sick puppy and/or stoned out of your gourd and/or harbour a deep-seeded walrus fetish, there are certainly considerable pleasures to be had (including, YES! Fleetwood Mac doing "Tusk" on the soundtrack).

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

Tusk has its world premiere at TIFF 2014 in TIFF'S MIDNIGHT MADNESS.

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[REC]4 APOCALYPSE - TIFF 2014 - TIFF MIDNIGHT MADNESS - Review By Greg Klymkiw

A babe and bloodletting. Not much else.

[REC]4 Apocalypse (2014)
Dir. Jaume Balagueró
Starring: Manuela Velasco

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The terrific Spanish horror franchise [REC] has proven to be a consistently entertaining regular dose of zombie-infection madness since the first instalment burst upon the scene in 2007. The simple premise had babe-o-licious reporter Manuela Velasco and her crew following a rescue team into a decrepit Barcelona apartment complex where they're beleaguered by crazed zombies. The found footage conceit made perfect sense and worked beautifully.

Though the second instalment was decent, it felt like more of the same until the terrific third feature in the series which transposed us to a yummy blood spattered wedding that cleverly utilized wedding video footage. Alas, [REC]4 is the supposed final chapter, but it's a pale shade of what preceded it.

This time round we find ourselves stuck on a research ship with a whack of scientists conducting gruesome experiments to find an antidote for the infection. Onboard is Velasco, plucky and kick-ass as per usual, plus we get a few laughs out of the Dementia-afflicted matriarch from the [REC]3 wedding.

Our heroine, it seems, is carrying the gloopy-gloppy slithering parasite which is the infection's host. Complications predictably set in and the antidote is far from ready to go. Needless to say, the infection begins to afflict crew members and in no time we've got an all-out zombie-fest aboard ship. There's also the threat of a ticking time-bomb in the form of the ship's possible destruction in case the experiments go completely out to lunch.

It's a fair enough premise for this sort of thing, but the movie feels worn and tired-out. There's plenty of gore, but the scares and tension never adequately materialize since the movie is afflicted with a been-there-done-that "quality".

Worse yet, the found footage approach has been pretty much jettisoned, but for some reason, the whole movie is shot in the annoying and unjustifiable shaky-cam-herky-jerky ADHD-afflicted editing for absolutely no reason. The style feels sloppy and not-well-thought-out, resulting in plenty of yawn-inspiring moments.

Those looking for gruesome violence will not be disappointed, but anyone seeking genuine thrills and chills will feel they're simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The movie bombards us with so much sound and fury that it finally adds up to much ado about nothing, save for bloodletting and not much more. The only positive note is the wonderful Velasco who is, as always, gorgeous and certainly worth eyeballing for ninety minutes.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two-Stars

[REC]4 is unspooling at TIFF 2014 in the Midnight Madness series. Visit the TIFF website HERE.

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THE EDITOR - TIFF 2014 (TIFF MIDNIGHT MADNESS) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Giallo4U

Udo Kier, tender lovemaking and a virgin bending over
in the triumphant new Astron-6 production that
presents more than a few things
you don't see everyday!

The Editor (2014)
Dir. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy
Starring: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Paz de le Huerta, Udo Kier, Laurence R. Harvey, Tristan Risk, Samantha Hill, Conor Sweeney, Brent Neale, Kevin Anderson, Mackenzie Murdock, John Paizs

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Okay, ladies and gents, strap-on your biggest vibrating butt-plugs and get ready to plop your ass cheeks upon your theatre seat and glue your eyeballs upon The Editor, the newest and most triumphant Astron-6 production to date and easily the greatest thrill ride since Italy spewed out the likes of Tenebre, Inferno, Opera, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Beyond, Strip Nude For Your Killer, Don't Torture a Duckling, Hitch-Hike, Shock, Blood and Black Lace, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Kill Baby Kill and, of course, Hatchet for the Honeymoon. You'll relive, beyond your wildest dreams, those films which scorched silver screens the world over during those lazy, hazy, summer days of Giallo. But, be prepared! The Editor is no mere copycat, homage and/or parody - well, it is all three, but more! Directors Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy have created a modern work that holds its own with the greatest gialli of all time.

Great giallo MUST HAVE babes screaming.

It's laugh-out-loud funny, grotesquely gory and viciously violent. Though it draws inspiration from Argento, Fulci, Bava, et al, the movie is so dazzlingly original that you'll be weeping buckets of joy because finally, someone has managed to mix-master all the giallo elements, but in so doing has served up a delicious platter of post-modern pasta du cinema that both harkens back to simpler, bloodier and nastier times whilst also creating a piece actually made in this day and age.

What, for example, can anyone say about a film that features the following dialogue:

BLONDE STUD: So where were you on the night of the murder?
BLONDE BABE: I was at home washing my hair and shaving my pussy.

Well, let me tell you what one can say to this sampling of dialogue thats's indicative of the film's approach to all things irreverent and original:

HALLELUJAH!!!

A TRUE Giallo Hero MUST sport
a stylish FRANCO NERO moustache

To the uninitiated, Giallo is the Italian word for "yellow". Its cultural significance is derived from pulp novels published in Italy with trademark yellow paperback covers. Giallo films are the cinematic expression of this literary tradition. The stories usually involve a psychopath (often wearing black gloves and other costume-like elements to hide his, and sometimes her, identity) who stalks and murders babes. All other kills are strictly of the opportunistic variety and usually include anyone who gets in the way (expected or not) of the killer's motives/quarry.

The movies are splashed with globs of garish colour, replete with cool jarring camera moves like quick pans, swish pans, zany zooms and a delightful abundance of shock cuts. The narrative ingredients will almost always include a hero whom everyone thinks is guilty, a few red herring suspects, disloyal and/or uppity wives, sweet young things to tempt cuckolded hubbies and detectives who are almost always on the wrong trail (some are decent-enough dicks), others well-meaning and others yet, are boneheads rivalling the Order of Clouseau. Studs and babes are de rigueur. Nudity and sex are almost always the norm. This is a world we ALL want to live in. (If "we" don't, "we" are dullards.) Into this time-honoured tradition comes The Editor. Its deceptively simple plot involves Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks, with the greatest Franco Nero moustache since Franco Nero). A once-prominent film editor who accidentally chopped four of his fingers off and now sports four hooks in their stead, covered by a stylish flesh-coloured, finger-shaped slipcover-like glove. His handicap, more often than not, forces him to edit with one hand.

Working for a sleazy producer, our title hero eventually becomes the prime suspect in a series of brutal murders perpetrated one-by-one against the members of the film's cast. The salient detail is that all the victims have had four of their fingers chopped off. If any of them had actually survived, they, like Rey, would suffer the indignity of being referred to as "the cripple".

To complicate matters, Rey has fallen head over heels for his beautiful, young assistant editor, but he tries to resist seducing her, even though at one point she demands, "Make me a woman." Rey, however, points out their age difference: "You are just a little girl. Play with the boys your own age."

Besides, he's locked into an unhappy marriage with a sexy, but spiteful has-been actress (Paz de le Huerta) - a harping shrew who openly cuckolds Rey. At one point, she admits to having eyes for one of the lead actors in the film Rey is editing. Our hero snidely quips, "What would you do if he died?" Wifey is outraged by his mind games and responds: "I would cry. I would cry. I would cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry," and then adds, ""I would cry. I would. I would never, ever stop crying, you stupid cripple!"

Detective Peter Porfiry (Matthew Kennedy, also sporting a Nero 'stache), is hell-bent on finding the killer and upon first laying eyes on Rey, he suspiciously asks, "Who's he?" The sleazy producer makes a most gracious introduction: "That's the cripple, the editor." Porfiry, a lusty swordsman with a penchant for slapping his eager women on the face when they talk back, dogs poor Rey at every step. This is not the ideal situation for our hero since he has to keep editing around all the actors who keep getting murdered. Still, he handles the stress as well as could be expected and when he inadvertently lets an amusing comment slip out, the Producer happily announces: "Good one, Ray. I knew it would be fun having a cripple around."

As bodies pile up, Porfiry slaps together a brilliant undercover idea and manages to get his junior detective (Brent Neale) onto the film as the editor. Hapless Rey is being replaced by an Italian version of Jethro Beaudine. The producer tries to let Rey go graciously. "Honestly Ray," he says, "I thought it would be fun to have a cripple around, but I was dead wrong."

The Editor has all the makings of a horror classic. The writing is always sharp and delightfully mordant, the cinematography is first-rate - capturing all the near-fluorescent colours of gialli, the special effects are outstanding (and wonderfully over-the-top), and the musical score is a marvel of aurally rapturous 70s/80s-styled sleaze. Though the film appears to have a bigger budget than previous Astron-6 titles like Manborg and Father's Day, it's lost none of those pictures' independent spirit.

FUCHMAN, (from "Father's Day")
is up to his old shenanigans. 

Hell, we even get teased with a cameo by Mackenzie Murdock in the role of Fuchman ("ch" naturally pronounced like "k") the Daddy-Sodomizing serial killer of Father's Day. And speaking of actors, the cast of The Editor is to-die-for. Brooks is a terrific schlubby hero, Kennedy is suitably, sexily smarmy, the gorgeous Tristan Risk is a Giallo scream-queen incarnate, Brent Neale is galumphingly hilarious as the junior cop, Conor Sweeney (as per usual) dazzles us with his stunning pretty boy looks and utterly astounding ability to play a terrible actor and among many other astonishing thespians delivering spot-on work, the movie features Udo Kier, the greatest actor of all time, as a demented psychiatrist.

Giallo fans will recognize the source
of these specific images in "The Editor".

Finally though, the importance of this film in terms of Canadian Cinema, and cinema period, is that it's a genuine contemporary contribution to the exciting wave of prairie post-modernism that was spawned out of Winnipeg by the brilliant John Paizs (whose classic Crimewave has been given a gorgeous, TIFF-funded 2K restoration which will premiere at TIFF 2014 as well as The Editor).

John Paizs' CRIMEWAVE
the FATHER of Astron-6

Among other Winnipeg practitioners of the art of paying homage to genres and being the thing itself, the crazed Guy Maddin (Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Archangel, Careful, My Winnipeg) is also part of this tradition. Consider John Paizs as God the Father of Astron-6 and Guy Maddin as the collective's Uncle Jesus Christ.

Chainsaw VS. Conor Sweeney,
Axe VS. Tristan Risk
Who will Survive?
What will be left of them?

Brooks and Kennedy via the Astron-6 collective in Winnipeg have joined the ranks of the very best filmmakers to smash through the traditional boundaries of the medium and create work of genuinely lasting value. Best of all, though, The Editor is probably the coolest film you'll see this year and one you'll want to partake of again and again and yet again.

Cult classics never die. They get better and better.

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

The Editor enjoys its World Premiere in the Midnight Madness series programmed by the brilliant Colin Geddes at the 2014 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2014). For tix, times, dates and venues, visit the TIFF website by clicking HERE.

HEY YOU! If you want to buy any of the following movies, click directly onto the Amazon links below and keep-a-goin' until you checkout. All sales and ad-clicks on this site assist greatly with the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

In Canada BUY the Astron-6 Short Film Collection HERE
In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY the ASTRON-6 Short Film Collection - HERE
In Canada BUY Astron-6's FATHER'S DAY - HERE
In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Astron-6's FATHER'S DAY - HERE
In Canada BUY Astron-6's MANBORG - HERE
In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY ASTRON-6's MANBORG - HERE

A similar scene to the one experienced by Jim Jarmusch and others in New York during the 70s and 80s was also happening in Winnipeg at the same time and captured in the documentary BLANK CITY as well as many other works which appeared in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" series during the early winter of 2014. A very cool explosion in indie underground cinema that I and many colleagues and friends were involved with was spawned during these halcyon days. This period, coined by film critic Geoff Pevere as Prairie Post-Modernism, included the works of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Greg Hanec and many others.

Another great film from Winnipeg during this period is Greg Hanec's extraordinary DOWNTIME which has the distinction of being a parallel cinematic universe to Jim Jarmusch's "STRANGER THAN PARADISE". Both films were made at the same time in two completely different cities and scenes and both Hanec and Jarmusch premiered their films at the same time at the Berlin Film Festival. One's famous, the other isn't - but now that the "lost" and "found" DOWNTIME has been remastered from original elements to DVD, it can now be purchased directly online.

Order DOWNTIME directly from the film's new website by clicking HERE

Perhaps the greatest Canadian independent underground filmmaker of all-time is Winnipeg's John Paizs. It's virtually impossible to secure copies of his astounding work which, frankly, is responsible for influencing the work of Guy Maddin, David Lynch, Bruce McDonald and an endless number of great indie filmmakers the world over. Paizs' great short film SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND is available for purchase in a beautiful remastered edition from a fan website, the inimitable Frank Norman. Norman has Paizs' blessing to provide copies of the film, so feel free to directly make your request to Mr. Norman by clicking HERE.

Visit Frank Norman's CRIME WAVE
fan site by clicking HERE

Alas, it's super-impossible to get a copy of Paizs' masterpiece CRIME WAVE (not to be confused with the super-awful Coen Bros/Sam Raimi film of the same name that was released the same year Paizs' film was NOT released properly by its scumbag Canadian distributor Norstar Releasing, which eventually became Alliance Films (where the boneheads sat on the film and turned down several excellent offers from small indie companies to release the film properly on DVD in super-deluxe special editions because they lazily purported to be negotiating a massive package deal on its catalogue titles with some tiny scumbag public domain company that, as far as I can tell, has neither purchased nor released the film). This truly great and highly influential film is, no doubt, languishing in some boneheaded distribution purgatory within the deep anal cavities of the new owner of Alliance Films, a humungous mega-corporation called E-One. Feel free to repeatedly bug their stinking asses and demand a proper release. In the meantime, VHS copies of CRIME WAVE can still be found with the ludicrous title THE BIG CRIME WAVE and E-One has released CRIME WAVE on iTunes - hardly a proper way to view the film.

IT FOLLOWS - TIFF 2014 (TIFF Midnight Madness) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

IT is transmitted sexually. IT follows. IT kills.

It Follows (2014)
Dir. David Robert Mitchell
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's early morning magic hour. A stately home rests quietly in a leafy suburb. The front door bursts open. A babe in her undies races outside, her melons bobbling. In no time at all, she'll be found horribly mutilated. Dead, in fact. Granted, we're in Detroit, one of the most poverty-stricken, crime-ridden and decrepit cities in America, but this grotesque sequence has played out in a bucolic setting, far away from the urban blight.

What gives?

Well, after this shocking preamble to David Robert Mitchell's It Follows, we meet our heroine Jay (Maika Monroe) and in no time we find out exactly what the deal is. She too lives in a 'burb o' Detroit and when she goes on a date with a hot hunk, she's so charmed, she hops into the back seat of his car, tosses off her panties and lets him deliver one right royal solid boning. As our babe lolls about in post-coital bliss, the hunk goes to the trunk to retrieve something. When he returns, he smothers the scantily clad missy with a chloroform-soaked rag. When she wakes up, he's got her strapped into a wheelchair - in her undies, 'natch. He forces her to look at something and what he shows her is so jaw-agape ghastly she can't quite believe her gorgeous eyes as she trains her gaze at IT.

Make no mistake, IT is real, alright, and now, IT is after her. According to the stud-hunk, the only way to get rid of IT is to pass IT on through sexual intercourse. He offers Jay a bit of solace when he says that IT should be no problem for her to pass on since, she's a girl and most any red-blooded male will want to nail her. Once she convinces her friends that she's cursed, they all make like Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Delightfully enough, the notion of passing on the curse sexually allows for some added boinkage in addition to the carnage and shock-til-you-jump jolts. And, of course, the movie gives us IT.

IT is a formidable supernatural villain. If this is the first thing you've read about the movie, read no other reviews, puff pieces and any other literature which might provide TMI. It's a lot scarier, creepier and deliciously perverse if you go in without knowing anything more than this - IT follows you constantly and IT will kill you if IT catches you. If this happens, the curse reverts to afflicting the entire line of boinkers who've preceded you.

Though the movie doesn't quite go into the sickeningly, darkly hilarious territory of David Cronenberg's Shivers (which also featured a sexually transmitted horror), It Follows is a solidly directed shocker with plenty of homages to John Carpenter's output from the late 70s to early 80s. If Mitchell's screenplay is, save for its supremely original "villain", a bit too reliant on well-worn tropes of the genre, his filmmaking is both dazzling and assured. He's the real thing. He handles the proceedings with great style, visual flourish and far more intelligence than your run-of-the-mill horror-fest. Then again, it also has what any horror movie needs - babes, root-slipping and killing.

We even get some scary sojourns into the downtown decrepitude of Detroit. This stuff in the abandoned Detropia of Motor City is so creepy, one almost wishes most of it were set there. If Mitchell generates a sequel, maybe, just maybe, he'll oblige us. As someone who loves a good horror picture and having been conceived in Detroit, I, for one, can hardly wait. My drool is dripping and pooling up like the thick, crimson rivers of blood which permeate the ever-so-delightful It Follows.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

It Follows enjoys a bang-up TIFF 2014 launch during the spectacularly fun Colin Geddes-programmed series Midnight Madness. For tickets, dates, venues and showtimes, visit the TIFF website HERE. The movie is being distributed in Canada by Mongrel Media.

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