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:

CABIN FEVER: PATIENT ZERO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Jaw-Dropping Splatter4U from Canuck Kaare Andrews

Once again, Raven Banner's Sinister Cinema with Anchor Bay Canada present another delectable splatter-fest for the whole family - well, mostly Ed Gein's family, but family is family, mais non? CABIN FEVER: PATIENT ZERO, directed by Canada's ace-comic-book-wunderkind/filmmaker Kaare Andrews.

I daresay this comely young lassie has acquired a slight infection.

I daresay this nice
doggie's bark is not
worse than his BITE.

Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (2014) ***1/2
Dir. Kaare Andrews, Scr. Jake Wade Wall, Cin. Norm Li, Ed. Michael P. Mason
Starring: Sean Astin, Currie Graham, Ryan Donowho, Brando Eaton, Jillian Murray, Solly Duran, Lydia Hearst, Claudette Lali, Mitch Ryan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Years ago I discovered a lump on my chest. The Doc says, "It's just a cyst. Come back if it gets bigger or hurts. I'll lance it." A few days later I felt a tightness in my chest. The cyst was the size of a fucking golfball. I ignored it because I had a movie to go to. On the way, I stopped at the bank. The teller took one look at me and her pretty face scrunched up into the horrific visage of a gorgon sucking a lemon. I followed her gaze. My white shirt had become a huge Technicolor Rorschach Blot of gag-inducing crimson dappled with sickening streaks of yellow, accompanied by the putrescence of a cheesy aroma. Infections, you see, are like that. One second you think everything is fine, the next you've got viscous raspberry custard pudding with melted Limburger geysering out of you.

Thankfully the cyst was the result of a bacterial infection. Viral infections are a different beast altogether. Some of them can kill. And God help you if it causes flesh to rot and infests the brain, turning you into a psycho pus-bag on two legs.

These were the delectable sugar-plum-fairy thoughts that came to me whilst indulging in one of the most insanely audacious low budget indie horror films I've seen in awhile. Cabin Fever: Patient Zero is a gloriously whacked and mega-fun prequel to Eli Roth's 2002 directorial star-making feature debut called - you guessed it - Cabin Fever. If you haven't seen Roth's picture, wait and watch this first. If you have seen it, Kaare Andrews's sophomore outing after his impressive feature debut, the claustrophobic thriller Altitude, should not disappoint. This movie is a blast.

Jake Wade Wall's screenplay is a perfectly serviceable vehicle to take us back to who, what, when, where, why and how the virus in Roth's film began. What's nice about the script is that it has all the delightful tropes of the horror genre that, quite frankly, go a long way in terms of added value for our plaisirs d'exploitation. It's got a decent handful of locations that are perfectly picturesque so that in spite of the low budget, it's not one of those typical single set movies that can betray the budgetary restrictions. The locales as imagined on the page add variety and colour to the backdrop.

Most importantly, the screenplay makes sure (unlike too many recent genre items, especially those of the Canadian persuasion) that there are just as many babe roles as there are hunk roles. A horror movie without babes can be utterly unwatchable. So hats off to Mr. Wall for delivering the potential of babe-o-licious babe-ery on the page for the our edification (as well as the director and cinematographer's keen-o-niftus kino-eyes).

Wall's plot is perfunctory, but in a terrific way. It's a simple coat hanger for some lovely set pieces - and not just gore, we get some boink-o-rama action too.

In a nutshell, we've got a bachelor party full of nice young fellas boozing it up in the Dominican Republic. This allows for plenty of babes in the background, too. The gentlemen, of course, have a wild time planned. They charter a boat, head out to an extremely remote island - with a babe, no less - camp out on the beach and crack open more booze. Yee-haa!

And, we get some boink-action going too. Yee-Haa Bonii points!

Unbeknownst to our party-hearty crew there's a strange, hidden complex on the other side of the island which is essentially a mysterious centre for disease control. Here, some shady official scientist types are performing experiments on Sean Astin. Yes, THE Sean Astin! Mikey from The Goonies, 1993's beloved Rudy and Sam from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy appears here and has suffered whilst watching those he once loved melt into heaps of viscera from a flesh-eating virus he's host to. Because he's the host, he's been nabbed by the official types, shoved into quarantine and poked and prodded by the Docs. Sean is mighty upset. In fact, he's goldurn angry and suspects he's being exploited as a guinea pig.

Now, you might notice I've mentioned scientists and doctors. This is a good thing. Where there are scientists and doctors, there are nurses.

NURSES = BABES!!!!!!

Well, it doesn't take too long for our two clutches of characters to meet up and you can bet your sweet petunia that some bad shit's going to happen to release the virus, thus allowing hell to break loose.

Look, this movie's no masterpiece, but I loved it. It's got a delightfully morbid sense of humour, its last half hour actually had me on the edge of my seat wishing I had, as per usual, been wearing Depends and a lot of the stuff that works in the movie is extremely well wrought. Kaare Andrews directs with force and aplomb and keeps things chugging forward so we don't notice occasional holes and inanities in the plot, at least not while we're watching or at least not enough to bug us if we do notice. Most of all, he attacks the material with a really great eye and feel for the genre.

Working with the brilliant Canadian cinematographer Norm Li (the man who blew our minds with his eye-popping work in the stunning Panos Cosmatos retro-sci-fi head film Beyond the Black Rainbow), Cabin Fever: Patient Zero is shot mostly handheld, but it's not that horrible whiplash nonsense, nor is it shaky-cam unless it needs to be in moderation. It is, for the most part, really effective floaty-cam with smooth moves, solid compositions and terrific lighting in the night time exteriors and shadowy interiors. Michael P. Mason's cutting always moves things with skill and vigour in a delicious death-by-a-thousand cuts way and in the hairy roller coaster ride of the last third, his cutting delivers multi Les petit morts.

And indeed Andrews, Li and Mason dazzle our pants off during the last half hour. Even if you're a bit unsure of the movie for the first chunk, hang in there, because these guys deliver the climactic gold. The movie practically splooges terror and viscera all over our receptive faces AND if you think any of the aforementioned is hyperbolic, you ain't read nothing yet.

I declare, here and now - and we must doff our hats to screenwriter Wall for coming up with this - Cabin Fever: Patient Zero is blessed with the contextual Holy Water of one of the absolute best cat fights ever committed to the silver screen.

Seriously, who amongst you has a problem with cat fights? Who? I ask you, WHO in their right mind doesn't get hard or wet watching two babes slugging it out? Nobody. That's who! And if they say they don't, they're not only lying to me, to us, to the world, but themselves.

Cat fights are hot. Here, the cat fight is not only orgasm-and-vomit-inducing, it's thoroughly original. Everything comes into play here - direction, cinematography, cutting, stunt choreography, makeup effects and the jaw-dropping (in, uh, more ways than one) context for the cat fight. I guarantee you will have NEVER seen a cat fight like this in your life.

On the grave of my Granny.

Is it THE best cat fight? Well, no, because for the absolute best, nobody will ever top the estimable Russ Meyer in this department, BUT, it is way up there. So much so that I can imagine Mr. Faster Pussycat Kill Kill looking down upon this film from his lofty perch in big-boob-heaven turning broccoli-green with envy that he never thought of doing a cat fight like this one.

And you know, any movie that might instil envy in Russ Meyer, is one for the ages.

Raven Banner Entertainment's Sinister Cinema and Anchor Bay Canada present the **CANADIAN PREMIERE** of CABIN FEVER: PATIENT ZERO, One Night Across Canada on Thurs May 29 at 7:30pm. The complete list of venues across the country are:

Scotiabank Theatre Chinook - Calgary, AB
Scotiabank Theatre Edmonton - Edmonton, AB
Cineplex Cinemas Saint John - Saint John, NB
Cineplex Cinemas Avalon Mall - St. John's, NL
Cineplex Odeon Victoria Cinemas - Victoria, BC
SilverCity Riverport Cinemas - Richmond, BC
Galaxy Cinemas Nanaimo - Nanaimo, BC
Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas - Vancouver, BC
Colossus Langley Cinemas - Langley, BC
SilverCity Polo Park Cinemas- Winnipeg, MB
SilverCity Sudbury Cinemas- Sudbury, ON
Galaxy Cinemas Regina - Regina, SK
Galaxy Cinemas Saskatoon - Saskatoon, SK
SilverCity Fairview Mall Cinemas - Toronto, ON
Cineplex Odeon Winston Churchill Cinemas - Oakville, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Yonge -Dundas Cinemas - Toronto, ON
Cineplex Odeon Eglinton Town Centre Cinemas - Scarborough, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Queensway and VIP - Etobicoke, ON
Colossus Vaughan Cinemas - Woodbridge, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga - Mississauga, ON
Coliseum Ottawa Cinemas - Ottawa, ON
SilverCity Gloucester Cinemas - Ottawa, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Bayers Lake - Halifax, NS
Cineplex Odeon Forum Cinemas - Montreal, QC
Cineplex Odeon Devonshire Mall Cinemas - Windsor, ON
Galaxy Cinemas Waterloo - Waterloo, ON
SilverCity Hamilton Cinemas - Hamilton, ON
SilverCity London Cinemas - London, ON

Additional screenings have been added to Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas:
May 30 through June 5. Check Toronto local listing for confirmed dates and times.

Director Kaare Andrews will be present at the Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas on May 29 to introduce the film and do a Q and A after it's over.

CYBER-SENIORS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Old people learn about Skype, Facebook, YouTube and Email..

Imagine a world where Granny Clampett discovers YouTube.
Imagine no more. Your OWN Granny can become a rap star.
Sadly, Uncle Jed, Jethro & Ellie-Mae's Granny is SOL.
But, one can dream the impossible dream, can't one?

Cyber-Seniors (2014)
***
Dir. Saffron Cassaday

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Director Cassady's younger sisters founded a non-profit organization in Toronto to pair senior citizens with super-young mentors who teach the oldsters how to use computers, but mostly, to make use of online services like Facebook, Skype and YouTube. When one considers that there are people in their 30s-50s who are computer illiterate, tech-savvy amongst older generations is virtually nil. The power of computers and the internet should be available to those who could benefit from it. The training program is clearly a great opportunity - not just for the seniors, but the young mentors to acquire the skills of training, but also the wealth of experience and knowledge in other areas that they can gain from interacting with the seniors.

While Cassady was documenting the process, it was decided to turn it into into a real movie. Hence, Cyber-Seniors. What we get is a relatively painless, surface look at the aforementioned Toronto-based program. The first third is devoted mostly to the seniors plonking their gnarly fingers onto keyboards whilst the young'uns patiently guide them through cyber-land. They learn everything from basics like passwords, logging in, setting up Facebook accounts, engaging in the joys (so to speak) of email, watching videos on Youtube and enjoying Skype conversations with their families.

About halfway in for the middle third of the picture, a personal medical challenge rears its surprising and decidedly ugly head with one of the film's participants and we get a few dollops of that story while the rest of the film gives us more plonking on keyboards mixed with mildly entertaining footage of the seniors devising, shooting and then uploading videos to YouTube.

One of the seniors uploads a cooking segment that becomes quite a hit and this inspires the others to do likewise on a variety of topics (one happy Granny does her own rap video). It becomes a contest leading up to a grand premiere and the bestowing of prizes to three lucky winners. The aforementioned medical challenge thankfully resolves itself, but there's a bittersweet element introduced as another challenge to another of the film's participants comes up. We are, however, left on a very positive note of how computers and the internet can become an extremely important tool to bridge cultural gaps, but also the literal gaps of families separated by distance.

The movie is definitely assembled with competence and was never designed to go deeper than it does. It will probably make for pleasant enough viewing on television or in non-theatrical showings at senior care centres, community centres and anywhere else seniors and their families gather. I know my Mother would like it big-time.

If there are any disappointments to be had with the film it's that the feather-weighted investigation into this first-rate organization only barely touches on the young mentors. Part of me thought that a film about the mentors might have been a nice adjunct to this. Perhaps even a sequel is in the works.

The two other items that caused me a bit of disappointment is something the filmmaker clearly had no power over. Firstly, the interests of the seniors seemed to fall stereotypically along gender lines - the guys are into email, golf and banking while the ladies are interested in cooking and gardening. The only common thread between genders were the communication and social networking possibilities.

Secondly, everyone in this film is so darned normal. Would it have been that impossible to find one Bad Grandpa interested in accessing internet porn? Or is that asking too much?

The Toronto premiere of Cyber-Seniors occurs May 30 - June 5 at the Carlton Cinema, followed by one-off event screenings in cities across Canada and the United States. Q&As will follow the 7pm screenings on Friday & Saturday.

Some Brief Thoughts On Atom Egoyan Upon Recent Reviews (especially Peter Bradshaw's in the Guardian) of His New Film THE CAPTIVE and an utterly moronic article in The Huffington Post that gave me the runs. Musings and Analysis on the Great Man Egoyan - By Greg Klymkiw, Esq.

The Many Faces of Atom Egoyan
& his Trademark Head-Tilt Poses
Including (at bottom) a rare Sans-a-Tilt

My Love Affair With Atom Egoyan

By Greg Klymkiw

A STUPID ARTICLE in the Huffington Post and some really cruddy reviews of The Captive by Peter Bradshaw and others of Petey-Boy's loathsome ilk were annoying enough to make me want to spew the following thoughts about Atom Egoyan.

With respect to the aforementioned Huff Post piece, some have suggested it's not worthy enough to dignify a response, but frankly, when a supposedly respectable journal chooses to print such nonsense, it seems ludicrous not to eject vomit upon it. We are, after all, and with thanks to The Huffington Post, treated to the anal drippings of yet another "film journalist" or, as he's described by the publication, a "Pop Culture Blogger".

He's ultimately full of shit and as he's chosen a public forum to dispose of his waste matter, this is surely an environmental concern as well as a cultural one.

The clown demonstrates, like so many of his ilk do, a lack of film history and appears to be infused with all the critical acumen of Ben Mulroney, a smarmy Canadian sycophant purporting to be a journalist specializing in entertainment. This is probably enough to dismiss the guy's loathsome jottings.

That said, though, I'm often the first to crap on Canadian Cinema. I do think many of the problems with our nation's film product, most notably in English Canada, are tied oh-so resolutely to the "powers that be" (including government financiers, distributors and the biggest exhibition chain in Canada) far more than the filmmakers who pinch their cinematic loaves into the bowl of rejection for nobody to see. One might argue against my point by asserting that taste, especially as it relates to opinion, is subjective. I can't necessarily disagree with this, but I prefer to follow the delectable credo of Science Fiction writer Harlan Ellison regarding opinion - that nobody is entitled to one, but those who register one that's informed, are most certainly allowed to do so.

From my informed perspective, then, I agree that Atom has ground out a few stinkers, but the man is prolific and all filmmakers are allowed to make crappy movies from time to time (John Ford, Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock anyone?) - even if they receive public funds. Most often it's an artist's failures that contribute to their canon in mysterious ways - allowing them to do work that might fail, but eventually leads them to work that soars high indeed. Their failures also provide a body of work that will prove, over time, to be all the richer for critical study and analysis. (I have no use for the ephemeral properties ascribed to the worth of things - what counts is a work's universality: commercially, critically, academically.)

Whether his critics want to believe this or not, Atom has made any number of fine films that WILL live on once the mediocrity of so many others will be forgotten. Next of Kin is as sweet and engaging a feature debut as any of our best have generated. Family Viewing and Speaking Parts are delectably and perversely funny. Yes, what many don't recognize is Egoyan's perverse sense of humour - it's intentional and pervasive. Hmmmm, I like that "Pervasively Perverse" notion. Perhaps an essay along those lines is in order.

I don't especially like The Adjuster, but find there is much to admire in it, especially Elias Koteas's performance and the notion of ascribing monetary value to that which is beyond mere shekels. Exotica feels like a major misfire and a lost opportunity for Egoyan to plunge himself and us into some dangerous territory, but he gets points for even flirting with "danger". Mostly, I have my North End Winnipeg Ukrainian Boy prejudice against films about lap dancers that don't have enough nudity in them.

Calendar, as even the loathsome Huffington Post writer acknowledges, is a wonderful film. I'd go so far as to suggest it might be Egoyan's masterpiece - so wryly humorous and deeply moving, it is layered with complexity beneath its seemingly simple structure. Ararat, is an odd patchwork quilt, but I was ultimately spewing tears on several occasions in his evocation of the Armenian Holocaust.

Felicia's Journey also falls into the potential masterpiece category for me - a daring attempt at finding humanity in a monster, infused with plenty of chillingly creepy moments, an astounding Bob Hoskins performance and overall, being imbued with such skill, craft and directorial aplomb that I will maintain and defend to the teeth my assessment that the film is Hitchcock's Frenzy on lithium. Now THAT is perverse.

The last clutch of films (Where The Truth Lies, Adoration, Chloe and Devil's Knot) have been, for me, out and out failures, but they do have the distinction of remaining true to Egoyan's "voice" and I also suspect they represent an important transition for him as an artist. Thanks to my colleague Alan Bacchus, however, I am now excited to dive into Where The Truth Lies again as I might well be wrong about that one. (As well, I have seen all four of the films I just dismissed at least twice each and will, no doubt revisit them all again. God knows, I recently had a fresh helping of Frank Capra's most reviled film Pocketful of Miracles and maintain it's not awful at all and has much in it to admire.)

You'll note I've thus far ignored talking about his Oscar-nominated The Sweet Hereafter. Strictly from a taste standpoint, I most certainly do not like the film - the whole Pied Piper thing is clever, but it's self-consciously clever in a way that detracts from the impact the material could have had. However, I cannot deny that it's a pretty damn great film. Does that sound dichotomous? Goddamn rights it is! That is also the hallmark of a genuine artist - to make work that some might not like, but that also bears the indelible trademarks of artistry that guarantee its importance and that its detractors cannot ignore - so much so that it has drawn me back to it on subsequent occasions to reassess and appreciate it.

As for Egoyan's new film, The Captive (produced by Jennifer Weiss, Simone Urdl, Stephen Traynor and co-written by David Fraser), I've yet to see it (no Cannes for this fella) and I'm not sure when I shall see it since the head (or in this case, decidedly wrong-headed head) of E-One's publicity unit has seen fit to ban me from their screenings for some mysterious reasons she'll not adequately reveal.

I suspect the banning has more to do with my crapping on a few of their releases (which, now that I garner a worldwide readership over half a million, might be egregious enough, though I've raved far more frequently about their more worthwhile films than the risible ones). I consider their banning a badge of honour no matter how much an inconvenience it is and maybe I'll need to catch up with The Captive at the Toronto International Film Festival (if it plays there) or wait until it opens theatrically (whereupon I can buy a ticket to a different movie and waltz into the Egoyan to avoid donating any dinero to E-One).

I do, however, look forward to seeing it.

You see, as my readers and those who know me are well aware of, I normally refuse to read reviews before seeing movies I have not seen and written about, but with The Captive, my eyeballs were drawn to a tweet about a pan from Peter Bradshaw at the Guardian. Bradshaw is, to my mind, one of the worst film critics in the world and I was chomping at the bit to see what inanities he might have spluttered about Egoyan's new film.

It was a fine review.

Every fucking crap he took on the film was a reason to suggest I'd love the film. I then did the unthinkable (for me) and read another review. It was from Jonathan Romney, a film critic who is one of the best in the world (I can count those on the fingers of one and one-half hands). Everything he admired about The Captive suggested that Egoyan's new film is something I'm going to love. I was also taken with one more review. Written by Robbie Collin of The Telegraph, the third paragraph was such excellent film writing, I decided to stop reading, bookmark it and take a full gander once I've seen The Captive and have had a chance to write about it. Of course, the reason I hate reading reviews in advance are the expectations they set up and that most critics fulfil little more than the needs of studio flacks, revealing far too much of the content of the films to appease their brain-bereft editors, publishers and readers.

So I HOPE I love it.

My fingers are crossed.

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Peter Weir's Classic Australian Private Schoolgirl Mystery on deluxe Criterion Blu-Ray box set.

Schoolgirls frolic with their corsets.
I'm down with this. And you?

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) *****
Dir. Peter Weir
Starring: Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Helen Morse,
Kirsty Child, Anne Lambert, Karen Robson, Jane Vallis,
Christine Schuler, Margaret Nelson, Dominic Guard, John Jarrett

Review By Greg Klymkiw

If you've not seen Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock and know absolutely nothing about the contents of its final half hour, then you'll have the ideal conditions under which to see this extraordinary film for the first time. My own first blind helping of the picture upon its inaugural North American release during the late 1970s, proved to be so chill-inducing that subsequent viewings became even richer. In fact, I can still recall specific moments when the gooseflesh made its shivering creepy-crawl upon me. If I had known anything about the final third, I'd have still loved it to death, but that I didn't, made the love so much deeper, so truly, so madly, so deeply deeper.

Everyone Loves Miranada
Miranda Loves Everyone

What Weir doesn't hide from us is what we're about to see. The movie begins quite perfectly with the following statement in the de rigueur 70s white-on-black titles:

"On Saturday 14th February 1900 a party of schoolgirls from Appleyard College picnicked at Hanging Rock, near Mt. Macedon in the state of Victoria. During the afternoon several members of the party disappeared without trace . . ."

Well, that about sums everything up, at least everything we need to know for now. There will be mystery, no doubt some suspense and, uh, schoolgirls in uniform. So far. So good.

In terms of narrative, the above statement pretty much describes the key incident in the plot that will spiral everything into turmoil. Knowing this right up front heightens our anticipatory dread. From the opening frames, gauzy, happy, David Hamilton-styled shots (the clothed/semi-clothed ones, naturellement) of pretty teenage girls romping about in their frilly nightdresses, bloomers, stockings, corsets and eventually, long, billowy white frocks, sun hats, fine gloves and twirly, tasselled parasols, this is a film that almost always presents us with watchful, fly-on-the-wall and downright fetishistic perspectives.

"Siliceous lava, forced up from deep down below.
Soda trachytes extruded in a highly viscous state,
building the steep sided mamelons."

Knowing what we know further heightens the feverish extent to which the girls are obsessed with St. Valentine's Day and their own budding sexuality. Passing exquisite handmade Valentine cards to each other, reading the inscribed sentiments privately and aloud, they are too breathlessly giddy to even properly wolf down their breakfast.

Gaiety abounds, but so does propriety and portent, the former mostly embodied in the primly coiffed headmistress Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts, carrying herself with deliciously stern diesel-dyke comportment) and the latter via the lush pan pipe tones of Zamfir on the soundtrack, dappled with lines of dialogue from the young ladies, especially those emanating from the goddess-like Miranada (Anne Lambert), words that take on the added weight they might normally not have been imbued with if it had not been for the aforementioned terse statement of fact embedded in those opening titles.

The excursion then begins in earnest, our girls accompanied by the schoolmarmish science teacher Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray) and the gentle, open, young and romantic French teacher Mademoiselle de Poitier (Helen Morse). Once delivered to the picnic grounds by horse and buggy, Weir's sumptuous imagery allows us to almost smell the delicate, perfumed aromas of all these women mixed with the natural scent of the abundant and varied flora of the site. As the ladies lazily gambol about, they are watched by two strapping young men from opposite ends of Australia's Victorian Era social strata (the nephew of two old coots picnicking nearby and their carriage driver). The gents find common ground via a shared bottle of wine and of course, their respective eyeballs glued to the variety of shapely young lassies.

Always present, strangely ever-watchful is the rock itself - huge, knobby phallus-like structures towering over everyone - ages-old daggers, jettisoned up from the molten bowels of the earth as if to penetrate the moist, open glove of blue sky and wisps of cloud. As opined by Miss McCraw, this is "siliceous lava, forced up from deep down below. Soda trachytes extruded in a highly viscous state, building the steep sided mamelons we see in Hanging Rock."

Mamelons, indeed.

The atmosphere is thick with both innocence and looming disaster: wind-up watches stop mysteriously at the same time, insects buzz amongst the flowers, the most moderate of breezes wafts through the leaves, a glistening knife plunges into a fluffy white Valentine cake. Time stands truly still as books are quietly read and naps are taken. Some lassies, however, are looking for added adventure. Miranda appeals to the kindly, liberal Mademoiselle for permission to take measurements at the rock's base so she and some of her classmates can better adhere to Mrs. Appleyard's orders to compose essays about the locale's geological properties.

With the French teacher's blessings, four of the girls begin their trek into the woods. Miranda turns around to deliver a wave to Mademoiselle. We know something the film's characters don't and allows for Miranda's wave to be infused with all the properties of a farewell. As the film follows the four ladies higher and ever-higher up the rock, maze-like pathways and dark, cave-like openings feel as Pied-Piper-like as they are ever-watchful - POVs taking on even more intensely fetishistic interest in these sweet young things as they're sucked up by the vortex in the sky.

"Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place," says Miranda.

And so, they do.

A piercing scream, a mad rush through canted angles of foreboding - some manner of evil has overtaken the proceedings and Picnic at Hanging Rock soon reveals a mad, desperate attempt to clutch at the straws of clues that become even more obtuse as they're examined and followed. Repression begets hysteria and director Weir delivers frustration, sadness and a mystery so haunting that we know only one thing for sure - truth is in the details, but in life, details are virtually meaningless unless they have some genuinely logical connection.

This, though, is the power of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Truth, even if we know it as such, is ultimately elusive and if anything, we think that maybe the answers to the mystery are hidden in plain sight, but life, as in the movies, can't always be so simple. As Miranda says in the first spoken lines of the film: "What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream." With those words, Weir plunges us into a film that might well be the closest cinematic equivalent to an infinity mirror that's ever been created.

The view is exposed by recursive means. It recedes into a tunnel of mystery upon mystery upon mystery that feels like there's simply never going to be an end in sight.

How creepy, how disturbing and how terrifying is that?

Plenty.

GORGEOUS Criterion Box-Set

Picnic at Hanging Rock is available in an astounding dual format box set from The Criterion Collection. Like another recent Criterion release (Red River), its presentation is clearly a vanguard that few, if any, will be able to approximate. Personally supervised by director Peter Weir, the film has been remastered via a high-definition digital film transfer. The multi-disc box includes an interview with Weir, a brand new documentary on the making of the film, a 1975 on-set documentary, A Recollection . . . Hanging Rock 1900 and a lovely booklet featuring a superb essay by author Megan Abbott and an informative excerpt from Marek Haltof’s 1996 book "Peter Weir: When Cultures Collide". There's a new introduction by David Thomson, author of "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film" that many will find illuminating, but I suggest to those who've not seen the film to not watch it until afterwards. (This, obviously goes for all of the added value features.) As with their release of Red River, Criterion has again outdone themselves with the whole package. There are two extras that catapult the box into some kind of home entertainment immortality. The first is the inclusion of Homesdale, Peter Weir's hilariously vicious 1971 black comedy.

The second is a brand-new paperback, previously O.O.P. in North American, of Joan Lindsay’s classic of Australian literature that the film uses as its source. This is a truly great book which I'd never read before and after watching this version of the film a couple of times, I dove between the book's covers and thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, it's a magnificent supplement to the film and offers added illumination to the great mystery it and the film recount.

RED RIVER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Classic Western by Howard Hawks gets the Criterion Collection Touch. Get ready for Mutiny on the Bounty - Cattle Drive Style

In a world of men,
The Duke and Monty
are ultimate bedfellows.

Red River (1948) *****
Dir. Howard Hawks
Starring: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift,
Walter Brennan, John Ireland, Harry Carey Sr, Harry Carey Jr,
Chief Yowlachie, Noah Beery Jr, Hank Worden, Joanne Dru, Coleen Gray

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"I didn’t know the big son of a bitch could act."
- John Ford upon seeing John Wayne in Red River

Everyone and their goldurn' egg-suckin' hound brings up Ford's exclamatory ejaculate upon Wayne's towering performance as the mean-ass cattle baron Tom Dunson in the immortal western by Howard Hawks, but how can one not? Wayne's had the ludicrous bad rap of being a dreadful actor since he first appeared on-screen in Raoul Walsh's 1930 western epic The Big Trail. For decades afterwards, far too many boneheaded pseuds have made this erroneous assumption. Walsh's film was a huge box-office flop. This was due mainly to the astronomical price-tag of being shot in duplicate, once in 35mm, again in an early 65mm wide-screen process and then twice more in French-and-German-language versions. Yes, Wayne's a tad unsteady in it, but then so are all the actors. This was 1930 and The Big Trail was one of the first major sound pictures and a monumental undertaking at that. Poor Wayne suffered in the subsequent ignoble purgatory of Grade-Z westerns until John Ford cast him in Stagecoach.

Though that was a hit, Wayne continued to toil in one picture after another that misused his talent. There were exceptions, of course, like Ford's They Were Expendable and The Long Voyage Home (great movies, but flops nonetheless), Walsh's wonderful Dark Command, William Seiter's rousing Allegheny Uprising, Edwin Marin's thoroughly enjoyable Tall in the Saddle and a clutch of solid war efforts like Edward Dmytryk's Back to Bataan and David Miller's Flying Tigers, plus, lest we forget, Cecil B. DeMille's utterly berserk action-adventure melodrama Reap The Wild Wind, but none of these were big enough to entrench Wayne as a bonafide star.

It wasn't until 1946 that Hawks cast Wayne in Red River and began shooting his stunning film adaptation of "Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail", the Borden Chase magazine serial (turned novel), that John Wayne would eventually become a genuine star. It was also at this early juncture when John Ford saw a cut of the film to render feedback at Hawks's request as the filmmaker encountered considerable production and editing snafus. When Red River was finally released in 1948, it was the same year that Wayne also starred in two great John Ford classics Three Godfathers and Fort Apache. With Red River and the two Ford films, Wayne finally shot to the all-important list of guaranteed box-office success as determined by the association of theatre owners in America. Wayne remained on the top ten for 25 years!!!

Red River has oft been described as a cattle-drive version of Mutiny on the Bounty which, at its most basic level it most certainly is. The first chunk of Hawks's picture has a much younger Tom Dunson (Wayne), leaving a wagon train behind, as well as the woman he loves (Coleen Gray) and setting his sights, not westward, but south to Texas. With his old pal Groot (Walter Brennan), Dunson stakes a huge parcel of prime Texas cattle country all for himself. After killing a Mexican emissary who informs him that the land belongs to a wealthy landowner living hundreds of miles away in "Old Mex", Dunson and Groot see clouds of smoke from where they left the wagon train behind.

Matt Garth (later to be played as an adult by Montgomery Clift) is a young boy, delirious with shock, who wanders onto Dunson's land with one lone cow and a tale of the entire wagon train having been decimated by Redskins. When a few of the varmints attempt to make similar mincemeat out of Dunson, Groot and Matt, they end up tussling with the wrong son of a bitch and they're handily dispatched to the Happy Hunting Grounds in the Sky. Upon discovering the keepsake he bestowed upon his lady love adorning the wrist of an Indian he's killed, Dunson's eyes fill with the blankness of a shark. Nothing is going to stop him.

With only the single-minded desire to raise as many cattle as humanly possible, Dunson transforms into a man possessed with pure, almost psychopathic ambition - so pure, so mad, that when the tale leaps ahead twenty years, the number of graves filled with those who would dare threaten the man's resolve dot the now-huge and bustling Dunson cattle ranch with the same frequency as tumbleweeds blasting across the rich Texas grassland. Our tale proper begins then, in Post-Civil-War Texas where thousands upon thousands of heads of Dunson's cattle are ready to go to market. But what market? The South has been ravaged by unscrupulous carpetbaggers and Dunson's herd needs to be driven thousands of miles away to garner the fair price they're worth.

Matt has grown into a strapping lad. The recipient of Dunson's tutelage in the manly arts of fighting and killing and home from fighting with the Rebel Army, Matt has, for all intents and purposes, been raised as Dunson's son and he's a chip off the old block in most ways, except one. When the drive begins, Dunson leads his cowboys with the force and fury of a Captain Bligh. If anything, Matt is the voice of reason. As Dunson becomes increasingly unhinged, ordering whippings and killings of those who would dare make a single mistake, or worse, attempt to abandon the cattle drive, the step-son eventually needs to take control of the herd and the drive.

Dunson, left with no weapons and enough rations to keep him until Matt takes the cattle to market, becomes even more insane and promises that he will eventually hunt Matt down and kill him in cold blood.

There's so much to admire in this tale of the Old West. The action is furious, the suspense often unbearable and the drive itself a thing of utter, sweeping beauty. A stampede sequence is so overwhelming, you need to pinch yourself a few times to prove that the magnitude and force of what you're experiencing is unlike anything you've ever, or will ever see. The drive itself is also a thing of beauty. It's one of the few times in the entire history of cinema where the drudgery and tedious nature of the actions on screen are so naturally life-like that they're anything but tedious.

While there isn't a single performance in the film that's less than perfect, John Wayne towers above everyone and everything. Yes, there's no doubt Wayne's now fully in command as one of the greatest stars in movie history, but his performance runs rings round everyone, including the great Montgomery Clift who was certainly no slouch in the thespian department. And for all the spectacle of this monumental undertaking, Hawks infuses the film with sheer immortality by placing so much emphasis upon the great cast of characters, but always finding ways to exploit Wayne's sheer physically powerful and expert abilities in terms of how he moves and carries himself on-screen.

Wayne barrels through this film like a Sherman Tank and Hawks's instincts with respect to casting this genuine giant were right on the nail. Borden Chase's novel describes Dunson thusly:

"A bull of a man. A brute of a man. Thick-necked, low-jowled, with eyes that looked out at you like the rounded grey ends of bullets in a pistol cylinder."

This is John Wayne. This is Red River. This is a world of men as raw and rough as can be. In spite of all the seemingly insurmountable difficulties Hawks faced at every level to get the film made, he like Tom Dunson, like John Wayne, triumphed beyond all expectations.

And for those so inclined, the movie features the most delightfully homoerotic exchange between two stars ever committed to celluloid. It's a western, of course, so it involves guns. It never gets more phallic than glistening rods - in both life and the movies.

Red River not only represents a triumph of Howard Hawks, John Wayne and American Cinema, but is a film that displays the overwhelming care and artistry of the Criterion Collection in ways that somehow exceed the company's already Herculean efforts and unimpeachable reputation as one of the greatest and most visionary home entertainment distributors. The huge Dual Format 4-disc BLU-RAY/DVD box set includes a 2K digital restoration of the rare original theatrical release version, Hawks's preferred cut and a 2K digital restoration of the substantially longer, prerelease version, which has considerable archival value as its ending comes closer to Hawks's original vision, but was unscrupulously butchered by the boneheaded Howard Hughes (who threatened legal action as he felt it was a carbon copy of the ending in The Outlaw). The package includes two genuinely GREAT interviews with Peter Bogdanovich and Molly Haskell, audio excerpts from a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich, plus a 1970 interview with novelist and screenwriter Borden Chase. Completists will delight to the inclusion of the Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1949 as well as an attractive booklet that includes a superb interview with Red River's editor Christian Nyby. There is the less necessary requisite inclusion of the film's trailer, a video interview and printed essay both of the egghead variety by film scholars, but these features will prove welcome to most. What I LOVED, however, given my collector-mentality, is the gorgeously designed box with a lovely cover by Eric Skillman AND - YEEHAAAAAAAA - a terrific new paperback edition of Chase’s original novel which was previously out of print. This is one damn fine book. I read it cover to cover in one sitting and delighted in Chase's first-rate oater-prose as well as all the very appropriate elements that inspired Hawks as well as those that did not (though frankly, add extra richness to the overall experience of enjoying the movie). The Criterion Collection Dual Format edition of Red River is easily one of my favourite home video packages of all time. It's given me a wealth of pleasure and information and will continue to do so for as many years as I'm on this Earth to benefit from it.

GOOD PLACE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Funny, moving short by one of Canada's most talented female directors, plays the Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival program "Lesbian Shorts:Bound (By Love)"

When we look to the sky we look for answers.
Dyan Bell and Seamus Morrison in Gina Bucci's GOOD PLACE

Baby Brother, Big Sister
SIBLING SHENANIGANS
in the SUBURBS

Good Place (2014) Dir. Gina Bucci ****
Starring: Dyan Bell, Seamus Morrison, Alisen Down
Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are people in our lives who are linked to us so inextricably that even though we haven't seen them for awhile, their appearance is enough to bring us back to what made them special in the first place. No matter how unexpected their materialization in our world might be, the feelings they engender always seem just like yesterday. Such is the case with Connie (Dyan Bell) in Gina Bucci's gem of a short film Good Place. Things are rocky and uncertain in her relationship with Beth (Alisen Down), exemplified quite clearly one morning when some pre-nine-to-five nookie takes a back seat to affairs of the career rather than affairs of the heart. Connie is left alone with an empty house when Beth decides to sneak off to work. Rather than facing the day, Connie crawls under the blankets, but her comfy ostrich head in the sand is short-lived when the door bell rings and an unexpected visitor enters back into her life.

Reunited with her little brother Joey (Seamus Morrison), Connie dives into a whole lotta fun. The twenty-something siblings regress ever-so delightfully into childhood and soon, whatever weight is on Connie's shoulders is lifted by her baby brother's good humour, cheer and love. Though everything feels like it's back to normal, a cloud seems to hang over the events of the day, a nagging sense that the freewheeling warmth rooted in a lifetime of a big sister's love for her baby brother, can't possibly last forever.

After a day of childlike sibling shenanigans, brother and sister soon find themselves under a night sky. The limitless possibilities inherent in a universe dwarfs them and yet envelopes them in the warmth of belonging to something much larger. Life and love puts both of them in a good place and as long as faith and love remain strong, the possibilities seem limitless.

Like the best short films, Good Place offers us a simple situation, a slice of a life that acts macrocosmically for the characters involved and, in a sense, provides thoughts and feelings familiar to us while also letting us make them our own and take from them what we will and must. Bell and Morrison deliver memorable and naturalistic performances - fresh, attractive and altogether winning. Bucci's direction is assured and the film is deftly cut by Tiffany Beaudin. Visually arresting without overt flash, Director of Photography Sue Johnson tricks us into thinking she's shot the picture with yeoman rigour, but that's the clever deception. It doesn't bring unwarranted attention to itself and we're almost never aware of just how indelible the images are, serving the natural rhythm of the dramatic action. And then, we're treated to a load of chocolate fudge syrup on the ice cream and Good Place delivers a few final shots that sweep us off our feet until one simple, slow upward tilt completely takes our breath away.

It's a sweet, lovely, mystical and even phantasmagorical little picture that continues to solidify Bucci as a genuine force to be reckoned worth in Canadian Cinema. Ever since seeing one of her first short films, the original and profoundly moving A Quiet Little Riot, I've been looking forward to each new work by Bucci with baited breath.

Someone please give this lady some money to make a feature. It'll pay off in spades.

Good Place is part of a program of short films at the Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival. The series is entitled LESBIAN SHORTS: BOUND (BY LOVE) and in addition to Good Place, it features Dream Date, Dyke Central: Taboo, Neighbours, Anti-Aging Ema and Curtains. For more information, visit the festival website HERE.

Here are some fine LGBT films. Feel free to order them from the handy links below and in so doing, you'll be supporting the ongoing maintenance of the Film Corner.




Full Disclosure:
I've followed Bucci's career avidly for many years.
I'm credited on this film as a Story Consultant.
It's what I do, though.