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.

THE TRIBE (aka PLEMYA) - TIFF 2014 (TIFF Discovery) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Russia's continued oppression of Ukraine batters
the most vulnerable members of society.

The Tribe (2014)
(aka Plemya/плем'я)
Dir. Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
Starring: Yana Novikova, Grigoriy Fesenko, Rosa Babiy,
Alexander Dsiadevich, Yaroslav Biletskiy, Ivan Tishko, Alexander Sidelnikov

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of the most appalling legacies of Russian colonization/dictatorship over the country of Ukraine has, in recent years, been the sexual exploitation of women (often children and teenagers). Add all the poverty and violence coursing through the nation's soul, much of it attributable to Mother Russia's tentacles of corruption, organized crime and twisted notions of law, order and government, that it's clearly not rocket science to realize how threatening the Russian regime is, not only to Ukraine, but the rest of Eastern Europe and possibly, beyond.

Being a Ukrainian-Canadian who has spent a lot of time in Ukraine, especially in the beleaguered Eastern regions, I've witnessed first-hand the horrible corruption and exploitation. (Ask me sometime about the Russian pimps who wait outside Ukrainian orphanages for days when teenage girls are released penniless into the world, only to be coerced into rust-bucket vans and dispatched to God knows where.)

The Tribe is a homespun indigenous Ukrainian film that is a sad, shocking and undeniably harrowing dramatic reflection of Ukraine with the searingly truthful lens of a stylistic documentary treatment (at times similar to that of Austrian auteur Ulrich Seidl).

Focusing upon children, the most vulnerable victims of Russia's aforementioned oppression, this is a film that you'll simply never forget.

Set in a special boarding school, writer-director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, paints an evocative portrait of students living within a tribal societal structure (literally as per the title) where adult supervision is minimal at best and even culpable in the desecration of youth. Living in an insular world, carved out by years of developing survival skills in this institutional environment, the kids have a long-established criminal gang culture and they engage in all manner of nefarious activities including, but not limited to thieving, black marketeering and pimping.

Slaboshpytskiy's mise-en-scène includes long, superbly composed shots and a stately, but never dull pace. This allows the film's audience to contemplate - in tandem with the narrative's forward movement - both the almost matter-of-fact horrors its young protagonists accept, live with and even excel at while also getting a profound sense of the ebbs and flows of life in this drab, dingy institutional setting. In a sense, the movie evokes life as it actually unfolds (or, at least, seems to).

The violence is often brutal and the film never shies away from explicit sexual frankness. We watch the beautiful teenage girls being pimped out at overnight truck stops, engaging in degrading acts of wham-bam without protection, perpetrated against their various orifices by truckers who shell out cash for the privilege of doing so. As well, we experience how the same girls are cum-receptacles for their fellow male students, delivering blow-jobs or intercourse when it's required.

On occasion, we witness consensual, pleasurable lovemaking, but it always seems tempered by the fact that it's the only physical and emotional contact these children, of both sexes, have ever, ow will ever experience. Even more harrowing is when we follow the literal results of this constant sexual activity and witness a necessary, protracted, pain-wracked scene wherein one young lady seeks out and receives an unsanitary and painful abortion.

While there are occasional moments of tenderness, especially in a romance that blossoms between one young boy and girl, there's virtually no sense of hope that any of these children will ever escape the cycles of abuse, aberrant behaviour and debasement that rules their lives. The performances elicited by Slaboshpytskiy are so astonishing, you're constantly in amazement over how naturalistic and reflective of life these young actors are, conveying no false notes with the kind of skill and honesty one expects from far more seasoned players.

The special circumstances these children are afflicted with also allows Slaboshpytskiy to bravely and brilliantly tell his story completely though the purest of cinematic approaches. Visuals and actions are what drive the film and ultimately prove to be far more powerful than words ever could be. Chances are very good that you'll realize what you're seeing is so wholly original that you'll ultimately sit there, mouth agape at the notion that what you're seeing on-screen is unlike anything you will have ever seen before.

Try, if you can, to see the film without seeing or reading anything about it. Your experience will be all the richer should you choose to go in and see it this way. Even if you don't adhere to this, the movie is overflowing with touches and incidents in which you'll feel you're seeing something just as original. The Tribe evokes a world of silence and suffering that is also perversely borderline romantic, a world where connections and communication are key elements to add some variation to a youth culture that is as entrenched as it is ultimately constant and, frankly, inescapable.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars, highest rating.

The Tribe is being distributed in the USA and Canada via Drafthouse Films and Films We Like. It's enjoying its North American premiere in the TIFF Discovery series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014. For tix, times and venues, visit the TIFF website by clicking HERE.

TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER (TIFF 2014 - TIFF DOCS) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

KILLER.
CRACK WHORE.
FILMMAKER.

Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2014)
Dir. Nick Broomfield

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's quite possible Lonnie Franklin Jr. murdered over 100 women. Undetected for at least 25 years, he ran amuck through South Central Los Angeles as the Grim Sleeper serial killer and even now, under arrest, charged with 10 murders and still awaiting trial, the idiot police are trying to piece everything together, now, rather than during the heyday of this madman. The police knew they had a serial killer on their hands in the 80s. They even had a forensic sketch, but they did nothing. After all, why should the police have bothered to make a serial killer connection between so many unsolved murders? Hell, why bother to make anything resembling a concerted effort at all? Most of the victims were poor African-American women and many of them were prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless, abused and/or alcoholics. These weren't women anyone should care about, least of all, the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPD have always had bigger fish to fry. You know, like being on the take and/or randomly beating and/or killing young Black men.

So who ya' gonna call when you need answers?

Well, you don't need to call maverick investigative documentarian Nick Broomfield. Chances are, he'll call you or as is his wont, the surly, dogged, sniping Brit will drop by all on his lonesome. All this crusading pit bull needs is a whiff of incompetence, laziness, ignorance, racial inequality and/or social injustice.

So was the aromatic stench from the Grim Sleeper a Broomfield alarm bell.

The director of Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, Kurt & Courtney, Biggie and Tupac, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer and host of other penetrating documentaries, has never let anything stop him, though sometimes he's placed himself in harm's way to get answers.

Usually, Broomfield goes it alone. He operates his own sound and has one cameraman. His research is often done on the fly with cell phones. Here though, Broomfield secures a full-fledged partner, a former (and self-identified) "crack whore" by the name of Pam Brooks who first falls in his lap as a subject.

She quickly and simply joins him at the hip, drumming up clues, additional subjects for interviews and essentially becoming Watson to Broomfield's Holmes. She's a marvel and joy to behold and in spite of the utterly sickening backdrop, it's incredibly uplifting and yes, entertaining, to see this woman quickly gain a sense of her own pride, self-worth, talents, intelligence and doggedness to rival that of Broomfield.

This Dynamic Duo end up doing a far better job than the LAPD, digging up a whole whack of people who knew Franklin but who now, in retrospect are able to shed light on his suspicious behaviour from the past (he loved boastfully waving his handgun before neighbours, friends and acquaintances). Most importantly, the pair discover more women who might well have murdered or, extraordinarily escaped being murdered by Franklin's choice methods of snuffing out his victims - a point blank shot from a .25 calibre handgun or just good, old fashioned strangulation. Franklin, you see, was a hobbyist extraordinaire. He photographed hundreds of unclothed women in provocative poses who all appear to be dead, or asleep. Some of these photos might even be more victims.

What Broomfield's film ultimately sheds a huge light upon is how a killer openly went about his tireless, prodigious business - pretty much in plain view. The LAPD, not surprisingly, refused Broomfield's requests to be interviewed. We only see the cops on camera through news footage wherein they're extolling their "genius" at cracking the case through good, old-fashioned police work. As Broomfield's film more than ably proves, the police pretty much did nothing, save for bragging about how much they did. "Hypocrites", "liars" and "pigs" are words that come appropriately to mind.

The real story here is how nobody did much of anything while one woman, after another and another and another, ad nauseam, were brutally murdered.

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

Tales of the Grim Sleeper is in the TIFF Docs series at TIFF 2014. Financing and sales come from HBO Documentaries.

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WHIPLASH - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2014 Special Presentation

Student and Teacher: FULL METAL JACKET - as it should be!

"GOOD" is never good enough!

"You are a worthless pansy-ass who's now weeping and slobbering all over my drums like a nine-year-old girl! 

Whiplash (2014)
Dir. Damien Chazelle
Starring: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Paul Reiser, Chris Mulkey
Review By Greg Klymkiw

"If you deliberately sabotage my band, I will fuck you like a pig." - Teacher to Student, Whiplash

So barks Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), a jazz instructor at a tony private music conservatory in the dirtiest of towns, the glorious NYC. Fletcher is a character who makes Gny. Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket look like your kindly old Grandma Apple Doll.

There's no two ways about it.

Fisher's a major-league prick-to-the-nth-degree, but his aim is true.

Do you think I'm fuckin' stupid? I know you were "the one"!

He believes his students are the best of the best, but frankly, for him, that's not good enough. He demands they push their gifts harder than a prize studhorse slams a mare in heat. He demands true force. He demands self-inflicted pain as well as the infliction of pain. He demands greatness. Fletcher might be bi-polar or passive-aggressive (accent on aggressive), but he knows damn well that he must be cruel to be kind. Inspiration comes to the talented only by slamming their faces repeatedly against a brick wall, and then, like some abusive parent, offering words of solace (when warranted) and continuing the cycle again and again until the student either breaks through or is broken. It's the only way. And God help you if you're just "good". The Gospel According to Fletcher (and frankly, any such teacher in the real world) is this: "There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job."

I personally believe in this philosophy and perhaps it's why I partially and so strongly responded to Whiplash, the searing story of Fletcher and his cruel, brilliant and passionate relationship with Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), a drumming prodigy who seeks to be greater than great.

Being the greatest musician of the 20th century is anyone's idea of success.

That said, I think my personal connection to this philosophy is a drop in the bucket compared to the nasty, rip-snorting drama writer-director Damien Chazelle has wrought with this relentless sledgehammer-to-the-face of a film. I've not been so charged during a movie in a long-time. In fact, Fletcher's ferocious demands and almost vindictive bashing of students' psyches, and in particular, that of the equally obsessed student Andrew, has the visceral force of a great vigilante picture with equally compelling cat and mice at the forefront - only here, the mouse definitely becomes no mere cat, but a man - all MAN and a real one at that! Simmons's performance knocks you on your ass, but Teller holds his own with the man of iron resolve.

NOT MY TEMPO

Add to the mix, gorgeously gritty cinematography by Sharone Meir (a delicious blend of 70s pulp and colour-tinged noir) and the editing of Tom Cross that has you breathless - almost from beginning to end. I say "almost", only because Chazelle's screenplay wisely settles down with occasional moments of tenderness twixt father (Paul Reiser) and son and the less-compelling, but ultimately necessary doomed romantic relationship between Andrew and a sweet, young thing (Melissa Benoist) who must come last on the lad's list of life priorities.

What I love most about Cross's cutting is the fact that neither he nor Chazelle back away from making bold (some might erroneously say "obvious") cuts that draw attention to the virtuosity of the cinematic storytelling. I'd argue, however, it works in tandem with the mise-en-scene and the screenplay to drive a story about the sheer intensity of creation. As well, one cannot deny the tale's rhythms of mano a mano twixt Fletcher and Andrew. The act and art of creation is a war zone and Cross understands the macho tempo of this dynamic. Though Cross's cutting is flashy, it never once descends to the herby-jerky of so much contemporary cutting. Part of this comes from the wise compositions Meir and Chazelle have settled upon as well as a spectacular retro lighting scheme that plunges us into that astonishing world of 70s existential male angst - more than appropriate given the natural of the story.

The climactic sequence Chazelle delivers is a musical equivalent to a great action-suspense set-piece. Here is where the aforementioned collaboration between Cross, Meir and Chazelle explodes in all its richness. It had me breathless and on the edge of my seat upon a first viewing. Subsequent viewings have allowed me to bask in its sheer cinematic razzle-dazzle.

The movie is not at all pleasant, but its very disagreeable tone transcends all pathetic notions of palatability and finally serves up one entertaining and provocative series of cinematic blows to the gut.

The Film Corner Rating: **** 4-Stars

Whiplash is a Special Presentation at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. For further info, visit the TIFF Website HERE. Released via Mongrel Media.

REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS - Review By Greg Klymkiw TIFF'14SpecialPresentation

Revenge of the Green Dragons (2014)
Dir. Andrew Lau, Andrew Loo
Screenplay: Michael Di Jiacomo
Executive Producer: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Ray Liotta, Justin Chon, Kevin Wu, Harry Shum Jr, Shuya Chang, Geoff Pierson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Some pictures bring a solid pedigree to the table so that you're pretty much guaranteed a mega-quality product. Revenge of the Green Dragons is registered to an extremely prestigious stud book (the gold standard of registries in animal husbandry). One half of the picture's directing team is the prolific dynamo who launched the 2002 Hong Kong crime hit Infernal Affairs and its prequel and sequel, which, in turn, eventually yielded the American remake The Departed, Martin Scorsese's longtime-coming Oscar-winner as Best Director. Here, adding to the pedigree, Scorsese also serves as Executive Producer of this sprawling saga of Asian gangland warfare in NYC during the 1980s.

Alas, "pedigree" in the case of this new film is best linked to animal husbandry rather than anything else since Revenge of the Green Dragons is a mangy, drooling dog that's more of the mongrel rather than purebred variety.

There isn't a single original element in this ploddingly familiar tale of childhood immigrants who grow up as members of a powerful mob dynasty. Michael Di Jiacomo (whose own dubious pedigree is linked to a few obscure indie pictures) is the purported writer of the dull screenplay which trots out the usual blend of mixed loyalties, betrayals and excuses for competently-helmed sequences involving a surfeit of gunplay - none of which has much impact since the characters aren't even interesting enough to be called cardboard cutouts. The movie is full of expository narration, all meant to infuse the picture with a sense of history and epic sweep, but serving little more than to provide opportunities for posturing and over-scored, lame-duck montages of the most bargain-basement-Scorsese kind.

Ultimately, Revenge of the Green Dragons proves that no matter what the pedigree, aberrations are always a distinct possibility. This one is especially hobbled and deformed. It doesn't even have a particularly engaging spirit so it can be pitied.

This doggie is fair game for euthanasia.

And speaking of assisted suicide, the film features an especially egregious misuse of a pasty, disinterested Ray Liotta (Henry Hill from Scorsese's Goodfellas) who somnambulistically shuffles through the proceedings as an FBI agent who, on paper, is intent on breaking the mob, but in practice just looks like he needs another drink or snort.

It'd be great to see a good, kick-ass hybrid of Asian and American criminal shenanigans. This, however, is most assuredly not it.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

Revenge of the Green Dragons is a Special Presentation at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and distributed in Canada via VVS Films. For tix, times and venues, visit the TIFF website HERE.

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TRICK OR TREATY? - TIFF 2014 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Politely Canadian Apartheid

Chancellor Stephen Harper is the most insidious
of all Canadian Colonial Backwater Prime Ministers
in the "polite" genocide of our First Nations people.
Heil Canada! Heil Old Money! Heil Der Führer!
Heil Harper!

Trick or Treaty?
Dir. Alanis Obomsawin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are many things that disgust Canadians about Chancellor Stephen Harper, but for me, the worst is his refusal to properly deal with the egregious theft of Aboriginal Rights during the signing of the notorious James Bay Treaty, as well as the veritable litany of horrendously callous issues related to our First Nations People that he simply chooses to ignore. (The epidemic of murdered and missing Native women, anyone?) As the most vile Prime Minister in Canadian history (and we've had quite a few contenders for that dubious distinction in the Dominion of Canada), his record and public stance on the Native People of our country goes well beyond the pale. This pathetic Cowboy Hitler takes the cake.

Alanis Obomsawin's important body of work, including her new film Trick or Treaty?, confirms that Canada has always been the most insidious colonial backwater of them all and the genocide it continues to perpetrate upon our First Nations is perfectly in keeping with the country's sickeningly polite approach to decimating those who would dare get in the way of Old Money's needs to keep amassing money by just taking it (tactfully, graciously and ever-so sneakily, of course). Obmosawin's new documentary focuses upon a massive peaceful protest in Ottawa, the nation's capitol, that was designed to force Chancellor Harper (and, of course, the Governor General who represents the British Monarchy) to meet face-to-face with those First Nations Chiefs most affected by the over-100-year-old treaty which was designed and implemented to steal land and not allow any meaningful sharing in the decision-making process of dealing with said land.

The result of the James Bay Treaty has been abject poverty, skyrocketing rates of suicide and environmental destruction, all of which affects not just our Aboriginal brothers and sisters, but ALL Canadians. What affects the original inhabitants of this land IS our responsibility, but most of all, when any members of our nation are hard done by, our only real choice is to ensure our elected officials and bureaucrats are going to do the right thing.

Harper and his party of Totalitarian knuckle-draggers could care less. The power of this film is seeing the efforts of Native People trying to get him to address the problem - to give him a shot at something resembling redemption. We know in our heart of hearts it won't happen, but what's on view in Obomsawin's film makes us want it to happen nevertheless.

Top: Vile Canuck Bureaucrat (is there any other kind?)
Below: The True Heroes of every living Canadian

The core of the film involves a re-enactment of the 1905 signing of the James Bay Treaty (aka Treaty No. 9) in Moose Factory, Ontario. Presided over by the brainchild of this event, the late, great Dr. Stan Louttit, Grand Chief of the Mushkegowuk Tribal Council, presents some of the most damning evidence of Canada's wilful apartheid and genocide (take your pick, Canada's done both) against our First Nations.

One of the earliest 20th Century Canadian Nazis was a petty bureaucrat (bureaucrats are the pathetic dweebs who implement the desires of our foul politicians) who rose to power within the Department of Indian Affairs to eventually become its Obergruppenführer. In the film, Louttit brings our attention to Scott's evil when he reads the following words of the foul bureaucrat:

"I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic . . ."

These are the words with which Scott extolled the virtues of Residential Schools - a horrendous program that forcibly wrenched over 150,000 Native Canadian children from their families and homes, shoving them into boarding schools designed to break their spirit and remove all vestiges of their culture from their hearts and minds. To do this involved physical and psychological abuse that was little more than torture. There was, of course, the added rampant sexual abuse, all of it perpetrated in the de rigueur fashion by - no surprise - Catholic nuns and priests.

So get this, in the film, Louttit exposes the fact that Scott, this paragon of forced assimilation, was also one of the chief bureaucrats present during the signing of the notorious James Bay Treaty where he and several others outright lied to the Native leaders about the content of the treaty and created an entire facade by which the First Nations representatives signed a document based on what the bureaucrats assured them was in the treaty as opposed to what was actually there. Louttit also exposes documentation which proves this fraud was perpetrated beyond any shadow of a doubt, so no matter what physically exists on paper in the treaty itself, the fact remains that the treaty the Chiefs signed is ultimately the treaty imparted to them verbally.

Native culture was rooted in an oral tradition and as such, especially during the time the treaty was presented, means VERY CLEARLY that the LIES of those Canadian politicians and bureaucrats present at the signing (all representing Mother England, our ruler) must, in fact, be taken as the ACTUAL TRUTH. The signatures of the Chiefs are actually "marks" (usually a single "X") since the men who signed the treaties could not read or write English and had to depend upon the aforementioned politicians and bureaucrats to tell them verbally what they were signing.

This powerful core of Obomsawin's film is deftly woven into the harrowing hunger strike implemented by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence who went on a six-week-long liquids-only program to demand a meeting with Chancellor Harper and Canada's Governor General David Johnston to address a variety of issues related to treaty rights and the economic, cultural and societal plight Native Canadians find themselves in because of said treaties like James Bay. Obomsawin also includes a pointed Native Studies lecture dealing with the exploitative aspects of Treaty No. 9 and an astonishing, by-foot journey undertaken by several young Native men across Ontario's icy tundras from the far north to Ottawa itself.

And what of Chancellor Harper in all of this? It's what he chooses not to do that's the most egregious action. Looming in the backdrop of many of the activities is the symbol of Canadian evil, the Parliament Buildings, our very own Reichstagsgebäude. Harper is nestled safely within and yet a woman is potentially dying at his feet, thousands of men and women are gathered and even engaging in several spectacular displays of Native culture and then, several young, brave men have travelled by foot, thousands of miles to be in Ottawa.

Where the fuck is Chancellor Harper? Would it have been too much for him to make a few public appearances and say a few words to the assembled (no matter how empty they would have been)? He's simply nowhere to be seen, nor heard from throughout the range of spectacular, impressive and deeply moving events captured by Obomsawin's film (including a monumental circle dance involving hundreds of people).

Trick or Treaty? was produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It's somehow ironic that Harper, in his continued assault upon Canadian culture, is continually destroying the fabric of our cultural institutions and his vehement financial dismantlement of the Board itself is something we might, as a nation, never fully recover from.

At the end of her film, Obomsawin leaves us with a montage that's as heart-lifting as it's heartbreaking. It includes the powerful words of John Trudell. I'll leave you now, with the refrain:

Crazy Horse
We Hear what you say
One Earth, one Mother
One does not sell the Earth
The people walk upon
We are the land
How do we sell our Mother ?
How do we sell the stars ?
How do we sell the air ?

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

Trick or Treaty? enjoys its World Premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. For further information, visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

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MAIDAN - TIFF 2014 (TIFF WAVELENGTHS) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

To see Maidan is to see a great film.
To see Maidan as a Ukrainian is to
experience a series of epiphanies.

Maidan (2014)
Dir. Sergei Loznitsa

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Part of me wishes I could just respond to this great documentary as, one supposes, it should be - as a stunning, stirring work of film art that adheres to the tenets of direct cinema by simply focusing upon three key months of the revolution in Ukraine from late 2013 to early 2014. And make no mistake, Maidan, by Sergei Loznitsa is a grand achievement of the highest order. Other than occasional inter-titles describing the historical context in a simple, fact-based manner, Loznitsa allows his exquisite footage to speak for itself.

Using long takes, beautifully composed with no camera movement, the film captures key moments, both specific historical incidents and deeply, profoundly moving human elements. As such, the film evokes stirring and fundamental narrative, thematic and emotional sensations which place us directly in the eye of the storm.

The storm, ultimately, is of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovitch's doing. After all, it was he who refused to align Ukraine with the European Union and instead, as a corrupt puppet of Russia, cut a deal Ukraine did not want - to align itself with the pig Vladimir Putin and his desire to swallow Ukraine into Russia.

The film simply records the actions of thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians as they protested in revolt against Yanukovitch and Putin. In the background we hear stirring speeches, but in the foreground we see the real Ukrainian people as they set up camp in the Maidan of Kyiv, Independence Square.

It is in the Maidan that Loznitsa captures moments of peace - often those individuals who are strenuously volunteering to provide warmth, shelter and food to those protestors in need of it - as well as moments of friction and violence as we see Yanukovitch's Gestapo-like police inching ever closer towards the people. One of the most stirring moments is seeing ordinary people smashing the cobblestone in the streets to be hurled towards the heavily armed pro-Russian forces. Most sadly, we see Kyiv burn. And, then there are the shots fired and the public funerals of simple folk who have died as heroes. There is very little in this film that does not evoke tears of both joy and sorrow.

Though some might argue this approach eschews a political perspective, I'd argue strenuously that its direct cinema approach cannot help being political given the subjects and subject matter. That Loznitsa chooses three separate sequences involving groups of people ranging from huge to intimate as they sing the Ukrainian National Anthem and in each case bracketed between highly charged moments detailing the events of the revolution, there is clearly not only a political subtext, but one which feels like it's a choice the filmmaker has indeed made to accentuate the need and importance of this revolution.

The lyrics of the anthem Shche ne vmerla Ukraina have always been translated as "Ukraine Has Not Yet Died", but in recent years, slight modifications from the early 2000s to the original verse written by Pavlo Chubynsky in the 19th Century provide the somewhat more hopeful "Ukraine's Glory has not yet Perished." It is this latter version which we hear within the film and yet, to anyone who grew up singing the original lyrics, there's a sense that no, Ukraine has not yet died.

This brings me to my aforementioned desire to respond to Loznitsa's film solely on an aesthetic level, but the fact remains that it's virtually impossible for me to do so.

As a Ukrainian-Canadian raised within a strongly Ukrainian Nationalist culture, the film's qualities as cinema are accentuated in ways that go much deeper. Anytime I hear the anthem, I soar, but maybe most importantly my own feelings about Ukraine take on an added intensity when I see the events Loznitsa has chosen to capture based upon the following key personal elements:

1. Though I was born in Canada, the first time I set foot on Ukrainian soil infused me with a sense of finally "belonging" to something, some place I'd always imagined, but had not yet experienced fully. This only intensified as I spent more time in the country - including, I must add, Eastern Ukraine, where much of the current strife now exists.

2. My apartment in Kyiv was a mere half-block away from the Maidan. Seeing all the locations I'd become so intimately acquainted with and have such fond memories of (including the McDonald's with its strange cyrillic menu items pronounced as "Beeg Mek" or "Da-bl Chees-boorgoor"), forced me to experience Loznitsa's film with the added emotions of one who lived there for an extended period and had come to recognize and love something that became all too real.

Witnessing these events as captured by Loznitsa is a moving document of human solidarity in the face of corruption. Witnessing them as a Ukrainian, however, is to experience every beat, word and action as a series of epiphanies. Maidan is a film that places the revolution in the broader context of what is happening in Ukraine now, but in its simple, beautiful and staggering way, it is a film of considerable importance as it expresses how we must all choose revolution when the criminal actions of very few affect the lives of the majority.

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

Maidan screens at the Toronto International Film Festival in the Wavelengths series. For further information, visit the TIFF 2014 website by clicking HERE.

RED ARMY and FOXCATCHER - TIFF 2014 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canada vs. America: The Politics and Propaganda of Sports in Gabe Polsky’s Red Army and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher - My latest "Colonial Report (on Cinema) from the Dominion of Canada" column in the super-cool UK film mag "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema"

The politics and propaganda in American Sports
The politics and Propaganda in American Cinema

Red Army (2014)
Dir. Gabe Polsky

Foxcatcher (2014)
Dir. Bennett Miller

Canada vs. America: The Politics and Propaganda of Sports in Gabe Polsky’s Red Army and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher

By Greg Klymkiw

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2014) report in my latest "Colonial Report (on Cinema) from the Dominion of Canada" column in the super-cool UK film mag "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema" Here's a couple of snippets to whet your appetite:

Foxcatcher, one of the most exciting American movies of the year, very strangely employs propagandistic elements within the narrative structure provided by screenwriters E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, which, in turn, the director Bennett Miller superbly jockeys in his overall mise-en-scène. Astonishingly, the filmmakers manage to have their cake and eat it too. By offering a detailed examination of propaganda within the context of American history and society, as well as a mounting an ever-subtle critical eye upon it, Miller might continue to add accolades to his mantle in addition to the Best Director nod he copped at Cannes.

Gabe Polsky’s feature length documentary Red Army is as much about the propaganda machine (of Cold War Russia) as it is pure propaganda unto itself, by placing undue emphasis upon the rivalry between America and the Soviet Union on the blood-spattered battleground of ice hockey competition. Polsky has fashioned a downright spellbinding history of the Red Army hockey team, which eventually became a near-juggernaut of Soviet skill and superiority in the world. In spite of this, many Canadians will call the film a total crock-and-bull story. While a Maple Leaf perspective might provide an eye more sensitive to Miller’s exploration of the propagandistic gymnastics of American blue blood powerbrokers, there is bound to be more than just a little crying foul over Polsky’s film.

Read the FULL article by clicking HERE

Red Army and Foxcatcher are Mongrel Media releases.

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