AN AMERICAN DREAM: THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM BOWMAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canadian Film Fest 2017 Opening Night - Finkleman Satire Worthy, But Misses Mark

Shooting ducks in a barrel not the aim of great satire.

An American Dream: The Education of William Bowman
Dir. Ken Finkleman
Starring: Jake Croker, Diana Bentley, Shiloh Blondel, Jan Caruana, Precious Chong

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Most Canadians with taste, intelligence and hailing from a far superior generation than afforded to the world via millennials, are well acquainted with the considerable gifts of writer-director-actor Ken Finkleman, the Winnipeg born-and-bred auteur. He, along with many stellar 'Peggers, warmed his ass on the University College radiators at the esteemed University of Manitoba before going on to a content creation career, and though most will not forgive his contributions to Grease 2, Airplane 2, Who's That Girl and Head Office, he holds the distinction of creating - bar-none - the very best piece of Canadian television (ever) with his original first 13 episodes of the CBC series The Newsroom in the 1996-1997 seasons and its limited followup More Tears in 1998 (with its deliciously savage satirical portrait of the ultra-conservative Canuck politician/golfer Mike Harris). Though many unimaginative pundits referred to Finkleman's TV work as a poor man's "Larry Sanders Show", they were, as per usual, wrong. The first 13 episodes of Finkleman's bold, brilliant satire, set behind the scenes of a national newsroom, and its sequel with Finkleman's character as a documentary film producer, still deliver the kind of on-the-edge laughs and observations most purveyors of comedy can only dream of.

I only wish An American Dream: The Education of William Bowman was a return to that form, but alas, as satire, it takes its aim at America with all the grace and subtlety of North Western Ontario hosers shooting ducks in a barrel.

In the tradition of such Candide-Gulliver-like satires, most notably Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man!, Finkleman delivers the episodic tale of William Bowman (Jake Croker), an all-American football star hopeful whose life is irrevocably altered by a horrific accident that sends him on a journey of equal parts sadness and madness. He becomes a media sensation, but his fame exacts a horrible toll upon him.

Taking potshots at politics is one thing, but Finkleman trains his aim upon America and frankly, the country is increasingly and alarmingly a place that has become a nation of self-parody. This is clearly the point of Finkleman's bold, brave film, but its satire often seems strangely pitched in ways that are closer to "spoof" rather than the kind of cutting edge one expects from this kind of picture. Things feel too rooted in sarcasm and there's a wonky blend of playing things "straight" and over the top. God knows one doesn't want Finkleman to try aping Lindsay Anderson, but O Lucky Man (and its precursor If) had a glorious consistency of tone that An American Dream desperately needs. In fact, the movie feels a lot closer to Anderson's scattershot Mick Travis finale Britannia Hospital. This is not a good thing.

What is a good thing is that Finkleman's film exists at all. It's often maddening for all the wrong reasons, but there is absolutely no denying there's anything currently out there like it. I wish it wasn't so self-conscious, so aware of itself. Yes, it's clever, but it's never very funny. Its savagery feels machine-tooled. This is, though, reason enough for celebration. Better machine-tooled satire than all the machine-tooled dross that passes for cinema in America today.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three-Stars

An American Dream: The Education of William Bowman is the opening night gala at Toronto's Canadian Film Fest 2017.

BEING THERE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - I like to watch Peter Sellers on the Criterion Blu-Ray

Yes, even a half-wit can change the shape of a nation.
Hard to believe, huh?

Being There (1979)
Dir. Hal Ashby
Nvl. Jerzy Kosinski
Scr. Kosinski, Robert C. Jones (sadly uncredited)
Starring: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, David Clennon,
Fran Brill, Richard Dysart, Jack Warden, Richard Basehart, Ruth Attaway

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Chance (Peter Sellers) is a gardener. He's lived his entire life behind the walls of a rich old man's urban fortress, a beautiful townhouse in a once-tony but now blighted, decrepit Washington, D.C. neighbourhood.

Living one's life in the same place is one thing, literally living one's life in the same place is quite another. You see, Chance has never left the house. Ever! All he knows about the outside world comes from watching television.

"I like to watch," Chance says at one point in Hal Ashby's exquisitely perfect Being There. He says this to Eve (Shirley MacLaine), the young wife of an aging, ailing tycoon of business, Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas). Eve thinks Chance "likes to watch" women masturbating, so she obliges him happily. But like everyone, she misunderstands the gentle, soft-spoken, simple-minded, middle-aged gardener. He "likes to watch" TV.

Well, of course he does. Who doesn't? (My poison of choice is "Judge Judy", but that's another story.) But the fact remains, Chance really knows very little about anything, except, that is, gardening. Oh, he does know all about that. He's a veritable Rhodes Scholar of tending to plants and could, no doubt, give many a botanist a run for their money. When the aforementioned benefactor in the townhouse dies, Chance is ordered to leave the home and for the first time in his life, he's forced to confront the real world. It's in this brave new universe that the slow-witted horticulturist gives everyone a run for their money.

Being There is a great film. It's as great a film as its source material, the book by Jerzy ("The Painted Bird") Kosinski, is a great novel. Both are satirical as all get-out. After all, Ashby and Kosinski and company have deliberately chosen to render the tale of a half-wit who becomes an overnight media sensation when a car accident lands him as a guest in the home of Ben Rand and his pretty wifey. Chance's elegant attire and exquisite manners, thanks to his mysterious late benefactor, certainly don't betray him. He's also, by virtue of his mild mental challenges, someone who speaks in slow, considered ways in order to communicate.

That he knows everything in the world about gardening also holds him in good stead. Whenever he responds to a question or comment, all he can usually do is respond in horticultural metaphors. For example, one of the most hilarious scenes in the movie has Chance being introduced to the President of the United States (Jack Warden) in Ben Rand's study. Chance sits quietly as Rand and the Prez yammer on about economic policy. At one point, the President asks Chance if he agrees with Rand's view on the state of the country.

"As long as the roots are not severed, all is well," says Chance. "And all will be well in the garden... in the garden, growth has its seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again." The President mulls this over, quite seriously. Rand chimes in with: "I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy." Chance excitedly responds: "Yes! There will be growth in the spring!"

This conversation with a half-wit inspires the President to formulate his economic policy and even quote Chance in a State of the Union address to the entire nation.

The simple gardener becomes the buzz and toast of Washington, D.C. One night he's invited on a TV talk show broadcast to millions of people. When Louise (Ruth Attaway), the former maid at the townhouse, watches Chance with a whole passel of fellow African-American septuagenarians in the common room of the old folks home she lives in, she delivers one of the greatest satirical monologues in movie history:

"It's for sure a white man's world in America. Look here: I raised that boy since he was the size of a pissant. And I'll say right now, he never learned to read and write. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between the ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you've gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want."

To say Being There is prescient might be an understatement. Even more astonishing is that this movie is almost 40-years-old and has not dated in any way, shape or form.

Yes, it's a satire, but it's a very gentle satire. Thanks to Ashby's direction and the deeply moving performance of Peter Sellers, the film is laced with melancholy and even touches of sentiment. As the film savagely exposes truths about America, Being There not only makes you laugh, but in several moments, especially during the profoundly heartbreaking conclusion, it's impossible not to shed a tear or two. Even more amazingly, the movie lifts you to heavenly heights. It makes you soar while you weep.

That's genuine greatness!

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

I NEVER watch added value items on home entertainment until after I see the movie and write about it. (So yeah, I'm writing this AFTER I finished watching the movie and writing the review above. What I can say, however, is that this is a great Blu-Ray and provides a wealth of material that truly enhance one's pleasure and appreciation of this movie. Most notable is the background on poor Robert C. Jones who was screwed out of a writing credit in an asshole move by Kosinski. So much of what's great about the picture comes from Jones's participation in the creative process. The other delightful feature is the unexpurgated blooper reel of a scene Peter Sellers was never able to properly complete because the absurdity of the lines and situation proved to be so hilarious that he couldn't help from breaking down in fits of laughter.

This truly has to be seen to be believed.

Being There on the Criterion Collection includes a new, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a new documentary on the making of the film, excerpts from a 1980 American Film Institute seminar with director Hal Ashby, Jerzy Kosinski in a 1979 appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show", appearances from 1980 by Peter Sellers on "NBC’s Today" and "The Don Lane Show", a promo reel featuring Sellers and Ashby, the trailer and TV spots, a deleted scene, outtakes, and alternate ending and an essay by critic Mark Harris.

Yet Another Reason Why The Royal in Toronto is the BEST Indie Cinema, not just in Toronto, but Canada (and one of the best in the world). The fabulous first-run product is not matched by any screen in the country. Currently playing is the fine indie UK zombie picture THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS - on the big screen, where it's meant to be seen! The Royal has the best sound and picture in the city (by day, it's Theatre D Digital, a sound mixing studio for the movies). The seats are super-comfy too.!!! Review By Greg Klymkiw

Glenn Close is a mad scientist. Typecasting.

The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
Dir. Colm McCarthy
Scr. M. R. Carey
Starring: Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close, Sennia Nanua

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Twelve-year-old Melanie (Sennia Nanua) wakes up in a dank cell, hops out of bed and places herself into a wheelchair. The door opens. Two heavily-armed soldiers train their guns upon her as she's muzzled and strapped securely - treated like a kind of pre-teen Hannibal Lecter and wheeled into a room full of other similarly-secured children.

It's time for school.

Melanie's high I.Q. and vivid imagination is more than enough to earn her the distinction of being teacher's pet to instructor Helen Justineau (babe-o-licious Gemma Arterton). The crusty head of security Sgt. Eddie Parks (still handsome and oddly rugged Paddy Considine) treats the child like a psycho monster and has no use for her. Mad scientist Dr. Caroline Caldwell (a very creepy - naturally - Glenn Close) has been performing a whole whack of grotesque experiments upon the kiddies, but has some very special plans for this child - a girl "with all the gifts".

It's no surprise that Melanie's favourite story is "Pandora's Box" since she clearly holds much in the way of "evil" that she wants to release in order to cling to the "hope" she most definitely can provide to the world.

There is, you see, a fungus. It has spread like wildfire and turned most of the world into "hungries" (as they're referred to by the mean-ass Sarge).

And what precisely are they hungry for?

Human flesh, of course.

She's perfectly normal, though she wants to eat people.

Melanie is a "hungry", but she's definitely not like the others and Doc Caldwell has her eye on the child to provide an eventual cure/antidote.

Every single time I hear about and/or see a new movie with zombies (or any crazed undead afflicted with a "virus/disease/fungus"), my heart begins to sink and my eyes start to glaze over, but when I see something like The Girl With All The Gifts I get all hap-hap-hap-hap-happy again. Yes, there's life left in old chestnuts and Colm McCarthy's film of writer M.R. Carey's screenplay (based upon his book) is proof positive of this.

As is my wont, I knew nothing about the movie before seeing it, and I'm especially grateful to have entered into the film's world in total ignorance. Once hell breaks loose, and oh, it does with horrifying abandon, we're plunged into a living Hell of ravenous, bloodthirsty zombies.

She's not interested in eating anyone at the moment.

The military base falls to thousands of carnivorous creatures and our protagonists - child, teacher, doctor and soldier - begin begin a terrifying danger-fraught odyssey across a topsy-turvy blood-soaked United Kingdom. Director McCarthy handles the proceedings with all the skill and style required to keep us on the edge of our seats. There's one sequence in particular where the "humans" must wend their way through hundreds of "sleeping" zombies which not only provided me with all the necessary bowel gurgles I enjoy during horror pictures, but also inspired the unloading of some heavy matter. (If you see the movie in public, please wear adult diapers.)

This is one scary-ass movie.

That the film eventually creeps into been-there-done-that territory during its final third is a wee bit disappointing, but the picture ultimately delivers on plenty of shocks, chills and thrills and yes, manages to infuse its occasional stock moments with the kind of humanity that finally raises things well beyond the "stock"-in-trade of such items.

An interesting side note is that half of the film's £4 million budget came from the BFI Film Fund (one of their largest investments - ever) and Creative England (the largest investment it's ever made). These are the kind of government-infused cultural initiatives I can support wholeheartedly. I'm assuming/hoping the bureaucrats left the filmmakers alone to make the movie they wanted to make. As a Canadian, I can sincerely hope we see similar government-funded cultural support from Telefilm and its ilk.

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

The Girl With All The Gifts premiered at the TIFF 2016 Midnight Madness series. It is a Saban Films release and is playing theatrically at The Royal Cinema in Toronto on the following dates:

2017-03-18 4:30 PM
2017-03-18 9:00 PM
2017-03-20 9:00 PM
2017-03-21 9:00 PM
2017-03-22 9:00 PM

KONG: SKULL ISLAND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Saved By Great Monsters, John C. Reilly

John C. Reilly: The only thing resembling a human being.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Scr. Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly
Sty: John Gatins
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson,
John Goodman, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Why it took four writers to come up with the lame, dull Kong: Skull Island screenplay is beyond me. Then again, given the sheer emptiness of most studio pictures these days, it shouldn't surprise anyone since it takes a whole lotta boneheads to generate a whole lotta stupid. An American President called Donald Trump is proof of that.

If truth be told, I can almost even forgive inept imbecility. What I can't forgive is tedium and this mostly horrendous reboot of the Kong franchise is nothing if not mind-numbingly boring for most of its interminable 118-minute length. Much of what makes the movie dull are the missed opportunities it took four writers to conjure up.

Things begin promisingly enough with the pre-credit sequence. It's WWII and two soldiers - one American, the other Japanese - crash on the remote Skull Island. Ah, tantalizing! Perhaps we will be afforded a lovely action-packed nod to John Boorman's Hell in the Pacific? But, no. We're handed two dull anonymous actors - no Lee Marvin or Toshiro Mifune here. Jesus, I'd have even settled for something resembling Peter Sellers/Burt Kwouk Pink Panther martial arts slap-schtick shenanigans. That, however, would be too politically incorrect by contemporary standards (and sadly, the movie's endlessly shoe-horned P.C. sensibilities are another big problem with the picture). So instead, we get a dull sprint up a mountain and our warring soldiers meet with a far more formidable enemy - Yup, you guessed it, King Kong, the big hairy ape. (But don't worry, ain't nothing too Eugene O'Neill about this hirsute monkey.)

Our movie launches into an annoyingly wham-bam credit sequence detailing American history from the last Great War and eventually leading up to the turbulence of the 1970s. Thank God it stops here - a real decade. Alas, the period detail, in virtually every respect, is woefully inadequate - most annoyingly with the contemporary-speak of the dialogue and the decidedly 2017 timbre of the delivery of said dialogue.

Of course, this being 2017, in spite of the movie being set in the 1970s, we don't get to meet a cool adventurer seeking passage to Skull Island, say along the lines of showman Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong in the 1933 version, Jack Black in Peter Jackson's 2005 entry) or even a delectably sleazy oilman like Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin in 1976). What we get is the supremely unimaginative, ineffectual government hack Bill Randa (John Goodman) and his earnestly plucky African-American geologist Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins). Randa is such a useless schmo that it takes his right-hand Houston to convince a Senator to bankroll the expedition.

Welcome to 2017. And not that I have a problem with this smooth young Black male weaselling dough out of the Senator instead of boss man Whitey, but it might have been far more interesting to have a character like Randa, written-for and played by someone with some balls, like Laurence Fishburne for example. The role of this character, or character-type, requires - Nay, demands someone in his august years (or at least in the case of 1976's Grodin, one of those 30-something guys who feels like he's in his 50s or 60s) and more importantly, someone who has the smarts to squeeze oil out of an empty drum.

But, I remind you - it took four writers to generate this screenplay.

Can't go too wrong with a cute prehistoric muskox.

So, off to Skull Island we go. Randa assembles a stock, boring team that includes former British Special-Ops mercenary James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston, a great actor in a nothing role), gung-ho army dude Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson, a great actor, but more boring than usual in this stock role), looking for more carnage now that the Vietnam War is over and perhaps most sickeningly, Mason Weaver (Brie Larson, a great actress with a completely idiotic role), a self-proclaimed "Anti-war photographer" (whatever that's supposed to mean). Of course the team is replete with other soldiers, scientists and bureaucrats in order to provide ample food for the monsters.

The movie plods through all of its uninspired machinations as our team essentially needs to get off the island as soon as they land on it - there are monsters, after all. Our leading lady is, of course, not the "beauty who killed the beast", but rather, the beauty that the beast thinks is kind of okay and not a danger to him. Our leading man is boring and does little more than argue with the gung-ho army guy and acquiesce to the madman's needs to kill monsters to avenge the deaths of his soldiers. Of course, the ineffectual adventurer Randa is so useless that we almost forget he's in the movie until he gets eaten. Then, we get to forget about him all over again.

Happily, the movie introduces us to Lieutenant Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly, playing the older version of the American soldier introduced at the beginning of the movie). Marlow has been living on the island since WWII in the protective custody of the island's indigenous Native population. Thank God! A real character with an irascible sense of humour. Reilly not only makes us laugh, but he's really the only person we care about. Stupidly, the writers have relegated Marlow's Japanese counterpart to that of a corpse - someone who is talked about fondly, but whom we don't get a chance to know. It would have been amazing to have a great veteran Asian actor quipping with Reilly and doing battle with the monsters, but you know, there were only four writers, so you can't expect creative miracles.

Even more boring than most of the film's non-characters are the island's tribesmen. What a ho-hum lot. They appear to be pseudo-Buddhist types who do little more than cast inscrutable glances every which way. This is strangely even more ethnocentric (and perhaps even downright racist) than the previous incarnations of "ignorant", "bloodthirsty" "savages" in the 1933 and 2005 versions. At least those people had something resembling "life" infused in their ooga-booga personae.

Kong looks forward to some yummy octopus tentacles.

Other than Reilly's delightful performance, the only thing else left are the monsters. I won't bother attributing any of the picture's "success" in this regard to the by-rote direction of Jordan Vogt-Roberts (his boring nods to Apocalypse Now notwithstanding), but rather, all the magnificent SFX geniuses who designed the myriad of creatures. Kong's battles with the other behemoths are pretty damn spectacular and perk things up ever-so thrillingly. There's a phenomenal aquatic cage match twixt Kong and a humungous octopus which culminates in a wonderful moment in which Kong slurps up a few tentacles. One can, I suppose, attribute this to one of the four writers. Kudos, dudes!

That said, all previous incarnations of the Kong story were a whole lot more than just the monsters. They had, uh, characters, a solid story arc and were chockfull of wonder. They were sheer magic. There's nothing like that here - just a whole lotta tedious expository (and stupid, 'natch) nonsense to setup the inevitable sequels and franchise "universe". I'm coming to hate that word. "Universe" should conjure up feelings of expanse and possibility - not more of the same.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-Half Stars

Kong: Skull Island is in wide release via Warner Brothers

LOGAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Dreadfully Directed Action Scenes Drag Picture Down

It sure would be nice to see this grizzled mug in a real movie.

Logan (2017)
Dir. James Mangold
Scr. Mangold, Scott Frank, Michael Green
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant,
Richard E. Grant, Dafne Keen, Eriq La Salle, Elizabeth Rodriguez

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Logan is the best X-Men movie ever made, but that's not really saying much since all of them have been pretty unwatchable to date. This "final" installment in the long-running film series based upon the Marvel Comics adventures of crime-fighting mutants has one big thing going for it - star Hugh Jackman.

Living in hiding as an anonymous limousine driver in Texas, our title character is slowly dying from the adamantium coursing through his veins. His ability to heal from wounds is seriously affected by this. He's caring for the dementia-riddled telepath Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who lives secretly in a dusty, rusting old factory just across the border in Mexico. Logan reluctantly becomes the chief protector of little girl Laura (Dafne Keen), a "wolverine" mutant just like he is. Pursued by the evil cybergenetic mutant Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and scumbag Transigen Corporation mad scientist Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant) and the mutant-tracking Caliban (Stephen Merchant), our three heroes hit the highways and byways of America in search of a mutant paradise called Eden (existing across the northern border in Canada, no less).

It's a road movie punctuated by several ultra-violent set pieces.

Cute little girl a baby Wolverine with deadly moves.

The picture isn't really any good - the action scenes are all directed mostly in closeups and medium shots with far-too-much herky-jerky camera moves and ADHD-infused editing and the script defies the most basic logic of the premise it sets up. Since Logan is all too aware that they're being meticulously tracked, it seems especially dopey that he allows himself, the old man and little girl to hunker down with an innocent farming family for an evening on the road to Mutant Mecca.

Surely he knows deadly harm will come to the family - and, of course, it does.

There isn't a single unpredictable moment in the whole narrative. Given the overwhelming portent of co-writer and director James Mangold's mise-en-scene, it's also obvious that Logan and Xavier are doomed. Given that it's a superhero movie and that more sequels and/or a reboot are just around the corner, it's also obvious that the little girl and a whole whack of her mutant kidlet friends will beat the bad guys and make their way to asylum in Canada.

The predictability factor in movies like this goes without saying, so it seems silly to dump on Logan just for that. What can receive a nice smelly turd-release is that the movie fails as a decent rollercoaster ride since Mangold simply has no talent for staging action scenes - all of which are a total mess. Given the astonishing craft of action movies like John Wick and its sequel, when will the studios realize they need to hire directors who know how to direct action? The math on this is pretty simple - long shots, longer takes, first-rate stunt work, a solid sense of geography and edits that are "story" influenced, not merely kinetic.

Well, the math might be simple, but it takes the cinematic equivalent to Einstein to pull it off with aplomb (something Mangold is bereft of). Not that previous X-Men helmsman Bryan Singer is God's Gift to cinema, but even he has certain basic skills to carry this sort of thing off with a relative degree of competence. What Singer lacks is anything resembling a distinctive voice. Mangold, for better or worse, has one - his pictures all have a dreariness to them that borders on, interesting (not really a compliment), but which tends to have some effect in his chamber pieces like Cop Land, his 3:10 To Yuma remake and even his first foray into X-Men territory The Wolverine. He's kind of like Christopher Nolan, but with far less in the way of pretension (and unlike Nolan, he occasionally displays something resembling a sense of humour - a bit dry, but it's there at least).

Logan does, however, have the estimable Hugh Jackman at its core. Jackman has genuine star power. The camera loves him and he's a much better actor than most of his films allow him to be. And Good God, the man is aging beautifully. Clint Eastwood has thirty years on the guy, but Jackman is giving that delicious old coot a decent run for his money in the brawny decrepitude department.

Someday, Jackman will star in a real movie. Maybe he will even play Clint Eastwood's son or baby brother someday. I look forward to that movie.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two-Stars

Logan is in wide release via 20th Century Fox.

Yet Another Reason Why The Royal in Toronto is the BEST Indie Cinema, not just in Toronto, but Canada (and one of the best in the world). The fabulous ongoing Royal series RETROPATH presents Leonard Kastle's brilliantly lurid THE HONEYMOON KILLERS - on the big screen, where it's meant to be seen! The Royal has the best sound and picture in the city (by day, it's Theatre D Digital, a sound mixing studio for the movies) and the Weegie-like monochrome of this great film is going to look more gorgeous than ever. The seats are super-comfy too.!!! Review By Greg Klymkiw

CELEBRATE the 66th Anniversary of the EXECUTION
of The Honeymoon Killers Ray and Martha
at the Royal Cinema on March 10, 2017

On March 8, 1951, the loving couple of Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez were electrocuted at Sing-Sing Prison. On March 10, 2017, you can CELEBRATE the 66th anniversary of their EXECUTION at Toronto's illustrious Royal Cinema during a RETROPATH screening of Leonard Kastle's THE HONEYMOON KILLERS. At 7:00 PM there will be a special pre-show featuring some of cinema's deadliest duos, and a pop-up in the lobby featuring local artists with incredible work for sale! Artists present are: ALEXANDRIA ANN WIDGERY GIAMOS is a part time witch, full time queer feminist who makes handmade magical goods, ALEXA TRILLI, an internationally collected glitter artist and Toronto illustrator TREVOR HENDERSON. And then, the lights will go down low for the screening of the movie proper at 8:00 PM. The Royal Cinema is located at 608 College Street, Toronto, Ontario.

The Honeymoon Killers (1969)
Dir. Leonard Kastle
Starring: Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Doris Roberts,
Dortha Duckworth, Marilyn Chris, Barbara Cason,
Mary Jane Higby, Kip McArdle, Mary Breen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Though one wishes to imagine the movie Martin Scorsese might have made from Leonard Kastle's screenplay of The Honeymoon Killers, it's probably best left unimagined. Scorsese was quickly fired by the producer for being too pokey on the shoestring $150K budget, whereupon Kastle was selected to replace him.

What remains is still one of the most mouthwateringly lurid films of the 20th century. Not that Kastle's approach to this take on the true-crime drama of the "lonelyhearts killers" was exploitative, but it derives its layers of scum quite honestly due to the realistic, monochrome and almost documentary-like approach to the material. Yet, in spite of the neo-realist flavour infusing the picture, Kastle also bathes the material in a perverse romanticism and we get, first and foremost, a love story - albeit one in which its lovers are psychopaths.

Spring boarding from events which originally took place during the post-war years of the 40s and setting them in the 60s when the film was shot, we're told the tale of Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler), a morbidly obese nurse from Mobile, Alabama who meets the sexy, charming conman Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco) from a lonely hearts club correspondence. Long before internet dating sites, those in need of love would write good, old fashioned love letters to each other via clubs which advertised their services in sleazy "women's" magazines and tabloid newspapers.

The flowery correspondence twixt the two leads Ray to make a trip down to Mobile from New York. Martha lives with her dementia-addled mother (Dortha Duckworth) and has only one real friend, the libidinous Bunny. Ray has come to dupe Martha into emptying her bank account, but instead, he falls madly in love with her, and she with him.

Eventually he reveals his "business" to Martha and the two of them carry on as lovers, but pose as brother and sister, which makes them an ideal team to perpetrate fraud upon lonely spinsters. In no time, however, simple fraud turns to murder and the pair begin to kill their victims. Committing murder seems to spark their libidos even more. After Martha gruesomely, brutally and repeatedly smashes a seventy year old woman's head to a pulp with a hammer, the two retire to the boudoir as Ray, hard-on raging, orders Martha to keep the lights on. "I want to make love," he coos.

Their love knows no bounds, it seems. However, the scams they're perpetrating often place Ray in positions where the "lonely hearts" are demanding sex from him. Worse yet, Ray even seems attracted to some of the women which only causes Martha to become both jealous and even more brutally murderous.

It's only a matter of time until they're caught and as in the real-life case, both of them are put to death in Sing Sing Prison's electric chairs. Kastle, as writer and director, never lets up on the romantic connection between Ray and Martha. Sacrifices are made for love and in spite of the horrific nature of their crimes, the film actually moves us during its final moments. In fact, we're moved quite deeply.

One of the interesting aspects of creating a borderline melodrama of this love is the brilliant notion to use Gustav Mahler's alternately heart-wrenching and sweetly beautiful 6th Symphony as the only score. Written by Mahler during a period of considerable strife in his marriage to Alma Mahler, the work has often been referred to as "The Death of Love" symphony. What makes it work so beautifully is that it needs to convey deep love in order to detail the death of love and used as score in The Honeymoon Killers, it carries us along with as much joyous emotion as it does with its disturbing, dissonant riffs.

There isn't a performance in the film that ever seems out of place. but ultimately, it's Stoler (she played the concentration camp commandant in Lina Wertmuler's Seven Beauties) and Lo Bianco (oft cast as a gangster and cop who transcended the cliches he was forced to inhabit and delivered the brilliantly complex performance in Larry Cohen's God Told Me To) who both keep our eyes glued to the screen. In another time and place, these two render performances that would at least have garnered major nominations and possibly even awards, but in 1969, were relegated to a few decent critical notices and little else.

There have, of course, been a number of film versions of this story, but none of them have the power of Kastle's version to both horrify and move us. It's an extraordinary work and one which continues to live on as a genuine classic.

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

AFTER YOU SEE The Honeymoon Killers at the Retropath screening at Toronto's Royal Cinema, DON'T FORGET that it is available on a gorgeously transferred Criterion Collection Blu-Ray which comes complete with an all new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a detailed interview with writer-director Leonard Kastle from 2003, interviews with actors Tony Lo Bianco and Marilyn Chris and editor Stan Warnow and a genuinely great new video essay, “Dear Martha . . . ,” by writer Scott Christianson, author of "Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House". Feel free to order the film directly from the Amazon links below and contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner:

GET OUT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Predictable Thriller/Satire about Racism an okay ride.

Too much script idiot-proofing renders watered-down ride. 

Get Out (2017)
Dir. Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener,
LilRel Howery, Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel, Caleb Landry Jones

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A few minutes into watching Get Out, a mostly chilling and funny horror-thriller with a decidedly satirical bent, I briefly took myself out of the drama and asked myself:

"Have I seen too many movies?"

The reason for this self-reflection? Simple. I pretty much pegged all of the "surprises" in the picture's narrative about twenty minutes into it. It's not that the clues were obviously boneheaded, but rather, the movie almost went out of its way to "carefully" shield us from them and, frankly, having seen it all, I just knew where things were headed. Once again I was watching a movie I wanted to love and realized I just couldn't love it because the clever thematic and directorial touches were being cancelled out by the glaring inevitability of the unfolding drama.

Now, was this the movie's fault or my own?

"Good question" he said to himself in added self-reflection.

Surely, I surmised, that when I'm on a roller coaster ride, I know precisely where I'm going and if it's a good ride, it really shouldn't matter. Well, true enough, but the fact remains that Get Out had so much more potential to transcend the simple properties of the ride itself. In spite of my occasional sinking feelings, I was able to concede that there was a decent ride to be had, even for seen-it-all curmudgeons like myself.

Mind you, the movie doesn't get off to the best start. It begins with a hackneyed de rigueur horror movie preamble that telegraphs what's to follow wherein a young African-American male wanders through a lush White-American suburban dreamscape of perfect lawns and hedges. He's clearly lost and definitely nervous. And yes, something shocking happens.

Ho-hum.

However, I forgave this by-rote entry point and settled in. For awhile, I did indeed succumb to writer-director Jordan Peele's Stepford Wives-like thriller about racism in America.

Lily-white babe-o-licious girlfriends CANNOT be trusted.

Dark, handsome African-American Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and pristine babe-o-licious lily-white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) are happily cohabiting in miscegenetic bliss and preparing for a weekend trip to meet and stay with Rose's parents. Chris asks Rose if she's told her folks that he's Black. She tosses it off as being completely unnecessary - Mommy (Catherine Keener) and Daddy (Bradley Whitford) are far too cool for any of that. Chris expresses trepidation nevertheless, but eventually accepts Rose's confidence that everything will be okay.

Of course, things will not be okay.

On the way up, with Rose driving, they hit a deer and swerve off the road slightly. There's no damage to the car and neither of them are injured, something that annoys a local lawman - he feels they should have called "animal control" rather than "waste" his time. No matter, this gives him a chance to roust Chris, demanding to see our hero's I.D. even though Rose explains that she was behind the wheel, not Chris.

Once they get to Rose's family home, her Mom and Dad seem to be the epitome of cultured White Liberals, but Dad betrays hints of ethnocentrism when he refers to his daughter's relationship with Chris as a "thang" and goes out of his way to extol the virtues of Obama. Rose's creepy brother (Caleb Landry Jones) displays an unhealthy obsession with athleticism and physical prowess, especially as it relates to race and even creepier are the live-in African-American domestics Walter (Marcus Henderson) and Georgina (Betty Gabriel) who appear to be refugees from Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

One sequence that Peele delivers the goods on involves Mom actually hypnotizing Chris late one evening. Though it involves the unfortunate narrative trope of Chris feeling guilt over his own mother's death, we are able to suppress this and enjoy Peele's extraordinary visual take on hypnosis itself and especially relish Catherine Keener's juicy turn as a "caring" psychiatrist. For me, Keener has always displayed a kind of earnest creepiness in everything she's done. Here, she fits the role like a glove.

The movie reaches a damn glorious pinnacle during a garden party at the family home when Chris is trotted out before a passel of grotesque denizens of White American affluence - all of whom seem obsessed with the young man's physical attributes.

White Liberals Ain't All They Cracked Up To Be.

It's not long after this, though, that the movie descends into a goofy, loopy sequence wherein Peele lays out a whole whack of expository information as to what is precisely going on (which, we've pretty much figured out anyway). The manner in which it's presented probably looked great on paper, but it slows the movie down in ways that force us to question the logic of why the explanations are delivered to Chris (and by extension to us). Given the sharpness of the film's satire and the occasional flashes of genuine, original horror touches, it's disappointing that the film didn't deal with this information far more expediently.

Luckily, Peele recovers from this fairly major fumble and he serves up one of the more delightfully scary and juicily violent climaxes in recent memory. For me, the movie's lapses were forgiven - almost. Alas, Peele cops out and hands us a ludicrous feel-good ending (involving the film's tiresome comic relief provided by Lil Rel Howery as Chris's TSA officer buddy) which is completely out-of-step with the 70s-style thrillers his film clearly aspires to.

And then, there's that problem of knowing who is who (especially that his girlfriend is part of the "conspiracy"), what is what and where it's all going to go. Is it my problem? No. I don't think so, ultimately. The movie's script, in spite of its clever touches, feels idiot-proofed to a fault. In fact, the whole thing might have been even more chilling and a lot braver if Peele was upfront and exposed his whole deck of cards from the get-go. When a movie flirts with a kind of greatness as this one does, I find it very hard to cotton to idiot-proofing of any kind.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three-Stars

Get Out is a Universal Pictures release.

MILDRED PIERCE (1945) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Noir Meets Melodrama Via Criterion Blu

Loving mother, horrid daughter - Melodrama Meets Noir

Mildred Pierce (1945)
Dir. Michael Curtiz
Nvl. James M. Cain
Scr. Ranald McDougall
Starring: Joan Crawford, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson,
Bruce Bennett, Zachary Scott, Butterfly McQueen, Lee Patrick

Review By Greg Klymkiw

James M. Cain wrote plenty of books with murder in them (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity), but the novel upon which the film Mildred Pierce is based, is bereft of murder. We can thank studio Warner Brothers, director Michael Curtiz and screenwriter Ranald McDougall for thinking about inserting one glorious lollapalooza of a homicide as a sturdy bookend to the movie version. This delicacy of mother-daughter madness gets piquantly spiced-up with that one necessary ingredient, thus allowing for the roiling psychological complexity of the tale to meld melodrama with film noir styling.

A murder. In a house. By the beach. It's night. A woman flees the scene. She contemplates suicide on a wharf just outside of a sleazy dockside watering hole. She's picked up for questioning. She tells her story.

Such is the opening of Mildred Pierce. The aforementioned woman is the title character. She's played by Joan Crawford (not long after MGM let her go for becoming box office poison). After this picture, she was poison no more. She even won an Oscar. For good reason too. Nobody suffers like Crawford's character suffers in this grim story about a mother who loves her ungrateful daughter too much.

Mildred's first marriage to the hapless, unemployed sad-sack sap Bert Pierce (Bruce Bennett) ends. His former business partner, the unbelievably agreeable, charming scumbag Wally Fay (Jack Carson), has always held a torch for her and tries to move in for some amorous gravy drippings. She spurns him and tries to make ends meet by home baking.

Eventually Mildred needs something more substantial than selling her pies, so she gets hired as a waitress by Ida (Eve Arden), the manager of a restaurant and wisecracking perennial bachelorette who eventually becomes her best friend. Our heroine tries to keep her job a secret from her daughters, 16-year-old Veda (Ann Blyth) and 10-year-old Kay (Jo Anne Marlowe). Kay would never have a problem with this - she's a total loving sweetie-pie. Veda on the other hand, is an absolute horror; a nasty, haughty socialite. Veda discovers Mildred's waitress uniform and bestows it upon the family's maid Lottie (Butterfly McQueen). Veda pretends to believe her Mom bought the outfit for Lottie to wear. She knows better. She is, in fact, ashamed and spitefully does this to make Mildred admit she works as a waitress.

Our heroine decides she needs to move up in the world - especially if she is to keep showering her grotesquely mean, selfish and spoiled eldest daughter with everything money can buy. She cuts a deal with horny hunk of congealed drool matter Wally and ends up starting her own restaurant. It's such a success that she ends up hiring Kay as the manager and begins to open a small chain of eateries.

The only thing missing in Mildred's life is love. Though Wally is a bucket of slime, he's a charming and rich sleaze ball. Instead, Mildred settles upon Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) a handsome (in a weaselly kind of way) high society playboy with plenty of assets, but no money and a pile of debts. Oh, he's going to make her pay. And suffer, of course. Veda takes a shine to Monte's dashing lifestyle.

In fact, she takes too much of a shine to the man her mother loves.

Naturally, there will be a murder.

One of the cool things (and there is so much about this movie that's cool - pure and simple) is just how strong and complex the female characters are (even naughty Veda). The men, however, are a piece of work - almost hilariously so. Given that the most attractive male figure is played by slightly pudgy Jack Carson probably says everything we need to know. However, it's probably worth noting that Mildred's eventual paramour is a moustachioed, wiry and bony scumbag and her "decent" ex-husband is a borderline castrato who eventually settles down with the hausfrau-like Mrs. Biederhof (Lee Patrick).

That Mildred eventually has to suffer the indignity of watching her child die of pneumonia before her very eyes in the home of the hausfrau while testicle-free ex-hubby looks on uselessly is the stuff of great melodrama and definitely the kind of thing most movies today would have no idea how to master. Well, Mildred Pierce more than rises to the occasion.

What's extraordinary about the whole affair is how director Curtiz (Casablanca) swathes the picture with the thick fog and dark shadows of post-war ennui and all that became film noir. We get plenty of sun-dappled Malibu to go with the melodrama, but we're also served up with dank cocktail lounges, cheap dressing rooms with gum-snapping songstresses who show just a little too much leg and cleavage on stage plus a delightful number of frauds, double-crosses and infidelity to fill several blacker-than-black crime pictures.

And, of course, we get murder.

Oh, glorious murder!

And then, let's not forget a mother's love for her daughter, albeit an ungrateful little missy-saucy-pants. A mother, you see, will do anything for her daughter, even if said progeny gets boned by the shitheel her mother loves.

In such circumstances, can homicide ever be far behind?

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

Mildred Pierce is available on Blu-Ray and (if you must) DVD with a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a new conversation with critics Molly Haskell and Robert Polito, an excerpt from a 1970 episode of "The David Frost Show" featuring Joan Crawford, the terrific 2002 feature-length documentary "Joan Craw­ford: The Ultimate Movie Star", a Q&A with actor Ann Blyth from 2006, presented by Marc Huestis and conducted by film historian Eddie Muller at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, a segment from a 1969 episode of the Today Show featuring Mildred Pierce novelist James M. Cain, a trailer, an essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith and new cover art by Sean Phillips.

A MAN CALLED OVE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Sentimental Swedish Ode to Old Grump

Plucky Persian Perks Up Grump's Spirits.

A Man Called Ove (2016)
Dir. Hannes Holm
Nvl. Fredrik Backman
Starring: Rolf Lassgård, Bahar Pars, Filip Berg, Ida Engvoll

Review By Greg Klymkiw

You'd have to be the biggest grumpy-pants in the world not to respond to A Man Called Ove, a sweetly funny, delightfully romantic and almost-ridiculously sentimental picture about an old curmudgeon who keeps getting interrupted every single time he attempts to commit suicide. Based on Fredrik Backman's 2012 novel of the same name, writer-director Hannes (Behind Blue Skies) Holm renders this always-humorous and often tear-squirtingly moving movie in a solid, straightforward fashion that allows its first-rate cast to flex considerable muscle.

59-year-old Ove (Lassgård) carries his stern, sullen countenance as if it were a badge of honour. As the persnickety prefect of a townhouse community, he makes his daily morning rounds of the complex, wielding an iron fist and spitting out his disgust when anything (or anyone, for that matter) is the least bit out of place. Being a grump seems to be the only thing that gives him happiness.

After being forced into retirement from the factory he's been foreman at for several decades, the taciturn recent-widower becomes a man with a mission. His goal is to become reunited with his beloved wife (Ida Engvoll). As she's six-feet-under (he visits her grave daily with fresh flowers), the reunion can only be effected via suicide.

With a noose round his neck, a kerfuffle just outside the house commands his attention. A new family, led by the pretty, pregnant and definitely Persian matriarch Parvaneh (Pars), are moving in across the way and whilst backing up their u-Haul trailer, Ove's mailbox gets knocked over.

This will not be the first time his suicide attempts will be foiled. Little does he know it yet, but Ove still has plenty to live for and the world still has plenty of reason for him to keep going.

Kids will always melt the cold heart of a Grumpy-pants!

Many things annoy Ove, but it hasn't necessarily always been that way. Flashbacks (which occur just prior to his suicide attempts) deliver warm insight into his relationship with his father and, perhaps most importantly, the grand, though ultimately melancholy love story that shapes him.

Throughout much of his life, the thing that really irked (and continues to irk) him were/are the "white shirts" - bureaucrats whose only reason for being is to make the lives of everyone else intolerable. Ove's specialty has always been railing against the injustices of bureaucracy and finding ways to cut through the red tape placed before real people. Along the way, his own penchant for red tape forces him to take a good hard look in the mirror.

The centrepiece of A Man Called Ove is Rolf Lassgård's astonishing performance. The picture has been nominated for two Oscars, Best Foreign Film and Best Makeup, but the jaw-dropper omission is a Best Actor nod.

Lassgård's deadpan is impeccable, but there's not too much on any big screen out there that's more affecting than those moments when (via Lassgård) Ove's cold heart is melted by the kindness of others, a grumpy cat he adopts, a Middle Eastern gay man seeking refuge from his family when he comes out, a dear old friend stricken by a debilitating stroke and the genuine warmth afforded to him by the sweet children of his neighbours.

(Yeah, I know this sounds like it could be vaguely sickening, but Holm's assured direction keeps things in check.)

And when Lassgård's Ove sheds a tear or three, there will be no dry eyes in the house - except, perhaps, those ocular ejections held back by those of the grumpy-pants persuasion. Chances are good, though, that even they will succumb.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

A Man Called Ove is a Pacific Northwest Pictures (Canada) and Music Box (USA) release. It opens in Canada on February 17/17.

MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - "Act of Killing - Lite" on Scientology

Louis Theroux - Brit Michael Moore sans Bulk.

My Scientology Movie (2016)
Dir. John Dower
Scr. Louis Theroux
Prd. Simon Chinn
Starring: Louis Theroux, Mark Rathbun, Andrew Perez, Jeff Hawkins

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"One of the systems of faith that are based on the belief in the existence of a particular god or gods, or in the teachings of a spiritual leader."
- The Oxford Dictionary definition of the word "religion"

Founded by the dreadful and prolific Science Fiction pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard and presided over by the enigmatic David Miscavige since Hubbard's death in 1986, the Church of Scientology has taken more than its fair share of volleys over the years, including the brilliant fictionalized fantasia The Master by PT Anderson and Alex Gibney's searing documentary Going Clear.

Examining the aforementioned Oxford definition of the word religion, in addition to the various film exposes, including My Scientology Movie, I really do have to wonder what finally separates Scientology from any other religion, whether it be Catholicism, Christian Fundamentalism, Judaism, Islam and any other major/minor systems of faith. Scientology, like all the rest, feels it is the best religion, places emphasis upon recruitment, needs to survive upon financial support from its followers and is not without cult-like leaders and/or elements of cultish indoctrination.

With My Scientology Movie, Director John Dower, Producer Simon Chinn, Host/Star/Writer Louis Theroux and chief commissioning entity, the BBC, were obviously denied access to the inner workings of Scientology and have taken their cue from the in-your-face (and decidedly entertaining) shenanigans of Michael (Roger and Me) Moore and the extremely visionary film artist Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing, The Look of Violence), to craft this lightweight, often amusing, occasionally chilling bit of shock journalism.

To the former, Theroux blunders about Los Angeles in his oh-so-Blighty fashion on the outskirts of various Scientology headquarters and to the latter, orders up auditions with young actors to play Scientology types in scripted and improvised recreations of speeches, presentations and alleged actual inner workings of the Church.

Young actors portray Scientology officials in recreations.

Host Theroux is accompanied through most of the film's cheeky gymnastics by former high-ranking Scientologist Mark Rathburn who left the Church, exposed its inner workings and was, not surprisingly, discredited by the Church itself. Via Rathburn, we get a sense of his own experiences within the organization and an even greater sense of how his life has become severely beleaguered since his break from Scientology. He comes across, probably to the chagrin of the Church, as an extremely sympathetic figure. Much of our empathy for him, however, comes more from Theroux's annoying and eventually badgering of Rathburn, attempting to get the man to respond to his own "complicity" in events and actions of the past.

One cannot fault Theroux for being a journalist, but one can certainly question his methods in the film, especially as they relate to Rathburn. Firstly, the movie inadvertently exposes how investigative journalists will try to be "friends" with their subjects in order to get what they want out of them. If My Scientology Movie was a film, as opposed to what it is, little more than reasonably watchable TV-style doc-journalism, this fascinating aspect of what makes investigative journalists do their job, might have elevated the proceedings considerably if it had been less (and seemingly) inadvertent.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, Theroux's timing and methods to address Rathburn's "complicity" in the actions of the Church, seem so fumbling and wrong-headed that we can't help but feel for the former Scientology big-wig. At one point Theroux, in a somewhat smarmy and definitely clumsy fashion, uses information and points-of-view from letters he's received from the Church's lawyers to needle Rathburn. This not only pisses Rathburn off, but us as well.

Granted, Theroux interviews another former Church official Jeff Hawkins, who not only adds considerable insights to the proceedings, but states unequivocally that he believes Rathburn has been hiding more than a few skeletons in the Scientology Closet. As a journalist, Theroux is bound to act on this. That's the theory - the practice, however, is something else altogether and backfires on him. This kind of recoil is what will give the Church of Scientology considerable ammunition to discredit the movie itself.

I couldn't really blame them.

Andrew Perez as David Miscavige - Star Turn!!!

The film as journalism barely gets a passing grade. As a film, it registers a "gentlemanly" grade of "B". This is no work of artistry, voice and vision (like, say, Joshua Oppenheimer's great, important films). Still, My Scientology Movie gets points of the old-college-try variety for its dramatic reenactments - not because they're especially good, but because the actor they've chosen to play Scientology's topper David Miscavige, Andrew Perez, is undeniably charismatic and rivetingly scary.

His recreations of public Miscavige speeches go well beyond simple Rich Little-like impersonations, he genuinely creates a "character" of considerable human dimension. In the fictionalized dramatic recreations of the Church's inner workings, Perez dazzles so astoundingly that one wonders why he's not already on the road to the same kind of superstardom that celebrity Scientology church-member Tom Cruise is on. Perez is clearly a great actor. The camera loves him and I think audiences would love to see him in more movies (as opposed to what seems to be his only role since making this movie, a bit part in some TV show).

Hell, if Miscavige ever chose to produce his own approved biopic of himself, he'd be well advised to sign up Perez for the role. The kid exudes power and charisma, and that's what Miscavige has in spades.

This is not a bad picture by any means. It has elements that do provide considerable entertainment value. At times, the movie even flirts with Oppenheimer potential. There are a few sequences where Theroux is filming Scientology types as they are filming him in turn. These duelling cameras moments come close to capturing the kind of picture this could have been, if it had been a real movie made by real artists - not just another glorified TV documentary.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars


My Scientology Movie is a Kinosmith release. Canadian playdates include:
February 6 & 8 Victoria Film Festival, Victoria, BC
February 17 – 23 Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, Toronto, ON
February 24 – March 2 Globe Cinema, Calgary, AB
March 3 – 5 Salt Spring Film Festival, Salt Spring, BC
April 14 – 18 Bytowne, Ottawa, ON

Another Reason Why The Royal in Toronto is the BEST Indie Cinema, not just in Toronto, but Canada (and one of the best in the world). Anna Biller's THE LOVE WITCH - on the big screen, where it's meant to be seen! The Royal has the best sound and picture in the city (by day, it's Theatre D Digital, a sound mixing studio for the movies) and the sumptuous colours of Anna Biller's ode to 70s Euro-Trash are going to look more gorgeous than ever. The seats are super-comfy too.!!! Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Love Witch is precisely the sort of movie I'd have seen during the 70s and 80s in one of my favourite (and long-gone) grind houses in Winnipeg that dotted Portage Avenue and Main Street in my old winter city like neon beacons of all that was truly sacred in life. Now you can see this ode to magnificent Euro-Trash in the very best cinema in Canada.

It will be glorious, but be warned, The Royal Cinema is sadly bereft of sticky floors, the aroma of urine/cum and toothless hookers giving gum jobs to malcontent veterans (of both Great Wars).

Well, we can't have everything.

The Love Witch (2016)
Dir. Anna Biller
Starring: Samantha Robinson, Gian Keys,
Laura Waddell, Jeffrey Vincent Parise, Robert Seeley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Babes, witches, devil worship, black magic and sex, sex and more sex were the mainstay of a lovely sub-genre of 70s Euro-Horror that nobody in their right mind could outright dismiss.

American counterparts amongst these garishly-coloured bonbons never quite lived up to the titillation quotient of Euro sleaze masters like Jean Rollin, Jesus Franco, et al, but no matter, director Anna Biller more than makes up for Uncle Sam's lack of quality output with her very own contemporary masterwork of delectably naughty feculence.

Mega-babe Elaine (Samantha Robinson) has left San Francisco and a mysteriously malevolent past behind her. Resettling in a small town in Redwood country at the behest of some "white" witches, Elaine soon unleashes her genuine powers of "black" magic upon a variety of studs. Plenty of carnal gymnastics, nudity and murder follow.

We should all be lucky enough to have someone like Elaine to love us to death.

Biller creates a sumptuous, sex-drenched tale that parades ritual and rapture in equal measure. Cinematographer M. David Mullen shoots the gloriously garish colours (courtesy of Biller's costume/production design) with deliciously rock-hard lighting (in 35mm no less).

The film proudly wears the clever screenplay's feminist undertones on its sleeve, which smartly contributes to Biller's deft satirical edge. The dialogue she generates for her pitch-perfect cast allows for laughs-aplenty, but where the movie excels (far beyond most other post-modernist endeavours of this kind) is that the actors deliver their lines with the appropriate thud-to-the-floor woodenness, or when necessary, jaw-agape histrionics and they do so with very straight faces and sans tongues-in-cheeks. This is one of the most difficult things for even the most seasoned thespians to pull off and there is not a single cast member who lets Biller, the film and by extension, the audience, down.




Though the movie runs a whopping 120 minutes, audiences will never feel like the proceedings are overstaying their welcome. Biller edits with the skill of a master cutter - not a single cut feels anything less than one which moves the story ever-forward and the pace is happily hypnotic. Those acquainted with the cinematic world The Love Witch recreates (with many fresh frissons) will have nothing to complain about. Those who aren't quite as abreast of it, will still derive pleasure from this diverting carnal romp.

The rest can go to church.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-Half Stars

The Love Witch is an Oscilloscope Release enjoying its Canadian Theatrical Premiere at The Royal Cinema, 608 College St. Toronto:

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