PART TWO - NETFLIX is POO, SHUDDER is GOLD: Reviews By Greg Klymkiw of DEAD SNOW 2, FATHER'S DAY, JOHN DIES AT THE END, MANBORG, MIDNIGHT SON, MONSTER BRAWL - all available in Canada, UK and USA on the magnificent Shudder.com

PART TWO:
NETFLIX is POO,
SHUDDER is GOLD
(MORE reviews following preamble)




I tried Netflix for the free one-month service. It took one day to realize I would never pay for it. Shudder launched October 20, 2016 (in Canada, the UK and Ireland). It took about one hour to decide it would stay with me forever. Netflix was stuffed with unimaginatively programmed product: bad television, (mostly) awful mainstream movies, a lame selection of classics, indie and foreign cinema, plus the most cumbersome browsing interface imaginable. Shudder, on the other hand, is overflowing with a magnificently curated selection of classics, indie, foreign and mainstream cinema, plus a first rate browsing and navigation interface which allows for simple alphabetical listings as well as a handful of very simple curated menus. Yes, Shudder is all horror, all the time, but a vast majority of the product is first rate and, depending upon your definition of horror, there is plenty to discover here that's just plain great cinema!

A rotting, flesh-eating Obergruppenführer der
Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei Zombie
Waffen is no mere wurst einen Gehackte Leber!

Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead aka"Død snø 2" (2014) ***
Dir. Tommy Wirkola
Starring: Vegar Hoel, Ørjan Gamst, Martin Starr,
Jocelyn DeBoer, Ingrid Haas, Stig Frode Henriksen,
Jesper Sundnes, Tage Guddingsmo, Charlotte Frogner

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The plucky Nazi Zombies of Dead Snow have returned to invade contemporary Norway, but there's no need to see the precursor to this sequel, since the first instalment wasn't especially good. All one needs know is that the latest shenanigans of Der Führer's rotting, flesh-eating Waffen-SS is a truly jaw-agape treat of the highest order. Here we are reacquainted with Martin (Vegar Hoel), now hell-bent on avenging his girlfriend's death from Nazi Zombies. Alas, a major screw-up finds zombie Kommandant Herzog's (Orjan Gamst) hand sewn onto Martin's arm. Herzog, in turn, now sports Martin's hand. Complications ensue from the swap and lead to laughs-a-plenty and a running homage to Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. Read the full Film Corner review HERE.

Do you love your father enough
to rape him in the ASS?

Father's Day (2011) ****
dir. Astron-6
(Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie,
Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Steven Kostanski)

Starring: Conor Sweeney, Adam Brooks, Matt Kennedy, Brent Neale,
Amy Groening, Meredith Sweeney, Kevin Anderson, Garret Hnatiuk,
Mackenzie Murdoch, Lloyd Kaufman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is the astounding feature film from the brilliant Winnipeg filmmaking collective Astron-6 (Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Steven Kostanski) who have joined forces with the legendary Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz of Troma Entertainment to generate a film that is the ultimate evil bastard child sprung from the loins of a daisy chain twixt Guy Maddin, John Paizs, early David Cronenberg, Herschel Gordon Lewis and Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer. Father's Day combines the effects of asbestos-tinged drinking water in Winnipeg with the Bukkake splatter of the coolest artistic influences imaginable and yields a work which steadfastly adheres to the fine Groucho Marx adage: "I refuse to join any club that would have someone like me for a member."

Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdoch), is a serial killer that specializes in targeting fathers for anal rape followed by further degradations, including torture, butchery and/or murder. Our madman, Fuchman (substitute :k" for "h" to pronounce name properly), turns out to be a demon from the deepest pits of hell and a ragtag team is recruited by a blind infirm Archbishop of the Catholic Church (Kevin Anderson) to fight this disgusting agent of Satan. An eyepatch-wearing tough guy (Adam Brooks), a young priest (Matthew Kennedy), a twink male prostitute (Conor Sweeney), a hard-boiled dick (Brent Neale) and a jaw-droppingly gorgeous stripper (Amy Groening), all of whom follow the trail of this formidable foe whilst confronting all their own personal demons. Read the full Film Corner review HERE.

John Dies at the End,
but not before he uses
THE BIBLE BELTER!!!

John Dies at the End (2012) ****
dir. Don Coscarelli

Starring: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Glynn Turman, Clancy Brown

Review By Greg Klymkiw

John Dies at the End gives new meaning to the oft-heard phrase in only the finest grease-laden, alley-cat-for-chicken-serving Oriental restaurants in the Occident - "Can you please pass the Soya Sauce?" The film's director Don Coscarelli is, without question, the real thing - a truly inspired Master of Horror. (He might also be certifiably insane, but what do I know? I'm no shrink.) As the director of cult classics like the Phantasm pictures (with Angus Scrimm as the diabolical wielder of blood suckin' and a spurtin' silver spheres) and the finest entry in that unbeatable genre of Elvis-duelling-with-dangerous-denizens-of-Ancient-Egypt Bubba-Ho-Tep, his latest offering is one mo-fo of an eye-popping mind-bender.

In a nutshell, two best buds, David (Chase Williamson) and John (Rob Mayes), are mega-slackers - not unlike Bill and Ted, only they're not stupid and they go on an adventure that is in no way, shape or form an EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (though we, the viewers, are afforded a most excellent adventure, indeed). Having ingested a completely mind-pummelling hallucinogen called - you guessed it (or not) - SOYA SAUCE, our boys make a harrowing journey up the river into a veritable heart of Coscarellian darkness. Read my full Film Corner review HERE.

When evil delivers an unrequested butt blast,
only true heroes will rise to the challenge.

MANBORG (2011) ****
dir. Steven Kostanski (Astron-6)

Starring: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Ludwig Lee,
Conor Sweeney, Meredith Sweeney, Jeremy Gillespie

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Straight from the jaws of Hell comes Draculon (Adam Brooks), a crazed totalitarian infused with a slavering desire to inflict pain. He makes the Dictator combo-platter of Adolph Hitler (former German Chancellor), Joe Stalin (former butcher of ten million Ukrainian garlic eaters), George W. Bush (annihilator of Islam) and Stephen Harper (former Il Duce of Canada) all look like your kindly Granny Apple Cheeks knitting her umpteenth doily and churning butter. As brilliantly rendered in the opening minutes of this 70-minute masterwork, you will cringe as the Earth's pitiful armies do their best in battle with the demons of Mephistopheles, but even the best of the best of the best of mankind will be no match for the foul, pus-oozing Satanic beasts. When a brave young fighting man hits the turf and pushes up the daisies, he is mysteriously and miraculously transformed by the mad genius Dr. Scorpius (Adam Brooks) into the next best thing to Jesus H. Christ Almighty (or Robocop - take your pick!). He is, and always will be:

MANBORG!!!

Read my full Film Corner review HERE.

Living Dead Love, an inconvenient kind of love.

Midnight Son (2011) ****
dir. Scott Leberecht

Starring: Zak Kilberg, Maya Parish, Jo D. Jonz,
Arlen Escarpeta, Larry Cedar, Tracey Walter

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Jacob (Zak Kilberg) is sick. Very, very sick. He leads a solitary existence in a basement apartment with all the windows sealed shut. By day, he is a brilliant young artist - painting variations on a similar theme: exquisite renderings of the sun. He pays his rent working as a night-shift security guard. He is so sensitive to the rays of the sun that his arm bears the horrendous scars of burned flesh. Of late, he's been extremely hungry and in spite of wolfing down as much food as possible, he's becoming thinner and more pale. One night he collapses at work - blacking out completely. A doctor examines him and expresses concern that he is becoming anemic from malnutrition. This, of course, simply cannot be. He's eating more than a 500 lb. circus freak can ingest in a week.

Jacob is a character who feels like somebody we could know, or even be. He's trapped by circumstance and lonely out of necessity, until he finds love. That he should discover his potential soulmate at the worst possible time isn't just the stuff of great drama, it's rooted in realism - an experience so many have had when they find something or someone special, but, damn it all, the timing proves to be so damned inopportune.

Director Leberecht's mise-en-scene in Midnight Son is superb. He captures strange corners and pockets of Los Angeles with the same eye for detail Larry Fessenden brought to the Manhattan which Habit was rooted in. Leberecht's choice of locations, shots and interiors never feel stock. Most of all, he delivers a side of L.A. we seldom see on film. It's gritty, all right, but the picture plunges us into the sort of strange places David Lynch himself might be envious of. Read my full Film Corner review HERE.

Rachelle Wilde, one of the delectable MONSTER BRAWL babes, with yours truly during my cousin Adam Klymkiw's stag.

Monster Brawl (2011) ***
dir. Jesse T. Cook

Starring: Dave Foley, Art Hindle, Robert Maillet,
Jimmy Hart, Herb Dean, Kevin Nash, Lance Henriksen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Who doesn't love Mexican wrestling movies? You don't? Well, go to hell, then. That said, Santo, Blue Demon and Rodrigo the Hippie are all pussies compared to monsters. How then, about a movie that has wrasslin' monsters? Yes, you read correctly. MONSTERS THAT WRESTLE. What's not to like? Monster Brawl is unquestionably one of the most insane, hilarious, original gore-fests I have seen in ages. It's Canadian - which is no surprise given the wealth of truly insane films that come from this country. The plot? Well, there really isn't one. (At least, not much of one.) Does this matter when the movie is full of monsters, babes and head-stomping carnage? My question is rhetorical. Don't bother answering. The movie is not dreary, depressing, dour, desperately arty nor a downer. In fact, the only downer is that it could use more babes, but the babes it's blessed with are delectably babe-o-licious! Read my full Film Corner review HERE.

NETFLIX is poo, SHUDDER is gold.

SHUDDER is the all-new streaming service devoted to horror. Available in Canada, UK and USA, SHUDDER is expertly CURATED by programmers who know their shit (and then some), including TIFF's magnificent Midnight Madness king of creepy (and head honcho of Toronto's Royal Cinema, the best goddamn repertory/art cinema in Canada), Colin Geddes. It's fucking cheap and notably, cheaper than that crapola Netflix. Get more info and order it RIGHT FUCKING NOW by clicking HERE!!!

NETFLIX is POO, SHUDDER is GOLD: Reviews By Greg Klymkiw of ABSENTIA, ANGUISH, ANTICHRIST, BASKIN, CITADEL, EXIT HUMANITY - Now all available on SHUDDER.COM

I tried Netflix for the free one-month service. It took one day to realize I would never pay for it. Shudder launched today (in Canada, the UK and Ireland). It took about one hour to decide it would stay with me forever.

NETFLIX is poo, SHUDDER is gold.

Netflix was stuffed with unimaginatively programmed product: bad television, (mostly) awful mainstream movies, a lame selection of classics, indie and foreign cinema, plus the most cumbersome browsing interface imaginable.

Shudder, on the other hand, is overflowing with a magnificently curated selection of classics, indie, foreign and mainstream cinema, plus a first rate browsing and navigation interface which allows for simple alphabetical listings as well as a handful of very simple curated menus.

Yes, Shudder is all horror, all the time, but a vast majority of the product is first rate and, depending upon your definition of horror, there is plenty to discover here that's just plain great cinema!

This terrific Val Lewtonesque modern horror film disturbs us with what we CAN'T see, and WHEN we see what we're SUPPOSED to see, we become NUMB with pure terror!

Absentia (2011) ***1/2
dir. Mike Flanagan
Starring: Katie Parker, Courtney Bell,
Dave Levine, Morgan Peter Bell

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are horrors - everyday horrors we all hear about. If we've never experienced them ourselves, all we can do is try to imagine what they must feel like. But that's all we can do. Imagine. When movies delve into the horrors we hear about everyday, the best of those pictures probably come as close as any of us would want to get to experiencing the real thing. Perhaps the one thing that's worse than knowing a loved one has died - especially in a fashion of the most heinous variety - is the horror of a loved one disappearing without a trace. If we discover that the death has come about in a foul, painful, reprehensible and senseless way, it's ultimately knowing the truth that offers the most meagre shred of solace, or at least, acceptance. Not knowing is the real horror. Not knowing is what haunts us forever. Absentia is a micro-budgeted independent horror movie by Mike (Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil) Flanagan that plays on these fears. Read the full Film Corner review HERE.

Harrowing portrait of mental illness
against a chilling supernatural backdrop.

Anguish (2015) ***1/2
Dir. Sonny Mallhi
Starring: Ryan Simpkins, Amberley Gridley,
Annika Marks, Karina Logue, Cliff Chamberlain, Ryan O'Nan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One mother, Sarah (Karina Logue), loses her daughter, Lucy (Amberley Gridley) in a horrific freak car accident. The other mother, Jessica (Annika Marks), feels like she is losing her daughter, Tess (Ryan Simpkins), to the child's lifelong mental illness which appears to be getting worse. Sarah's guilt is rooted in an argument which led to the accident. Jessica, hoping a change of environment might have alleviated the mental illness, now feels like their move to a new home is contributing to her child's increasing withdrawal. Sonny Mallhi's deeply moving feature directorial debut is a sensitive, telling exploration of teen ennui and the powerful bond of mothers and daughters. That the story plays out against the subtle, but clearly apparent backdrops of America's financial crisis, as well as that of so many fathers separated from their families to fight a spurious war against terror, are elements which deepen the experience of seeing the film. Read my full Film Corner review HERE.

FEEL THE PAIN.
FEEL THE PASSION.
FEEL THE HORROR.

Antichrist (2009) Dir. Lars von Trier *****
Starring: Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg

Review By Greg Klymkiw

With Antichrist, Lars von Trier has made a horror film – pure, though not so simple. It's a movie that burns its reflection of pain into your memory like a branding iron – plunging itself through your cranium and searing your brain matter, creating that sickeningly sweet stench that only burning flesh gives off and remaining in your nostrils for (no doubt) a lifetime. The pain and by extension – the Passion – also stays with you. A first viewing renders you drained, immobile, and numb and yet, paradoxically there are feelings of profound excitement – that you have witnessed an expression of emotion in ways that only cinema, of all the art forms, is capable of delivering. You are also breathless, and in spite, or maybe even because of the horror you’ve witnessed, you’re almost giddy with the desire to recall every beat, every image and every soul sickening moment of the experience. It’s a movie that demands to be seen more than once – it is a movie to be cherished, savored and devoured as ravenously and gluttonously as possible. Read my full Film Corner review HERE.

A Turkish Delight. A Wad of Depravity.

Baskin (2016) ****
Dir. Can Evrenol
Scr. Evrenol, Ercin Sadikoglu, Cem Ozuduru, Ogulcan Eren Akay

Starring: Gorkem Kasal, Ergun Kuyucu, Mehmet Cerrahoglu,
Sabahattin Yakut, Mehmet Fatih Dokgoz, Muharrem Bayrak

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Baskin is a dense, scary, hilarious, nastily yummy-slurp world of viscous-dribbling mega-perversion that comes to us courtesy of Turkish director Can Evrenol, who has expanded an earlier short film into a pulse-pounding feature-length horror-fest. Though most of the proceedings (insanely thrown into the pot by no less than four screenwriters) are a dream-like blur that sometimes makes little sense, it seems not to matter too much and is probably part of the grand design.

I think.

It matters not.

The film is a supremely entertaining freak-show extraordinaire from a director with talent, style and filmmaking savvy oozing from every conceivable orifice. Read my full Electric Sheep Magazine review HERE.

CITADEL: The face of fear
Electric Sheep Magazine review

Citadel (2012) *****
Dir. Ciarin Foy

Starring: Aneurin Barnard, James Cosmo, Wunmi Mosaku, Jake Wilson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Numbing, gnawing and sheer unrelenting fear is the primary element driving this creepy, terrifying dystopian shocker. Ciaran Foy’s Citadel, which without question was one of the best films of 2012, trains its lens upon the fears of the disenfranchised – those eking out their existence amidst poverty, crime and societal indifference in blasted-out housing projects – Citadel plunges us into a reality that is as recognizable as it is fantastical. Indeed, given the constant state of bleakness brought about by financial crises and war, these could well be all our fears.

This is one mighty mo-fo of a scary-ass picture. The mise en scène is dazzling and the tale is rooted in both a humanity and reality that will wallop close to home for many. There’s nary a misstep in any of the performances and as the movie inches, like Col. Walter E. Kurtz’s ‘snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor’, Foy plunges us into an abyss at the top of the stairs. In Apocalypse Now (1979), Kurtz (with Marlon Brando’s expert nasal intonations) summed up the image of the snail on the straight razor thusly: ‘That’s my dream!’

Frankly, Citadel is MY dream of one great horror movie.

Fuck it! It’s no dream. Citadel is a bloody nightmare! Read my full Electric Sheep Magazine review HERE.

Klymkiw interviews Citadel Director Ciarin Foy
at Electric Sheep Magazine

Greg Klymkiw interviews

Citadel director

Ciarin Foy

Klymkiw: I was so lucky to see Citadel on a big screen at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. For me, it’s definitely a Big Screen experience and even though so many independent genre films get relatively modest big screen exposure at festivals and in limited theatrical runs for an eventually larger life on the small screen via DVD, VOD, etc., I can’t help but assume you crafted the picture with Big Screen at the forefront.

Foy: That’s very true. I think especially so in terms of the soundscape. Sound was an important big screen element when you’re going into a 5.1 sound mix.

Yes, the aural landscape, if you will, is alternately subtle and jarring, but it seems to me that your visual design always felt bigger than life and yet, in so doing, captured life and reality so much more powerfully than many similar genre films.

Yes, we had a fairly extended series of preparatory discussions about the aspect ratio and at first I was thinking in terms of the aesthetic and practical pros and cons between a 2:35 landscape or something closer to 1:85. Trying to capture Tommy’s agoraphobia was a big part of this and my initial feeling was to go wider. At the same time, I really wanted to build in much longer, more extended takes to capture Tommy’s condition. However, working within modest means you begin to realize that cinemascope-styled frames need more lights, more art direction, and that extended shots take longer to plan and shoot, especially with actors getting their marks and so on. We eventually settled on the 16:9 aspect ratio. Read my full Electric Sheep Magazine interview with Ciarin Foy HERE.

There is a light at the end of the CITADEL tunnel,
and it's a drawer-fillingly scary as it is positive.

CITADEL (2012) *****

Dir. Ciarán Foy

A New Appreciation

By Greg Klymkiw

Welcome to this special edition of the Greg Klymkiw Film Corner where I will be presenting an all-new in-depth review and analysis of Ciaran Foy's contemporary masterpiece of horror CITADEL. This article is a preview of a chapter I'm adding to my book about the visual techniques of cinematic storytelling. Entitled "Movies Are Action", my book has been a culmination of over 30 years in the movie business - producing and/or co-writing numerous independent features, seeing and studying over 30,000 motion pictures, covering cinema as a journalist in a wide variety of publications and teaching for 13 years at the Canadian Film Centre (founded by Norman Jewison) wherein I had the honour to serve as the producer-in-residence and senior creative consultant for over 200 screenwriters, directors, producers and editors.

It's become very clear to me that Mr. Foy's astounding first feature film CITADEL is not only one terrific movie that introduces the world of cinema to a genuine original with filmmaking hard-wired into his DNA, but that his film can and should also serve as a template to all young filmmakers on the precipice of diving into the breach. It's lonely out there, kids, and there's nothing better than using such a mature, accomplished and extraordinary work by someone who is, for all intents and purposes, your peer. Here on this site, you'll be reading a reasonably polished first draft of the chapter to appear in my book, but I'm confident you'll find, thanks to Mr. Foy's great film, a few nuggets to take with you onto the battlefield. -- Greg Klymkiw

Read my full in-depth Film Corner analysis of Citadel HERE.

Only Canucks from Collingwood
would think to unleash Civil War Zombies

Exit Humanity (2011) ***
dir. John Geddes

Starring: Mark Gibson, Dee Wallace,
Stephen McHattie, Bill Moseley, narrated by Brian Cox

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Exit Humanity, a zombie western from the visionary psychopaths at Foresight Features in Collingwood, is certainly one of the strangest and more compelling movies I've seen in some time. In fact, while it clearly belongs in the horror genre (there are zombies, after all), the picture feels a lot more like it's rooted in a tradition of magic realism and fairy tale. It doesn't quite gel, but in spite of this, it's a solid feature debut for a director who will have a long, fruitful career ahead of him. His film begins with an all-out, no-holds-barred brutal battle sequence twixt the opposing blue and gray forces of the American civil war. As the carnage heats up, a third fighting element creeps into the madness - zombies. Even though the war soon ends, a dark cloud appears over the land and during the reconstruction period, a plague spreads across the once-divided, but now tenuously-melded nation. The living dead, you see, rise to eat the living. Read my full Film Corner review HERE.

SHUDDER is the all-new streaming service devoted to horror. Available in Canada, UK and USA, SHUDDER is expertly CURATED by programmers who know their shit (and then some), including TIFF's magnificent Midnight Madness king of creepy (and head honcho of Toronto's Royal Cinema, the best goddamn repertory/art cinema in Canada), Colin Geddes. It's fucking cheap and notably, cheaper than that crapola Netflix. Get more info and order it RIGHT FUCKING NOW by clicking HERE!!!

UNDER THE SHADOW - TORONTO AFTER DARK 2016 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Horror film against the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s will knock you on your ass!

Under the Shadow (2016)
Dir. Babak Anvari
Starring: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Living in Tehran during the eight long years of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s was terrifying enough with endless bombs dropping. Eventually, with the threat of missiles from Iraq, the city emptied to ghost town proportions. Against this backdrop is one of the most creepy, harrowing and heart-stoppingly scary movies of the year.

Shideh (played by the intense and babe-o-licious Narges Rashidi) lives the life of a housewife and Mom to hubby Iraj (Bobby Nederi) and daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) respectively.

After unceremoniously being booted from medical school for her "political" leanings, she's disappointed to learn that after years of repentance, she will still be barred from completing her studies. Iraj is sympathetic, but he is a practising doctor himself and tries to placate her with taking solace in the good life they have together.

She's having none of it. Even in the repressive world they live in, she yearns for independence and self-fulfilment - perhaps, even, to a fault. When Iraj is drafted into military service, she refuses to leave Tehran with Dorsa and into the relatively safe harbour of her in-laws. As bombs and missiles strike the city with more frequency, Shideh gets frantic telephone calls from Iraj, begging her to leave.

Infused with the similar kind of Dustin Hoffman from Straw Dogs ethic of "This is our home", Shideh digs her heels in.

However, other than a war waging, there's another problem which creepily, insidiously begins to plague the family's home. Is it a ghost? A demon? A Djinn?

If it's an evil Djinn, this is definitely not a good thing.

Shideh is, however, a woman of reason, of logic, of intellect. She refuses to believe in old Arabic superstitions. But soon, the horror visiting upon her is far too real to ignore.

Under the Shadow is a slow burn. What begins as a domestic drama during wartime starts to unravel itself into a full blown horror film. You'll never see the first jump-scare coming, but when it does, you will be gasping for breath and clutching your chest. And it's no cheap jump scare. It's earned and rooted deeply in the psychological, cultural and sociological fabric of both the narrative and world of the film.

Writer-Director Babak Anveri displays such control over the proceedings that the visceral moments have the kind of impact we seldom see in contemporary horror films. The film is dazzling and original and one of the few movies that flirts with being genuinely in the same league as The Exorcist.

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

Under The Shadow is an official selection at the 2016 Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

BOYHOOD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Linklater Trick Pony Drama Perfect Criterion Viewing

Sometimes, once is simply not enough.

Boyhood (2014)
Dir. Richard Linklater
Starring: Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, Ethan Hawke

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One-trick-pony movies tend to drive me nuts. Perhaps the most egregious perpetrator of this artistic masturbation is the loathsome Christopher "One Idea" Nolan. The, oh-gee-what-if-I-tell-the-story-backwards abomination Memento is the pinnacle of an entire career of making movies that have little going for them save for the ONE idea Nolan jackhammers us with - film after film. The myriad of "found footage" movies that took off from The Blair Witch Project and onwards also fall into this category for me. Richard Linklater (School of Rock, Dazed and Confused) seemed to develop an adjunct career making one-trick-pony movies when he gave us Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy wandering around and yapping in an approximation of real time during Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) and then, in 2014, he served up his ultimate trick-pony gymnastics with the universally acclaimed Boyhood.

My initial response upon the picture's theatrical release was decidedly mixed - so much so, that I never really bothered to watch it again. Well, not all the way through, anyway. You see, I had a Blu-Ray copy of the movie lying around in a heap of screener copies when it came out on home entertainment formats and my (at the time) 13-year-old daughter discovered it and couldn't stop watching it - again and again. As it was played a ridiculous number of times over the years, I was often in the same room while she had it on and yes, I occasionally found myself sitting down to watch bits and pieces of it. Of course I queried her as to why she loved it so much and her most telling response was something like: "I don't know, Dad. I guess it's because it's so real."

Smart girl.

So yes, armed with the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray edition of Boyhood, I sat down - alone - and watched it from beginning to end in one sitting.

Yeah, okay. It's definitely a good movie. Really, it is. But, is Boyhood great? Well, what I can say for sure is that it shares the special thing great movies have - at least for me. In spite of the speed bumps the movie is littered with, I do want to see it again.

And yet again.

Boyhood is deceptively simple. Linklater wanted to tell a coming-of-age story spread over a few years, but with the same cast and within the same literal time frame in which he was shooting the movie. So, from 2002 to 2013, as his cast aged naturally, he told the story of Mason Evans, Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) from age six to eighteen. Set in various locations in Texas, Mason Jr. lives with Olivia (Patricia Arquette), his (mostly) single Mom and older sister Samantha (Linklater's real-life daughter Lorelei). From time to time, Mason Evans Sr. (Ethan Hawke) visits and spends quality time with his kids.

The movie details Mom's desire to "better" herself by going to college, achieving a Master's degree and eventually teaching in college. We are also privy to the various other men in her life. She admits that she loves Mason Sr. but that they were not meant to be living together. Alas, the other dudes she ends up with are bitter, abusive alcoholics. The worst that might be said about Mason Sr. (at least in terms of what Linklater chooses to reveal) is that he's a free-spirited wannabe musician who eventually "grows up" and becomes a successful insurance salesman.

Throughout, the film wends its way through the sort of touchstones all kids hit - school, discovering inner passions and first-love.

And yes, I can genuinely admit the movie is overflowing with sequences and images that (finally) knocked me on my butt. Early on there's a moment where the kids are moving out of their childhood home and Mason Jr. is charged with doing painting touch-ups on the walls. He looks at the markings that detail all the periods of his physical growth. His job is to erase this part of his life in the place he's known through most of his childhood.

I lost it here. (And please, folks - try to never remove your children from the place they grew up in. It's devastating. For you, maybe. For them, definitely. Trust me. I know all too well.)

This is the extraordinary thing about Boyhood. For all its longueurs (and yes, it's almost three hours so it has plenty of them), this is a movie that keeps hitting you in the gut.

Towards the end of the film, Olivia (and Arquette, who is extraordinary throughout, completely nails it here) talks to Mason Jr. as he's about to leave for college. She says:

"You know what I'm realising? My life is just going to go. Like that. This series of milestones. Getting married. Having kids. Getting divorced. The time that we thought you were dyslexic. When I taught you how to ride a bike. Getting divorced... again. Getting my masters degree. Finally getting the job I wanted. Sending Samantha off to college. Sending you off to college. You know what's next? Huh? It's my fucking funeral!."

Mason Jr. is somewhat bemused by this and suggests she's jumping ahead to her funeral by about forty years. Her response, which I can't quite shake (and that extracted copious tears from my eyes) was simply thus:

"I just thought there would be more."

Jesus Christ, ain't that the truth.

I often wonder if my initial less-than-enthusiastic response to the picture had more to do with its power and ability to rub my nose in the screen as if it were a mirror?

Like my little girl told me, "It's so real."

And so it is.

Boyhood is a great picture.

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

The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray and (if you must) DVD of Boyhood includes a new 2K digital transfer, supervised by Linklater, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a new audio commentary featuring Linklater and nine members of the film’s cast and crew, a new documentary chronicling the film’s production, featuring footage shot over the course of its twelve years, a new discussion featuring Linklater and actors Patricia Arquette and Ellar Coltrane, moderated by producer John Pierson, a new conversation between Coltrane and actor Ethan Hawke, a new video essay by critic Michael Koresky about time in Linklater’s films, narrated by Coltrane, a collection of portraits of the cast and crew by photographer Matt Lankes, narrated with personal thoughts from Linklater, Arquette, Hawke, Coltrane, and producer Cathleen Sutherland.

CAT PEOPLE (1942) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Visionary Val Lewton on Criterion Collection!

Stalker (left), Prey (right). Two of the scariest, creepiest
scenes in movie history. And there are more. Plenty more.

Cat People (1942)
Dir. Jacques Tourneur
Prd. Val Lewton
Scr. DeWitt Bodeen
Starring: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Tom Conway, Jack Holt

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Mоја сестра." ("My Sister.") - greeting from a woman afflicted with the old Serbian curse of turning into a cat when she gets horny to another woman similarly afflicted in Val Lewton's Cat People.

There aren't too many stories as sexy, haunting and downright terrifying as this one. Based on Val Lewton's short story "The Bagheeta", Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) an émigré from Serbia in modern day Manhattan refuses to have sex with the handsomely hunky square-jawed husband she loves (the somewhat presciently monikered "Oliver Reed", played by Kent Smith) because she's terrified she'll turn into a ravenously deadly black panther. When the frustrated hubby turns his amorous attentions to Alice Reed (Jane Randolph), his beautiful co-worker at the engineering firm he's employed by, it's quite possible that claws will sprout and fangs will be bared.

As a genre, the horror movie came of age with the visionary Val Lewton's 1942 RKO shocker Cat People and there is not a single scary picture that followed that doesn't owe it a huge debt of gratitude.

For example, how many times have you watched a horror film and jumped out of your seat, clutching your heart, grasping your breath, (and possibly) unloading a stream of urine and/or a glob (or three) of faecal matter in your drawers when a wham-bam shock-cut batters you senseless? Chances are, in good movies or bad, the jump-scare has knocked you on your tailbone (or preferably your cushy derriere) more times than you'd care to admit to yourself, much less anyone else.

Well, you saw it here first, folks - Cat People invented the jump-scare.

The scene in which it occurs here was so shocking, so stunning and so memorable that for decades afterwards, when film crews were setting up for shots involving a jump-scare, they'd refer to it as setting up for "The Bus". Yes, they were referring to the "bus" in Cat People. There's no need to spoil it for you.

When the bus arrives, you'll know it!

"The Bus" is important for more than introducing the jump-scare (as we now know it) to the world; it's everything that precedes the shock (in both the sequence and the film itself) and everything that follows.

Prior to Cat People, the horror film was primarily rooted in the "past" - historical narrative rumination upon long-ago-far-away worlds of Bürgermeisters, torch-carrying villagers and monsters created via alchemy. Not that there is, or was anything wrong with this, but when the highly regarded writer and story editor Val Lewton was hired by the ailing RKO studios to set-up a horror movie division, he had his work cut out for him. The studio was, at this point, almost bankrupted by the WWII (and post-war) economy, but also by Orson Welles via the disappointing box-office of Citizen Kane and the wild cost-overruns of The Magnificent Ambersons. They wanted horror movies! They needed to be made fast and cheap!

Lewton was the right man for the job. Long associated with madman creative genius David O. Selznick, he learned well from the best in the business, but he also had his own ideas about things. One time Selznick so infuriated Lewton that the young man wrote, uncredited of course, a scene in Gone With The Wind that was so insanely over-the-top that he assumed Selznick would never consider including it in the movie.

Remember Scarlett O'Hara stumbling onto the Main Street of Atlanta, the dirty roads cluttered with the hundreds upon hundreds of wounded soldiers, the camera pulling away from her and craning up to a God's-eye view as a tattered Confederate flag flapped in the wind? Lewton wrote this. Selznick shot it. The scene might be one of the most famous in movie history. Well, when Selznick, in a shockingly magnanimous gesture, recommended Lewton to RKO, movie history was not only made again, but cinematic storytelling took a decidedly welcome turn.

The Ukrainian-born Lewton (his Aunt was Alla Nazimova) was steeped in a tradition of literature and folklore. He also brought a lonely childhood to bear upon his subsequent work which fuelled his imagination.

Lewton believed that what was scary - REALLY scary - was everything in the real and CONTEMPORARY world that "normal" people had to face. Blending this with his love for fairy tales and folklore, Lewton was the first person to bring horror to the "modern" world.

With Cat People, here was a story about a stranger in (to her) a strange new land - a woman from an "old" world in a "new" world, carrying the baggage and sins of her ancestors into an America which valued prosperity and forward-thinking. It's a story about marital strife, sexual frustration, loneliness, suicidal despair, psychoanalysis, the complex relationships between men and women and most of all, the scariest thing of all - the dark.

Yes, darkness. What we can't see is what scares all of us.

Lewton understood this and decided to exploit it for all its worth. Though rival Universal Pictures made a fortune from horror movies, they already had long-standing franchises (Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy and Dracula) to keep the bucks rolling in for a modest cost. All RKO had was the King Kong franchise, but they really couldn't be made fast and cheap. The studio's marketing geniuses handed Lewton a whole whack of titles. Yes, titles only. These titles were "proven" potential for box office gold as exhibitors had been polled and gave big collective approval ratings to them.

Lurid promises - A movies that delivers the goods.

So, for his first production, Lewton was handed the title Cat People. Oh, he did not disappoint. Working from Lewton's original short story, screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen, director Jacques Tourneur, cinematographer Nicholas Musaraca and editor Mark Robson not only delivered one of the most dazzlingly original horror pictures ever made up to that point (and let's not forget that the likes of James Whale and Tod Browning were no previous slouches in this department), but generated a film that went through the roof at the box office. (Lewton also brilliantly presided over all the studio's lurid marketing materials.)

The horror set-pieces are still unparalleled in terms of their influence upon cinema. Lewton and his team used darkness to their clear advantage - deep shadows and off-screen horror-potential keep us shivering (and practically, they don't cost money). Add to this, though, the astonishing use of sound design. Who will ever forget the creepy water sounds and echoes in the film's empty swimming pool at night sequence? Or how about the two sets of click-clicks of high heels upon the sidewalk pavement in Central Park as a woman senses being stalked?

And then, there's "The Bus".

Goddamn, it's scary. As is the whole movie.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** Five Stars

The Cat People is now on Criterion Blu-Ray and (if you must) DVD. The sumptuous package includes a new 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a 2005 audio commentary with film historian Gregory Mank and excerpts from an audio interview with Simone Simon, a 2008 feature-length documentary: "Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows", a 1979 interview with Jacques Tourneur, a trailer and an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien.

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Russ Meyer Goes Criterion!!!

THIS IS MY HAPPENING!!!
AND IT FREAKS ME OUT!!!

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
Dir. Russ Meyer
Scr. Roger Ebert
Starring: Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, Edy Williams,
John LaZar, Henry Rowland, David Gurian, Charles Napier, Pam Grier

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"This is my happening and it freaks me out," declares rock impresario Ronnie ‘Z-Man’ Barzell (John LaZar) during his berserker Hollywood party replete with live performances by The Strawberry Alarm Clark, a bevy of boobilicious babes, all manner of fornication and bucket-loads of booze/drug consumption.

Z-Man wasn’t the only one freaking out. When Russ Meyer (Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, Motor Psycho, Supervixens, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens, Up!), the king of big-boob cinema extravaganzas, unleashed his first major studio picture Beyond the Valley of the Dolls upon an unsuspecting public, audiences, critics and the film’s major backer, Twentieth Century Fox, were freaked out to the max.

For good reason.

The opening few minutes of Meyer’s Roger Ebert-scripted dive into L.A. sleaze pits proceed to bash us in the face with Z-Man and Martin Bormann (Henry Rowland), Z’s loyal bartender, right-hand man and resident Nazi (nom-de-plumed as "Otto"), whilst the nutty pair malevolently chase scantily clad babes within a seaside mansion estate. In a climactic moment to end all climactic moments, we cut to a Luger sensually stroking the supple lips of a beauteous-sleeping-big-bosomed-babe until the deadly firearm is inserted erect-penis-like into her mouth, the wet maw eagerly – nay, greedily – accepting the cold-steel schwance-of-death as our dozing dame proceeds to suck it dry. Under the circumstances, who wouldn’t? Be freaked out to the max, that is.

(Oh, okay, and suck it dry, too.)

When Meyer and young film critic Ebert were hired by Fox to concoct a vague semi-sequel reboot to Mark Robson’s through-the-roof sex-and-soap-suds adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s bestselling novel Valley of the Dolls, the artistic pursuits of these perfectly matched reprobates flew under the radar of studio executives during the delightful beginnings of the oft-envied, late lamented and much-revered "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" days of American Cinema. The film was so low-budget by studio standards, nobody in the front office paid it much mind, but for Meyer, the budget might as well have been as large as Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra.

He did not waste one cent.

The Carrie Nations are united in SIN!!!

Plot wise, things are relatively simple and perfectly in keeping with Susann’s moronically simplistic rags-to-riches-to-rags soap opera. However, the incorrigible lads dole out a cinematic masterpiece of flagrant filth that’s anything but moronic and in its own strangely perverse way is rooted (so to speak) in a queer miasma of morality. If anything the film celebrates perversion to such a deliciously over-the-top degree that the tale cannot help but become a morality play. (That said, the film brilliantly manages to make the morality seem as old-fashioned as it deserves to be – it’s even vaguely derisive.)

So, the film focuses on the buxom Carrie Nations, an all-girl rock band comprised of Kelly MacNamara (Dolly Read), Casey Anderson (Cynthia Myers) and Petronella "Pet" Danforth (Marcia McBroom). At first they’re infused with the down-home, corn-fed morals of the mid-western US of A, but in no time, they’re turfing their regular squeezes for a series of libidinous adventures with a variety of partners. One of the cuckolded beaus (David Gurian) even takes up with a porn starlet (Edy Williams) who drains him to such a degree that he eventually can’t even get it up.

Fun and games, for one and all – especially the audience – but as this epic of sin continues, the freedom of youth increasingly morphs beyond the "summer of love" antics, and the evils of both L.A. and show business in general give way to an unholy Walpurgisnacht that unravels during the film’s deeply dark finale.

The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten proclaimed that the film was "true to life".

Who are we to argue with this?

Well, you don't see something like this everyday.

Ebert and Meyer created a work that’s drenched in lurid colour and the colours of sleaze, slime and scum, and we’re allowed to revel in the kaleidoscopic picture with all the giddy laughs it wrenches from us from beginning to end, along with the trademark Meyer montages of rapid-fire cuts – a chiaroscuro of madness and freakishness at its finest. This is sheer sex-drenched melodrama; as a director, Meyer might as well be Douglas Sirk on crack cocaine.

Besides, what other movie features (again, from the highly quotable Z-Man) one of the greatest lines of dialogue in movie history: ‘You will drink the black sperm of my vengeance!’

Black sperm, indeed.

Years ago, I met Ebert as a young lad and proceeded to geek him out with my love for the film. He took me for donuts and we spent an hour together talking about it. His final words to me were thus: "Never, ever feel ashamed to admit how much you love Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

And if you’re listening up there, Mr Ebert, I am not ashamed.

I’m infused with pride to declare my utter, deep passion.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** Five Stars

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls gets the full Criterion Collection treatment on Blu-Ray and (if you must) DVD with a high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, 2003 audio commentary featuring screenwriter Roger Ebert, 2006 audio commentary featuring actors Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Harrison Page, John LaZar, and Erica Gavin, a new interview with filmmaker John Waters, 1988 episode from "The Incredibly Strange Film Show" on director Russ Meyer, a Q&A about the film from 1992 featuring Meyer, Ebert, LaZar, Read and actors David Gurian, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, and Edy Williams, a 2005 interview with cast members, five 2006 about the making of the film, featuring the cast and crew, screen tests, trailers, a booklet featuring an essay by film critic Glenn Kenny and excerpts from a 1970 account in the UCLA Daily Bruin of a visit to the film’s set, plus gorgeous new cover art by Jim Rugg.

This review of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls originally appeared at Electric Sheep.

Read my review of Valley of the Dolls HERE.

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Soap, Sex, Sin and Susann on CRITERION

In the Valley of the Dolls, there are BABES, BOOZE, BEDS
and CATFIGHTS - Oh, the Catfights! The glorious catfights!

Valley of the Dolls (1967)
Dir. Mark Robson

Scr. Helen Deutsch, Dorothy Kingsley
Starring: Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, Susan Hayward,
Paul Burke, Martin, Milner, Toni Scotti, Lee Grant, Alexander Davion

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Oh, glorious melodrama! Glorious, glorious, glorious melodrama! How Do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways! Or rather, forget that! I'd be sitting here counting all goddamn day! Why? Because I love melodrama - a perfectly legitimate storytelling form that too often gets the bad rap of knee-jerk dismissal, like it's a dirty word or something. Screw THAT! In my books, there is only good melodrama and bad melodrama. Sometimes, there's even GREAT melodrama, and Mark Robson's gorgeous film adaptation of the pot boiling Jacqueline Susann bestseller is nothing if not great melodrama.

I will admit, as would any red-blooded lad growing up in the late-60s-early-70s, to reading the book upon which this film was based. What self-respecting suburban mother didn't have a copy of this novel in her library of fine literature? What self-respecting 10-year-old boy wouldn't secret the paperback away to peruse its contents late at night under a blanket with a flashlight? It's a dirty book, eh.

Mark Robson's movie is one lollapalooza of sudsy filth!

Susan Hayward replaced Judy Garland. PERFECT!!!

Susann's book was a compulsive piece of trash that had made-for-the-movies written all over it. Her swill was done proud by screenwriters Helen (National Velvet, I'll Cry Tomorrow) Deutsch, Dorothy (Pal Joey) Kingsley and - I kid you not - Harlan (A Boy and His Dog) Ellison. He's uncredited for a reason. He had his name removed from the credits due to the studio-imposed "happy" (though plenty melancholy) ending.

The whole affair, as it were, was clearly under the watchful gaze of the stylish Canadian-born-raised-educated Robson who not only served up some of the finest Golden Age Cinema in the form of a clutch o' terrific Val Lewton horror items, most notably the super-creepy-super-scary The Seventh Victim, then the great film noir boxing pictures Champion and The Harder They Fall, and eventually delivered first-rate slam-bang commercial entertainments like the mega-soap Peyton Place and the two-fisted Sinatra WWII adventure of Von Ryan's Express. (Years later Robson would give us the pinnacle of disaster movies, Earthquake, which amongst its ridiculously huge all-star cast, featured Lorne Greene as Ava Gardner's father.)

Robson directs Valley of the Dolls with a perverse blend of poppy 60s psychedelia and an old fashioned studio-style stodginess. It works perfectly for this sex and soap saga.

In a nutshell, we follow the lives of three "dolls" (mega-babes) through the "valley" (all the highs and lows of life) of the "dolls" (pills of every mind-altering stripe and colour).

Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins) shows up in New York from her sleepy hometown in New England, immediately lands a job as a secretary in a show business agency, has a torrid affair with Lyon Burke (Paul Burke), the agency's chief lawyer and perennial bachelor and eventually succumbs to booze and "dolls" to ease the pain of emptiness.

Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) is about to break out in a supporting role in a big Broadway musical, but is fired by the jealous wrath wreaked by the boozy old star of the show Helen Lawson (a great Susan Hayward in a role Judy Garland was supposed to until she was fired for succumbing to booze and drugs in real life). Neely's agent/boyfriend Mel Anderson (Martin Milner) works his butt off and she becomes a huge nightclub sensation and movie star. Mel's career eventually dissipates in the shadow of Neely and she not only has a torrid open affair with the swings-both-ways Ted Casablanca (Alexander Davion), but succumbs to booze and "dolls" to ease the pain of emptiness.

We didn't see THIS on "The Patty Duke Show".

Jennifer North (the late Sharon Tate, victim of the Manson Clan and Roman Polanski's beloved) has only one talent - her body. She eventually falls in love with nightclub crooner Tony Polar (Tony Scotti) and for the first time in her life, she knows true happiness (in spite of Tony's domineering sister/manager played with bile-spitting aplomb by Lee Grant). Unfortunately, Tony is stricken with Huntington's Disease and poor Jennifer is reduced to "acting" in French "art films" (pornography) to support her beloved. Naturally, she succumbs to booze and "dolls" to ease her deep, deep pain. She turns out to be the purest and least "empty" of the trio.

Oh, how they all suffer.

And oh, how gloriously.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

Valley of the Dollars has been released on a sumptuous, extras-laden Criterion Collection Blu-Ray (and, if you must, DVD). The whole package includes a new 2K digital restoration, with 3.0 LCR DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a 2006 audio commentary featuring actor Barbara Parkins and journalist Ted Casablanca, new interviews with writer Amy Fine Collins about author Jacqueline Susann and the costumes in the film, footage from "Sparkle Patty Sparkle", a 2009 gala tribute to actor Patty Duke at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, two promotional films from 1967, a 2001 episode on the film from the television program "Hollywood Backstories", screen tests, trailers, a booklet featuring an essay by film critic Glenn Kenny, gorgeous new cover art by Phil Noto and BEST OF ALL, a superb, passionate, informative and deliciously over-the-top video essay by film critic Kim Morgan. Morgan's appreciation is so heartfelt it's deeply moving.

My review of Russ Meyer's insane "sequel" Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is HERE.

LOVING - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Bland TV-movie approach deflates history

Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as interracial Loving couple.

Loving (2016)
Dir. Jeff Nichols
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Marton Csokas, Nick Kroll, Michael Shannon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The story of Richard and Mildred Loving (Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga) deserves better than an earnest, plodding, vaguely pretentious made-for-television-styled movie like Loving. Thankfully Nancy Buirski's fine 2011 HBO feature documentary The Loving Story, upon which this dramatic rendering by Jeff Nichols is based, has already delivered the cinematic goods this important story deserves.

Alas, the legal case involving an interracial marriage which challenged the grotesque anti-miscegenation laws of the backward State of Virginia is dramatically rendered here with all the artistic panache of a connect-the-dots colouring book puzzle. The promise writer-director Jeff Nichols displayed in his 2007 Arkansas-cracker family feud drama Shotgun Stories and the extraordinary 2011 survivalism end-of-days psycho-drama Take Shelter has subsequently and sadly dwindled.




Like so many laws of diminishing returns, his output increasingly underwhelms. His Dullsville 2012 contemporary Huckleberry Finn-like Mud and this year's ludicrous science fiction drama Midnight Special maintained his quiet, measured voice, but served up stories unbecoming of his earlier work.

Loving is the worst of the lot. He retains his voice almost to a fault, but does so within the trappings of something that might be more suited to an episode of the Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Marton Czokas as scumbag racist Virginia cop.

Nichols's film introduces us to working-class Caucasian drag-racing aficianado Richard Loving who, with longtime African-American girlfriend Mildred, decides to flout the moronic Virginia law against interracial relations. They visit Washington D.C. to get married in a civil union after they discover she's pregnant with their first child. Upon returning, their home is raided by cracker-barrel cops led by the systemically, virulently racist Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks (Marton Czokas). Rather than face a year in prison, the couple cop a plea and agree to leaving their home in Caroline County, Virginia and promise never to return to the state together.

Life in the big city proves untenable and the couple "illegally" returns home to the rural idyll they've known their entire lives. They're subsequently arrested and the film continues to detail their long legal battle (with the assistance of dogged ACLU lawyers) to have the Virginia law eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States.




There's nothing especially wrong with the film in that it's nicely acted and extremely competent on a craft level, but there's nothing all too right with it either. The "competence" factor is especially egregious and renders a movie that feels like it's been made rather inconsequentially for the small screen rather than the ordinarily high stakes needed for big screen theatrical product. There's nothing wrong with a quiet, subtle approach, but it's employed here to the point where our emotional investment is ultimately more rooted in the basic facts of the case rather than anything imparted dramatically.

Nichols probably thought he was being oh-so clever by focusing upon the "normal" and "mundane" details of the couple's life, but he tries to have his cake and eat it to by framing his approach within an otherwise conventional, by-rote structure.

For one of the most important events in American History to be handled with competence and precious pretence, inadvertently deflates the whole thing. If the movie was dreadful, one could at least say it was shameful. That it's strictly middle of the road is even worse. It's just one big pile of nothing.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two-Stars

Loving was a TIFF 2016 Gala Presentation.