DEATH BY POPCORN: THE TRAGEDY OF THE WINNIPEG JETS - Review By Greg Klymkiw: Hot Docs 2018 Hot Pick - REDUX series

Little did Burton Cummings know that the WHA Jets
would be gone with the wind, forever.

Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets (2006)
Dir. Matthew Rankin, Mike Maryniuk, Walter Forsberg

Review (sort of) By Greg Klymkiw

In honour of the Hot Docs 2018 25th Anniversary, ace programmer/critic Kiva Reardon put together a selection of Canadian documentaries in a series entitled "Redux". When she asked me to recommend Canadian documentaries from the city of Winnipeg, I put together a long and detailed list of films I loved from my beloved Winter City where I'm currently residing and helming the legendary Winnipeg Film Group as its Executive Director.

From that list, which I might publish sometime since it contains fairly extensive assessments of said films, Kiva chose Matthew Rankin, Mike Maryniuk and Walter Forsberg's classic piece of prairie post-modernism, Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets. The film, of course, targets that horrible time when Winnipeg lost its beloved team. However, the team is back and actually in the midst of playoff fever.

For me, the real tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets was not losing the team, but rather, that the Winnipeg Jets joined the NHL and that furthermore, the beloved WHA disbanded. (The other tragedy was the decimation of the historic Winnipeg Arena in favour of a cold, corporate, ugly new arena in downtown Winnipeg which was built on the spot which once housed the beloved, historic Eaton's department store at Portage and Donald. But, I digress).

In any event, I'll just reprint Kiva's capsule note in the Hot Docs 2018 program book which quotes me extensively. I do this because I am, like most Winnipeggers, in need of a nap.

Here it is:

SUGGESTED for Redux by Greg Klymkiw, executive director of the Winnipeg Film Group, Death by Popcorn is an unsung Canadian tragicomedy. "A collaboration," writes Klymkiw, "twixt the inimitable Matthew Rankin (heir apparent to John Paizs and Guy Maddin), Mike Maryniuk (who just had a world premiere at Rotterdam) and Walter Forsberg (a film archivist with uber-artistic flair)," the found-footage documentary explores the star-crossed romance between Winnipeggers and their ill-fated Jets. Containing footage from the local news and Jets games, and including familiar faces like Wayne Gretzky and Gary Bettman, Death by Popcorn is a postmodern portrait of corporate greed and Winnipeg itself. Though a sell-out at the Winnipeg Cinematheque upon its release, Death by Popcorn seemed destined to suffer the same fate as the NHL team it followed, as copyright issues plagued subsequent screenings. Now, come relish the highs and lows of the film billed as "sadness on ice."

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

Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets, plays at Hot Docs 2018 in the Redux series.

THE OSLO DIARIES - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2018 Hot Docs Hot Pick: ***** Five-Stars

Arab-Israeli peace talks at centre of dazzling doc.

The Oslo Diaries (2018)
Dir. Mor Loushy, Daniel Sivan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are documentaries that get by on compelling subject matter alone. There are others that apply the standards, such as they are these days, of journalism and render work that makes for compelling television. Then there are documentaries that are pure, dazzling cinema with all the scope, poetry and virtuosity that place them upon the pedestal of art. When such films are also infused with journalistic principles that don't get in the way of great filmmaking and have vital, coercive and downright imperative subject matter, then what you get is something like Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan's The Oslo Diaries.

Loushy and Sivan have delivered the goods before with 2015's Censored Voices, one of the most profound anti-war films made in our new millennium, a staggeringly original and deeply poetic exploration of the 1967 Arab–Israeli Six Day War. Like that great film, The Oslo Diaries does not rest on the run-of-the-mill laurels so many documentaries are content to perch themselves upon.

Focusing on the secret 1992 peace talks in Oslo between participants on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the equation, this is a film that is at once hopeful, but also feels as dangerous and tense as a great espionage thriller - keep in mind that these talks were so secret that the participants were actually breaking the law by holding them. Imagine peace talks that could have resulted in substantial prison time.

As well, the visual juxtaposition between sunny Israel and frigid, wintry Norway, creates the kind of cinematic shorthand that only great filmmakers truly understand in terms of rendering work of lasting value. There's nothing ephemeral about the filmmaking, nor the subject matter. Then again, the notion of peace being ephemeral is not only scary, but is one of the things that forcefully drives the movie.

Another great juxtaposition is the judicious use of archival footage from the period (including the Camp David accord with Bill Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat) with contemporary interviews (including the last interview ever given by Shimon Peres before his 2016 death).

Finally, the pièce de résistance are readings from the actual diaries kept by the secret peace talk participants and dramatized recreations of the talks themselves (chilly Kyiv, Ukraine standing in very nicely for chilly Oslo) and skilfully blended interviews conducted very recently.

This is a film that breaks rule after rule, but does so with such aplomb and intelligence and grace, that we are left with a picture that not only confounds expectations, but breaks rules for two of the best reasons I can think of: to create great cinema and to further peace. These are fine considerations. One wishes more pictures had such lofty goals and were able to pull them off as astoundingly as The Oslo Diaries.

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

The Oslo Diaries enjoys its Canadian Premiere at Hot Docs 2018.

THE ACCOUNTANT OF AUSCHWITZ - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2018 Hot Docs Hot Pick: ***½

Nonagenarian Nazi Oskar Groning

The Accountant of Auschwitz (2018)
Dir. Matthew Shoychet

Review By Greg Klymkiww

I have to admit that before seeing this movie, the story of Oskar Groning had somehow escaped me. I still don't know why. After all, it's not everyday a nonagenarian stands trial for being an accessory to the murder of over 300,000 people, but so be it, the story escaped my purview. Then again, in recent years, I've tended to avoid reading conventional news sources and since I try not to watch television, I guess anything's possible. Well, thank stars for the movies. I'm still obsessed with watching at least one movie a day and I'm especially grateful for film festivals like Hot Docs which allow me to binge on documentaries.

I suspect I won't be the only one to learn this, but what I learned from Matthew Shoychet's slick, informative and extremely proficient documentary, is that in 2015, Oskar Groning faced prosecution in Lüneburg, Germany for his part as a junior SS officer at the Auschwitz extermination camp during World War II. His time there was to function as a low-level bureaucrat, but frankly, this is the sort of bureaucracy that sends chills down the spine. Groning's job was to take charge of all the prisoners' personal possessions - most notably, their money and valuables.

Yes, as the title of the film declares, Groning was indeed The Accountant of Auschwitz.

Interestingly, the film seems less interested in detailing Groning's activities in the camp, nor is it, in any way, shape or form a biographical documentary, but rather, Groning's trial is used by the film to provide a far more important context for larger issues.

First and foremost, what one takes away from the film, is Germany's utterly horrendous historical record for prosecuting war criminals. The movie takes great pains to deliver the facts on this truly shameful atrocity. That Germany let thousands upon thousands of war criminals go untried and unpunished is an abomination, but even more telling is how the country is scrambling to make up for these sins by dragging nonagenarians onto the stand - now!!!

It's been well over six decades since World War II ended. Germany had plenty of time to mete justice, but not only dragged its jackbooted heels (so to speak), but how, other than a few token death sentences, most of those prosecuted and found guilty, served terms that were hardly commensurate with their foul crimes. If anything, this is the biggest shocker of Shoychet's film.

The other shocker, of course, is Groning himself. His prosecution was actually possible due to the fact that he was so disgusted by Holocaust-deniers, that he denounced these idiots by publicly discussing his role at Auschwitz and describing the atrocities he witnessed.

The Accountant of Auschwitz is full of shockers! This is the sort of compulsive television documentary that keeps you glued to your seat as it delivers one jaw-dropping revelation after another. It also asks many important questions. They're so important, I'm not going to reveal them here, because it's part of the film's aesthetic to not only pose them, but wend these questions skilfully within the narrative fabric of the film. They're shockers, too. One shocker after another.

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

The Accountant of Auschwitz enjoys its World Premiere at Hot Docs 2018.

THE CLEANERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2018 Hot Docs Hot Pick: ***** 5-Stars

The gatekeepers of online morality are censors.

The Cleaners (2018)
Dir. Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The scariest word I've heard in quite some time is:

"DELETE"

and it's a word we hear, almost mantra-like in the chilling documentary The Cleaners, a scary portrait of content moderators in the world of social media.

So what, precisely, does a content moderator do? Well, as we discover, they are employees of entities like Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms that have become an almost inextricable part of all our lives. Their job is to scour the internet looking for anything that contravenes company policy, community standards and yes, in many cases, illegal acts (images of child pornography). The offensive material is deleted, and as we experience in the film, it's with a simple keystroke and the utterance of that dreaded word:

DELETE.

Filmmakers Block and Riesewieck focus primarily on a handful of content moderators working in Manila and what we learn early on is that they are not directly employed by any of the aforementioned social media giants, but rather, companies that have been outsourced to provide these services. We're given scant information about how these moderators are actually trained, but what we see and learn is mighty scary.

The moderators are there, in effect, to provide censorship. This would be fine if we were dealing strictly with cut-and-dried materials like child pornography and hate crime/racism, but it goes far beyond this. Nudity, sexuality, acts of violence in war, political satire and/or any personal expression outside of the norm is fair game.

Though the moderators have specific guidelines, this requires them to constantly make judgement calls about what gets deleted and what doesn't. For example, we follow one of the moderators and discover that she is a devout Catholic. Her rabid Christianity is clearly at play in her decisions to "delete".

What's especially impressive about the film is that it employs a fair bit of journalistic balance, but not at the expense of the film's artistry and certainly not at the expense of presenting a point of view that's as progressive as it is scary. What these moderators do is clearly not a good thing. The social media giants are succumbing to all sorts of pressures to restrict/control content - worst of all, from governments that would block the platforms without censorship.

Structurally, the film is cleverly designed to present a myriad of characters and viewpoints. For the most part, the moderators seem like reasonable and intelligent young people, but they are bound both by policy and the fact that they have no choice but to make personal decisions based on their interpretation of said policy. The film also presents the viewpoints of several artists and activists - we see their work, the very valid reasons for its creation and dissemination and then, shockingly, we see moderators discovering the material, applying "policy" to it and then issuing the decree:

DELETE!

We hear about and occasionally see the sort of disturbing and even horrific material these moderators are constantly subjected to and sadly, we learn about how some content moderators are driven to taking their own lives. In countries like the Philippines, we learn that finding a life beyond poverty drives a lot of intelligent young people into the business of content moderation - but for them, the effects can be devastating.

We see American politicians within the context of public hearings as they grill representatives of social media giants about content policies as they relate to child pornography, political interference and terrorism, but clearly the politicians, no matter how well meaning, are completely clueless about social media and the internet in general and the various Google/Twitter/Facebook reps are little more than slick flacks.

What haunts you, long after the film is over are the evocative shots of the moderators themselves as they work. The cameras are trained upon their eyes as they consume endless images on computers screens. If we are looking into the windows of their collective souls, we're looking into hearts and minds of a world mediated by corporate greed, corruption and dedicated to suppression to maintain the highest profit margins possible.

Ultimately, nobody profits - least of all, humanity.

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

The Cleaners enjoys it Canadian Premiere at Hot Docs 2018 in Toronto.

Coincidentally, Michael Walker, a brilliant young Canadian artist who posts his beautiful work to hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram had his account removed by the social media giant the very week I saw The Cleaners.

Yes, someone uttered the words DELETE and with a keystroke, this artist's work was removed.

Feel free to protest this affront to free speech. In the case of Mr. Walker's work, this is a clear act of Homophobia, no doubt perpetrated by a "content moderator" applying flawed, personal standards based on corporate policies that are skewed to protecting only profit margins.

Here is Michael's Story:

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Romero Zombies on Criterion!!!

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Dir. George A. Romero
Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Kill the brain, and you kill the ghoul." - Scientist

"If you have a gun, shoot 'em in the head. That's a sure way to kill 'em. If you don't, get yourself a club or a torch. Beat 'em or burn 'em. They go up pretty easy." - Sherriff

Science and law enforcement make for good bedfellows - especially when the unburied dead come to life and seek out the living to snack upon.

The late George A. Romero's 1968 horror classic worked like a charm when I first saw it as a kid and continued to cast its magic spell as I continued to watch it umpteen zillion times over the decades. No matter what format I viewed Night of the Living Dead on - 35mm prints, 16mm prints, tv broadcasts, the myriad of bootleg public domain VHS tapes that floated around forever and a very decent Elite Entertainment DVD release from 2009, this was a movie that never failed to creep me out.

However, seeing it on the brand new Criterion Collection Blu-Ray, it feels like I'd never seen the film ever before - what an amazing experience it was to watch this beautifully restored edition supervised by Romero himself before his tragic, untimely death. Seeing it this way was at least as thrilling, shocking and supremely entertaining as when I was first slammed in the face with the two-by-four that is this genuinely great motion picture.

Of course, zombie and living dead extravaganzas have become so ingrained upon the collective psyches of movie-goers that most of them must view each movie with an air of been-there-done-that, but his original film is so infused with an acute political consciousness and clever satire, that the only movies that come remotely close to its power are Romero's first two sequels Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead.

Shot in beautiful black and white, we follow the mousy Barbra (Judith O'Dea) as her obnoxious older brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) drives her out to a graveyard in a remote rural location outside of Pittsburgh. When a pasty-skinned old man lopes onto the scene, Johnny teases his sister that the lumbering dude is "coming to get her". It turns out Johnny's right. He's viciously attacked by the ghoulish septuagenarian and then, Barbra becomes the quarry once her brother's been handily dispatched. She madly races to an old farmhouse and as night falls, the house becomes surrounded by similarly psychotic ghouls.

They have only one thing on their pea-brained minds - to kill the living and eat them.

Yes! Eat them!

Turns out there are other people in the house. They barricade themselves in, attempting to survive this onslaught of ravenous creatures. And what an onslaught it turns out to be.

Of course via television and radio, they discover that a plague of mass murder is occurring right across the state and yes, the unburied dead are rising to feed (literally) upon the living.

The dynamic in the house is fascinating, a microcosm of humanity. From the trembling Barbra to an obnoxiously selfish father, his caring wife, their sick daughter and a perky young couple, Romero's simple, but deft script delivers a group of survivors we are delighted to follow. And no such film would be complete without a hero. The resourceful, brave Ben (Duane Jones), kicks ass with the best movie heroes. And, astonishingly, Romero employed "colour-blind" casting - the film's hero is played by a terrific, handsome young actor and he is African-American. This was a big deal in 1968. That there are colour blind aspects to the character himself, makes it, even now, STILL a big deal.

Throughout the film, Romero paints a vivid portrait of redneck America as hayseed local yokels wander the highways and byways, taking sport in blasting the brains of the "living dead". It's a world gone crazily to Hell. Most tellingly, it's not really all that crazy. This is America in all its danger and "glory".

And that, might be the scariest thing of all.

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

Night of the Living Dead is available on a super-deluxe new edition on the Criterion Collection which includes a new 4K digital restoration, supervised by director George A. Romero, coscreenwriter John A. Russo, sound engineer Gary R. Streiner, and producer Russell W. Streiner, a new restoration of the monaural soundtrack, supervised by Romero and Gary Streiner and presented uncompressed on the Blu-ray, Night of Anubis, a never-before-presented work-print edit of the film, new program featuring filmmakers Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Toro, and Robert Rodriguez, never-before-seen 16 mm dailies reel, new program featuring Russo on the commercial and industrial-film production company where key Night of the Living Dead filmmakers got their start, Two audio commentaries from 1994 featuring Romero, Russo, producer Karl Hardman, actor Judith O’Dea, and others, Archival interviews with Romero and actors Duane Jones and Judith Ridley, New programs about the film’s style and score, New interview program about the direction of ghouls, featuring members of the cast and crew, New interviews with Gary Streiner and Russell Streiner, Newsreels from 1967, Trailer, radio spots, and TV spots, plus an essay by critic Stuart Klaxons.

GREG KLYMKIW'S BEST FILMS OF 2017 presented in alphabetical order - By Greg Klymkiw

Greg Klymkiw selects

THE 20 BEST FEATURE FILMS OF 2017

(in alphabetical order)

BITCH tied with MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND
Women are knocking genre cinema out of the park this year and turning it topsy turvy in all the right ways. Marianna Palka's provocatively titled Bitch is a savage feminist satire that's as creepy as it is funny and it takes the kind of unexpected narrative turns that are not only aesthetically tantalizing, but yield the kind of original and utterly uncompromising work that restores one's faith in cinema. Stranger even still, is that it slowly develops into a deeply moving tale of redemption as a philandering, mean-spirited husband is faced with huge challenges when his loyal, long-suffering wife turns into a "dog". Most Beautiful Island, is a terrific debut feature from Writer-director-Star Ana Asensio that captures the lonely, desperate lives of illegal "aliens" in New York with an indelible sense of observation that borders on Neo-realism. The final half of the picture, once Luciana enters the secret, horrifying dangerous world where illegal aliens are used as pawns for the rich in a deadly game, is unbearably suspenseful. Asensio paces these sequences with a creepy-crawly slow burn and it's impossible to sit still. Squirming is the order of the day for anyone watching this section of the film.

BREADWINNER, THE
From Aircraft Pictures and director Nora Twomey comes The Breadwinner, a harrowing, thrilling and inspiring film (blessed with a great screenplay adaptation by Anita Doron) of the young adult novel by Deborah Ellis in which a young girl in Afghanistan must pose as a boy in order to help her family when their patriarchal head is imprisoned. The suspense during the final third is almost unbearable. This is one of the best animated feature films I've seen in years.

CAMBODIAN SPRING, A
Director Chris Kelly serves up compulsive viewing as he employs a Direct Cinema approach by training his cameras on Venerable Loun Sovath, Toul Srey Pov and Tepp Vanny - three activists fighting against the corruption of the Cambodian Government. Yes, the film is not without uplifting moments, but the cumulative effect is sheer devastation and some very harsh realities that elicit copious tears.

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

CURE FOR WELLNESS, A
Director Gore (The Ring) Verbinski delivers one of the strangest pieces of gothic shenanigans in long time as a young corporate executive is sent on a bizarre mission to a mysterious wellness clinic in the Swiss Alps so he can obtain a signature from his company's CEO. What he discovers is sheer creepy-crawly terror. Stylish, indulgent and endowed with an effective slow-burn pace, this feels like a Hammer Horror movie as directed by Michael Cimino on lithium.

DARKEST HOUR
In Darkest Hour, director Joe Wright expertly weaves the tale of Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the early days of WWII - from his appointment as PM and through to his historical "we shall fight on the beaches" speech to parliament. Gary Oldman plays the irascible orator with verve and passion. In many ways, Oldman is the movie. The film is little more than war propaganda, but it's first-rate war propaganda and the fictional sequence involving old Winnie riding the London Underground is insanely, gloriously stirring and moving. His performance overall, moved me to tears.

DISAPPEARANCE
I do so enjoy entering a frigid cinematic icebox to revel in the spectacle of a parent and adult child acrimoniously slashing away at each other. Boudewijn Koole's extraordinary film is a magnificent new entry into this time-honoured/tested/proven dramatic tradition and serves up plenty of roiling bitterness amidst aching convulsions twixt a Mother and Daughter in the icy climes of rural Norway. Lots of sex, death and ice-fishing for good measure.

DISASTER ARTIST, THE
Based on the memoir by actor Greg Sestero, director-leading-man James Franco and co-star (his real-life brother Dave Franco) take us into similar territory Tim Burton occupied with his glorious biopic Ed Wood. Here we get the strangely moving, heartfelt and often hilarious tale of Tommy Wiseau, the "auteur" who made The Room (often considered the best bad movie ever made). I still haven't seen Wiseau's film, but it hasn't been an impediment to my thorough enjoyment of Franco's film.

DO DONKEYS ACT?
David Redmon and Ashley Sabin train their cameras upon living beings that have been abused and subjected to appalling inhumanity. We follow the film's four-legged subjects from their admittance to the heavenly refuges of donkey sanctuaries, then through a variety of medical/grooming procedures, eventually their daily lives and finally, the peace of what will be their existence until they leave this Earth. Astonishing Direct Cinema images are accompanied by poetic narration, beautifully delivered by Willem Dafoe.

EUTHANIZER
Though this is not a period piece, its aesthetic feels gloriously in line with the existential angst (primarily of the male persuasion) that so defined the cinema of the 70s. This first feature from Finland by Teemu Nikki is the deeply shocking, insanely romantic, sickeningly horrifying, bleakly/blackly funny and often graceful tale of a car mechanic who moonlights as a discount pet euthanizer. It's a revenge picture. It's a love story. And yes, it is hallucinogenically original.

FIRST REFORMED tied with TWIN PEAKS (THE RETURN) SEASON THREE
Two elder statesmen of American Cinema did some of their greatest work in 2017. Paul Schrader knocks it out of the park with this compulsive psycho-thriller about an alcoholic priest (Ethan Hawke - never better) haunted by his son's death, obsessed with a young widow (Amanda Seyfried) and facing a deep crisis of faith. Imagine Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light crossed with Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest and Schrader's own classic screenplay for Taxi Driver. Chillingly austere. David Lynch pulled off this seemingly impossible task - he return to the Twin Peaks world of his legendary Mark Frost collaboration and did so with mind blowing style, compulsive narrative aplomb and sheer avant-garde experimentation. It's technically a TV series, but in reality, it's an 18-hour-long feature film - so much so I wish he'd release it on Blu-Ray as one long movie sans closing credits (though including the closing visuals for each and every "episode").

FLORIDA PROJECT, THE
A sleazy motel in Florida, just outside Walt Disney World, a precocious, vibrant little girl, her drug addicted hustler single Mom and a kindly caretaker (played by Willem Dafoe no less) are the backdrop and characters in Sean (Tangerine) Baker's magical ode to childhood amidst squalor. A gloriously original film that both soars and breaks your heart.

GOOD TIME tied with LOWLIFE
Crime was the indie order of the day in 2017. A bank heist goes horribly wrong. Two brothers are on the run. One gets caught, the other doesn't. The free bro begins a mad odyssey into an underworld of danger and violence to spring his incarcerated bro from the hoosegow. We never know where it's all going to go, but every turn it takes shocks, surprises and keeps us jacked. The Safdie Brothers write and direct within inches of their lives. The whole cast knocks us on our collective asses, but Robert (Twilight) Pattinson soars in ways most actors merely dream of. Though director Ryan Prows is clearly in Quentin Tarantino's debt with Lowlife, he wisely places most of the emphasis upon mad, wildly operatic melodrama. The movie is as moving as it is grittily shocking and deeply, darkly funny. Luchadores, those glorious masked wrestlers of Mexico are emblematic of all that is good and evil - heroes and villains to the common man, performing great feats of gymnastic warfare in the ring and dazzlingly costumed in ancient Aztec tradition. Set against a sleazy crime backdrop, we follow the adventures of wrestler El Monstruo who works as a strong-arm for an evil gringo gangster who kidnaps illegal "aliens" to use in the underground organ harvesting trade.

HOPE tied with THERE IS A HOUSE HERE
Most viewers want things served up simply. They won't get that with Hope. Alan Zweig's sequel to Hurt continues the story of fallen Canadian Hero Steve Fonyo who survives the hell of a home invasion assault and decides to enter rehab. The director bravely keeps the cameras rolling as Fonyo somewhat petulantly puts some major juju upon Zweig. Fonyo makes it clear he's only doing rehab for the film. He expects the film (and filmmaker) to provide him with what he needs. What he gets is so much more. What we, the audience get, is the light (albeit murky) of redemption and a movie of dogged, gritty artistry. With There is a House Here, Zweig takes us on a journey into the lives and land of those who live in the country's most isolated, Northern regions. With Tatanniq Idlout (Inuk rock star Lucie Idlout) as his tour guide, Alan Zweig seeks answers to questions he has about the Third World conditions in his own country. This is a film about seeking answers, about learning something its filmmaker wants to know, and in so doing, casting the glow of illumination upon us all - forcing us to confront how little we know about anything and how life (and filmmaking/art), should indeed always be about exploration.

I LOVE YOU, DADDY
Standup comic Louis C.K. writes, directs and stars in this gorgeously photographed (in monochrome no less) love letter to Woody Allen's Manhattan that finally lives and breathes on its own steam. This portrait of a father's relationship with his teenage daughter (and her affair with a man 50+ years her senior) is so piquant and moving that the tears it elicits from viewers are alternately due to laughter and the movie's deep emotional core.

LAST MEN IN ALEPPO
Last Men in Aleppo is a thrilling, exciting, terrifying, sad, sickening, brave, brilliant and deeply moving documentary portrait by Feras Fayyad of Syria's "White Helmets" - firemen, paramedics and other rescue workers who volunteer (with their very lives in many cases), to search through the carnage of fresh bomb strikes in the city of Aleppo to save those still breathing and to retrieve the remains of those who are dead. Adhering with considerable rigour to the style of Cinéma Direct, it follows two primary subjects as they plunge into the chasm of a living Hell. We not only fear for the lives of everyone onscreen, but the filmmakers. This is film artistry of the highest order.

SWAN, THE
Icelandic screenwriter-Director Ása Helga Hjörleifsdótirr adapts the Guðbergur Bergsson novel with taste, restraint and artistry of a very high order. A nine-year-old girl, living in state-imposed exile at her aunt and uncle's remote rural farm after a shoplifting conviction in the city, is a story so exquisitely, delicately unveiled that it confounds all expectations one might have of both coming-of-age and fish-out-of-water tales. Surrounded by fields, meadows and rugged, imposing mountains, these are wide open spaces that feel horrifically claustrophic. The film's tiny dollops of magical realism are perfect punctuation points to an experience that is as strangely creepy as it is deeply and profoundly moving.

UNARMED VERSES tied with VANCOUVER: NO FIXED ADDRESS
Two terrific documentary features directed by two guys named Charles. Charles Officer's new film is shot in a Cinéma Direct style, but with plenty of exquisitely moving poetic sequences. Unarmed Verses follows 12-year-old Francine Valentine, a sweet, smart and talented young lady living in Villaways, an isolated community housing project in Toronto that is on the verge of decimation. This is a very important film about home, community and how, in this modern world, it's on the verge of extinction. Charles Wilkinson has made some of the most important documentaries ever wrought on the subject of the environment (Peace Out, Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World). His new film is, on one hand, a history of the great west coast Canadian city, and on the other, a powerful exploration of a housing crisis that's forcing people into homelessness and displacement.

VIOLET
Grief is the subject of the extraordinary feature-length debut by Bas Devos, a film that is indelibly infused with the delicate beauty and subtlety of everything its title, Violet, represents. Devos takes us on the haunting journey of a frail adolescent as he wends his way through a mourning process that is filled with such sadness and confusion that the film is as unbearable as it is compulsively relentless in its exploration of loss. The filmmaker wisely employs the standard-frame Academy ratio, used to such astonishing effect in Son of Saul by Laszlo Nemes. This is cinematic storytelling in its most powerful, evocative form. Devos uses image to express emotion, but to also evoke it within us.

WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY
In What Will People Say, the teenage daughter of hard-working immigrants living in Oslo, is at odds with her fundamentalist family, then kidnapped and shipped to Pakistan where she is to be "trained" to be dutiful. This is an extremely promising debut feature for actress/art director Iram Haq. Replete with glorious cultural details and stirring family drama, Haq layers her film with a myriad of complexities beneath a solidly simple coat hanger. It is a movie as filled with joy, love and sheer humanity as it is with chilling, suspenseful tension.

GREG KLYMKIW'S TEN BEST SHORT FILMS OF 2017 in alphabetical order - By Greg Klymkiw

I saw over 100 short films this past year.

These are my 10 favourites from 2017.

Greg Klymkiw selects

THE TEN BEST SHORT FILMS OF 2017

(in alphabetical order)

BARGAINING WITH THE FUTURE
Lasha Mowchun's moving, poetic and playful documentary about climate change.

BICKFORD PARK
Dane Clark & Linsey Stewart's sweetly, enchantingly melancholy romantic pas de deux.

CHARLES
Dominic Etienne Simard's gorgeous, bittersweet (mostly) monochrome life journey.

DOMUS
Rhayne Vermette's experimental bio-doc is an exquisite two-by-four to the senses.

HOMER_a, HOMER_b
Milos Mitrovic & Conor Sweeney's creepy duo of low-fi Homer Simpson madness.

SHADOW NETTES
Phillip Barker demonstrates angling with one visual jaw-dropper after another.

SHE CAME KNOCKING
John Ainslie's grim, scary thriller is a creepy throat-catcher of a very high order.

TESLA WORLD LIGHT, THE
Matthew Rankin's glorious, dreamy ode to Nikola Tesla soars like no other.

THREADS
Torill Kove's lovely and simple animated tale about the threads that bind us all.

WE FORGOT TO BREAK UP
Chandler Levack's compulsive slice of life builds cleverly to glorious musical 3rd act.

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY - Review by Greg Klymkiw - Dazzling Cukor Dazzling Criterion

The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Starring: Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart, John Howard
Ply. Philip Barry
Scr. Donald Ogden Stewart
Dir. George Cukor

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are three significant men in the romantic life of socialite Tracy Lord (Katherine Hepburn). Born into wealth and privilege, she's dumped the irascible rich boy/playboy C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) and has rushed into the complacency of marrying George Kittredge (John Howard), the dweeb-ish self-made millionaire.

But, there is a dark horse for her affections charging across the horizon of romance.

Tracy, however, is a force to be reckoned with - perhaps one of the most dazzling, significant female characters in the entire history of Hollywood romantic screwball comedies. Each of these men adore and appreciate her, but for very different reasons. It's these reasons, or rather, declarations, that brilliantly say as much about the individual male characters, as they do about Tracy herself.

Tracy is a walking, talking, living, breathing contradiction. In that sense, she's a full-blooded human being - one we could all do well aspiring to.

Perhaps the most interesting observation comes from Macauley "Mike" Connor (James Stewart), the reporter charged with Tracy's upcoming high society wedding. He's as full of contradiction about Tracy as Tracy is herself when he says (during one of the most romantic/funny scenes in movie history):

"You're wonderful. There's a magnificence in you, Tracy... a magnificence that comes out of your eyes, in your voice, in the way you stand there, in the way you walk. You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you, hearth-fires and holocausts... No, you're made out of flesh and blood. That's the blank, unholy surprise of it. You're the golden girl, Tracy. Full of life and warmth and delight."

Ah, but the man she is about to marry, sees no real mystery. He declares:

"You're like some marvelous, distant, well, queen, I guess. You're so cool and fine and always so much your own. There's a kind of beautiful purity about you, Tracy, like, like a statue."

A statue? Uh, she's really going to marry this clown? He likens her to an inanimate object - albeit an objet d'art, but an object nonetheless. Worse yet, Kittredge adds that it's these inanimate qualities that "... I first worshipped you for from afar".

Tracy's having none of it:

"I don't want to be worshipped," she declares. "I want to be loved."

It's the philandering scoundrel C.K. Dexter Haven who seems to nail Tracy to the cross of self-discovery when he charges:

"You'll never be a first class human being or a first class woman until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty."

Dexter's quips, as rendered so cuttingly by the epitome of romantic male leads, Cary Grant, cut especially deep. This one in particular gets to the core of Tracy's journey throughout the film, an odyssey in which she learns that class, in all the meanings of the word, should intimately be all about examining and accepting the frailties of all humanity (including one's own).

In so doing, love is indeed the ultimate goal, but that's the genius of this film. We're not just talking about romantic love, but love and acceptance in all its forms. Directed within an inch of its life by the peerless George Cukor and gorgeously adapted by Donald Ogden Stewart from Philip Barry's hit play, The Philadelphia Story has all the nuttiness, romance and machine-gun-fire dialogue one would want from the genre. However, it goes that extra distance. It has heart, soul and the kind of intelligence that makes it universal.

The picture might have been made in 1940, but it speaks to all ages for all time.

I guess that's why they call 'em masterpieces.

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

The Philadelphia Story is available on a gorgeous Criterion Collection Blu-Ray that includes a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, an audio commentary from 2005 featuring film scholar Jeanine Basinger, In Search of Tracy Lord, a new documentary about the origin of the character and her social milieu, a new piece about actor Katharine Hepburn’s role in the development of the film, two full episodes of The Dick Cavett Show from 1973, featuring rare interviews with Hepburn, plus an excerpt of a 1978 interview from that show with director George Cukor, the Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1943, featuring an introduction by filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, a restoration demonstration, the trailer and an essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme.

THE SWAN, THE SHAPE OF WATER - TIFF 2017: One Sang, the Other Didn't - Capsule Reviews of a winner and a loser at TIFF 2017 by Greg Klymkiw

TIFF 2017 featured a Feature Debut that Soared and A Veteran's Work That Sank

Capsule Reviews of The Swan and The Shape of Water
By Greg Klymkiw

SWAN, THE ****
Dir. Ása Helga Hjörleifsdótirr
Icelandic screenwriter-Director Ása Helga Hjörleifsdótirr adapts the Guðbergur Bergsson novel with taste, restraint and artistry of a very high order. A nine-year-old girl, living in state-imposed exile at her aunt and uncle's remote rural farm after a shoplifting conviction in the city, is a story so exquisitely, delicately unveiled that it confounds all expectations one might have of both coming-of-age and fish-out-of-water tales. Surrounded by fields, meadows and rugged, imposing mountains, these are wide open spaces that feel horrifically claustrophic. The film's tiny dollops of magical realism are perfect punctuation points to an experience that is as strangely creepy as it is deeply and profoundly moving.

SHAPE OF WATER, THE *
Dir. Guillermo del Toro
I love listening to Guillermo del Toro talk about classic cinema. Damn, I wish he made movies as engaging and exciting as his rapturous lectures, but I've mostly not responded to his work. This abominably twee fairy-tale-rendering of Jack Arnold's Creature From the Black Lagoon is full of "progressive" touches completely out of touch with the period in which the film is set. Worst yet, we must suffer through Sally Hawkins (as a mute janitor no less) falling in love with a smelly fish-man trapped by nasty Michael Shannon in a research facility. It's so sickening, one doesn't so much think about the pretentious "shape" of water, but rather the "stench" of the water creature's genitals.

The Swan and The Shape of Water played at TIFF 2017

FIRST REFORMED, THE FLORIDA PROJECT, I LOVE YOU DADDY - TIFF 2017 - More 4-Star **** Pictures Dazzle at TIFF - Capsule Review Roundup By Greg Klymkiw

The terrific pictures at TIFF 2017, just kept on on coming.

3 Four-Star Capsule Reviews of
First Reformed, The Florida Project, I Love You Daddy

By Greg Klymkiw

FIRST REFORMED ****
Dir. Paul Schrader
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried
One of the elder statesmen of American Cinema has possibly pulled off his greatest work with a dense psychological thriller. Paul Schrader knocks it out of the park with this compulsive tale of an alcoholic priest (Ethan Hawke - never better) haunted by his son's death, obsessed with a young widow (Amanda Seyfried) and facing a deep crisis of faith. Imagine Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light crossed with Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest and Schrader's own classic screenplay for Taxi Driver. Chillingly austere.

FLORIDA PROJECT, THE ****
dir. Sean Baker
In a sleazy motel in Florida, just outside Walt Disney World, we follow the lives of a precocious, vibrant little girl, her drug addicted hustler single Mom and a kindly caretaker (beautifully played by Willem Dafoe no less). This oddball backdrop and rich characters comprise Sean (Tangerine) Baker's magical ode to childhood amidst squalor. A gloriously original film that both soars and breaks your heart.

I LOVE YOU, DADDY ****
Dir. Louis C.K.
Standup comic Louis C.K. writes, directs and stars in this gorgeously photographed (in monochrome no less) love letter to Woody Allen's Manhattan that finally lives and breathes on its own steam. This portrait of a father's relationship with his teenage daughter (and her affair with a man 50+ years her senior) is so piquant and moving that the tears it elicits from viewers are alternately due to laughter and the movie's deep emotional core.

First Reformed, The Florida Project, I Love You Daddy all played at TIFF 2017

THE BREADWINNER, DARKEST HOUR, THE DISASTER ARTIST - TIFF 2017 - Roundup of 4-Star **** Capsule Reviews By Greg Klymkiw

The terrific pictures at TIFF 2017, keep on coming.

3 Four-Star Capsule Reviews of
The Breadwinner, Darkest Hour & The Disaster Artist

By Greg Klymkiw

BREADWINNER, THE (2017) ****
Dir. Nora Twomey
From Aircraft Pictures and director Nora Twomey comes The Breadwinner, a harrowing, thrilling and inspiring film (blessed with a great screenplay adaptation by Anita Doron) of the young adult novel by Deborah Ellis in which a young girl in Afghanistan must pose as a boy in order to help her family when their patriarchal head is imprisoned. The suspense during the final third is almost unbearable. This is one of the best animated feature films I've seen in years.

DARKEST HOUR (2017) ****
Dir. Joe Wright
Starring: Gary Oldman,Ben Mendelsohn, Kristin Scott Thomas
In Darkest Hour, director Joe Wright expertly weaves the tale of Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the early days of WWII - from his appointment as PM and through to his historical "we shall fight on the beaches" speech to parliament. Gary Oldman plays the irascible orator with verve and passion. In many ways, Oldman is the movie. The film is little more than war propaganda, but it's first-rate war propaganda and the fictional sequence involving old Winnie riding the London Underground is insanely, gloriously stirring and moving. His performance overall, moved me to tears.

DISASTER ARTIST, THE (2017) ****
Dir. James Franco
Starring: James Franco, Greg Franco, Seth Rogen
Based on the memoir by actor Greg Sestero, director-leading-man James Franco and co-star (his real-life brother Dave Franco) take us into similar territory Tim Burton occupied with his glorious biopic Ed Wood. Here we get the strangely moving, heartfelt and often hilarious tale of Tommy Wiseau, the "auteur" who made The Room (often considered the best bad movie ever made). I still haven't seen Wiseau's film, but it hasn't been an impediment to my thorough enjoyment of Franco's film.

The Breadwinner, Darkest Hour and The Disaster Artist are TIFF 2017 presentations.

BICKFORD PARK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Skateboard pas de deux at TIFF 2017

The babe suffers, but NOT in silence. Ain't it always the way?

Bickford Park (2017)
Dir. Dane Clark, Linsey Stewart
Starring: Lianne Balaban

Review By Greg Klymkiw

So you've had to suffer through listening to your long-haired loser husband tinkling the ivories in the basement as he caterwauls his way through a contemptibly worthless tune he's composed and now, after a long day at work, you're sitting in your car reading a book, conveniently avoiding home.

The phone rings.

It's hubby. He wants you to pick something up on your way back. Uh, what's he been doing all day? He delivers the expected answer.

"I meant to go out, but I got pretty deep into it today."

Trying to imagine what bottomless chasm of talent-bereft hack-dom he'd plunged into fills you, no doubt, with utter dread.

Such is the current lot in life for Jill (Lianne Balaban), a bright gorgeous thirty-something who spends her evenings jogging the streets as far away from hearth, home and hubby as possible. One evening during a restorative sojourn in sneakers and shorts, she spies a lone skateboard. It beckons. She gets on board. Her attempt is shaky, and perhaps even more so when the owner of the board, a hunky dude at least ten years her junior, claims it as his own and asks for its return.

This delightful new form of physical activity (and escape from the emptiness of domesticity) sends her straight to a sporting goods store. It doesn't take long before she return to the park to try out her new skateboard. Happily, the hunky dude shows up.

The lessons begin - a pas de deux on wheels. What sparks will fly? Is romance in the air? Watching Bickford Park, one certainly hopes so. Smartly, directors Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart don't take any expected turns. There's a reason why they chosen to film in monochrome - shades of grey are always more interesting.

Their film is sweet and enchanting but ultimately infused with melancholy. We want to spend a lot more time with its characters, we want to see it play out well beyond its running time, we get expected delights to be sure, but it's the unexpected hands we're dealt that offer the kind of layers of complexity that send us out of the theatre with so much more than the by-rote fodder most contemporary romantic comedies pass off as clever.

Bickford Park delivers something far richer.

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

Bickford Park plays at TIFF 2017

THE DROP-IN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Beauty Parlour Catfight Action at TIFF 2017

Hmmm. Will there be a catfight in the shop tonight?

The Drop-In (2017)
Dir. Naledi Jackson
Starring: Mouna Traoré, Oluniké Adeliyi

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Drop-In, an action thriller with an undercurrent of science fiction and politically-charged thematics, provides a raft of reasons why hair stylists closing shop for the day should never accept a customer with no appointment who pops by, desperate for a quick "do". In fact, it's probably best to keep the door locked and the curtains drawn whilst sweeping up the floor. But, it's a movie, eh. The door has to be open, or there wouldn't be a movie.

And so it is that a pretty stylist (Mouna Traoré) accepts a babe-o-licious drop-in (Oluniké Adeliyi) for a quick braid job. As the handiwork in the chair unfolds, it seems like both women harbour agendas and secrets which lead to a furious catfight of MMA gymnastics. Who will survive? What will be left of them?

First-time director Naledi Jackson displays considerable gifts for building tension and when the movie shifts to all-out fisticuffs, she handles the proceedings exactly how a director should. The superb stunt/fight coordination is presented so that we can actually appreciate/enjoy it with no annoying herky-jerky shots (mucking up the geography/choreography of the fight), endless closeups and ADHD-style cutting. God knows I detest the incompetence of filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Sam Mendes who continually commit these cardinal action movie sins in pictures that have all the money and time in the world to do it properly.

The Drop-In, however, clearly had very little money and time to pull itself off and yet it puts so many contemporary studio genre extravaganzas to shame since Naledi doesn't resort to the tin-eyed. ham-fisted mechanics that filmmakers (who should supposedly know better) do in film after wretched film. There is one disappointment I had through this, especially given Naledi's clear directorial gifts.

The film is set in a hair stylist shop. The joint is overloaded with so many natural implements of violent carnage that are not (sadly) employed in all their glory. Clippers, scissors, blades, shears, curling irons, barbicide (oh magnificent chemicals!) and, of course, plenty of mirrors for bodies to go sailing into and allowing for shards of shattered glass - the list of items "natural" to the setting is endless.

One of the best classical examples of how a screenplay (and director) structure such a scene for maximum impact is Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain. In an old country kitchen in East Germany, a mathematician and a farmer's wife must kill a deadly Stasi agent, and they must do it silently. Let's just think of all the things in such a kitchen. Damn! You almost don't even need to see the scene to begin salivating at the prospect of visceral delights. Added to the mix are the political backdrop of the Cold War and memories of the Holocaust. Hitchcock did the math beautifully. The old country kitchen is equipped with a gas oven. Uh, you do the math!

Given the political edge in The Drop-In and its setting, the promise of so much more is palpable. Oh, you say, "Greg, you doth protest too much. These kids clearly had a small budget and little time." To that I say: "So what?" Compromise is especially egregious in no-to-low-budget films. (I can say this with a bit of been-there-done-that as someone who never compromised as a producer no matter how low my budgets were.)

There might be some light on the horizon, though. It comes by way of my other mild disappointment in the film. About halfway through I started to get the sinking feeling that I was watching a short film designed as a "calling card" for an eventual feature film version. I can smell this with the same olfactory repugnance I feel when I hit a skunk on the highway. Sure enough, the end title credits revealed that The Drop-In was financed by a fund set up to create just such a film.

So yes, the promise is here, the talent is here, a solid idea is here and there will no doubt be one hell of a terrific feature film to eventually be made. That said, I urge the filmmakers to study Hitchcock before the next draft of their feature screenplay. One can't go wrong using The Master as a primary influence.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

The Drop-In enjoys its World Premiere at TIFF 2017.

EUTHANIZER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Creepy, chilly existential male angst @ TIFF 2017

Euthanasia: a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

Euthanizer (2017)
Dir. Teemu Nikki
Starring: Matti Onnismaa, Hannamaija Nikander, Jari Virman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

So, when I first decided to see this movie, I did some simple math. I didn't read any press releases, reviews or the blurb in the TIFF 2017 programme guide. All I knew is that it was from Finland and that it was called Euthanizer. I suspected, based on these addends, that the sum might well yield a product worth seeing, but little did I realize it would bestow a picture that, by its end-title credits would have me soaring, steeped in the joy I so seldom experience these days - the sheer, buoyant jubilance that I have indeed just witnessed the very thing that made me first love movies, more than anything, in the first place.

Though Euthanizer is not a period piece, its aesthetic feels gloriously in line with the existential angst (primarily of the male persuasion) that so defined the cinema of the 70s - notably the work of Karel Reizs (The Gambler), James Toback (Fingers), Peter Yates (The Friends of Eddie Coyle), Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter) and pretty much anything by Werner Herzog from this nasty, tough-minded decade of cinematic perfection.

Veijo (Matti Onnismaa) is a self-employed mechanic who moonlights as a more cost-effective alternative for those needing to euthanize their pets. If the animals are small, he's rigged his car for carbon monoxide poisoning, and for larger beasts, he takes them out into the woods and shoots them in the head. When people bring him their pets, he looks deep into the eyes of the animals - it's as if he can see into their souls, hear their thoughts and feel their pain. He then admonishes the owners. He knows that they are the cause of their animals' suffering and he uncannily assesses their failings as human beings. Even those who purport to not hear Veijo know deep-down that he speaks the truth.

His own father lies paralyzed in a palliative ward, taken care of by a compassionate nurse (Hannamaija Nikander) who slowly comes to admire and even fall in love with the distant Veijo. This is a couple inextricably linked by their proximity to suffering, dying and death. They're made for each other.

One day, Veijo is visited by a loathsome racist proletarian who belongs to a right-wing, White Supremacist group called "The Sons of Finland". The racist wants Veijo to put his dog down. Veijo agrees, takes the scumbag's money, but then chooses to keep the dog alive. There is no reason to kill this dog. It's vibrant, alert and deserves to live. Veijo and the dog become as inseparable as he and the nurse are.

Alas, this is Finland. There can be no happy endings here. An act of violence shatters Veijo's life and he has only one choice. Humanity, and Veijo is nothing if not humane, is something with two extremes twixt the shades of grey.

Vengeance must be exacted, but a price will be paid.

Euthanizer is, to be sure, a film of grace. It is also deeply shocking, insanely romantic, sickeningly horrifying, bleakly/blackly funny and a work of complex layers. It provides no easy answers, no pat resolutions, but when you attempt to catch your breath upon its knockout ending, you know - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that you've seen a motion picture that's seared itself upon your soul and it's never, ever going to leave you. It'll be there forever and it's not going away - at least not until you're six feet under.

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

Euthanizer plays at TIFF 2017

WE FORGOT TO BREAK UP - Review By Greg Klymkiw - A song will be sung @TIFF2017

Surprise backstage visit yields bigger surprise.

We Forgot To Break Up (2017)
Dir. Chandler Levack
Scr. Steven McCarthy & Levack
Nvl. Kayt Burgess
Starring: Sofia Banzhaf, Cara Gee, Grace Glowicki, Steven McCarthy, Mark Rendall, Dov Tiefenbach, Jesse Todd

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Backstage within a concert venue, a young man hurriedly attempts to pen a note amidst all the accoutrements which suggest that at any point, a soon-to-be-prepping-to-perform band will be filing in. Sure enough, one by one, they do.

Each time, with each musician, the same thing happens.

At first, the young man is not recognized. Then, he is.

You see, he was, many, many years ago, familiar to all of them - more than familiar, actually, but very, very close. To one of them, he was more intimate than all the rest.

There will be a confrontation. Perhaps even a reckoning.

And there will be a song.

We Forgot To Break Up is a clever, compulsive slice of dramatic life. It builds to a third act that could have, in less skilled creative hands, seemed little more than a glorified music video with an extended preamble. As David Lynch recently proved, week after week in Season 3 of Twin Peaks, there are some final acts that ring-out musically with dramatic/thematic resonance, and do so in ways we seldom see in the movies anymore.

We Forgot To Break Up succeeds in an identical fashion.

It’s a short dramatic film adapted from a novel. Obviously this means that it’s a slice from a much larger work, but happily, the movie feels like a piece unto itself and is bereft of that whiff inherent in short calling-card-styled films meant to announce an eventual feature is round the corner. Though this might indeed be the case here (a short that could become a feature), it's not something that nags at us as the picture unspools. This, is good. So's the film.

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

We Forgot To Break Up plays at TIFF 2017

mother! - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Aronofsky's Worst Movie Unleashed @TIFF2017

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THE DEATH OF STALIN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2017 serves up lame political satire.

Steve Buscemi delivers the performance of a lifetime.

The Death of Stalin (2017)
Dir. Armando Iannucci
Scr. Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin, Peter Fellows
Nvl. Fabien Nury
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor, Adrian Mcloughlin, Olga Kurylenko, Michael Palin, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, Andrea Riseborough, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Paul Whitehouse, Dermot Crowley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Since he murdered 10 million of my people in Ukraine during the Holodomor, one of the most horrendous genocides of the 20th century, my pump was primed for a glorious satire about the final gasps of life from the Georgian-Russian butcher Joseph Stalin. Unfortunately, the scattershot, overwrought affair that is The Death of Stalin did so little for me as a movie, my heart sank more than a few times while it unspooled.

Not that there aren't a few laughs to be wrought from this manic look at the bushy-moustachioed scumbag-dictator during his last night on earth and the ensuing backdoor power grabs by his cabinet. Most of the guffaws come courtesy of Steve Buscemi as a malevolently wise-acre Nikita Khrushchev. This might be the performance of a lifetime - he's a hurricane-like force amidst a movie that otherwise suffers from massive tonal uncertainty.

The best satire is played dead-straight, but too often director Iannucci resorts to pitching things as "spoof" or worse, like some TV sitcom. The whole affair seems little more than Weekend at Bernie's, albeit set against the backdrop of the Kremlin in 1953 as opposed to the Hamptons in the late 80s. The film is not without some mirth at the expense of the victims of Stalin's purges - God knows why, but seeing Russians following ridiculously exhaustive death lists and summarily executing hapless "enemies of the state" elicited more than a few knee-slaps from this fella. I also loved Jeffrey Tambor's rendering of Malenkov, the ineffectually lunkheaded figurehead propped up to replace Der Russkie Führer.

Alas, the movie just proved to be exhausting. It tries too hard to be funny and when we can see those seams in the fabric we're constantly focusing on the flaws of the designer clothing hanging upon a massive markdown rack at Winner's. As such, we're indelicately wrenched out of the forward thrust. Indelicacy in a satire is just fine, but better it be inherent in the subject matter and characters rather than only within the structure of the work itself.

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

The Death of Stalin plays at TIFF 2017.