Nadalander

I'm In The Del Toro Exhibit!

2008-11-07T20:38:00.004-05:00

The exhibit Diseccionando Fantasías: Los Secretos de Guillermo Del Toro (Dissecting Fantasies: The Secrets of Guillermo Del Toro officially launched yesterday in Alicante, Spain, after months of hard work by organizers Carlos Durbán Colubi and Daniel Dìez. I wish I could be there--not only am I a major fan of del Toro the man and the artist, not only are Carlos and Daniel lovely people whom I wish lived close by so I could hang out with them--I've got art in the show!

Of course, nothing I've done can compare to the fantastic renderings of William Stout, a frequent Del Toro collaborator (among many other achievements in film and comics) who created the gorgeous exhibit poster posted here to the left.

Carlos contacted me some months ago about providing some storyboards from the film Mimic to the exhibit--an assignment I took on nearly a dozen years ago. It was painful gig, truth be told--I was brought in at the 11th hour by C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures to quickly crank out a few scenes for proposed reshoots on this troubled production, which was Del Toro's second feature and first time dealing with the trials of the American studio system (even though the film was being shot in Toronto--"Hollywood North", as they say).

I pumped out something ridiculous like 50+ drawings in under 24 hours, with only a few days after that to tighten the lines, improve perspective, correct likeness, add some much-needed details and tone, etc. before they were faxed to Bob Weinstein for approval. But I've never regarded the Mimic boards (a few of them are posted here) as anything remotely approaching my best work.

Unearthing the pages many years later, I was surprised to find they didn't look nearly as bad as I remembered them. My art style has loosened up and changed a bit, but I resisted the urge to cheat too much for the show, save for fixing up a few minor errors here and there and quickly re-inking every panel top-to-bottom, mostly because the pencils had faded over time.

I should take an annoying autobiographical pause here to mention that this is not the first time my work has been featured in such an exhibit. Storyboard artists work in a curious nether-region--they're either regarded as "fine" artists nor lauded like comic book/graphic novel illustrators--so it's rare that such work is displayed beyond a production office, or, at best, a DVD supplement. In 1997, I was featured in the exhibition "Designing For The Screen" hosted at Toronto's Design Exchange, sponsored by The Toronto International Film Festival Group.

Check out the event's site here. Carlos will eventually provide some photos which I'll post here and on my Facebook page. There are plans to bring the show to North America, and I'm going to help out any way I can.

Interested in seeing the show? Start making some noise!

Zombie Walk 2008

2008-10-21T23:23:00.003-04:00

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2008 Begins!

2008-10-14T23:16:00.001-04:00

Don't miss Adam Lopez' annual freakfest at the historic Bloor Cinema in downtown Toronto. Now in its third year and lasting a full week (Oct. 17-25), TADFF is making waves internationally and one day, tix won't be so easy to get. So why not get 'em now, here? And check out this programming schedule! Plympton? Perlman? Swedish vampires? All this plus the Zombie Walk! Why aren't you already in line?!

TIFF 2008 Reviews Begin at "Movieforum"

2008-09-21T23:11:00.000-04:00

Started a little later than usual this year--thanks to the comic book project and my prep for upcoming parenthood (twin boys! due in January!)--but at long last my reviews for the just-finished Toronto International Film Festival are slowly materializing for your reading pleasure. My take on my first screening of the event, Ed Harris' sophomore directorial effort "Appaloosa", can be read here.

Fan Expo: Happy Fans Who No Idea Who I Am

2008-08-25T22:59:00.003-04:00

My first of the day!

And this is Maya Ruins, of the local "Pillow Fight League", or somesuchthing...

Not my best work, but not bad for what I could crank out in about five minutes!

Fan Expo 2008

2008-08-25T22:52:00.003-04:00

I've been attending the annual Fan Expo at the Metro Convention Centre for about eight years straight, although certainly, I'm no stranger to comic book conventions, most of which have been modest meet-n-greets between local merchants and fans. But this event has exploded into an overstuffed pageant of PR and hoopla spanning film, television, video games, role-playing, and somewhere in the midst of the madness, the very thing that spawned the event in the first place.

Ordinarily, I dutifully attend to get a few photos or books signed, pick up some discounted trades and a cool t-shirt or two, and muster up some inspiration to finally pursue a career in a medium I've long-loved and fantasized working within, but for various reasons--most of them fear-based--never took the plunge. It's been hard enough to make a living in the thankless trenches of film and television--why pursue misery when I've got a full plate, thankyouverymuch?

This year was different. Thanks to my association with Bootcamp Comics, spearheaded by noted Marvel and DC artist/writer Ty Templeton, one of my many still-unrealized dreams became a bit more possible, as I was enlisted to work the Mr. Comics booth (right next to the Hoverboy Museum, and kitty corner to the heavy-hitters at Marvel) promoting our upcoming anthology. It was a soft launch as I pretty much expected, as I sketched for hours on a time for fans who were a little reluctant to approach--let alone embrace--new talent but seemed appreciative of the free sketches (which were pretty damned good if I can blow my own horn for a minute) all the same.

It was definitely odd, though, to have complete strangers ask me for autographs and even take my photo, even though I'm not even at footnote status at this point in my burgeoning comics career. Still, who knows? This year's unknown is next year's breakthrough overnight success, right? Right? I sure hope so, because sketching for free is fun, but you know what's better? Getting paid for it!

Molly

2008-07-29T22:07:00.002-04:00

Today we wish Molly a happy birthday. Being that she came from an animal shelter, we had to guess her actual d-o-b, but since she was presumed to be about six months old when we got her, we backtracked and decided on July 29th. Had she not passed away too young in 2005, she would have been 14 today.

Maleev And King Create "N"

2008-07-28T22:42:00.004-04:00

I love the unique art of former "Daredevil" artist Alex Maleev--his next project is a series of animated "webisodes" created by Stephen King, based upon his short story "N", which will appear in the "Just Before Sunset" anthology later this year. A trailer and the first episode of the 25-part series--King's latest collaboration with Marvel along with the "Dark Tower" prequels and the upcoming comics adaptation of "The Stand"--is now available online at Nishere.com.

"Bootcamp Comics" Previews Online

2008-07-27T22:14:00.004-04:00

The two stories I've illustrated for Mr. Comics' upcoming anthology "Sex, Violence, Suffering, And Wickedness" (edited by Ty Templeton) are now available to preview online at Bootcamp Comics official site (click here for "Baby, Bunny, And Mum", and "A Different Class".)

As well, "mini comics" print previews will be available at the upcoming FanExpo at the Metro Convention Centre from August 22-24, 2008. Stop by the Mr. Comics' booth (look for Hoverboy)and collect 'em all!

"London After Midnight" Found?!

2008-07-25T21:46:00.003-04:00

Yeah, I know--we've heard this one before. But this time, the news is a lot more encouraging, if not entirely convincing: a fellow with the dubious name of "Sid Terror" (presumably, because "Rob Zombie" was taken) claims to have held, in hand, a long-lost nitrate print of Tod Browning's legendary "lost" silent classic, which headlined Lon Chaney, Sr. Although it's been said that the last known print was burned in a fire in the MGM vaults, and also that a private collector owns it and has been waiting for its copyright to lapse, Terror has revealed that he came upon the film in the late 80s, when he was tipped off that it was filed under the title "The Hypnotist" in a film storage facility owned by Turner Entertainment.

Now, Ted Newson, a horror "historian", confirms that he, too, came upon the catalogue entry for "The Hypnotist" (co-labeled "London After Midnight" years earlier by "Terror") while employed at MGM in 2004. He tried to interest his employers, and some higher-ups at Turner into restoring the film, but with no success.

Now comes dire news that the storage facility housing the alleged print has been leased to new tenants and that its contents have been transferred to Warner studios and UCLA. And according to a recent search of the new database, the film has been lost again.

(Damn, Sid--you sound like an honest guy and all, but why the hell didn't you just tuck the reels under your shirt?!)

Read Terror's detailed account here at Horrordrunx. Just a few months back, nearly 30 minutes of lost footage from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" were found, so who knows? TCM's stills-based "recreation" back in 2002 was a noble experiment, but generations have waited long enough for the real thing...

TIFF 2008: Midnight Madness Schedule

2008-07-23T14:30:00.000-04:00

This year's Midnight Madness lineup has been announced! Mr. Geddes and company offer up the usual 10-day extravaganza of international weirdness, plus, Jean-Claude Van Damme! Who, I guess, could qualify for "international weirdness" these days.

Opening Night:

JCVD

International Premiere

Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Jean-Claude Van Damme in the comeback story of one of the biggest action stars in movie history. When a trip to the post office lands the down-and-out Van Damme smack-dab in the middle of a dangerous heist, the “Muscles from Brussels ” is exposed as an ordinary guy, complete with fears, contradictions and hopes. What can he do when the gun pointed to his temple isn't filled with blanks? JCVD finds himself at the turning point of his life as a presumed hero.

The Burrowers

World Premiere

A horrific take on John Ford’s The Searchers, director JT Petty (S&MAN, TIFF’s Midnight Madness 2006) tells the story of a band of men who, in 1879, set out upon the plains of Dakota to find and recover a family of settlers mysteriously taken from their farm. Expecting the offenders to be a fierce band of natives, the group prepares for a routine battle. But, upon discovering strange holes in the ground, they soon realize that the real enemy is stalking them from below.

Deadgirl

World Premiere

In this kinky, funny and chilling exploration of friendship, morality and the horror of growing up, two teen boys discover the naked body of a long-forgotten girl in a sealed basement of an abandoned asylum. They quickly realize something far more mysterious is at play when the girl, who they presumed to be dead, begins to exhibit signs of life. When they decide to keep her, their twisted teen fantasy soon erupts into a desperate and dangerous battle of wills between friends. As word of their dark secret threatens to spread, the boys are forced to decide how far they are willing to go to get what they want, and at what cost.

Sexykiller

World Premiere

A serial killer is loose at a medical school in Spain , and nobody suspects that the culprit is Barbara, a sexy, fashion-obsessed student whose hunger for blood can't be satiated by what she gets in anatomy class! She’s Paris Hilton with the mind of Hannibal Lector. But when her fellow students’ experiment to discover the killer's identity goes terribly awry, Barbara's victims start coming back to life. Add in some zombies and chainsaws for a bloody spin on the term “fashion victim.”

Detroit Metal City

International Premiere

Based on the hugely popular manga series, Detroit Metal City tells the tale of Souichi, a sensitive and wimpy music geek who came to Tokyo from the country with the dream of becoming a fancy pop musician. But bubblegum dreams are crushed to a bloody pulp when Souichi is forced to front the satanic death metal band Detroit Metal City (DMC), whose trademark is eccentric makeup and destructive performance. Winning recognition as one of Japan ’s top acts, DMC is challenged to a death metal duel by rock icon Jack IL Dark (KISS’s Gene Simmons). Souichi must battle for the title of death metal king while keeping Ms. Aikawa, his long-time crush with an affinity for shiny happy pop, unaware of his double identity.

Not Quite Hollywood

International Premiere

Free-wheelin’ sex romps! Blood-soaked terror tales! Blazing action extravaganzas! The same cultural explosion that gave birth to Australian art classics also spawned a group of demon-children – maverick filmmakers who thumbed their noses at authority, made their own rules and, in the process, unleashed films such as Razorback, The Man from Hong Kong, Patrick and Mad Max. A rip-roaring documentary on Australian genre cinema of the 70s and 80s, Not Quite Hollywood features Jamie Lee Curtis, Dennis Hopper, Stacy Keach, Quentin Tarantino and other celebrities sharing their love and memories of an unjustly forgotten cinematic era.

Acolytes

North American Premiere

When they discover the body of a murdered Canadian backpacker buried in the woods, three high school students trace the crime back to a suspected killer. Taking full advantage of their situation, they attempt to blackmail their suspect into killing again. Their target? A brutal bully – recently released from prison – who has victimized them all their lives. But as their scheme lures them into a violent and sadistic world, the vulnerable teens soon discover that rather than destroying their childhood nightmare, they have created one far deadlier.

Chocolate

North American Premiere

Starring martial arts dynamo Jija Yanin, Chocolate reunites the director and action choreographer of the breakout Midnight Madness hit, Ong-Bak Muay Thai Warrior (TIFF 2003). Exiled from a powerful Thai crime syndicate following a passionate but forbidden love affair with a Japanese gangster, cancer-stricken Zin struggles to raise her shy, autistic daughter Zen. When she learns of some outstanding debts owed to her mother that, if collected, would pay for much-needed medical treatment, Zen sets out to collect from dangerous and reluctant debtors, soon realizing that years obsessively playing video games and watching action movies have transformed her into a martial arts savant.

Eden Log

North American Premiere

Inspired by Manga and video game imagery, Eden Log is a visually stunning sci-fi vision of a tomb-like underworld. A man regains consciousness at the bottom of a deep cave. He has no idea of how he got there, nor can he determine what happened to the dead man whose body he wakes up next to. Only one thing is certain – he must escape the menacing creatures that are pursuing him, and climb back to the surface through a cemetery-like world that has been abandoned by a mysterious organization called Eden Log.

Martyrs

North American Premiere

One night in the early 1970s, Lucie, a little girl missing for over a year, is discovered wandering by the side of a country road, unable to say anything about what has happened to her. Hospitalized, Lucie slowly learns how to live again with the help of Anna, a victim of terrible abuse at the hands of her own family. In no time, they are inseparable. Fifteen years later, with the help of Anna, Lucie sets out to wreak vengeance on the family she believes to be responsible for her capture and torture. A visceral and deeply disturbing exploration of what it means to be pushed to the limits of human endurance, Martyrs redefines the nature of horror cinema.

Check out the official site here. Remember, TIFF 2008 runs September 4-13!

John Carl Buechler Update: "Troll Redux" Gets A Lohan?

2008-06-18T21:44:00.002-04:00

John Carl Buechler just won't give up on this whole "Troll" thing. First, he sues J.K. Rowling alleging that he stole her cash cow's character's name and concepts from his mid-80s shlockfest, and now, he's crusading to launch a big-budget remake (just $25 million, but that's a king's ransom compared to the buck-and-a-half Empire must've spent on the original).

Obviously, he feels that once the young wizard's saga has been wrapped up onscreen, the viewing public will be so starved for anything Harry Potter that they'll line because one of the characters in it has the same name.

But in case that isn't enough to generate lineups at the Bijou, Buechler has another ace up his sleeve: star power! And being a remake of a 1986 B-flick, it's appropriate that his top draw is strictly C-list.

It's none other than Ali Lohan, who has reportedly auditioned for the role of "Eunice St. Clair", who helps Harry Jr. fight the evil troll "Torok". Anne Lockhart, "Sheba" on the the original "Battlestar Galactica" series, played the role the first time around.

"The camera loves her", swoons, Beuchler, whose last effort as a director was the Sci-Fi Channel movie "The Eden Factor", starring genre vets Jeff Fahey and Dee Wallace Stone. "She's a really good actress...I am personally going to fight for her."

No word on who'll take on the Sonny Bono role, or if the troll's steady stream of mucus will be computer generated this time around...

Read the whole thing here at E-Online...

Rowling Sued...Again...This Time By The Director of "Troll"!

2008-04-14T19:30:00.015-04:00

Now that J.K. Rowling has finally ended her Harry Potter series, someone's decided--after seven books and five film adaptations--that he's been ripped off! This time it's John Carl Buechler, a name that might be familiar to hopelessly devoted and forgiving genre fans (like me) as a former makeup FX artist-turned-director of straight-to-video potboilers. Buechler has launched a lawsuit against Rowling accusing her of plagiarizing his directorial effort, "Troll", and preventing him from helming a remake.

"Troll" in case you haven't seen it, is a 1986 shoestring fable produced by the notorious Charles Band, whose Full Moon Entertainment label cranked out programmers like "Demonic Toys" and the "Ghoulies" saga throughout the 80s and 90s.

It's likely best remembered as the one in which the snot-nosed titular character--in search of a magic ring--bewitches a San Francisco apartment building populated largely by TV has-beens like a pre-"Seinfeld" Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, her real-life hubby-and-former SNL writer/performer Brad Hall, ex-WKRPer Gary Sandy, former "Charlie's Angel" Shelly Hack, original "Battlestar Galactica" costar Anne Lockhart, and the one-and-only Sonny Bono. In the film's piece-de-resistence FX gag, Bono mutates into a swamp. Yes, a swamp...

True to fantasy form, there's a kid nobody listens to who befriends the creature. A kid (played by Noah Hathaway, Boxey on the original "Galactica") named after his father (played by another has-been, Michael Moriarity): Harry Potter. Yes, there are not one, but two characters in this otherwise forgettable film who share the name of kidlit's current reigning icon.

Buechler claims that because of the character names, he can't move forward with his plans to remake "Troll" (and now I figure, why the hell not, after the who-needs-it "Prom Night" remake just opened at Number One...). But Warner Bros. insists it owns the name outright, and that's what's holding up the Troll-Redux script.

Buechler also maintains that there are "a lot" of similiarities between the Potter books and his film, while the author denies ever having seen it (hell, even I'm hard-pressed to admit it!). His lawyer says his client was "shocked" when the books first came out, which has apparently taken eleven years to wear off so he could file his charges.

Of course, Rowling has been accused of plagiarism before, most famously in 2002 by an American writer who lost her claim that Rowling stole elements from her novel.

Funny, though, how it's only the insanely successful artists who are ever sued for copyright violation--no one's going to convince me that bombs like "Far And Away" and "Megaforce" are among the only 100% original ideas ever generated in Hollywood...

Read more about it here at Australia's Courier Mail.

My 2008 Oscar Ballot (Look and later, weep...)

2008-02-24T12:10:00.007-05:00

Despite the fact that most people know me as a "walking film encyclopedia", my performance in the annual Oscar pool is usually spectacularly wretched (I'm apparently the only person who didn't think the Academy would award Best Picture to a fantasy epic, so I went with "Mystic River" over "Return Of The King"--oops!). That's because predicting award winners has nothing to do with how well you know your Coen Bros. from your Mast & Cohen, but how well you can predict what the 82-year-retired-caterer from "Vertigo" will feel about last year's film crop…and Harvey Weinstein’s gift basket.

I've studied the various guild winners, and have decided to skip EW's predictions in the minor categories entirely, since they tend to get most areas like "Best Live Action Short Subject" wrong anyway...

Since my cynical, defeated workplace has skipped the event, this year's Oscar pool will be a competition between just me and my significant other LF. So here are my predictions:
____________

BEST PICTURE:

"No Country For Old Men": It's brilliant and everyone in Hollywood seems to love it, even though I predict about a third of them actually "get" it. That being said--

POSSIBLE UPSET:

"Atonement" is the sort of Eurocentric period melodrama that would be literary-types excessively fawn over to show how much they’re above superhero films and sequels. It's still a challenging film, though, in terms of structure, and is pretty damned dark. It’s far better than most of its type, but I wouldn't put it on the list.

BEST DIRECTOR:

The Coens (No Country For Old Men): these guys are long overdue, and this is one of their finest efforts in a solid career.

POSSIBLE UPSET:

Little chance of that, but it’s possible that PT Anderson could be a dark horse for a versatile career and the genius of his “There Will Be Blood”.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

Diablo Cody (Juno): Writers tend to vote for cooler films overall and this quirky, quotable gem seems to be on everyone's lips. Comedies, however, tend to be undervalued in ALL categories, and this "little film that could" might now be considered "too popular", so--

POSSIBLE UPSET: Hmm, I’m thinking Michael Claytons expert balance of thriller and drama could score it for Gilroy, or the charms of the truly wonderful “Ratatouille” will be too tough to resist…

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

The Coens (No Country For Old Men): a difficult novel more faithfully translated to the screen than I expected when reading it. With that--

POSSIBLE UPSET:

--maybe the Academy will feel the Coens adapted very little and just shot the book page-by-page, and instead give it to Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood”, since the film scores little chance of winning anything else other than Best Actor.

BEST ACTOR:

Daniel Day-Lewis (There Willl Be Blood): it’s been a long time since he won for “My Left Foot” and this one’s a powerhouse. Some feel it’s a bit hammy and strange, though, so—

POSSIBLE UPSET:

George Clooney (Michael Clayton): a less “showy” role and thus more conventional turn for the oldsters, but an equally fine performance that’s full of minor touches whereas Lewis’ is all about acting for “the back row”…but I’d give it to Depp.

BEST ACTRESS

Julie Christie was great in “Away From Her” and is a respected vet long-overdue for some kudos, but I’ve been surprised here before. If nostalgia doesn’t win out—

POSSIBLE UPSET

--then it could go to Cotillard as Piaf in “La Vie En Rose”, ‘cause Hollywood loves dem musical biopics!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

A toughie, with uniformly stellar work here. But with all the acclaim for “No Country For Old Men”, it’s Bardem’s for sure.

POSSIBLY UPSET

Hardly—but Philip Seymour Hoffman is memorable in everything he does and “Charlie Wilson’s War” is a bit less indie and weird than most of his other efforts.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Tilda Swinton as the stone cold PR flack in “Michael Clayton” should be the only choice here.

POSSIBLE UPSET:

Warm nostalgic fuzzies could give it to Ruby Dee for her five-minute role in “American Gangster”. There’s buzz for Blanchett as Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There”, but her performance might be dismissed as a straight, albeit gender-bending, impersonation.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Well, everyone knows the year’s best score was Johnny Greenwood’s for “There Will Be Blood”, but it wasn’t eligible for stupid reasons. And “No Country For Old Men” doesn’t have one—at all. I remember liking the ambient score for “Michael Clayton”, so I’ll stick with it.

POSSIBLE UPSET

Who knows? I didn’t see “The Kite Runner”…maybe it’s better…

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

I haven’t a friggin’ clue. I liked the songs in “Once”, and haven’t heard any of the ones from “Enchanted”. But there are THREE of them for consideration here, so I’ll split the difference, take the one in the middle, and choose “So Close”.

POSSIBLE UPSET:

One of the other two songs from “Enchanted” I didn’t choose…

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

“Ratatouille” might be Pixar’s best film to date, and that’s saying a lot...

POSSIBLE UPSET

“Persepolis” is pretty damned impressive, too…

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE

Y’know, I see enough foreign films in a year, despite my low-brow tastes, but none of the ones I thought were any good got nominated. In fact, I’ve seen none of the five nominees. But I hear good stuff about “The Counterfeiters”, so I’ll go with that one.

POSSIBLE UPSET:

Pick one: “Mongol”. Whatever.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Popular docs used to be shut out, but that’s changed for the better. Still, I don’t see it going to Moore again for “Sicko”—Bush is on his way out, so there’s not much to say. While Iraq-themed features failed to register, the doc “No End In Sight” might take the prize.

POSSIBLE UPSET

Okay, so maybe a lot of people wanna hear what Moore might say after all (Sicko).

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

No idea, much like every other year. Sari’s Mother sounds sentimental, and sentiment always works.

POSSIBLE UPSET

Salim Baba. Moving on…

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

“The Mozart Of Pickpockets” is a cool title. A little classical music, a little Bresson. Yeah, this is the one.

POSSIBLE UPSET

Take yer pick. Il Supplente…just because…

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

Canada offers two promising candidates. I’ll go with the boomer-friendly “I Met The Walrus”.

POSSIBLE UPSET

The other Canadian animated short: Madam Tutli-Putli.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Roger Deakins’ sun-baked landscapes (and faces) from “No Country For Old Men” should guarantee the win.

POSSIBLE UPSET:

“There Will Be Blood” is chock full o’ equally haunting imagery…

BEST ART DIRECTION

Fantasy never gets it, so it’ll go to the period fetishes of “Atonement”.

POSSIBLE UPSET

Well, “Lord Of The Rings” actually did get one, so maybe “Sweeney Todd”? (which should)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Remember when “Star Wars” LOST this to “Annie”-frickin’- “Hall”? Forget fantasy—it’ll go to either “Atonement” Or “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”. There are more extras in “Elizabeth”, thus more costumes, so it’ll win.

POSSIBLE UPSET

Everyone’s talking about Kiera’s green dress in “Atonement”, so there you go.

MAKEUP

Didn’t this use to be “makeup effects”? No? Oh well—Rick Baker is a genius and should win for anything he does—unfortunately, he’s nominated for Eddie Murphy’s “Norbit” which everyone hates. So it’ll go to Depp’s eyeliner, Keef’s spackle, and all those fish people from “Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End”.

POSSIBLE UPSET
What’s up other than “Norbit”? “La Vie En Rose”? Okay, then that one…

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

I thought “Grindhouse” , “Sunshine”, and “I Am Legend” had better FX than any of the nominees, but what the hell. Optimus Prime and co. were impressive in “Transformers”” (I just wanna hear someone on stage announce “Transformers!!!”)

POSSIBLE UPSET

Who cares. Maybe those wily “Pirates”, with Keef and the Kraken?
BEST EDITING

The “No Country For Old Men” semi-sweep should assure a win here.

POSSIBLE UPSET

Action films, which embody the art of film editing like no other genre, never win, but maybe, this year the Academy will clue in and give it to the deserving “The Bourne Ultimatum”.

BEST SOUND MIXING

I went to film school for four years and have worked on features for nearly 20, and still have no idea what the difference is between the two sound categories (sound must be recorded, edited, AND mixed, doesn’t it? Why not a best film processing category to go with cinematography?). I’ll give it to “No Country For Old Men”, which relies entirely on natural sounds with no background music to convey dramatic mood.

POSSIBLE UPSET:

In case “No Country”s achievement is a bit too subtle, maybe it’ll go to the noisier “The Bourne Ultimatum”.

BEST SOUND EDITING

Action films, again, excel here. Which is why it should go to “The Bourne Ultimatum”.

POSSIBLE UPSET:

Must’ve been tough to record all that clanging metal for “Transformers”, but everything in the animated world of “Ratatouille” had to be created from scratch.

___________

And there you go. Bring on Stewart, bring on the Price-Waterhouse-Coopers guys, bring on the heartbreak!

Barry Morse: 1918-2008

2008-02-04T01:50:00.000-05:00

Barry Morse, the Canadian-based character actor (born in London, England) best known for the original "The Fugitive" and season one of "Space 1999", passed away on Feb. 2 at the age of 89. He was a terrific actor and as a major fan of "Space 1999" (dated, certainly, but the moodier season one is still one of the finest s.f. series ever, IMHO--Morse wasn't part of the more"Star Trek" influenced second and final run), I was honored to have worked with him on the film "Memory Run". Here's the first obit on his official site. And here's a drawing I did of Morse as "Victor Bergman" when I was 10!

Once Again, He Who Yells Loudest...

2008-02-01T20:51:00.000-05:00

Once again, it's the so-called "moral custodians" who appoint themselves (that, or God does it) to save us from ourselves who are the ones with the most to hide. From the good folks at Mobius Home Video Forum comes this depressing nugget:

Operator of "Clean Flix" Store Arrested for Statutory Rape:

The operator of the Utah-based Flix Club, which, as part of the Clean Flix chain, drew fire from major studios for removing scenes depicting sex and violence from home videos, has been arrested in Orem, Utah on charges of having sex with underaged girls. According to Orem police, Daniel Thompson also told the girls that his business was actually a cover for a pornography studio and asked them to participate in making a porn movie. The police report also said that they uncovered a "large quantity" of pornography at Thompson's business. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Thompson told the arresting officers that he was unaware that the girls were not of legal age and that the porn movies were for his "personal use." Thompson previously operated the Clean Flix franchise in Orem but shut it down last month after giving away 400 sanitized versions of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The studios, he said at the time, had told him that "if I don't shut down, they would break me."

And more here from the Salt Lake Tribune, and from The Hollywood Reporter.

Granted, there's not much fun to be had in any scenario in which kids are sexually exploited, but I have to laugh at the notion that someone thinks there needs to be a censored version of Pirates Of The Freakin' Carribean! What, did Kiera Knightly show too much ribcage? Time to shut these idiots down...

Sean Young Replaced With Replicant At DGA Ceremony

2008-01-29T18:18:00.000-05:00

Well, okay, not really…but what possible explanation can there be? This is Sean Young, after all—Rachel, the impossibly beautiful Replicant with no-known-life-span who bewitched “cold fish” Rick Deckard and teenage sci-fi buffs like me who preferred Young’s effortless, Old Hollywood smolder to Reagan-era bimbettes like Loni Anderson and Susan Anton.

Of course, I’m conveniently forgetting that Young has already debased herself publicly on more than one occasion—her costumed bid to win the role of Catwoman (watch it here), her alleged threats to James Woods (mutilated dolls?), --so it shouldn’t come as any surprise. But I just bought the long-awaited collectors’ set of Blade Runner, and just saw the “Director’s Cut” in theatres in late fall, so I’m perhaps still longing the days where I associated Young with not only Scott’s masterpiece but for her memorable turns in comedies like Ivan Reitman’s Stripes and Young Doctors In Love (still Gary Marshall’s best movie…) and her appearance as Freman Chani in David Lynch's underappreciated Dune.

Seems Young had a few too many (that, or she’s just nuts) at the recent Directors’s Guild Of America awards (what the hell was she doing there in the first place?) and decided to abuse everyone who took to the stage, even yelling at a clip of George Clooney. She hurled insults in French at actress Marie Cotillard (La Vie En Rose), and then disrupted Julian Schnabel’s nomination speech, yelling at the director of The Diving Bell And The Butterfly to “get on with it”, eventually parading around the table with her fur coat on, prompting Schnabel to remark “why don’t you have another cocktail?” But before she could offer another booze-soaked retort in either French or English, security guards forcibly removed the 48-year old actress from the premises.

Read about the whole sorry mess here at Cinematical. And Julie Chen, who was there, mentioned the actress by name on last night’s David Letterman. The Tyrell Corporation can implant memories, but can they remove them? Man, to extinguish this, I’m gonna have to put Blade Runner—any version!--on continuous loop...

Rambo: A Handy Guide To Unhinged Mayhem

2008-01-25T19:35:00.000-05:00

Boy, when I'm 61, I hope I've outgrown the need to maim various foreign nogoodnicks while grunting platitudes like "Live for nothin', die for somethin'" (the current Rambo), or even better, "The world don't meetcha half way" (the classic Over The Top). No matter, Stallone felt the need to don the headband and the hair helmet for the fourth time (discounting the fine animated series), and for those of you who haven't kept up on the series since its last entry (almost 20 years ago), Slashfilm has provided a comprehensive chart chronicling the Vietnam vet's assorted picaresque adventures. I'll make every effort to catch Sly's latest allegory this weekend...because if I don't, the terrorists have won.

Steve Coogan's "Dr. Terrible's House Of Horrible"

2008-01-25T14:13:00.000-05:00

I thought Edgar Wright's mock-trailer Don't was the unheralded highlight of Grindhouse (more in-jokes in a minute-and-a-half than a film buff could hope for), but I was surprised to learn that he wasn't the first to parody Milton Subotsky's notorious Amicus Productions ("The Studio That Dripped Blood!") and their unique brand of then-"modern" British horror (most of which was based on American comic books!).

My friend Chris F. just turned me on to Dr. Terrible's House Of Horrible (2001), a short-lived BBC series starring the great Steve Coogan that-- somehow--I missed out on completely. Conceived by creator Graham Duff as a spoof of Tales From The Crypt-type anthologies, each week showcased a riff on a particular British horror icon--Hammer Studios, Amicus, Tigon, even the salacious shockers of Pete "Frightmare/House Of Whipcord" Walker (what, no Norman J. Warren?)!

A DVD is available from the UK, but it's a pricey import. So here's a list available now on You Tube.

Abrams' Magical Mystery Box

2008-01-25T14:07:00.000-05:00

To tide you over until this week's return of Lost, here's a very informative (and entertaining) lecture by co-creator J.J. Abrams on the importance of "mystery" in the arts (and in life), and why he's been obsessed with boxes-literally and metaphorically--his whole life.

Good stuff from TED, courtesy of JWT. Check it out here.

Heath Ledger: 1979-2008

2008-01-22T19:01:00.001-05:00

Cripes, what a waste. It's always a tragedy when someone's life is over before they're even 30, when they leave a child fatherless, and when in terms of their craft, are actually good. Here was a brave young actor maturing into an eclectic career that could've rivaled that of Johnny Depp.

I couldn't believe it when at, about 4 PM today, a coworker told me that Ledger was found dead in New York of a possible drug overdose. Within a few hours, rumours abounded of suicide. As of this writing, there's been no official statement, other than his masseuse found him dead in a Soho apartment.

He had recently become separated from actress Michelle Williams, whom he'd met on the set of Brokeback Mountain.

I was largely indifferent to Ledger during the early part of his career, but I had enjoyed him in Brian Hegeland's delightfully anachronistic A Knight's Tale. By the time I'd seen his breakout turn in Brokeback, the Ang Lee drama had already become the subject of too many trite, Morning Zoo punchlines, with many uninformed and amateur evaluations of Hedger's performance as nothing more than series of grunts and shuffles. I was surprised, then, to find that he entirely made the film for me, with his embodiment of Ennis' Cronenbergian war-within-himself tragic and moving and welcomely underplayed and thus entirely deserving of his Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.

Time will hopefully be kinder to his unjustly-dismissed role as one of The Brothers Grimm (Gilliam's breezy, imaginative, slapstick hoot) opposite Matt Damon, and he was also memorable as one of the many Bob Dylan incarnations in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There. He won acclaim for his turn in last year's gritty drama Candy as a drug addict--a part of his legacy that as details surface could become all the more bittersweet.

Canoe reports that during an interview with Ledger during the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival to promote Candy, he confessed "I had no real desire to play a junkie", and had autographed for a passing fan: "don't do drugs."

Of course, the Bat-fan in me was thrilled to learn that Ledger had been cast as The Joker in Christopher Nolan's upcoming sequel The Dark Knight--I expected nothing less than a dazzling, unconventional interpretation of this iconic character and the footage unveiled this past Xmas season confirmed my highest of fanboy hopes. It's a pity that the role that will win him his largest following will be branded with such senseless loss.

As Entertainment Weekly put it in their 2007 review, these days it sucks to be a celebrity. Whereas once the public regarded Hollywood as an enviable Dream Factory, these days its more akin to a Roman Coliseum where scandals and downward spirals are celebrated with such smug vigour and sanctimonious armchair moralizing that can only be extinguished by some poor bastard's death--yes, even a rich and famous one--before moving on to the next lame Leno punchline. If the perils of Spears, Lohan, Wilson, and Downey Jr. have taught us anything, it's a reinforcement of the Jack Chick-worthy mantra that fame can buy you not only the best things in the world, but the worst things, too.

Mind you, if Ledger's death is ultimately ruled a suicide, then I'll be tempted to climb on board with those who have likely already dismissed him as a vain, shallow showbiz brat who got what he deserved. Don't misunderstand me--he took the coward's way out, which his two-year-old daughter Matilda Rose most certainly did not deserve--but it's a terrible thing that for all of his acclaim, he found himself in a situation where he'd not only die young, but alone.

In show business, actors are commodities, and since Ledger is due to be packaged as a plastic action figure next summer, I hope we can hold out on our harsh judgements for a little while longer and not forget that he was a human being first. And just 28...

Romero's "Diary Of The Dead" Gets A Release Date

2008-01-22T18:38:00.000-05:00

I dug Cloverfield, but the finest shakey-cam/faux verite horror film is still George A. Romero's Diary Of The Dead (sorry, Blair Witches). This fifth official entry into the apocalyptic zombie saga that began with 1968's Night Of The Living Dead is a sort-of reboot of the franchise, restaging the early days of the undead infestation as captured by Citizen Journalist's news reports, camera phones, webcasts, etc. It's a breathtaking experiment--at 67, Romero can still outscare the youngsters who rip him off at every turn. Diary has just played to much acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance coverage at David Hudson's essential film site Green Cine Daily quotes my review from last year's TIFF, which you can read in its entirety here.

The Weinstein Company will release Diary Of The Dead on Feb. 15, 2008.

"Hedges Against The Night": King On The Today Show

2008-01-22T13:59:00.000-05:00

Stephen King's new novel, Duma Key, is available today and the early notices have been surprisingly kind--have the lit-snobs finally come around?! Although set outside of Maine for a change, the tale contains King's usual obsessions (dead people...walkin' around) and a touch of autobiography (the lead character is an artistic type who survives a debilitating accident) and I'm thrilled to learn that it celebrates drawing as a cathartic and healing force (to help one craft hedges against the night--love that).

Here's a link to King's appearance on The Today Show (thanks to Lilja's Library).

American Monster Invasions: An Interactive Guide

2008-01-20T13:55:00.000-05:00

Think our Eastern neighbours have got the market cornered on giant monster attacks? From The Colossal Beast to the Graboids, from the 50 Foot Woman to the oversized rabbits from Night Of The Lepus, and recent attacks by creatures from The Mist and this weekend's Cloverfield crustacean thingie, the Land Of The Free has 'em beat on repeat business from gargantuan behemoths with a callous disregard for property and human life.

Check out The National Post's fun (and very complete--remember Evolution? Teenagers From Outer Space?) interactive map here.

Roger Avary Arrested on Manslaughter, DUI

2008-01-14T09:32:00.000-05:00

What is it with Hollywood types who insist on driving drunk?--Gibson, Sutherland, Lohan--it's a bloody epidemic and I'm sometimes glad my career has failed enough so that I don't start my day with a commute along Mulholland. Look, I'm not one who takes pleasure in bashing celebrities--not everyone in show business is vain and pampered and awarded money for nothing, and from my experience toiling in the trenches I figure that most people who achieve a degree of success in the cut-throat business of Hollywood worked hard to get there. But this drunk-driving bullsh*t?--no excuses.

So sad--no, make that maddening--news comes today that the otherwise talented Roger Avary, the Oscar-winning co-author of Pulp Fiction and the current CG-epic Beowulf, has been arrested for drunk driving accident that seriously injured his wife and killed a passenger. The fool is currently out on $50,000 bail.

This, while others in the Writers Guild Of America are on strike for a few measly extra bucks for DVD and download royalties, which presumably they wouldn't spend on booze.

Here's the story, courtesy of Cinematical.

So Much For The "Home Office" In Lower Economy...

2008-01-13T17:55:00.000-05:00

Politicians aren't exactly renowned for their wit, and most attempts to appear "hip"come off as downright embarrassing (remember Stockwell Day in that wetsuit? Or John Kerry's claim that he "identified" with Eminem's rage?). Up here, it's usually the token Rick Mercer appearance and that's it. So props must be given to Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald, who made a spirited and clever attempt to woo David Letterman to his loverly province when the Late Show icon expressed an interesting in visiting during his interview with actress/Maritimer Ellen Page.

Dave apparently turned down the invite--at least for the time being--but you can still write Letterman's producers at this email address and maybe he'll come around. In the meantime, check out Macdonald's highly entertaining video pitch here.

Here's the Top 10 List--the results of a CBC radio listener contest, which is pretty damned funny:

Premier Rodney MacDonald's Top 10 list of reasons why late-night talk-show host David Letterman should visit Nova Scotia:

10. Nowhere near Thunder Bay, Ont., so you won't be harassed by locals constantly requesting, "Tell Paul I said, 'Hi.' "
9. Halifax Robert L. Stanfield International Airport No. 1 in passenger satisfaction. Customs staff give famed 10-finger pat-downs.
8. Chance to establish a new home office in Balls Creek.
7. Triple-bypass surgeries are free for everyone.
6. No matter where you are in Nova Scotia, you're within 30 minutes of the sea. Thirty-five if it's rush hour.
5. You can make a blueberry grunt.
4. Mug for the camera at the roadside sign for Shag Harbour.
3. You haven't lived until you've camped on the world-famous Cabot Trail and been chased by a love-struck moose.
2. Two words - Lockeport grease pole.
1. Nova Scotia's political leader plays the fiddle - top that, Mike Huckabee.

Remembering TIFF Founder Dusty Cohl

2008-01-11T23:32:00.001-05:00

Long-time TIFF supporters like yours truly are mourning the passing of Dusty (Murray) Cohl, who died earlier today at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital. Cohl was one of the founding fathers of the original Toronto "Festival Of Festivals", which began modestly in 1976 and eventually grew to become the Toronto International Film Festival, now acknowledged to be the most important cinematic spectacle in the world outside of Cannes. In addition to a successful career as a lawyer and concert promoter with his cousin Michael, in 2003, Cohl was given the Order of Canada, the highest civilian honor.

Roger Ebert, one of the festival's initial big-time enthusiasts and a fixture of Cohl's annual Floating Film Festival, has penned a fitting obit which you can read here.

King's "Duma Key" Trailer

2008-01-11T18:32:00.000-05:00

Can books have "trailers"--like movies? Guess so--in fact, one of my earliest professional illustration jobs was creating a storyboard for a commercial to announce John Irving's then-upcoming A Prayer For Owen Meany (for which I had to draw an anatomically-correct armadillo from memory...).

Stephen King's new novel Duma Key is due in just two weeks and his official site has a snazzy grabber of a trailer that should give you some idea of what you're in for should you choose to indulge, and really...why wouldn't you?

Check it out here.

RIP "Vampira"

2008-01-11T18:15:00.000-05:00

One of horror and "b" cinema's true icons has passed away at the age of 86: "Vampira", aka Maila Nurmi, is best known to legions of film buffs as the 50s TV horror hostess who inspired Elvira, Morticia Adams, and that goth chick in your class--but even more so as the cool ghoul (with a 17 inch waist!) who stole the show from Tor Johnson and Dudley Manlove in Ed Wood Jr.'s immortal inept classic Plan 9 From Outer Space (she was portrayed by Tim Burton's ex-girlfriend and one-time Mapplethorpe model Lisa Marie in the excellent biopic Ed Wood).

Check out Tim Lucas' typically-insightful obit here at VideoWatchblog, or better yet, track down last year's documentary "Vampira: The Movie" for more on her amazing life.

Now That Phil Spector's In Jail, You Can Ruin "The Beatles"!

2008-01-09T18:28:00.000-05:00

For reasons I can't imagine, someone who goes by the handle "beatlepuzzle" has isolated vocal and music tracks from The Beatles' 1967 classic album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and has uploaded them so those of you so inclined can feel what it's like to be George Martin--minus the talent, acclaim, and millions.

I'm sure the eventual results won't be any worse than the 1978 film "adaptation" of the album featuring The Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, and George Burns as "Mr. Kite" (wonder if Eddie Izzard studied his performance for his own turn in Across The Universe?...).

Read all about it here, courtesy of Cory Doctorow at boingboing.

(and to clarify, I do prefer Spector's controversial take on "Let It Be" to the supposedly "improved" McCartney-supervised version of a few years back...)

Chimps Use Spears To Kill Prey--Look Out World Economic Forum!

2008-01-02T19:23:00.000-05:00

Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, arguably the most prophetic film since either Blade Runner or Flesh Gordon Vs. The Cosmic Cheerleaders, presumed that Caesar and his simian bruthas and sistahs would take over the world in 1991 (just after New York City became a maximum security prison and a good decade before the moon left earth's orbit due to nuclear sabotage).

So what's a few years? Remember--sci-fi movies missed the Internet completely...

Last December, I posted an article from Canoe that told of a test concocted by Japanese scientists in which chimps beat a group of American co-ed idiots in a simple numeric exercise.

Now, it seems that scientists are amazed by the discovery that chimps in Senegal are fashioning spears out of sticks and branches to kill small mammals for food!

Read the article from Current Biology (!!!) here (via Wired), which should help you prepare for the inevitable day where you will be forced to bow before your simian master.

And for fun, here's some great John Severin art from Cracked Magazine's parody of the short-lived Planet Of The Apes TV series.

Happy New Year!!!

2007-12-31T12:44:00.001-05:00

"Trailers From Hell": Sheer Heaven!

2007-12-18T18:44:00.000-05:00

Bored with YouTube's endless parade of other people's kids, pets, and painfully unfunny "ambush" videos? Wouldn't it be more fun to listen to "Shawn Of The Dead" director Edgar Wright defend the British cannibal flick "Raw Meat"? Well, for that, you've got to go to Trailers From Hell, the brainchild of Joe Dante's multi-media companyMetaluna Productions, in collaboration with The Nickels Group and Elizabeth Stanley Pictures.

Other notable "gurus" include directors like John Landis, Alison Anders, Allan Arkush, Larry Cohen, Mick Garris, and Jack Hill, and screenwriter Sam Hamm.

The best part of it all is that in most cases, the trailers are better than the films they're ballyhoo'ing. Case in point: this month's trailer is "I Was A Teenage Werewolf", hosted by none other than makeup maestro Rick Baker!

©2007 Robert J. Lewis

iTunes Makes Canadians Pay For Stuff They Won't Even Watch For Free...

2007-12-12T20:08:00.000-05:00

Television shows can finally be downloaded in Canada via iTunes, but the most of what's available is CanCon-approved fare only. Hoo-ray.

"Corner Gas", "Little Mosque On The Prairie", "The Rick Mercer Report," "Dragons' Den" "Degrassi: The Next Generation" and "Robson Arms" are some of the initial titles. Although CTV fare like "The Hills", "South Park", and "The Sarah Silverman show" come from south-of-the-border.

If iTunes really wants to get me excited about downloading Canadian content, they'll add "SCTV", "The Forest Rangers", "The Starlost", "Strange Paradise", and of course, "Rocket Robin Hood" to the library.

I assume that the selection will eventually expand to films. Just think--Michael Snow's "Wavelength"! Available in your shirt pocket! Whenever you need some perspective during a long streetcar ride!

Check out the story here at Canoe.

Chimp Beats Humans At Test, Shares In Loincloths Skyrocket...

2007-12-03T19:14:00.000-05:00

Japanese researchers (who else?) recently devised a short-term memory competition between young chimpanzees and college students and, overall, the apes won. Goodbye Statue Of Liberty...It's only a matter of time before our closest genetic relatives take over civilization with meat cleavers, as documented in J. Lee Thompson's Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes.

Yep, a five-year old year chimp has a better memory than a human--at least compared to these these co-ed clods--in a test that involved recalling the order of Arabic numbers. If General Urko organizes his gorilla army before next year's 2008 elections, perhaps Dubya can save face and send 'em to Iraq...

The beginning of the end can be read here at Canoe.

Batman And "Razumihin"?

2007-12-03T18:24:00.000-05:00

Thanks to DC's "Elseworlds" one-shots, we've had Batman in Victorian England ("Gotham By Gaslight"), Batman in the Civil War ("The Blue, The Grey, And The Bat"), "Batman: Dark Knight Of The Round Table" (guess), Batman in the ghetto (Stan Lee's unfortunate "urban" reinterpretation, which was basically Boyz N' The Hood with "Manbat"), Batman in Cold War Russia ("Superman: Red Son"), plus Batman vs. the Phantom Of The Opera, Nosferatu, OSS agents, Edgar Allen Poe, the French Revolution, Al Capone, The Templar Knights--so what's left?

How about The Dark Knight starring in classics of literature? Back in 2000, Drawn And Quarterly proposed Dostoyevsky Comics, the first (and presumably, only) issue devoted to Fyodor D's Crime and Punishment--an appropriate subject for The Caped Crusader. It's definitely the most unique take since the Josef von Sternberg film version which starred Peter Lorre and compressed and updated the tale to The Great Depression.

Hilarious stuff by R. Sikoryak.--check it out here.

Cool "Batman" Animated Short

2007-11-25T23:52:00.000-05:00

Here's a nifty homemade short film that depicts The Dark Knight in a new (monochromatic) light: the talented Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez, a professional animator based in Barcelona, spent three years making this first chapter in what I hope will be an ongoing series. Check out this utterly unique take on the Caped Crusader here at Animwatch (thanks Lidia!).

Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da (Web) Gunk?

2007-11-21T11:44:00.000-05:00

Can this be for real? Spider-Man: The Musical--yes, a real live stage musical--is apparently well into preproduction with no less a talent than Julie Taymor calling the shots! With music by Bono and The Edge (need I mention they're from a little band called U2?)! How the hell did this happen? I blame Legally Blonde-The Musical--then again, I blame it for most things that are wrong in this world...

The ever-reliable Cinematical's got the story here.

Taymor, of course, earned her rep as something of a stage visionary (The Lion King is perhaps her best known achievement) before turning to film with Frida and her wild adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. She's so into it she'd like to cast the two leads from her current Beatles movie musical Across The Universe: ersatz McCartney Jim Sturges as Peter Parker (he'll have to work on the New Yawk accent) and Evan Rachel Wood as Mary Jane (but to me, she looks more like Gwen Stacey).

According to an interview in The Daily Mail, Taymor promises her take will be more "faithful" to the comics, and plans to include "trapeze artists, giant puppets, and incredible costumes into the show." Perhaps Wood's boyfriend Marilyn Manson can be convinced to play Morbius, The Living Vampire?

No word on what Stan Lee thinks of all this, but come curtain time on its premiere night, you can be he'll be on the red carpet taking credit for it all. And I'm sure that Steve Ditko's private box will be waiting, but my guess is that it'll remain vacant while he remains immersed in some new edition of The Fountainhead.

Tread softly, talented people--this won't be the first time a superhero icon has taken flight on the American stage: justly forgotten is 1966's Broadway flop It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman, which told the story of a certain blue and red clad Kryptonian through song, verse, and and a little soft-shoe (interesting that the book was written by Robert Benton and David Newmon, who would later cowrite the excellent "Superman: The Movie").

BTW, betcha didn't that "Batman" nearly made it to the musical stage during the height of the character's 90s movie/TV popularity, with Jim Steinman having completed and recording some songs before the plug was pulled (you can check out "The Joker's Song" here).

Here's a little clip from the Supes musical, etc. to serve as a warning of what could happen if it all goes down in a flaming wreck when Spider-Man: The Musical debuts either in London's West End or on Broadway next year.

Julie, don't "let it be"...

TIFF 2007 Review: "Redacted"

2007-11-19T22:55:00.001-05:00

Brian DePalma's controversial Iraq drama Redacted is now in limited release, and ruffling feathers on the right and the left wherever it goes. In case you missed it, here's my review from this past year's Toronto International Film Festival.

Hate Toronto? Have I Got A Game For You!

2007-11-17T23:19:00.000-05:00

The talented students of the Game Design program at Toronto's George Brown College have created a promising new videogame which pits you--as "George Freeman"--against the extraterrestrial menace "The Combine" on the mean streets of The Big Smoke! Yes, the environments you'll navigate in this Half Life 2 mod are based upon actual downtown Toronto locations, so you'll be fighting for your (virtual) life by Massey Hall, The Eaton Centre, on the Dundas TTC platform, in the remains of St. Michael's hospital, uptown to Mel Lastman Square, and if you complete all the levels, you'll unlock the underground PATH system. Too much fun! Check out some sample screenshots here.

My kudos go to the game's primary designers Ezra Arellano, Adrian Rosca, Troy Manalo, Roozbeh Madanipour and Kyle Cislak--talented youngsters who I hope can sell this baby to Hollywood for a huge chunk of change (there's little chance Canada would ever produce a film like this, so why not aim big?). I just hope Uwe Boll keeps his dirty mitts off of it!

"City 7: Toronto Conflict" is available as a free download here, with more levels promised to follow.

Celebrating Animation Great Bob Clampett

2007-11-10T20:07:00.000-05:00

Today Lidia and I attended a special afternoon tribute to animation legend Bob Clampett, who along with Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Robert McKimson, Virgil Ross, Frank Tashlin, and Friz Freleng, created the timeless adventures of Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Sylvester, Tweety, Speedy and the rest of the Looney Tunes universe. He also created the beloved animated TV series "Beanie And Cecil".

Clampett's daughter Ruth (centre) presented a visual biography of her father's fascinating (and enviable!) life (he passed away in 1984), and presented some new collectible pieces from the Clampett Studios Collection. Ruth manages the Warner Bros. Gallery Of Animation Art, which in addition to Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies art includes DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera, and Harry Potter.

The pieces are now on display at The Animation Connection at Yonge/Eglinton and are well worth checking out. An entire disc of the new Looney Tunes DVD collection (vol. 5) has been devoted to Clampett's works, which includes the first-ever appearance of Tweety (which Clampett based on his own baby photo!).

A "Second" Earth? Cripes--We're Not Done Ruining The First One Yet!

2007-11-06T23:31:00.000-05:00

Here's proof that the romance of the Space Age is officially over--the public and media indifference that greeted the discovery of another planet in another solar system!

The planet is approx. 45 times the mass of Earth and has an orbital cycle of 260 days. It joins the four others orbiting the star "55 Cancri", in the "Cancer" constellation.

The best news is that it occupies what is called a star's "Goldilocks' or "habitable" zone--not too hot, not too cold--where liquid water and mild temperatures could exist. But scientists are more interested in its moon, which could be more habitable to Earth-like life.

But don't go firing up the jet pack just yet--it's 41 light years away, or (scribbling calculations on my chalkboard...) 240,906,832,298,136 miles, and the scientists at San Francisco State U figure its conditions are probably more like those of Saturn, which, as we all know, is where the giant worms live, as documented in the film "Beetlejuice".

Read all the detail here courtesy of Canoe.

King On Clapton

2007-11-01T18:36:00.000-04:00

Having been the critical community's favorite whipping boy for most of his career, Stephen King is intimately familiar with the art of reviewing, as fans of his non-fiction chronicles "Danse Macabre" on "On Writing" know well. Taking a break from his column for Entertainment Weekly, King has written a review of Eric Clapton's autobiography for the New York Times. Check it out here.

TAD 2007: "The Tripper" Reviewed

2007-11-01T00:21:00.000-04:00

My review of David Arquette's directorial debut "The Tripper" is up at Movieforum. One of the big tickets at this year's Toronto After Dark Film Festival, it's the heartwarming tale of hippies vs. a psycho in a Ronald Reagan mask that aspires to transcend the "slasher" genre and for the most part, succeeds. Read all about it here.

Troma's "Poultrygeist" Reviewed At Movieforum

2007-10-27T01:56:00.000-04:00

My review of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival's Toronto-premiere of Lloyd Kaufman's "Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead" is up at Movieforum. It's the usual Troma insanity, but this time with a lot more wit and panache than usual, plus, it's a musical! Check out my thoughts here.

Carpenter Talks Horror At EW

2007-10-27T01:34:00.000-04:00

It's Halloween, so what better time to interview the man synonymous with the season? Entertainment Weekly offers a brief but surprising interview with veteran filmmaker John Carpenter here.

Hey Doris Lessing...

2007-10-23T18:54:00.001-04:00

Shut up (why? Read this). Take yer Nobel Prize and go away (and I didn't like "The Summer Before The Dark" either!).

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2007: "An Audience Of One"

2007-10-22T19:43:00.000-04:00

My latest TAD review: "An Audience Of One", a jaw-dropping documentary about a Pentecostal priest who--on orders from The Almighty--decides to make a big-budget, science-fiction version of the story of Joseph...with no money. Check it out here:

http://movieforumblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/toronto-after-dark-film-festival-2007_22.html

TAD 2007: "In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"

2007-10-21T20:43:00.000-04:00

Dr. Uwe Boll, quite possibly the world's most hated director right now, debuted his latest video game adaptation at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival last night, and it's actually not bad! Read my review of the Tolkein-lite "In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" here.

Toronto After Dark 2007: "Mulberry Street"

2007-10-20T01:02:00.001-04:00

My review of Jim Mickle's "Mulberry Street", which debuted at last night's Toronto After Dark Film Festival, is now posted at my MovieForum site. I thought it was one of the most powerful horror debuts I've seen in years, and believe-you-me, I've seen waaaay too much of this stuff. This no-budget, New York-set shocker packs a more immediate, dramatic punch than most, and is well worth checking out if you have the stomach for an outbreak of a rat-spread zombie virus.

Check out my review here.

Close-Up Blog-A-Thon: "Planet Of The Apes"

2007-10-13T17:00:00.001-04:00

In honour of The House Next Door's Close-Up Blog-A-Thon, here's the close-up that shook my world at a very young age: the first appearance of a gorilla on horseback in Franklin J. Schaffner's original Planet Of The Apes (1968).

Up until this moment we're well-primed for something major: after listening to Charlton Heston's space age misanthrope George Taylor dismiss the human race to this flight recorder, badger his surviving fellow astronauts as they navigate a curiously habitable alien world, and make friendly with what Ash would call some "primitive screw heads" (excluding the stunning Nova, of course), a strange, forboding noise from the brush initiates mass panic. Suddenly, a relaxing skinny dip gives way to swishing blades, then mighty horses, then marching figures, which bring gun fire, hunting nets and then--

This guy!

Even though the premise is right there in the damned title, the simian soldier's entrance is still a stunner of a moment, rivaling even this film's notorious ending, IMHO. After literal dozens of viewings I still get that frisson of horror and enchantment when that a-rooooogah! horn blares from amidst Jerry Goldsmith's nerve-wracking percussion and the camera zooms in on this first reveal of John Chamber's astonishingly expressive makeup illusions--ushering in a too-brief wave of adult science fiction, fantasy, and horror cinema (along with Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Roger Vadim's Barbarella, and George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead that same year) and securing my hopeless geekdom for life.

Close-Up Blog-A-Thon: #3

2007-10-13T16:54:00.000-04:00

The chilling final close-up of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho--or is it Mrs. Bates from now on...?

Close-Up Blog-A-Thon: #2

2007-10-13T16:51:00.001-04:00

Who can forget the unforgettable introduction of Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange"?

It's the "Close Up Blog-A-Thon": #1

2007-10-13T16:33:00.000-04:00

The House Next Door--simply one of the best hubs of opinion and criticism for current and classic film and television--is hosting "The Eyes Have It: Close-up Blog-A-Thon", which will run from Oct. 12-21.

THND's Matt Soller Seitz was inspired by Norma Desmond's lament, "We had faces then" from Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard:

"Entranced as I am by Ms. Desmond's fervor, I must respectfully disagree: yes, they had faces then, but we have faces now. And some of them are extraordinary. Therefore, I'm calling for a Close-Up Blog-a-thon to run Oct. 12-21. Your piece could be as simple as a series of frame grabs with captions, or a short analysis of a single close-up in a particular movie or television episode, past or current. Or it could be an essay about a certain performer's mastery of (or failure to master) the close-up. Or it could fixate on a director or cinematographer who is especially adept at pushing in to capture emotion."

Regrettably, I'm too busy to free up any time to write any form of a coherent, impassioned piece on my favorite screen closeup--the day job, the night course, and the upcoming Toronto After Dark Film Festival occupy whatever time I don't spend sleeping these days--so instead, I'll post a few of my favorites until the closing date. If you want to get involved, check out Seitz's details here.

Here's my first entry: Ben (Duane Jones) appears out of the darkness and chaos to save Barbara (Judith O'Dea) in George A. Romero's original 1968 classic Night Of The Living Dead.

Harlan Ellison vs. "Jesse James"

2007-10-12T21:30:00.000-04:00

Some stuff you just can't make up, even if you've written an Oscar-nominated screenplay for David Cronenberg.

Screenwriter Josh Olson, who adapted John Wagner's graphic novel A History Of Violence into the acclaimed 2005 film version, spins an amazing yarn for LA Weekly: at first glance, yet another warning fable about the perils of Internet relationships. But this one's a true L.A. noir, which manages to involve science-fiction icon Harlan Ellison, Hurricane Katrina, and schlock-rocker Dan Fogelberg, of all people.

What's most amazing is that it's true--although when you're done reading, Olson's tale of woe will have you questioning the term. Check out his amazing account here.

(thanks to David Hudson's Green Cine Daily)

Ebert Reveals Himself As True "Pinhead" To Clive Barker...

2007-10-11T22:55:00.000-04:00

Video games have been around for about three-and-a-half decades now (if you count The Magnavox Odyssey, which became commercially available in 1972), long enough to become more or less defined solely as an insidious social menace—right up there (or is it down?) with comic books and Elvis’ shaking hips.

But while fanatics like Jack Thompson (and Hilary Clinton, who really should know better and save her energy to save her desperate party) are campaigning to make sure no American child shall drive the virtual streets of Liberty City without a seatbelt, or plasma-blast a Covenant soldier without feeling remorse for their own intolerance of other cultures, and our soccer fields, hockey arenas, and baseball diamonds are reportedly barren as kids take up their Wii sticks in their trans-fat encrusted fingers (well, everywhere but Toronto, where there are reportedly still waiting lists to get into amateur sports leagues), yet another attack is raging, this one from the PBS tote bag circuit: can video games be considered art?

The only rational answer is “yes”, of course, because anything created by an artist or team of artists can be defined as such (ask Dali and his limp clocks, ask Herriman and his Krazy Kat, ask Duchamp and his monogrammed urinal). Behold the production design of “Gears Of War” (Goya meets Giger), marvel at the nuanced, multi-narrative threads of “GTA: San Andreas” that seem random but build to a satisfying conclusion. “God Of War 2” is a kick-ass way to learn some remarkably dense Greek mythology while slugging it out in some of the most painterly and immersive simulated environments ever realized. But what we’re really talking “High Ahhht” here. To which I will quote Al Pacino in Carlito’s Way: “Here come da pain!”

Amazingly, the most heated debate over the subject is currently raging between author/artist/filmmaker Clive Barker (yes, the Hellraiser guy), and critic Roger “Thumbs Up” Ebert of all people. The supremely-talented Barker (I admit it, I’ve been a fan since 1985’s ‘The Damnation Game” and have had the pleasure of meeting him in person several times) has been developing some interactive game properties of his own creation ("Jericho" is due for the Xbox 360 and PS3 later this month), and took exception to Ebert’s published remarks that video games aren’t-and-never-will-be “art”.

And just what qualifies Ebert to evaluate the aesthetic credibility of the results of all those little ones and zeroes? By his own admission: absolutely nothing.

For a man who expounds the joys of a medium that was once (and in some circles, still is) considered a lesser art form, he’s extremely short-sighted. When Barker accused Ebert’s woefully uniformed view as “prejudiced”, Ebert wore it like a badge of pride:

The word “prejudiced” often translates as “disagrees with me.” I might suggest that gamers have a prejudiced view of their medium, and particularly what it can be. Games may not be Shakespeare quite yet, but I have the prejudice that they never will be, and some gamers are prejudiced that they will.

I never considered anyone who argues in favour of the merits of expanding one’s tolerances (which Barker is trying to do) as prejudiced, but I’ll remember that, Rog, when you suggest I waste any more hours of my life on the dated, New Wave stunts of Jean-Luc Godard, whose validity as an artist today is purely due to the nostalgic longings of people who never got over their first screening of The Conformist (which was a Bertolluci film, of course). When Barker praises the range of experiences and the potential for interactivity that (so far) only the videogame can provide--

We should be stretching the imaginations of our players and ourselves. Let’s invent a world where the player gets to go through every emotional journey available. That is art. Offering that to people is art.

--Ebert grips his vintage leather-bound Dickens volumes and sniffs:

If you can go through “every emotional journey available,” doesn’t that devalue each and every one of them? Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices. If next time, I have Romeo and Juliet go through the story naked and standing on their hands, would that be way cool, or what?

Ah, so Ebert hath decreed that Art should lead the viewer/reader/listener to only a single conclusion. Hmm—I’m pretty sure that once upon a time, it was firmly held by the intelligentsia of the time that art could never be anything but representational, and concerned only with religious iconography. But what do I know? He even closes with a tiresome Pauline Kael quote, which you can read here, because I can’t be bothered recounting it. It was parodied, once, on SCTV, during the Dr. Tongue remake of Midnight Cowboy.

Barker shot back (perhaps a bit inelegantly) calling Ebert “a pompous, arrogant old man” (I think Clive was too kind). But one has to admire his progressive vision and glee in partaking in a genuinely unique and innovative creative enterprise, something Ebert would know little about.

I think Ebert is one of the better film reviewers working today—he seems to enjoy a greater variety of movies than most of his insulated brethren and they don’t hand out Pulitzer Prizes for nothing—but this is the same man who once dismissed Night Of The Living Dead (to his credit, he later recanted) and did much damage to the reputation of the already-maligned horror genre when he and the late Gene Siskel turned their weekly series (PBS, of course) in early 1980s in a hysterical (and one-sided) anti-slasher rally (going so far as to urge moviegoers to boycott Paramount releases because they distributed the Friday The 13th series).

I don’t really care if sticks-in-the-mud like Ebert dig video games or not (admittedly, I’m only a casual player, but I would definitely define the best of them as art, just as I would with painting, film, music, theatre), but I’m just more than a little tired of these cranky aging Boomers who worship at the altar of Altman and who think that artistic progress stopped when the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 1980.

Ebert would do well to keep on partying like it’s 1974 and leave the rest of us--obsessive, yes, juvenile, perhaps—alone to partake in the invention of a bonafide new art form, which is likely only in its birthing stages. He should remember people once saw The Jazz Singer as just a “talkie”—a passing fad. I’d like to think we ain’t heard, or seen, or experienced, nothin’ yet.

©2007 Robert J. Lewis

"Deadwood" Dismantled

2007-10-02T10:08:00.000-04:00

It looks like we can forget about those Deadwood movies--according to recent reports, The Gem and The Bella Union are coming down.

The complex and unromanticized Western serial was cancelled by HBO due to low ratings and creator David Milch's desire to pursue another series: the metaphysical surfer ensemble John From Cincinatti. But we were assured Deadwood would to return in the form of two feature length films (to air on HBO) that would wrap it all up.

This past June, while promoting Live Free Or Die Hard, Timothy (Seth Bullock) Olyphant told Coming Soon: "don't hold your breath...the fact that show existed at all for as long as it did (three seasons, all available on DVD) was a miracle of sorts."

And last week Ian (Al Sweargen) McShane told Cinematical: ""I just got a call on Friday from ... a dear friend of mine, who told me that they're packing up the ranch. They're dismantling the ranch and taking the stuff out. That ship is gonna sail. Bonsoir, Deadwood."

Today, the site follows up with responses from other cast members: Jim (Ellsworth) echoed McShane's news, and W. Earl (Dan Dority) Brown confirmed that HBO's lease for the sets is up, but he wants back his "hat, knife, and gunbelt."

With John From Cincinatti having gotten the pink slip from HBO, I'd hoped Milch would return to the Black Hills at least one more time to wrap up the Hearst plot and give fans a proper ending as planned.

But to paraphrase Al Swearengen: Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God--or clueless network executives--laugh...

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2007: Lineup Announced

2007-09-27T18:45:00.000-04:00

The second annual Toronto After Dark Film Festival returns to The Bloor Cinema just in time for the festival of Samhain, offering an amazing 50 new horror and fantasy films--seven of them Canadian premieres--over 7 fun n' fear-filled nights.

Adam Lopez and his team (of which I am now a latecoming member) have toiled through the nights, dawns, and days of the dead to bring you the following lineup:

Scheduled Features:

Friday, October 19:

Mulberry Street (Premiere Gala)

Saturday, October 20:

Aachi & Ssipak
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Blood Car (Canadian Premiere)

Sunday, October 21:

Audience of One (Canadian Premiere)
Automaton Transfusion
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

Monday, October 22:

The Rebel (Canadian Premiere)
The Tripper

Tuesday, October 23:

Wolfhound
Alone (Canadian Premiere)

Wednesday, October 24:

Simon Says (Canadian Premiere)
Nightmare Detective

Thursday, October 25:

Murder Party (Closing Night Gala)

Short Films:

TAD offers three programmes showcasing the finest in short-form horror from Canada and around the world:

Cutting Edge Horror (Sat, Oct. 20, 1.45pm)

The best new horror shorts from around the world. Highlights include It Came From The West, a puppet zombie western!

Cutting Edge Fantasy (Sun, Oct. 21, 1.30pm)

The best new international sci-fi and fantasy shorts from around the world.

Cutting Edge Canada (screening before features throughout the fest)

Outstanding new Canadian horror and fantasy shorts, with several of the filmmakers in attendance.

(The complete lineup of titles will be announced shortly).

Zombie Walk!?

And of course, don't forget the second annual Official Toronto Zombie Walk! Last year's "Million Maimed March" was attended by over 500 fans in full zombie regalia. This year, the event lasts even longer with the afternoon walk, a break for food and drink (or to track down human prey), and an evening of two premiere zombie films (here's a fan's Flicker portfolio of last year's walk).

So while you're at it, why not buy tickets and passes here, where the complete TAD 2007 schedule is now online.

I've heard great things about the opening night film Mulberry Street, which (along with the upcoming The Signal) could mark the emergence of a new era of brave and distinctive horror voices the likes we haven't seen since the advent of Carpenter, Cronenberg, Hooper, and Romero (if not, well, what the hell--it's probably pretty entertaining...).

Keep checking this site throughout the event for daily news and reviews.

Der Kingster is 60!

2007-09-21T18:25:00.000-04:00

Stephen King--bestselling author, journalist, screenwriter, actor, one-time director, philanthropist and all-around cool guy is 60 today. Check out his latest column for Entertainment Weekly here, where he talks about his sojourn to the Australian Outback and lived an entire month without access to popular culture...

Brett Somers Gone To The Big 'Blank' In The Sky...

2007-09-18T10:37:00.001-04:00

Brett Somers, a regular on "Match Game" during its classic 1973-1979 run and frequent verbal sparing partner of the late, great Charles Nelson Reilly, passed away yesterday at her home in Westport, Connecticut at the age of 83.

She was born Audrey Johnston in New Brunswick, and grew up in Portland, Maine. At age 17 she settled in Greenwich Village and changed her named to "Brett" after the lead female character in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises." Somers was her mother's maiden name.

She was married for a time to actor Jack Klugman, who was responsible for getting her onto the game show. Klugman suggested she be brought on when he appeared during the show's first broadcasts and she soon became a regular part of the panel.

I'm not the biggest fan of panel game shows but I try not to miss Match Game reruns on The Game Show Network--I've always enjoyed Gene Rayburn's exasperated, insulting tone towards the (dim) contestants and the antics of the classic panel--lead by Somers and Nelson Reilly (who died this past May), of course--especially during the "afternoon" tapings when the witty tongues would be well-lubricated with alcohol.

Here's her obit from CNN.

Alex Ross Does "Heroes"

2007-09-17T22:28:00.000-04:00

Here's a look at Alex Ross' cover art for the upcoming "Heroes" hardcover from DC Comics, which will collect all of the online comics that were published concurrently with last season's episodes (still available here on the official site), as well as some new stuff. The inevitable Absolute Edition is being planned, too, I'm sure. Jim Lee is reportedly contributing an alternate cover, or somesuchthing (not like he's working terribly hard on Frank Miller's "All-Star Batman And Robin", or anything...).

And we are assured by the show's producers that even though prophetic artist Isaac is dead, Tim Sale's art will still be featured this coming season.

I just hope that Global HD actually plays "Heroes" in true high-def this year, considering the money I'm forking out for these digital channels...

Rogers Cable: Converting Viewers To Bit Torrent Is Job One...

2007-09-16T23:44:00.001-04:00

So I'm enjoying tonight's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" an hour later than its original broadcast and suddenly, it's like I'm watching"The Sopranos" conclusion without the Journey song. Larry utters a line, then there's the PVR menu asking me if I want to save or delete.

What gives? This hasn't happened in a while--if Rogers sets up the schedule, why can't their hardware chase the programming block? I had this problem with Heroes on HD Global this past season and had to set up a manual event as a workaround, but what a pain in the *ss for something for which I'm paying good money for convenience and reliability.

(I called Rogers but the somnabulistic drone I got on the other end couldn't answer my question...)

You didn't hear it from me folks, but there's a thing called BitTorrent from which you can not only get all of your HBO shows complete and the HD format (unlike Rogers, which isn't broadcasting "Curb" in HD after all but is still charging subscribers for it) but their also 100% free.

Listen up, Canadian cable barons. It's not that people don't want to pay for entertainment--it's just that we expect quality and consistency for our hard-earned cash. Spread it around.

Happy Birthday, Werner Herzog!

2007-09-06T01:35:00.000-04:00

The unclassifiable German filmmaker (who resides in LA) turns 65 today--but may he entertain no plans of retiring! In addition to being one of our greatest living filmmakers in both the fiction and non-fiction realms, Herzog gets my vote as the ultimate bad ass:

During a BBC interview to promote his acclaimed documentary "Grizzly Man”, a loud pop was heard and Herzog calmly observed "someone is shooting at us". That someone was a crazed fan with a sniper rifle, who struck the filmmaker in the leg. Herzog dismissed the bullet as "insignificant" and with his wound festering, finished the interview.

One month earlier, he rescued Joaquin Phoenix from a car crash in Laurel Canyon...

So for all you non-cineastes reading this, let me put it another way: "Chuck Norris" lives because Werner Herzog lets him…

I'll be catching his new documentary "Encounters At The Edge Of The World" at this year's TIFF---review to come.

Woo-Hoo! It's The First Lineup Of The Film Fest!

2007-09-03T17:58:00.001-04:00

Oh, what a wonderful way to spend the last day of a long weekend: baking in the sun for several hours to pick up whatever TIFF tickets you were awarded if you didn't get completely screwed by Friday's lottery draw.

While I attend the event as a member of the media, I always get a few tickets to public screenings so I can see some movies with friends and my Significant Other.And truth is, I don't mind it at all (the lining up part--the lottery is the subject of another posting...)--we got to chat with fellow enthusiastic film buffs about our previous TIFF experiences, our favourite titles of the year so far (although I always get the feeling that I'm the only cinema freak in GTA who goes to Hollywood blockbusters and enjoys them....), books we've read, the things we hate the most about the Fest (the lottery, 'natch), and of course, what we're looking forward to the most at this year's extravaganza (seems everyone's game for The Coens' No Country For Old Men and Brian DePalma's Redacted).

Because we were lucky to get all of our choices (nothing less than a modern miracle, considering we were box 48 of 75, with the lottery starting with box 66!), we didn't have to move to the second, considerably more disgruntled line to hurriedly select alternate screening choices. With so many fewer screens downtown, the seats are sure to fill up quickly. So best of luck to those poor devotees still in line--remember, folks, they're only movies, and most will come out to theatres or at least DVD anyway...

Individual tickets--those remaining, anyway--will go on sale Wednesday, Sept. 5 at the Manulife Centre Box Office (Bay and Bloor) and online at the official site at 7 am (remember, VISA is the only card accepted by the festival).

Complete details and schedules here.

What If Ratner Directed "The Road"?

2007-08-30T18:47:00.000-04:00

What if Brett Ratner ended up directing the film version of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"? The clever folks at McSweeney's have put together the director's notes for such a horrifying prospect, but with hilarious results:

Possibilities to play the father/son duo: Brad Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt. If so, have them ride around on ATVs instead of walking. Walking is boring.

Father needs "buddy." See if Jackie Chan is available. If not, maybe Andy Dick?

In book, we don't find out how the world ended. Must show in movie version. Possible scenarios:

Aliens
Robots
Alien robots
Girls in bikinis accidentally blow up nuclear power station by hitting self-destruct button with their big, round butts
Or boobs
If we go with robots as destroyers of Earth, robots should still be chasing the people. Also, maybe change name from The Road to The Robots.

If we decide to rewrite as comedy, see if Sandler is available for May production start. When the father and son discover the boat, boat should be loaded with machine guns and hand grenades.

In book, they say "carrying the fire" and it's some kind of abstract thing about carrying the spirit of humanity around in a time of hopelessness.

What if "fire" is a secret weapon that will restore atmosphere and kill the robots? Or it turns out at the end that boy can shoot fire out of eyes and mouth? He's like a messiah guy, but a fire-shooting-eyes messiah guy.

Read the whole thing here.

"The Mist" Trailer Now Online

2007-08-30T18:23:00.000-04:00

It's hard to choose a favorite Stephen King tale, but die-hard fans are almost unanimous in their vote for his best short story, and that would be "The Mist", originally published in the 1980 horror anthology "Dark Forces", and reprinted (and being slightly rewritten) as part of the 1985 anthology "Skeleton Crew".

Some of the tightest, taughtest 133 pages ever penned in the horror genre, it tells the simple tale of a group of regular folks who get stuck in a supermarket in Bridgton, Maine, where a thunderstorm has brought a thick shroud of mist over the entire town. Within the mist lurk some very nasty and hungry monsters--all forms of Lovecraftian insects, crustaceans, arachnids, a pterodactyl (!), and combinations thereof. Its source is never discovered, but some suggest a rift between dimensions caused by something called "The Arrowhead Project" at a nearby military base.

Essentially one long real time tale of survival, the yarn ends on a "Birds"-styled note of ambiguity as a few of the survivors--lead by narrator David Drayton, a freelance artist--make their way from the supermarket to an uncertain future.

Frank Darabont, who wrote and directed the superb Stephen King adaptations "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile" (and began his career with his student short, an adaptation of King's "The Woman In The Room"), ventures outside of prison territory with this one, and the results look promising, based upon the just-released trailer.

The strong cast features Thomas Jane as Drayton, Marcia Gay Harden as the religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody, Andre Braugher as skeptical lawyer Brent Norton, and Toby Jones as Weeks, the store manager . And not only did Darabont have the good taste to hire the brilliant horror comics artist Berni ("Swamp Thing" "The Spectre", the "Creepshow" adaptation) Wrightston to design the creatures, but he commissioned Drew Struzan, arguably the finest movie poster artist of all time, to create the one-sheet poster.

The film comes out November 21, 2007 from Dimension Films. Here's the thrilling first trailer.

(Review) "Demons 2": 20th Anniversary Screening

2007-08-28T20:23:00.006-04:00

Lamberto Bava's lively 1985 breakthrough shocker Demons remains a fan favorite and probably the defining work of his uneven but efficient filmography. After an eerie setup in which various Berlin transit riders accept an invitation to the Metropol theatre from a strange figure in a metal mask, the film stumbles into a series of poorly-dubbed, 80s-metal-scored gore set pieces, but climaxing in a thrilling, apocalyptic ending that makes its soft second act worth plodding through. If you believe Roger Corman’s credo that if the first and the third acts are solid, then “what you do in the middle doesn’t matter”, then by generous accounts Demons is a success.

Demons 2, produced less than a year later, offers a near-identical concept, except here, the transmission device is a television signal and the location a high-rise apartment building. It more than satisfies Joe Bob Briggs’ patented rule that a sequel should be the exact same movie all over again, and should appeal to afficionados of The Twonky and Jerry Manders' "Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television".

In the first Demons' film with the film (keeping up?) the titular nogoodnicks entered our world—and human bodies—via the sharp prongs of a cursed mask that was unearthed in Nostradamus' tomb. In Demons 2, the fwtf features another group of clueless teens who have entered a quarantined disaster area where presumably the invasion was contained and eradicated. They happen upon a demon’s ashen remains where blood from one of their wounds triggers its resurrection. The creature then comes towards the screen, and out of it, entering its first victim’s body.

Several parallel plots—such as they are—collide throughout the ten floors of the apartment building “The Tower”: in one suite, there’s a birthday party in full swing for Sally (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) and her senior classmates, who, without the distractions of the Internet, iPods, and Second Life, must entertain themselves by robot-dancing to some 80s alternative hits on the boom box while swilling down booze in paper cups, careful not to spill any on their feathered ‘dos and shoulder pads.

Sally’s a shrill one, and while her dialogue from screenwriters Bava, Dario Argento, Franco Ferrinni, and Dardano Sachetti is less than Hughesian (“My hair stinks! This dress stinks. This whole thing is disgusting! These sleeves on this go back and forth--what am I gonna do?”), the actress has an endearing presence reminiscent of her American teen scream queen counterpart of the time, Jill Schoelen. As the first to be possessed, Sally quickly mutates into a fanged, milky-eyed harpy who spreads the demon virus throughout the complex ala Cronenberg’s Shivers/Frissons/They Came From Within.

In neighbouring apartments, bookish George (David Edwin Knight) is concerned for the safety of his expectant wife Hannah (Nancy Brilli), a family with two young children (one of them a prepubescent Asia Argento) try to escape, a latch-key kid and his dog become possessed, and some truly dedicated fitness addicts, who under the tutelage of a returning Bobby Rhodes (who memorably played a pimp in the first Demons) enact a Howard Hawksian standoff in the underground parking garage.

First beastie to exit through Sally’s cathode ray tube makes for an impressive effect (more or less replicated in Ringu), albeit once based heavily on Rick Baker’s pioneering work on Cronenberg’s Videodrome, which was likely an unacknowledged influence here.

Lots of gloppy monsters follow, more akin to zombies really, all pustules and razor teeth and bloodshot orbs, anticipating “the infected” of the later biohazard-themed 28 Days Later than anything genuinely supernatural (there’s no internal story logic to these nasties, where they come from, what they want, what they do--other than to cause a lot of icky havoc—is left for the theatre of the mind…). Serious horror buffs will strain to find a metaphor in the television angle—perhaps Bava aspires to cheekily paraphrase McLuhan in that here, the medium is the massacre? (a reach, I admit...).

The momentum is dulled, somewhat, by the third-act emergence of a gawd-awful rubber puppet--of the John Carl Beuchler variety ala Ghoulies and laughably unconvincing even by 80s standards (and we all bought into “Yoda”, ET, and the Gelflings, didn’t we?).

Those of us of a certain age (read: those of us who first consumed Douglas Coupland and tingled: "that's me!") will enjoy the soundtrack: alt-rock staples The Smiths, The Cult, The Dead Can Dance, Art Of Noise, Gene Loves Jezebel, Peter Murphy underscore the KY jelly and karo syrup free-for-all that occupies much of what passes for plot in Act Two. It all oozes and splats to the requisite “the end?” coda that, to no one’s surprise, segued to a Demons 3 and a Demons 4.

Following the screening, presented by Rue Morgue Magazine and London, Ontario’s Vagrancy Films, the jazzed audience was treated to a Q&A with “Sally” herself, actress Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, who currently resides in New York (her home town, actually), and was in the GTA for Rue Morgue magazine's annual Festival Of Fear blow-out at the FanExpo convention.

The 36-year old actress, not looking a day older than she appears in the film, was clearly moved by the enthusiastic reception, and admitted she still feels a kinship with her character, who she says “makes her sad”.

Demons 2, like its preceding chapter, was shot in Munich. She recalled that the makeup took hours to apply, and that her contact lenses were quite painful—obviously, FX technology has come a long way. Bava, who cameos in the film as her father, didn’t give her a lot of direction, and hired her without an audition, based upon her other film work.

Cataldi-Tassoni went on to become something of a Italian scream queen, appearing in Dario Argento’s Opera, Phantom Of The Opera remake (as a child, she grew up in the opera scene, performing in “La Boheme” at the age of three!), as well as Andreas Marfori’s “Il Bosco/Horror Clutch, and Bava’s recent Ghost Son. When asked to compare the directing styles of Bava and Argento, she demurred “quantum physics…completely different universes…” and left it at that.

Extending warm regards from Lamberto Bava and FX supervisor Sergio Stivaletti, Cataldi-Tassondi was off to the Gladstone Hotel to perform numbers from her debut music CD “Limbo Balloon” accompanied by Maurizio Guarini of the prog-rock band (and frequent Argento collaborators) Goblin.

Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni will next be seen in Dario Argento’s Mother Of Tears, the long-awaited sequel to Suspiria and Inferno, debuting in just a little more than a week at The 32nd Annual Toronto International Film Festival.

© Robert J. Lewis 2007

Breaking (Fox) News: If We Bust Hypocritical Republicans, The Terrorists Have Won!

2007-08-28T18:20:00.000-04:00

Senator Larry Craig has turned to quoting Charo in "Airport 75", who said famously: "you miscon-screw me!"

I'm not a terribly political person--I pingpong between Liberal and Libertarian dogma depending on how it suits me--but with film news light (soon to pick up with TIFF 2007) I'm having a pretty good laugh over the Craig saga, and with Stewart off this week, perhaps some of you will find me a reasonable D+ subsitute.

Idaho Republican and moral high horse phoney Larry "I am not gay, and I never have been" Craig echoed Charo's sentiments when the coppers picked him up for soliciting...er..."favours" of the George Michaelian variety, in a men's room in Minnesota last June. Apparently, he only tapped the foot of the guy in the adjoining stall because he--and forgive me for the disgusting imagery--he has a wide stance when sitting upon the porcelain throne. He also maintained that the reason he repeatedly reached under the stall wall was to "pick up a piece of paper", even though the arresting officer said there was no such thing on on the floor and Craig didn't pick anything up.

Republicans are outraged of course--at the Democrats (with their stained dresses and their green bins and their Indigo Girls CDs) and anyone who dares to even question Craig's character (his sexual orientation is irrelevant--it's that he's a bald-faced liar and hypocrite that should have him packing his banker's box, pronto). After all, moral crusades are their job--Craig voted for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, against a bill allowing gay men and women to serve in the military, and against extending civil rights to gays in the workplace--but the GOPs collective capacity for denial, esp. in light of the Gonsalez, Libby, the continuing Iraq boondoggle, is astonishing by any sane person's definition,

So today, "Fair And Balanced" Fox News was this doozy from anchor Megyn Kelly: "The senator and the sex sting: Something happened inside this airport bathroom in Minnesota, but did it constitute a crime? That's coming up. But our top story this half hour is that new report we told you about earlier, saying that al-Qaida has an active plot to attack the West."

Cue that YouTube gopher!

More on this farce from Tim Grieve at Salon here.

Campbell Says "No" to "Ho Tep" Sequel

2007-08-28T11:43:00.000-04:00

Damn! Sounds like there won't be a sequel to "Bubba Ho Tep" after all.

Bruce Campbell recently told Fangoria Radio the project "is dead to me. It sleeps with the fishes. Don Coscarelli is a very passionate filmmaker. We got to a few points that we couldn't reconcile. I want to keep our friendship, so we parted ways. So, I'm not part of that project."

Nor is he involved with any official "Evil Dead" sequel, or remake...

Last spring, I met Joe R. Lansdale at The World Horror Convention and he told me the project, entitled "Bubba Nosferatu and the Curse of the She-Vampires", was ready to roll "whenever Bruce is ready" (Lansdale, of course, penned the original short story and cowrote the screenplay adaptation with Coscarelli). And actor Paul Giamatti has said in interviews he was on board to play Colonel Tom Parker if the filmmakers were interested (and they were).

Coscarelli, who right now must be seriously debating yet another "Phantasm" sequel to pay the bills, has said that he's considering recasting the Elvis role, but realizes it''ll be "a challenge" to win over the fanbase for this film, which might be small, but fiercely loyal. Please, anyone but Jonathon Rhys Meyers!

I'm going to try to control my tears tomorrow night when I catch "Evil Dead: The Musical"...

You can read the bad news here, courtesy of Cinematical.

"Demons 2": 20th Anniversary Screening Tonight

2007-08-24T18:30:00.001-04:00

The distinguished folks at Rue Morgue magazine, Vagrancy Films, and The Toronto After Dark Film Festival (returning this October) are sponsoring a rare 35mm print screening of Lamberto Bava's "Demoni 2", aka "Demons 2", written by Bava and Dario Argento (who will be in town this weekend for The Festival Of Fear, and at this year's Toronto International Film Festival to premiere "Mother Of Tears"). The screening's tonight at 9:30 PM at The Royal Cinema on College Street, so if you're just reading this now, and live in Toronto, you've still got time to get there!

Costar Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni will be in attendance--perhaps Argento will show up as well?

Review and report to come.

Happy 2nd Birthday Maggie!

2007-08-23T12:08:00.000-04:00

Two years ago today, returning home from my birthday dinner at swanky Lee's, Lidia and I came upon our neighbours who were searching the tiny lawns in front of our townhouse. We were friendly with their two tortoiseshell cats, Daisy and Star, both of whom were preggers within weeks of them becoming regular daily visitors. Daisy had given birth a few weeks earlier, and on this very day, her daughter Star delivered. And apparently, couldn't find her litter!

I suggested Daisy would know best and that we should let her lead the way, and after she sniffed and prodded about the hedges, pointed us to the front porch of the unit two doors down. There, we found three palm-sized newborns: one ginger-hued, one a smokey grey, and the third, a beautiful tortoiseshell like her mother (and equally vocal too!).

We'd just lost our beloved tortie Molly, who developed a rare cancer at the age of 10, and while neither of us much believed in "cosmic" signs, who were we to question the universe? We put in our dibs on the tortie, I grabbed a box and a blanket for the kittens, and on Thanksgiving Day, we christened the six-week old handful "Maggie" and she joined our merry band--instantly making her older sister Minnie's life a daily ordeal.

She's two today, and while she's grown a little longer and is exhibiting some signs of her grandmother Daisy's contemplative nature (sadly, Daisy was killed by a car last month), she's just as bratty and spring-loaded as ever. So here's Maggie in a rare quiet moment (actually, she was in the middle of trying to tear my office curtains down), when I can actually capture a photo that didn't show her as a brown motion blur.

Happy birthday, dreamboat!

"De Düva" (The Dove): So Long, Ingmar...

2007-07-31T22:23:00.000-04:00

Everyone knows I'm a movie buff, but I must admit I was never much of a disciple of those European auteurs who were (and are) the darlings of boomer film critics who refuse to admit that anything good was made after the 60s and 70s.

The late Ingmar Bergman certainly deserves his canonization as an influential and thoughtful filmmaker, but truth is, his leisurely-paced exercises in monochromatic Euro-angst have left me--for the most part--cold, unmoved, and hopelessly bored (although I will admit that my tastes have "matured" somewhat over the years and I've warmed up to "The Seventh Seal" and "The Virgin Spring", if only because the former was parodied in "Bill And Ted" and the latter provided the basis for Wes Craven's "Last House On The Left"). Plus, every other damned poseur in my first year film class seemed to think they were the only person who knew who Sven Nykvist was.

Go ahead and blame the influence of too many horror movies and comic books on shaping my sensibility (it's not that I don't like existentialism, it's just that I prefer mine with a healthy dose of gunplay and reanimated corpses), or, as I do, blame SCTV's brilliant parody "Whispers Of The Wolf" on Count Floyd's "Monster Chiller Horror Theatre", which ruined Bergman's "Persona" and "Hour Of The Wolf" for me (c'mon, I'm not alone) for life.

So rather than revised my personal history and refashion myself as a mournful Bergman latecomer, I'd like to pay tribute by reminding readers of the existence of another great parody, one done with a great deal of affection, entitled "De Düva" (The Dove), which was produced in 1968 and nominated for an Academy Award. It stars the much-missed Madelaine Kahn in what the IMBD lists as her first professional role, and was directed by George Coe, who later joined the original launch of "Saturday Night Live" and today is a character actor who's appeared on everything from "King Of Queens" to "Bones" to "Gilmore Girls" to "Smallville".

You can check out the brilliant short here (and see the Grim Reaper play badminton) at Bergmanorama.com (requires Windows Media Player).

And a nod to Slate for the tip...

Dario Argento Returns For "Midnight Madness"

2007-07-31T18:36:00.001-04:00

Great news today for fans of one of the horror genre's true visionaries: Dario Argento, the Italian master of trippy, gore-soaked fantasias, will premiere his long-awaited"Mother Of Tears" (La Terza Madre) as part of the Midnight Madness program at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.

This is the conclusion of his "Three Mothers" trilogy that began in 1977 with "Suspiria" and was left hanging after the botched release of 1980's thematic followup "Inferno". In "Mother", archaeology student Sarah (portrayed by Asia Argento--yes, his daughter) releases the demonic forces of a powerful witch which erupt into a wave of suicide and crime in advance of her resurrection.

The film also stars European genre vet Udo Kier (Andy Warhol's "Frankenstein", and recently, in Rob Zombie's faux "Grindhouse" trailer "Werewolf Women Of The S.S.") and Daria Nicolodi, Dario's ex-wife (and Asia's mother), who appeared in his earlier films and in Asia's directorial debut "Scarlett Diva".

In the early years of the Midnight Madness program Argento was a staple: his "Opera", "Trauma", and "The Stendhal Syndrome" screened at the original Bloor Cinema venue, and the thrillers he produced for Michel Soavi ("The Church", "The Sect") debuted there, too. For years, Argento's films were butchered by American distributors and spottily released under crappy titles and lousy ad campaigns.

In recent years, Argento has kept a low profile, but has worked steadily--last year's TV movie "Do You Like Hitchcock?" was a return to his giallo roots, as was the Michael Mann-esque police procedural "The Card Player". He also found time to venture to Canadian shores to shoot two episodes in Vancouver for Mick Garris' "Masters Of Horror" series: "Jenifer" and "Pelts".

Argento will also be a guest at Rue Morgue's "Festival Of Fear" this coming August.

It'll mark a reunion between Argento and fellow guest George A. Romero, who together produced the original "Dawn Of The Dead" and co-directed the underrated Edgar Allan Poe tribute "Two Evil Eyes". Romero has a film in the Midnight Madness program this year, too: "Diary Of The Dead", the official fourth installment in his zombie saga that began with 1968's "Night Of The Living Dead".

Argento's films aren't always perfect--narrative "logic" isn't a concern and he seems to delight in deliberately polarizing and frustrating the audience--but each is always gorgeously designed and a feast for the senses, and ala works of Hitchcock or DePalma, manage to feature at least one extended set piece that's a marvel of timing and intensity.

Here's a list of the entire "Midnight Madness" lineup. Argento, plus Romero, plus Stuart Gordon, plus Takashi Miike? September can't come quick enough...

A Colortini For Tom (Tom Snyder 1936-2007)

2007-07-30T19:52:00.000-04:00

Sad news for longtime late-night TV followers: Tom Snyder, the veteran TV host/interviewer who will likely be immortalized by Dan Aykroyd's "Saturday Night Live" parody, died yesterday of leukemia at the age of 71. His fractured, rambling, and off-the-cuff demeanour infuriated many and charmed others--count me in the latter camp. Snyder was fascinating to watch no matter who was on the show--an hour with him was one part fireside chat, one part curmudgeonly rant, and one-part celebrity shill session (the latter part often the least important of the evening).

I was just old enough to catch Snyder for the first time on the tail end of his "Tomorrow" run on NBC (before he was cancelled to make way for "Late Night With David Letterman"). He'd occassionally throw to Rona Barrett for some Hollywood dish, but mostly, it was all Tom for the hour. Chainsmoking against a dark set, dressed like a high school math teacher, and sporting a flappy comb-over that he was able to maintain for decades, Snyder could be counted on to digress into some marathon account of his "Mother Snyder"s various situations, his favourite LA steakhouse, or the fact that he couldn't get "The Great Escape" on home video, and to laugh heartily at his own frequently perplexing jokes and non sequitors.

Mind you, he could serious and insightful when the mood, or the subject, suited him (he began his career as a journalist in Philadelphia). Witness his still-historic confrontation/interview with Charles Manson, conducted from Manson's cell at over two evenings in 1981 (Manson would profess a desire to become a "welder" upon his release from prison).

Music and movie junkies in an era pre-MTV, pre-Entertainment Tonight, and pre-internet could regularly find the likes of John Lydon, John Lennon, Steven Spielberg, Roger Corman, and Harlan Ellison joining Snyder on his spartan set. "U2" made their U.S. debut on his show. In fact, for many punk/New Wave devotees, Snyder's program--other than Canada's essential "The New Music"--was the only North American broadcast forum that paid any attention to the burgeoning scene at all (Wendy O. Williams' appearance was perfectly parodied on SCTV's "Fishin' Musician").

(Snyder will appear in the upcoming Harlan Ellison documentary "Dreams With Sharp Teeth", currently in production).

So in the words of Mr. Snyder, tonight let's "fire up a colortini, sit back, relax and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air..." and check out these great clips:

Conan O'Brien hosts a terrific overview of Snyder's NBC years (featuring Lydon, Hitchcock, Ali, Bono, Manson). Click here.

Snyder clashes with Lydon circa PIL here.

"The Clash" and Snyder get along here.

Iggy Pop in top form with Snyder here.

Snyder talks with the some of the original "Star Trek" cast and Harlan Ellison rails against Roddenberry and everyone here (Snyder is utterly baffled by the concept of a "Star Trek" convention, and check out James "Scotty" Doohan's funky duds!)

Man, do I miss this show...

Happy Birthday Molly

2007-07-29T20:19:00.001-04:00

She would have been 13 today...

Rare Carpenter Film Finally On DVD

2007-07-24T20:07:00.000-04:00

Before he directed the horror classic "Halloween", John Carpenter wrote and directed a little-seen TV movie for NBC with the hysterical title "Someone's Watching Me!" (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the title). A then-modern day riff on "Rear Window" that also anticipated Ira Levin's "Sliver", the thriller (written and shot as "High Rise") starred Lauren Hutton as a tv director stalked by a psychotic admirer. Lauren's coworker, a rare openly gay character in the late 70s, was played by Adrienne Barbeau, whom Carpenter married (they did two more films together before divorcing in the mid-80s). Carpenter-regular Charles Cyphers ("Assault On Precinct 13", "Halloween", "The Fog") also had a role.

For a TV movie with all of the limitations of commercial breaks and prime-time censorship, "SWM"showcased Carpenter's suspense skills in top form, even without the benefit of the widescreen frame and his own distinctive musical score.

I spent years tracking this thing down on too many convention tables, ultimately scoring a dub thanks to a fellow Carpenter fan on a Compuserve movie forum. To my delight, it held up really well, even if there are few unintentional laughs, chiefly the presence of Len Lesser, aka "Seinfeld"s Uncle Leo, in a key role.

Well, latecomers to the Carpenter camp have it easy: DVD Drive-In has announced that on September 25, "Someone's Watching Me!" will receive its first official home video release in any medium (but in this case, thankfully, the standard DVD format) as part of its "Twisted Terror Collection". No word yet on whether or not the director will contribute a commentary track (he usually does...).

Milton Subotsky's Amicus anthology "From Beyond The Grave", Oliver Stone's "The Hand" (his second feature film, starring Michael Caine, forever ruined by the SCTV sketch "My Bloody Hand"), Wes Craven's "Deadly Friend" with Kirsty Swanson (one of his worst films, IMHO), Manny Coto's "Dr. Giggles" starring Larry Drake, and Sean S. Cunningham's underrated psycho thriller "Eyes Of A Stranger", starring the unlikely combination of "The Love Boat"s Lauren Tewes and Rip Torn, round out the series. You can buy 'em individually or as a boxed set (I'll opt for buying them one at a time--"Deadly Friend" and "Dr. Giggles" aren't worth revisiting, let alone owning).

I was originally commissioned to review "Someone's Watching Me!" for Troma-regular Trent Haaga's "Tapehead" cult movie site some time back. You can read my comments here when I reposed the piece as part of this year's John Carpenter Blog-A-Thon...

"Kill Da Wab-bit!..."

2007-07-10T09:41:00.001-04:00

Remember that "Seinfeld" episode when Elaine says to Jerry: "It's so sad--all your knowledge of high culture comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons"? I'm reasonably sure I yelled back at the screen: "so what the hell's wrong with that?...(big head)".

The Chuck Jones classic "What's Opera Doc?", turned 50 years old on July 6th, and for many of us of a certain age, it's pretty much the sum total of what we know about Der Ring des Nibelungen by some German dude named Wagner.

Steve Watt, curator of Toronto's "Animation Connection" gallery (and, he points out, owner of an actual animation cel from the short) writes in The Toronto Star:

It is the antithesis of the routine cartoon. In place of snappy one-liners we see Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny singing their parts with complete sincerity and commitment. The backgrounds are beautifully textured paintings. The score is powerful and moving. Bugs cuts a striking figure in a metallic brassiere before Madonna was even born. It's audacious and decadent and beautiful and bold and everything the vast majority of cartoons would never dare to be.

He makes a solid argument that it could be "the greatest cartoon ever...a piece of such grandeur will never be repeated".

Jones had told Watt that because they (the legendary "Termite Terrace" team of Warner Bros. animators) made cartoons to "humour themselves", and that the studio executives didn't care what they did as long as "they stayed on time and on budget". Instead of kicking back and cracking out formulaic shorts, they devoted their considerable talents into such iconoclastic and ground-breaking experiments as "Opera", "One Froggy Evening", "Duck Amuck", "The Rabbit Of Seville" to name but a few...

Watt's appreciation can be read in its entirety here at The Toronto Star.

And here's a very thorough scene-by-scene analysis at Barbara Thomas' Thomasville Central.

But why settle for egghead analysis when you can watch those seven perfect minutes here on YouTube?

And You Thought Roeper Was A Dick...

2007-07-05T19:31:00.000-04:00

It's always fashionable to trash contemporary American cinema--these days, all it takes to seem high brow is to tsk tsk at the mere mention of "Dude, Where's My Car?" (which is now soooo 2000...)--but only the seasoned elitist prig knows that in order to truly earn his/her PBS tote bag one must proclaim that American movies were-and-are inferior from their very inception.

Yessir, to a particularly odious breed of swaggering a-hole, Maya Deren and Brett Ratner are cut from pretty much the same (cheese) cloth...

The insufferable jack-ass pictured here is one Ronald Bergan, a film instructor, author, and reviewer (and I would offer, possibly a virgin, impotent, and suffering from IBS, so sources tell me) who must've broken a snaggled-tooth on a popcorn kernel from his "Surf's Up" Happy Meal this week in order to pen this doozie the Britain's Guardian Unlimited:

"By the highest standards of cinema, American films fall short. There are no living American directors who can compete in innovation and depth with the likes of Theo Angelopoulos, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard(the list goes on)...It has always been thus, but to a far lesser extent. The only American-born film directors that truly belong in the Film Pantheon are John Ford, Howard Hawks and Orson Welles..."

Ah, but what about the golden age of the Hollywood studio system, the discriminating and well-versed cineastes/TCM subscribers amongst you have countered? The era in which such acknowledged visionaries such as Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder and of course, Alfred Hitchcock, produced their greatest critically-lauded and audience-friendly works?

Sorry, but Bergan's got that covered, too: those artists--he proclaims with laughable authority (presumably having been with them as they stepped off the boat at Ellis Island)--"brought what they had learnt in Europe with them to America".

And true to form, the article is illustrated by a still from the Jim Carrey vehicle "Dumb And Dumber", another dated and woefully obvious reference that's about as representative of American cinema as "Carry On Up The Khyber" is of the U.K. film industry(Lesson number 1 in being a fatuous armchair intellectual: always define your object of scorn by its worst possible example)...

Bergan never informs us at to what those "highest artistic standards" actually are, then again, I'm exactly the kind of sci-fi loving, sequel-going, comic-book-reading moron the Evil Empire caters to and am thus too hopelessly infantile to figure it out. And as a part-time, semi-professional reviewer, I've been known to give positive notices to Eli Roth and Rob Zombie thrillers and would rather cough up a lung before sitting through five minutes of any Godard wank-fest, so it's likely I'll never be invited into the Pundit's Inner Circle unless I trade in my Ray Harryhausen boxed set for the annotated works of Marguerite Duras.

If I seem to be taking all of this a bit too personally, it's because Bergan's tirade distills four years of the kind of blithe, anti-Hollywood, artsy-fartsy dogma crap I was force-fed daily by most of my instructors while studying Fine Arts and Film at York University in the 1980s. In short, for me, it's the equivalent of a 'Nam flashback. You've seen "The Deer Hunter"? Try watching "Battleship Potemkin" frame-by-frame with a hand-coloured Russian flag throughout the 80-minute black & white film and you'll plead for the sweet relief a round of Russian Roulette could bring!

Honestly, I thought we'd moved past this easy anti-populist nonsense: we survived breakdancing movies and "Missing In Action" sequels and other lamentable trends that were supposed to have already killed off film as an art form and here in the 21st century, Spielberg and "Blade Runner" now show up on the AFI list, animated cartoons are no longer considered purely kiddie fare, and films about caped superheroes have elicited stronger critical kudos than the last four Meryl Streep weepies. Hell, the Hobbits even cleaned up at the Oscars, beating the usual "important" disease-of-the-week melodrama...

No doubt tomorrow, there will be those out there quoting liberally from Bergan's article, hoping to impress...well, someone. Just in time to dismiss the new Robin Williams wedding comedy and the expanded opening of "Transformers". Kindred spirits, thankfully, seem to be in short reply, judging from the readers' responses that follow the essay. "Pointless, snobby", "you were being ironic, weren't you?", "banal observations", "xenophobic intellectualism", are some of the kinder remarks...

As for Bergan's influence on my movie-going habits--I don't think I've ever looked more forward to a glorified toy commercial featuring giant robots so much in my life...

©Robert J. Lewis 2007

That Kid From "Waking Life" Digs "Body Snatchers"

2007-07-01T23:37:00.000-04:00

I'm not one of those film purists categorically against remakes--this is the time of year when the pundits trot out the usual dogma bemoaning sequels, prequels, and remakes insisting, of course, that these aren't what audiences want, when box office tallies (even if they are lower this year) say otherwise (my guess is that "Rush Hour 3" will outgross Werner Herzog's "Rescue Dawn").

Director John Huston once said there was nothing wrong with remakes, as long as they remake bad movies and leave the good ones alone (he should know, his version of "The Maltese Falcon" was the third attempt at the famous Hammett detective yarn in a single decade). That pretty much sums up my opinion on the subject, although occassionally, a perfectly fine film that has become dated and is very much of-its-time has provided fodder for an interesting screen reinterpretation.

Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" is a stellar example. It stands completely on its own as a thriller, but could arguably be termed a sequel to Don Siegel's original 1956 classic (based upon Jack Finney's novel), in that its star, Kevin McCarthy, contributes a memorable cameo in the first act. What's more, the remake speaks to its own time: much as the original was response to McCarthy (Joe, not Kevin)-era paranoia, Kaufman's alien hordes preyed on 1970s "me-generation" vanity--disciples of EST, psychoanalysis, and the burgeoning cosmetic surgery industry who had already surrendered their individuality before the pods even appeared. Credit for this must be given to screenwriter W.D. Richter, who also adapted the Frank Langella Broadway revival of "Dracula" for John Badham, wrote "Big Trouble In Little China" for John Carpenter, and directed the cult gem "Buckaroo Banzai: Across The Eighth Dimension".

There was a third "Body Snatchers" that few remember: it was directed by Abel Ferrara in 1993 and released to little fanfare, critical acclaim, or box office. Set on a U.S. army base, it took a more action-oriented approach to the material (it runs a lean-n'-mean 85 minutes), eschewing subtext for some solid thrills. It also provided Meg Tilly with one of her last onscreen roles before she retired from acting to devote herself to motherhood and writing.

The latest version, simply titled "The Invasion", stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and is due later this summer. It's already mired in controversy due to reports of budget overruns, reshoots, and bad test screenings, so the hatchets are already out for it--but I think the trailer is promising, which you can check out here (Updated July 3: the newly released one-sheet can be viewed here).

Wiley Wiggins--yes, the young actor from Richard Linklater's "Dazed And Confused" and "Waking Life"--is also a perceptive critic on the subject of film and new media and has been keeping a blog on the various happenings in the Austin film scene. This week, he reports on an Alamo Drafthouse screening of Kaufman's "Invasion", which he calls "most unique, the most immediate, and the most relevant. In that science fiction uses broad Rorschach blots to show us our own fears, hopes and conflicts, this film seems to hold the mirror closer than most..."

Wiggins' program notes can be read here (thanks to David Hudson's GreenCine Daily for the tip...)

Olyphant On "Deadwood": "Don't Hold Your Breath"

2007-06-27T20:06:00.000-04:00

One of television's great losses was the cancellation of David Milch's "Deadwood", the gloriously profane and deeply humane Shakespearean western that managed to survive three seasons due to a loyal viewership that didn't grow fast enough for the HBO Pinkertons.

Milch promised two "Deadwood" films that would wrap up the plot threads and conclude the saga as he intended, but in his current interviews for his new series "John From Cincinnati" (currently airing Sundays on TMN), he's hardly mentioned the project. And Timothy Olyphant, who portrayed Etobicoke, Ontario-born sheriff Seth Bullock on the show, delivered this grim soliloquy to Coming Soon:

"I have no idea. There's been ongoing talk about those things for a long, long time. I, for better or for worse, have the perspective of 'don't hold your breath.' My feeling is that the fact that show existed at all for as long as it did was a miracle of sorts."

I'll resist the urge to indulge in a little Al-Swearengen patented profanity and instead, take Bullock's high road and gently weep into my spittoon. "Deadwood" reruns currently air on Canada's History Television and all three seasons are available on rather pricey DVD box sets from HBO.

And Coming Soon: "The Tao Of Joe Hallenback"

2007-06-27T00:16:00.000-04:00

"Yippee Ki Yay Mo--" you've probaby seen it on the side of a bus advertising the PG-13 rated fourth installment of the "Die Hard" series (due tomorrow), but you know what it means: it's what Eric Lichtenfield of "Slate" calls "the greatest one liner in movie history".

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherf*cker is one of the many one-liners that have graced the action film", he writes, "a body of work not known for its strong verbal tradition. Indeed, the delivery of the one-liner ranks among the most cherished rites of this ritualistic genre" (the line was penned by screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, who based his screenplay on the novel "Nothing Lasts Forever", originally a vehicle for Frank Sinatra!).

Or, as Bruce Willis explains to his protege Damon Wayans in Tony Scott's "The Last Boy Scout" (a film I'd place on a near-equal pedestal along with McTiernan's original "Die Hard"): "This is the nineties. You don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first..."

Who says film semiotics can't be fun? Read Lichtenfield's ode to the poetry of the four-letter word here.

The Bastard Son Of A Thousand Mediocrities

2007-06-21T20:43:00.000-04:00

In the strangest lawsuit since Jim Belushi sued the original Catwoman, the creator of Freddy Kreuger is facing the ultimate nightmare: Pauly Shore. Director Wes Craven is suing Pauly Shore over "water leakage", which apparently has run onto his property from Shore's abode and caused structural damage.

Craven claims a landslide occurred on his property last December after the washed-up, one-time "Encino Man" star installed a pool and a spa, landscaping onto his neighbouring property. His lawsuit alleges negligence and nuisance. All Shore's publicist has said is that his client disputes Craven's allegations.

The director of the "Scream" series, the original "Hills Have Eyes", and "Last House On The Left" has said that his self-penned thrillers have been borne from his own personal phobias and experiences. So expect his next shocker to address the perils of sharing a property line with an overcaffeinated, reptillian layabout with poor fashion sense who drains all humour from the world.

Hell Hath No "Fury" Like Sam Jackson...

2007-06-21T14:36:00.000-04:00

Oh, now this is cool. Samuel L. Jackson will reportedly play Nick Fury in the upcoming "Iron Man" movie.

Marvel mavens will connect with this rumor immediately, as Jackson's likeness was used (with permission) for the revamped Fury character in Mark Millar and Brian Hitch's superb "The Ultimates" series, which just recently completed its second thirteen-issue run (Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira will be taking over). Here are some typically breathtaking pages for the uninitiated, and you know who you are.

Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Fury was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963's "Sgt. Fury And His Howling Commandos", a WW2 series that was basically Marvel's "Sgt. Rock". He appeared later, as "Bond"mania was enchanting the world, in the then-"modern day" "Fantastic Four" as the leader of the high-tech espionage agency SHIELD (Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate, originally Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division) to battle Cold War villains and assorted nogoodnicks from the Marvel universe. Fury sported a distinctive eye patch, cigar, and was caucasian in his initial incarnation. Comics continuity is always a little wonky--even today, some Marvel titles portray him in his original style.

(Few will remember that David Hasselhoff first portrayed Fury in the little-seen 1998 TV pilot "Nick Fury, Agent Of Shield", which was adapted by David Goyer, who obviously went on to better comics adaptations.)

Read all about it here at Cinematical.

The Future Of Film Is In The Palm Of Your Hand...

2007-06-19T20:30:00.000-04:00

I love movies, but I hate going to the movies.

I don't care what they cost. People bitch about this all the time on the phone-in shows when they want to rail against Hollywood, but let's take a closer look: the average ticket price in Canada for a first-run feature is approx. $7.50, but admittedly it's closer to $10 in the Toronto area, and up to $11.95 in the tonier areas, where I tend to frequent, being the bonhomie cineaste that I am.

Even though I own a plasma TV and home-theatre system, subscribe to HD cable, and have collected hundreds of DVDs, I still wanna see the new releases in the size and venue as the director intended.

But really, how many things in this world can you do for 10 bills? You can't go to a museum--the Ontario Science Centre is something like $25 bucks for a single adult admission, and that joint is awash in government plaques and corporate logos. Sports? Forget it--$40 gets you nosebleeds with a non-obstructed view if you're lucky, with occassional spurts of game play between the exhaustive commercial shilling. You can't even see a no-name band or an avant-garde play for less than $15-20. Hell, a fast food meal is nearly 10 bucks. But Michael Bay or Steven Spielberg or James Cameron spend 100 million smackeroos on state-of-the-art spectacle and you can enjoy that for slightly more than the cost of a watered-down drink.

In the old days, big-ticket Hollywood epics usually came with "premium"--that's "increased"--pricing. You wanted to see "The Robe" in Cinerama? It'd cost you more than a double bill of "Man With The X-Ray Eyes" and "Girls' Town" with Mamie Van Doren. Today, whether or not the movie was a backyard camcorder special or the latest from Pixar, the price is the same. Listen to me naysayers: compared to most other entertainment forms, movies are a bargain.

But if people en masse don't like the prices, why do they go? And more so, why do they go on the same nights I do and make my life miserable? I'd even pay $20 to see a movie--well, some movies--if it would keep the jerks out.

These days, the theatre chains, for all of their lamenting about their ever-decreasing profits, take your money and don't do a damn thing to ensure an enjoyable experience. They won't go digital, so we're stuck with emulsion scratches, bad framing, and dim bulbs (those in the projection equipment, and working behind the counter). Commercials were supposed to keep the costs down, but the theatre nearest me has had a price increase per year and I'm seeing more and more ads, to the point where, including trailers, I've had to sit for 20-30 minutes of promos before the feature begins (don't get me wrong, I love previews--bring 'em on!). I couldn't care less about the snack bar--charge all you want, you thieves, I always smuggle in my own can of lukewarm Diet Coke.

The real problem--universally acknowledged across the land--are idiot audiences, and as for policing them--dream on. Spineless employees would rather hand out a roll of free passes and a token apology than tell some clown to put his cell phone away. I've had to leave my seat to complain ad nauseum about noisy patrons and people who sneak in 20 minutes into the flick and no one's ever done a damn thing. Ever--and I average two films a week. In a way, I get it: some kid making minimum wage isn't going to bound into the theatre like Dudley Do-Right and risk getting his ass blown off...and sadly, the big intimidating usher with the police-issue flashlight (a regular fixture at my hometown's two theatres) is as archaic an icon as the whistling full-service gas station attendant.

Since theatre managers are so hopelessly dense and are thus ensuring that their industry will go the way of the dinosaurs, leave it up to the lab coat-and-pocket-protector set to invent yet more technology to save us from ourselves: The U.S.'s Regal theatre chains have pioneered this contraption, the "Regal Guest Response", a hand-held device (that looks like something created by Ghostbusters' Dr. Venkman) that patrons can use to alert the management about problems with the film's projection, an act of camcorder piracy in action, or its most likely purpose, audience disturbances.

Thirteen U.S. locations have been testing the invention with select audience members, and this week the chain has announced it will be distributing devices to more than one hundred more theatres. No stats have been provided, Regal says customer etiquette has improved in the locations using the devices. Sounds good to me.

This, then, is the apparently the future. And if these things ever show up at the Queensway Cineplex or the ScotiaBank Cinema here in Toronto, watch out 'cause I'm gonna be swinging one of these babies like a baseball bat. Perhaps we buffs north-of-the-border can convince the brainiacs at RIM to work up a Canadian prototype that'll add William Castle's "Percepto"--hell, I'll be the first to invest.

King, For A Night...(Updated)

2007-06-15T10:44:00.000-04:00

Last night's gala for Stephen King was certainly a rewarding and long-overdue evening for fans, a good many who, like me, feel vindicated now that King is at long last being recognized as a serious artist. It's about damned time.

CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos introduced the evening's special guests (while David Cronenberg--who adapted King's "The Dead Zone" to the screen in 1983--was present, he remained anonymous). First up was Margaret Atwood, no stranger to fantasy-themed fiction herself ("Oryx And Crake", "A Handmaid's Tale") who spoke affectionately about the wide-ranging appeal and longevity of King's tales, and credited him for turning on her two teenage sons, and millions of males around the world (presumably we read less...okay...), into readers. She then spoke more academically on one of her favorite subjects--recurring mythological imagery and themes in fiction--and lauded King on incorporating "Sibyl of Cumae" into 1995’s “Rose Madder”.

Clive Barker followed, looking a little worse for wear since the last time I saw him, his once impassioned voice now a painful croak. He spoke of the concept of parallel universes, a timeworn sci-fi theme, and of how in one, tonight, at this very location, his allotted chair is empty. No one knows who he is. His first collection of short stories--"The Books Of Blood"--were published in the early 80s in the UK, and were greeted, in both universes, with the expected oh-so-British indifference. He writes a few more years, eventually, takes a job as a teacher in his hometown of Liverpool, and spends his remaining years thinking about stories and maybe, one day, putting something down again. A possible fate, had King not embraced his early works and proclaimed him, publicly, "the future of horror". There would have been no "Damnation Game", no "Weaveworld", no "Hellraiser" films (c'mon, the first one, while flawed, is excellent).

“A few words from Stephen and lives are changed forever…mine was.”

Barker closed with a simple, heartfelt "thank you", and a warm embrace from his mentor.

Chuck Klosterman owes something to King as well: he was one of the first to champion Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City", a biographical account of growing up a stoned, 80s-Metal obsessed journalist who somehow became one of today's wittiest authorities on pop culture. Klosterman sat opposite King (their first meeting) and kept things light, riffing on the man of the evening from the get-go: "If you had to, could you write a book in a night? If we had a typewriter here right now, could you do something by midnight?"

King, ever cheeky about his success, summed up his philosophy with "I just like to make sh*t up".

He talked of the burden of celebrity, of being a public figure where when you think people are stalking you, they generally are. Although sometimes, he happens upon someone who doesn't have a clue as to his rep, such as his encounter with a rich dude with a flat outside of a Florida movie theater. King and his family were off to a screening, when a well-dressed man offered him 10 bucks to change his tire. King complied: "It's the only honest money I've ever made!" he laughed. And when the fellow asked if he could work faster, King thought "Great, another f*ckin' editor!"

On a more serious note, when asked of what he thought was the universal appeal of his stories and the secret of his longevity (few authors have 30+ year careers), King replied "It's the voice, I think--it's a voice they wanna hear." He made an analogy to the music of Neil Young and Bob Dylan, who were distinctive (although King's mother, upon hearing Dylan for the first time, thought he sounded like "a pig caught in a barbed-wire fence") musicians who polarized critics and listeners alike.

Klosterman wondered: "Why do humans crave scary stimulation? This is not something you see in the animal kingdom." "Denial", King offered, denial of death and tragedy, and yet at the same time, a means of being prepared for something we subconsciously know is inevitable.

King's favorite works of his own? "'Lisey's Story'. 'I like 'Cell'. 'Misery'--that's a good one." Although he is fine with the idea that for his readership, ' The Stand' will likely endure as his legacy work. He confessed he found tributes such as these a little odd, "like going to your own funeral", he quipped.

Klosterman pushed him on his love of the hard rock band AC/DC (who scored his lone directorial effort, the loopy "Maximum Overdrive"). King cited their "purity". Their music says: "We're gonna clear out your head". In his books, King "wants you to burn dinner. Not think about work or your bills". He views writing as "an aggressive act" and each time aspires to eliciting a purely emotional response, to make the reader feel something. He feels to much "literature" is too self-consciously intellectual, and fails to provide that connection with the reader. Ditto 'story'. Narrative is too often at the bottom of the list of literary concerns, he laments. As he once wrote in the intro to a short story collection: it is the tale, not he who tells it.

And he's more or less recanted his well-publicized 2002 "retirement" plans. At the time, he wasn't doing well from the accident and addicted to painkillers, but that too, has passed.

Accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Canadian Booksellers Association President Steve Budnarchuk, King (the first American author to receive the honour) suggested that his home state of Maine would become Canada's 11th province in a perfect world. It'd offer a new "southern destination" for cold Canadians ("and you guys know cold"). And there'd be fewer people to whom he'd have to explain: "Look, I didn't vote for him, okay?"

King praised Canadian authors such as Margaret Atwood, Alistair McLeod, and Yann Martel, but reserved his most impassioned sentiments for Robertson Davies ("You don't need to take any creative writing courses. Just go to a bookstore and buy "The Deptford Trilogy"), his delight in being able to stand on soil that served as part of Davies' locations, and of the late author's signature "long, white beard."

He said that the next day, he planned to go shopping for Canadian books he can't get back home (according to his publisher, Susan Moldow of Scribner, the first thing King did when he landed in Toronto was scout local bookstores).

The event was recorded for television, but no broadcast dates or details were provided. Keep checking this spot for details. King’s latest, the lost “Richard Bachman” manuscript “Blaze”, comes out Tuesday. Here's a photo of King accepting the award, courtesy of Canoe and AP.

Updated June 14, 2007:

George Stroumboulopoulos' interview with King on his CBC show "The Hour" can be viewed here.

"No Country For Old Men" Trailer Debuts: The Coens Meet McCarthy....

2007-06-14T22:29:00.000-04:00

While it didn't win at Cannes, the Coen brothers adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men" is one of the most highly anticipated film releases of 2007. It won't come out until November, unfortunately, but today, Variety has released the trailer. I tore through the book in a mere two sittings--it was one of the most perfect novels I've ever read and the film couldn't have been better cast or had more ideal filmmakers at the helm. A taste of what's to come can be found here.

...And 20 More...

2007-06-07T20:20:00.000-04:00

In honour of tomorrow night's Stephen King gala (sorry folks, but Booked! confirmed today there'll be no signings), here's a few items that have made me a long-time fan of the Maine man (a few things Malene missed)...

1) Larry Underwood’s long, dark solo walk through Lincoln Tunnel in "The Stand".

2) "Danse Macabre": still the definite analysis/celebration of the enduring appeal of the horror genre, which 25 years later cries out for an update.

3) For the too-often unsung humanity of his work, which his critics tend to miss, evidenced in the depiction of even his minor characters, like the young victim of a dog attack in “The Green Mile”: “Yes, sir”, the boy said shyly—the boy who would be beaten mercilessly on the play-yard by laughing, jeering bullies for all of his miserable years of education, the boy who would never be asked to play Spin The Bottle or Post Office and would probably never sleep with a woman not bought and paid for once he was grown to a manhood’s times and needs, the boy who would always stand outside the warm and lighted circle of his peers, the boy who would look at himself in the mirror for the next fifty or sixty or seventy years of his life and think ugly, ugly, ugly…” (from Pt. 3: “Coffey’s Hands”)

4) For keeping the novella—not too long, not too short-- thriving as a literary form (and generally, his best work).

5) “The Mist”: a regular Joe goes out for groceries and gets trapped in a supermarket surrounded by a malevolent fog housing carnivorous beasties. Sounds pretty frickin’ stupid, I know, but it’s a classic nail biter and arguably King’s greatest short story (at least, his most popular), one that inspired one of the first text-based video games I ever played and at long last is now being filmed by Frank Darabont, who adapted “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile” to the screen (from “Skeleton Crew”).

6) For dropping a truckload of watermelons on future bimbo footnote Marla Maples, scored by Angus Young's wailing guitar in his only directorial effort, the totally goofy "Maximum Overdrive".

7) For introducing me to the concept of the “incunabulist”, and for conceiving a perverse and truly moving (against my usual cynical, unsentimental nature) romance in “Lisey’s Story”, a tale of the possible life his wife Tabitha King could have lived had King been killed in that hit-and-run accident in 1999.

8) The fact that Bangor,Maine residents are so protective of their famous son that they deliberately give wrong directions to tourists looking to find his house.

9) "Survivor Type", which answers the universal question: how much can a man eat of himself in order to survive on an island without food? “I’m a monster now—a freak. Nothing left below the groin. Just a freak. A head attached to a torso dragging itself along the sand by the elbows. A crab.” (from “Skeleton Crew”)

10)Because unlike the literary darlings who spend ten years writing a book and hanging out at too many New York cocktail parties, King gets up every day and writes, and strangely, some people have a problem with that. They should probably spend less time at literary cocktail parties.

11) “Longer than you think, Dad! I saw! I saw! Long jaunt! Longer than you think!” The creep-me-out ending of “The Jaunt”, in which the narrator’s 12 year old son skips the knock-out gas and witnesses his teleportation through space, arriving at the other side as “a white-haired thing” that “screamed and clawed at the eyes that had seen the unseeable forever and ever…” (from “Skeleton Crew”)

12) “It”: one of his most personal novels, and a better “The Big Chill” than “The Big Chill”, which would’ve been improved greatly if Kasdan had added a killer clown and a wicked alien instead of Jeff Goldblum and Mary Kay Place.

13) That in his early years he preferred to sell his short stories to low-rent and lower-paying "men's magazines" because smut editors didn’t change a word of what their authors wrote.

14) For not telling us whether Alfie Zimmer chooses to either kill himself or write his book in “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away”, one of King’s finest short stories (“Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales”).

15) For making it cool--literary snobs be damned (and they are...)--to use rock lyrics as commentary.

16) That he could write a novel as great as "Carrie" in long hand during breaks at his job at a laundry service, when I've got a private office and a state-of-the-art PC and I can never finish the first chapter.

17) And that upon selling “Carrie” for his first taste of real money, the first thing he did was buy his wife a portable hair dryer.

18) He's got the best Stanley Kubrick stories…

19) He wrote one page of an issue of Marvel’s “X-Men” for charity, and had Berni Wrightson draw it.

20) And of course, for his continuing use of italics, his signature that I have shamelessly stolen for my own far less distinguished works…

Top 50 Reasons To Love Stephen King

2007-06-07T13:53:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow night's Booked!/Luminato Stephen King gala (sold out) has inspired the Toronto Star's pop culture writer Malene Arpe to compose her "Top 50 Reasons To Love Stephen King". Here are few:

4) After injuries sustained in a 1999 hit-and-run, created the Haven Foundation, helping freelance artists who can't pay for medical bills. All proceeds from Blaze, out Tuesday, go to the foundation.

14) "Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work."

18) Citing the great Richard Matheson (I am Legend) as a strong influence.

45) He causes self-congratulatory snobs like literary critic Harold Bloom to froth at the mouth and expose themselves for the obnoxious elitists that they are.

Read the entire list here at The Star's arts/entertainment page. In the meantime, this is so much fun I'm going to compile a list of my own...

Peter Simpson: A Pioneer In Canadian Cinema

2007-06-06T20:50:00.000-04:00

Peter R. Simpson, one of Canada's most successful and outspoken media and film moguls, passed away yesterday at the age of 64 after a battle with lung cancer.

Simpson first made his mark in advertising, when he gambled on the once-controversial concept of the "stand-alone" media management company by forming Media Buying Services (MBS) in 1969. Simpson's model was eventually adopted around the globe, leading to the creation of such powerful agencies as OMD and Starcom MediaVest Group. After a modest launch, MDS gained stature with major players like Playtex, Dominion Stores and K-Tel. Simpson would eventually sell off his international offices in the early 1980s and devote himself full-time to film production and distribution.

In 1971, Simpson formed "Simcom"--later Norstar Filmed Entertainment--and during the "tax shelter" boom of the 1970s, produced some of Canada’s most financially successful and (thus) critically-reviled attempts at commercial (read: “American”-styled) moviemaking. Over his career, he produced more than 40 feature films, miniseries, and documentaries, and distributed many independent and foreign films in addition to his own, eventually earning him a Genie (the Canuck “Oscar”) from the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television in 2004 for his "special contribution" to national cinema.

When director Paul Lynch brought Simpson a painting of a heart with a knife through it, they launched the successful "Prom Night" series, for which Simpson would co-direct the third installment, "Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss", with Ron Oliver. 80s-horror completists will fondly recall Simpson's other genre efforts, ranging in quality from the John Vernon/Samantha Eggar spam-in-a-cabin camp howler "Curtains" to Vic Arin's claustrophobic suspense drama "Cold Comfort" --think a winter-set prairie "Misery"--with Maury Chaykin and Paul Gross.

In 2001, Simpson became the target of much public protest when he announced plans to finance a feature film based on the Stephen Williams bestseller "Invisible Darkness", a chronicle of the southern Ontario Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka murders, with Jason Priestly rumoured to play Bernardo. That film never got made, but Simpson did defiantly represent Joel Bender's "Karla", which was produced by Quantum Entertainment and starred "That 70s Show"s Laura Prepon as Homolka.

I was employed by Norstar Entertainment on several productions early in my career, when Simpson’s operation was the closest thing to Roger Corman's New World Pictures a fledging filmmaker like me had access to, at least in the Toronto area. Inspired by Dante, Arkush, Demme et al, and determined to cut my teeth on low-budget genre films, I submitted a few storyboard samples and screenplays to Simpson shortly after graduation and to my amazement I got an offer right away to draw the boards for "Prom Night 4". That particular assignment didn't work out--mostly because of my immediate dislike for its director--but within a week, I found myself sketching a psychotic, axe-wielding David Keith for Ron Oliver's Niagara Falls-noir "Liar's Edge". It wouldn't be the first Shannon Tweed vehicle I worked on, either...

Simpson rarely visited the sets but I had a chance to speak with him here and there at Norstar's Bellair Street offices. I remember him an amiable chap who treated a then-novice like me as a professional, especially when he was trying to talk me into accepting a reduced fee, which was usually the case (I think I made less than $10 an hour during a frenzied weekend marathon of drawing for “Cold Sweat”, with Ben Cross, SCTV’s Dave Thomas, and yes, Shannon Tweed). If I have one regret, it's that in these moments I didn't sell myself to him harder--after all, this was the one man who could've bankrolled one of my scripts and given me my shot at directing, but at the time I was too meek and modest--typically "Canadian"--to fashion myself as anything more than a movie-mad kid who could draw really well, really fast. Years later, I'm on that Grail quest, and sadly there are very few of Simpson’s kind left on the Canadian film scene who encourage young talent and are willing to give a newcomer a break.

Simpson's son, Brock, is a Toronto-based actor, writer, director (he's the only performer to appear in all four "Prom Night" films, too).

Here's an interview with Simpson from a few years back, courtesy of the 80s-oriented horror site The Terror Trap.

Steve & Margaret & Clive & Chuck

2007-05-31T23:23:00.000-04:00

It's less than a week until Stephen King's first official Toronto appearance, and the event is getting better and better: next Friday's "Lifetime Achievement Award" gala at The Metro Convention Centre (on behalf of The Canadian Booksellers Association) will feature a handful of guests who are each worthy of a solo tribute of their own.

CanLit icon Margaret Atwood (who despite her hi-toned pedigree, knows a thing or two about writing fantasy and suspense herself), and British horror scribe (and filmmaker and artist) Clive Barker will pay their respective kudos to King, and the evening will be MC'd by one of my favorite pop culture critics, Chuck Klosterman (whose "Fargo Rock City" and "Sex Drugs And Cocoa Puffs" you should all go out and purchase right now, whose witty treatise on the visionary lyrics of Rush's "Spirit Of Radio" is the highlight of this month's Esquire).

Tickets are still on sale here. And here's more information on the Booked "Between The Covers" readers festival, which runs June 7-9 in conjunction with Luminato.

Aronofsky Promises A "Fountain" Of Extras--If You Want 'Em...

2007-05-30T14:02:00.000-04:00

I can't say enough about "The Fountain", which is a demanding film for some but a work of passion, artistry, and imagination the likes of which are rarely seen. The DVD just came out, and while the extras are intriguing, I thought it was odd that director Darren Aronofsky failed to record a commentary track as he did for his debut "Pi" and followup "Requiem For A Dream" (Aronofsky is that rare filmmaker whose commentaries are actually thoughtful and informative).

Well, turns he wanted to do one, but had problems convincing the studio. Cinematical reported today that on his MySpace page, Aronofsky has announced he'll be recording a track and making it available for freebie download soon.

He also urges fans to write the folks at Criterion to persuade them into investing in a proper special edition DVD: "i (sic) got a lot of extras in my bag so who know maybe if you all write to criterion they'll get interested."

You can write them at mulvaney@criterion.com.

"Life Of Brian" Musical Debuts In Toronto

2007-05-29T22:11:00.000-04:00

I'm not much of one for paying big bucks to see movies recreated as stage plays ("Legally Blonde: The Musical"--really!?)--an idea I find only slightly less offensive than three hours of live ABBA covers--but Eric Idle's Tony-Award winning/now-playing-just-about-everywhere "Spamalot" was a complete hoot for this long-time, hopelessly-devoted Pythonphile.

Idle's followed it up with a riff on 1979's controversial "Life Of Brian" and Torontonians are getting it first!

"Not The Messiah (He's A Very Naughty Boy)" is described as a 50-minute oratorio, written by Idle and "Spamalot" collaborator John Du Prez. There's a family connection, too: The Toronto Symphony Orchestra's music director, Peter Oundjian, is Idle's cousin. Idle promises "it will be funnier than Handel, although probably not as good." Too bad they already used LOB's signature song, "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life", in their last hit.

It's part of the Luminato Arts Festival which runs in Toronto from June 1-10. While many of the events are free events, Idle's is not (he didn't title his last book "The Greedy Bastard Tour" for nothing). The show will be performed only four times between June 1-4 at Roy Thompson Hall, and tickets can be purchased here.

Roth Plans "Trailer Trash"

2007-05-28T22:46:00.001-04:00

Those with the good taste to have attended "Grindhouse" during its too-brief theatrical run (all 14 of us) will revel in the news that while Eli Roth (seen here with the notorious Takashi Miike may have a wee bit of a problem realizing his dream of doing "Grindhouse 2" with "Shawn Of The Dead" director Edgar Wright--now that Harvey Weinsten has all but washed his hands of whatever potential franchise he had--he's planning his own goofy omnibus which will feature nothing but faux sneak peaks: "Trailer Trash".

Roth told Time Out London: "There was a great response to my "Grindhouse" trailer 'Thanksgiving' and it's the most fun I've ever had shooting. I've spoken to other directors like Robert Rodriguez and Edgar Wright and they're all going to get involved and do trailers. I want to do a film like a Monty Python movie or 'Borat' or 'Jackass' – just totally silly completely ridiculous and fun and over-the-top."

Good news that Wright is interested, as his faux preview "Don't" was arguably the film's highlight. His current reteaming with Simon Pegg, "Hot Fuzz", is also brilliantly inventive.

Roth's going to helm his adaptation of Stephen King's "Cell" first, though, unless he squeezes in the "Trailer Trash" shoot during production down-time, as he did with his contribution to "Grindhouse" while shooting "Hostel 2" (due this month) in Prague (which stood in for Massachussetts, complete with homicidal pilgrim!).

(thanks to Cinematical for the original post)

Stop Griping About Sequels!

2007-05-26T23:13:00.001-04:00

The summer movie season officially kicked off this very Memorial Day weekend, and you know what that brings: three full months of critical whining about sequels and budgets and the end of cinema as an art form--again (considering I was first made aware of the medium's death rattle around the December 1979 release of Spielberg's "1941", thanks to a "Year In Review" edition of Time Magazine in my optometrist's waiting room, it's been privileged with the most drawn-out demise since Jimmy Smits' on "NYPD Blue"). How appropriate that it's the 30th anniversary of the film everyone blames for the fact that we don't have a new "Mean Streets" or "The Deer Hunter" every weekend...

"Part 2"s and "Next Chapter"s, contrary to the collective lament of aging boomer reviewers, are hardly a recent, post-Lucasfilm invention (prequels on the other hand, are another story, although you can't blame Georgie for "Butch And Sundance: The Early Days") to indicate what is constantly trotted out as evidence of the dearth of creative ideas in La-La Land every g*damned third Friday in May.

When D.W. Griffith scored his first hit with 1915's controversial ode-to-the-Klan "Birth Of A Nation", the followup "Fall Of A Nation" came just a year later. There were 27 (!)"Blondie" entries produced between 1938 and 1950. "The Thin Man" romps had 6 installments in less 10 years. Yet despite the proliferation of such obvious mammon-fueled hackwork (such as we're conditioned to regard such fare), the motion picture managed to endure to give us the likes of "On The Waterfront", "Vertigo", "Dr. Strangelove", "Network", and "Memento". Truffaut made sequels, so did Bergman and Kurosawa. Before film even existed, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and William Makepeace Thackery wrote 'em, too.

Look, I'm not here to defend the artistic merit of "The Whole Ten Yards" or "Speed 2" or "Beverly Hills Cop 3" or god help us, "Superman 4: The Quest For Peace"--but if the pundits want me to concede that too many Hollywood productions are governed by formulas and rote thinking (like that's news), then they'll have to admit that the same is true of what passes for insightful film criticism and analysis these days. I've all but given up on reading the Friday sections--column after column devoted to trashing the weekend's major release and overpraising the latest fashionable arthouse-darling-du jour--maybe instead of the blithe dismissal and the indignant sniff of an old grump who's losing touch with popular culture, they should attempt to evaluate these followups in a context of something other than box office returns and that fact that Robert Altman isn't around to do those long single takes anymore.

Sequels are not automatically "bad"--they only seem that way to those who insist on defining them by their worst possible example, and yes, there are many. The merits of "The Empire Strikes Back", "The Godfather 2", and "Aliens" have been well-argued--suffice to say I'm in agreement. I'd gladly sit through the overlong but dazzling and sweet-souled "Spider-Man 3" again before having to re-experience even five minutes of the shrill and laughably overwrought "importance" of "Babel" any day. And the recent "28 Weeks Later" is, IMHO, an instant horror classic that stands completely on its own and in many ways eclipses its predecessor in terms of its scope, intensity, and timely Bush/Blair-era allegory.

David Bordwell, Professor of Film Studies at the University Of Wisconsin-Madison and the co-author of "Film Art" and "The Poetics Of Cinema", leads a well-armed round-table debate here.

25/05/1977

2007-05-25T00:01:00.000-04:00

Incredibly, the original "Star Wars"—yeah, yeah technically it's the fourth installment but the first produced all right?—is 30 years old today (that makes me--well, let's just say I’m limping dangerously close to what a certain Correllian smuggler would term an “old fossil”…). It's since become such a phenomenon that few will remember that once-upon-a-time in a not-so-far away Hollywood, California, young filmmaker George Lucas, fresh from his surprise success with "American Graffiti", couldn't give away his ambitious space-opera, until he won over Alan Ladd, Jr., the head of 20th Century Fox who put up the relatively modest $7.5M (which ballooned to about $11M)and let Lucas keep the merchandising rights, figuring he'd be lucky to get a kiddie matinee hit out of it--something to run on double bills with “Jack The Giant Killer” and vintage Three Stooges shorts perhaps--if nothing else.

This story of “a boy, a girl, and a universe” opened on just 2 screens and expanded to 43 within a week (to compare, "Spider-Man 3" recently opened on 4,000) to surprisingly positive critical notices (go back and read 'em--the pundits turned on it when it became a smash) and to everyone's surprise (and Ladd's delight, suffice to say), became an immediate word-of-mouth hit that spawned more prints, repeat viewings, and annual re-releases and landed it at the top of the list of all-time box office hits, dethroning "Jaws" and "The Godfather". It was even nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Director--unheard of today--losing (not entirely undeservingly, sez my inner more adult sensibility, but yeah, it was robbed) to Woody Allen's Annie Hall.

In my hometown of Pembroke, Ontario, there were only two movie theatres and neither of them qualified as "first run". Usually, a new release had to play out its run in nearby nation's-capital Ottawa first, then we'd get the broken, emulsion-scratched print for maybe a couple of days--most films didn't play the town of 12,000 people for even a week. By the time "Star Wars" made it to the Centre Theatre (most big ticket studio releases played The O'Brien as a single feature, so that it ended up at the sleazier double-bill grindhouse was a rare thing), it was October of 1977, and I'd already read the Alan Dean Foster novel (credited to Lucas), owned the Marvel Comics adaptation with art by the great Howard Chaykin (before someone at the Bullpen thought they’d expand the saga by adding a green, humanoid bunny), worn out the vinyl soundtrack LP, and memorized every Starlog article going back a year. I even kept a scrapbook of reviews and clippings, mostly consisting of the serialized novelization the since-defunct Ottawa Journal ran in its Arts & Entertainment section. The Centre would allow you to sit through a movie twice for a single admission, so I went every night for the seven days it ran, and again each summer that it was re-issued (with cooler poster art) until its first official sequel came along and eclipsed it. The trailer attached to the print was for Paul Mazursky’s “An Unmarried Woman”—thanks to the theatre’s bad audio, I couldn’t figure out a single word Alan Bates said (y’know I’ve never seen the film—does it all work out for Jill?).

Unlike some, I can't say that "Star Wars" single-handedly turned me on to filmmaking--I was already an obsessive movie buff and a budding auteur (thanks to one of my teachers, who arranged to videotape a play I'd written)--but what it did unlike any other film I'd seen up until then was cement the idea in me (and legions of others) that anything I could imagine could be put on screen with a degree of realism and seriousness unlike most of what passed for genre filmmaking in those days ("Planet Of The Apes", "2001", and the original "Star Trek" were too-rare exceptions). That someone else out there got it. That millions of people, most of them not committed sci-fi fans, would line up to see it. More than once.

Still, it was hard to find anyone at the time who would admit to liking it, let alone having seen it at all. Most seemed to be "dragged" to it (the same people, presumably, who didn’t buy “Thriller”, reportedly still the number one album of all time). My teachers were--quelle surprise--damning and derisive--it took a good decade before the educational establishment woke up to its powerful and highly educational mythic undercurrents. To admit to being a fan was then--much as it is now--an exposing of one's "geek" status in an era where people flocked to see not "Nashville" or "The Conversation" (sorry Mr. Biskind), but impersonal hackwork like "Smokey And The Bandit" and "Airport '75". Still, "Star Wars" helped to legitimize science-fiction--just a little bit.

Most of all, Lucas made the story of its production readily available, with then unheard-of backstage access, so that when we read of his modest (Modesto?) background and his childhood obsessions with serials and pulps and his education at USC's film program, kids like me who were scratching Super-8 emulsion to fake laser beams felt like we actually had a shot at the big screen.

It's hard to convince a younger generation today just how ground-breaking and significant "Star Wars" was that summer--I can only imagine that The Beatles on Ed Sullivan or perhaps hearing the first line of sync-sound dialogue in "The Jazz Singer" would be the equivalent sensations. Inevitably, anything that mutates into such a touchstone of global popular culture becomes blithely dismissed as kitsch and while "Star Wars" has spawned too-many asinine imitations, dubious digital "improvements", long-overdue prequels of debatable value (I find them redundant, but still decent flicks taken on their own terms)--and, oh yeah, that abominable 1978 Thanksgiving Special that nearly destroyed my childhood--I'm still in awe of that first entry's giddy invention, superb plotting and pacing, subversive message (what we have here is a pro-terrorism manifesto, but I'll leave that sort of thing to "Clerks"), and above all, 100% analog-driven heart and soul--which will shock the killjoys and the Cahier Du Cinema flunkies to admit was the main reason daydreamers like me lined up to see this damned thing again and again in the first place.

(Gotta say though, the climactic trench battle is still probably the greatest aerial combat sequence ever realized on film—garbage mattes and all.)

It's probably a little too tidy to suggest that I saw something of myself in farm boy Luke's longing to flee his oppressive homestead and travel the stars--if anything, I was much more taken with the mystical grace of Obi-Wan and the bemused bravado of wily Han Solo. Unfortunately, the version I'll be watching tonight has him not shooting Greedo first--I just couldn't bring myself to pony up the dough to buy the original theatrical version on DVD...after Super 8 and VHS (at least three times) and CED disc and Laserdisc (a $250 boxed set) and already one DVD boxed set, you've made enough money off of me, George...so adult Robert will wait for the Blu-Ray, or the 3D version you’ve apparently promised.

But next time, will you fix Carrie Fisher’s British accent?

RIP Uncle Bobby

2007-05-24T19:10:00.001-04:00

Bobby Ash, aka Canadian TV personality "Uncle Bobby", passed away this week at the age of 82 at his home in Elliot Lake, Ontario. Those of you "of a certain age" will know who I'm talking about--anyone born after the release of "Jaws" will probably shake their heads in disbelief and thank the living heavens that they were born into the age of Nintendo, Treehouse TV, and RCA's Capacitance Electronic Disc (okay, the last one's pushing it...).

"The Uncle Bobby Show" was produced at Toronto's CFTO Studios and had a good long run from 1964 to 1979. Ash, originally from the UK, presided over a crew of colourful regulars who included "Bimbo The Birthday Clown" (a puppet), Traffic Officer John (not a puppet), "The Ventriloquist" (he had a puppet), and the national icon Elmer The Safety Elephant. The show was later retitled "Uncle Bobby and Friends" and then syndicated as "Kid's Corner" once Ash retired to write childrens' books (he didn't make much money from the show--reportedly, he drove a school bus in Scarborough at the height of the show's popularity!).

It always seemed to me that Uncle Bobby hated kids (he nicknamed them "Bobbysoxers"), but by all accounts he adored them--even so, Macleans Magazine called him "avuncular without being condescending."

In the dark ages before cable TV, the Internet, and the glory that is Rockstar Games, "Uncle Bobby" was part of my regular Saturday morning diet, and most of my initial impressions of Toronto--where I now make my overpriced home--were formed by his show. Shot-on-film tours of a donut factory, a frolic in the playground, a trip to the zoo (likely Bowmanville)--typically shot in the worst part of "Farch" (Feb/March) where the city never looks more slush-sodden, grey-brown, and ugly.

I hadn't seen "Uncle Bobby" in a good long time until my senior year at York University, where I discovered that CHCH would begin its programming day with a double-shot of "Bobby" and the immortal "Hammy Hamster Show". I'd often harness the energy to stay up all night to re-experience my misspent childhood and then turn in, classes be damned, frightened for my future.

Here's a fun photo site compiled by a loyal fan from Buffalo, NY.

Pretty Sure It Isn't Paulo & Nikki's Biodex..

2007-05-24T18:43:00.000-04:00

Ignore the naysayers, the "plausibles", the knee-jerks, and the basic jerks--"Lost" still rocks, as evidenced by last night's amazing season ender, where past, present, and (a possible) future collided, a major character bought the farm (although we were warned!), and our loyalties shifted with Ben and The Others for about the 499th time. And the reward for our loyalty? We've gotta wait almost another full year for the next season--but at least Abrams, Lindeloff, Cuse, and co. have been assured a proper ending by the network. Until then, here's a frame grab of the newspaper clipping that sent Future Jack on his suicidal bender--something to tide us over until "Lost" returns and Walt grows another six inches...

And check out this Salon article someone who "gets" it:

"I am equally unsympathetic to the complaint that the show's plot -- proudly loopy since the first episode -- has become too byzantine. This is like complaining that "Bleak House" is too long, or "Scarface" too violent. The creators of "Lost" are consciously, and comically, taking the conspiracy genre to an absurd extreme."

Check out the whole article here.

"Rituals": The 30th Anniversary Screening

2007-05-22T22:14:00.000-04:00

In honour of the 30th anniversary of the too little-seen Canadian thriller Rituals, Rue Morgue Magazine hosted a special screening at The Bloor Cinema featuring a 35mm print courtesy of the film's co-star and producer, journeyman actor-director and genre vet Lawrence Dane. Although unfairly labeled (and, initially, dismissed) as "The Canadian Deliverance", this alternately harrowing and meditative 1977 entry into the Me-decade’s “rural horror” subgenre (spawned by the seminal American classics The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and yes, John Boorman’s more prestigious iconic drama) is miles above the standard tax-sheltered spawned, Hollywood North wannabee. To my surprise (and relief, since I was a fan of the film as a kid and have often sung its praises), it's aged remarkably well, not that the print itself was any indication (while cleaned up by Deluxe, it looked and sounded like it was put through Robert Rodriguez' Grindhouse process...more than once...).

After enduring the unfortunate warm-up act--something called "Cloven Path Ministries"—a modest crowd were warmly greeted by Dane who announced that additional members of the cast and crew were present and would be available for a post-screening Q&A.

And then the film: After some disarmingly pastoral credits, we meet five doctors, all Korean War vets, who have rendezvoused in Northern Ontario for some pre-Iron John male-bonding. They’re flown to a remote location the natives call The Cauldron of the Moon. Magical or not, it’s definitely remote ("225 miles from the nearest cathouse- that river is in the middle of the cauldron and the cauldron is in the middle of nowhere") and accessible only by air. The first night’s campfire brings personal demons into the light: Harry (Hal Holbrook) and Mitzi (Dane) are haunted by unspecified compromises to medical ethics during their careers which have driven them to booze and self-loathing as they approach middle-age. Martin (Robin Gammell) is recovering from a nervous breakdown and a series of failed homosexual relationships. Fortunately, his brother DJ (Gary Reineke) and the quiet Abel (Ken James) are better grounded and bring some much-needed levity to what is to be another annual week-long adventure.

The men awake in the morning to find that their boots have been stolen. DJ is furious that the others didn’t plan for such emergencies and volunteers to venture alone up river to a hydroelectric station to call for pick-up. Those remaining become aware that they’re being watched by someone, who taunts them with a severed deer head, then ups the ante by tossing a beehive into their path, causing Abel to trip and drown. Following DJ’s path, the trio attempts to cross a shallow river, only to find it lined with animal traps. Martin’s leg is nearly severed and he soon sinks into shock. Mitzi insists that he be left behind for later rescue, but Harry won’t have it. They “float” him down the river by on a makeshift stretcher, overcoming rapids, hunger, and exhaustion. Their mental states deteriorate with Mitzi growing more bitter and paranoid and Harry oblivious to the elements and obsessed with saving Martin’s life at any cost. When the men make camp on a barren wasteland ravage by fire, they wake up to find their tormenter has mounted Abel’s head on a stick. A military x-ray has been left for them. (“What butcher did this?” Harry wonders aloud). A war medal has been left on Martin’s chest.

Hope vanishes when they come upon a derelict hydroelectric station, which has been abandoned for some time. They’ve been left another cruel tableau: a ravaged DJ nailed to a chair but amazingly, alive—barely. Harry chokes him to death in what he feels is an act of “mercy”, which horrifies Mitzi. Harry abandons Martin and begins to add up the evidence: x-rays, service medals, army discharge documents…could Martin be right? Is this some ludicrously extreme moral test?

Harry hides out in a filthy cabin, and finds the stolen boots under the bed. A shambling hermit (Jack Creley) enters and during the struggle slashes Harry’s leg. Harry finds that he’s not only old and feeble but blind and clearly not their stalker. “Jesse” confesses that it’s his brother “Matthew” who’s been following them (“I tried to stop him…I tried. It's not safe for you here. My brother's not the same as us anymore...”). Harry uncovers some more personal items and concocts a history: Matthew Crowley is a WW2 veteran who was injured during the Pacific campaign war and subjected to a botched operation that left him physically and psychologically scarred and hateful of the medical profession.

Mitzi calls out from the woods. He’s been strung up from a tree and pleads for Harry’s help. But Harry struggles with his hemorrhaging leg wound, which he improvises to cauterize with gunpowder. Buying time for Mitzi and his makeshift procedure by attempting to bargain with Matthew, he’s able to stop the blood flow, but unable to save his friend. Matthew sets him on fire, and then moves towards the cabin for his final kill. Unmoved by Matthew’s pitiful disfigurement, Harry coldly blows him away with the shotgun. He eventually makes it to country highway where he sits to face dawn and an uncertain future.

After such a bleak and nihilistic film, the evening took on an unexpectedly sweet, familial flavour as Dane was joined onstage by screenwriter Ian Sutherland, co-star Ken James, production designer Karen Bromley, the actress briefly glimpsed as the waitress in the opening scene (the film's only female role other than the inflatable love doll), and director Peter Carter's wife. Regrettably, UK-born Carter died many years ago at the age of 48, shortly after the release of High Point (co-written by Sutherland), in which stuntman Dar Robinson famously parachuted off the CN Tower. Carter's most acclaimed film was CanCon classic The Rowdyman with Gordon Pinsent (which Dane also produced).

Dane discussed the genesis of the project: he received Sutherland's script through a producer who was a mutual friend. At first, no one was interested in financing the property in the least, least of all Telefilm Canada ("Let's face it" he said "They don't know what the f*ck they're doing!"). Dane set up the approx. $600,000 budget and after an aborted first attempt, the film was shot (with what Dane admits was more of a "completion agreement" than a completion bond) in Lake Superior’s Batchawana Bay in Northern Ontario's Sault Ste. Marie (where the film would later debut at the Soo’s Algoma Theatre).

Dane was originally set to play the lead, but when the financiers insisted on a "name" in the cast, Dane took on the supporting role of Mitzy. Hal Holbrook was cast and being a native Californian, was enchanted by the bugs and the exotic terrain. By all accounts he was friendly, but professional and a tad “remote”.

As well, Rick Baker was to due the makeup effects but was unavailable by the film relaunched. So Carl Fullerton, a Baker protégé, took over latex duties—Fullerton would go on to become one of Hollywood’s most in-demand makeup artists with credits including the Goodfellas, FX, The Silence Of The Lambs, and appropriately, the Friday The 13th sequels.

Dane admitted he hadn’t seen the film in ages and was impressed by vivid characterizations and subtle, atypical (for the genre) score by Hagood Hardy (who scored a top 10 Canadian hit with his piano instrumental "The Homecoming"), and the surrealistic vistas that were often ready-made by nature for the capable lens of DOP Rene Verzier.

On the latter subject, Dane confirmed the lab ruined some of the negative, resulting in the poor print quality in the night time scenes, esp. the climactic sequence in Jesse's cabin. Dramatically, he felt still works (ditto that), heightening the suspense and the sense of the unknown. Dane admitted that today's technology could probably help fix some of the image problems, but the rights are a mess, which is why Rituals is still not available on DVD, nor will be any time soon. He believes “a distributor in the US” owns the film right now, but for some reason, is just sitting on the property, despite raves from Stephen King (who spoke fondly of it in his "Danse Macabre") and remake interest from Sasha Stallone (yes, Sly’s son—Dane jokingly offered to play the pilot). So for now, Rituals is available only as a rare TV offering (usually cut, but Canada’s “Scream” channel’s print is intact), or as a European import DVD where it's known by its unfortunate U.S. re-release title The Creeper.

The film did “well” as far as Dane could remember, with critics non-too-surprisingly panning it because of its genre. Siskel And Ebert labeled it their "dog of the week" on their early PBS series—in the midst of their campaign throughout the 80s decade to vilify horror as an insidious artistic and social menace (interesting that for all of the duo's hue and cry over horror's inherent "misogyny", Rituals victims are all men).

Screenwriter Sutherland insisted that his script was inspired not by Deliverance, but by a two week canoe/camping trip he took through Northern Ontario with a friend--"which can change you a lot". He thought of using doctors as his characters because he felt they were amongst "the most civilized" type of person, given their enormous responsibilities, and it would be dramatic to see them driven to their basest survivalist instincts. Originally, his characters were intended to be much younger, but he had to rewrite very little of the dialogue for the middle-aged cast.

He was applauded for including an openly-gay character in a genre effort, and for its non-exploitive inclusion, other than through a casual line of dialogue by sympathetic Marty he laments on his life and drinks a little too much during their first evening around the campfire. Unlike Deliverance with its up-front fear of homosexual rape, here the male friends are unfazed by their friend’s lifestyle, which must’ve been a pretty daring thing in a pre-Will And Grace 1977 (much like the lead actor of Night Of The Living Dead being black but otherwise colourless in his character function—just another reason why I’ve long defended the unprestigious and woefully misunderstood horror genre as the most progressive in film).

Sutherland recalled that he and then-art director Bromley researched WW2 veterans who were tortured and imprisoned in Hong Kong. As the night went on and the drinks flowed, the vets became more candid about their horrifying ordeals, often making blackly humorous jokes. That being said, he never meant the film as any type of allegory or statement about war or the treatment of veterans. It was shot shortly after the end of Vietnam, and references WW2 and some of the doctors are Korean war vets, but he wishes he could take credit for any "message" people have read into it.

Sutherland set the story in Sault Ste. Marie because he knew the terrain (he’d originally planned to use the Algoma train to get the men into the Cauldron).

Ken James admitted the shoot was "dangerous" and that some of what was onscreen was real (like the initial scene where the men ineptly navigate crossing the river). Carter encouraged improvisation to establish the rapport between the characters.

What stuck in his memory most was the bee scene: the bees themselves were docile and largely harmless, until you bothered them. So the more the actors scuttled and waved their arm, the more aggressive the insects became. Most of the cast, James joked, spent the shoot with swollen fingers from the stings.

As well, his wife was shaken when came upon his fake head casts made that Fullerton would literally “bake” on location. He was claustrophobic, and didn't enjoy the casting process.

Seeing the film as an adult (my first time in about 25 years), I was impressed by its mature tone and Carter’s mastery of day lit terror, with violence set pieces modestly employed but always disturbing and excruciatingly personal, elevating the production above the level of “Jason from Sault St. Marie”. While the shadow of Deliverence looms large over any thriller about guys lost in the woods, Rituals has a sustained, melancholic grace that anticipates Peter Weir’s elegiac Picnic At Hanging Rock and Gus Van Sant’s existential, absurdist Gerry. And perhaps other than the Claude Jutra adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, it’s a rare Canadian film that embodies what Northrop Frye termed “The Garrison Mentality” of Canadian literature that expresses fear of the landscape and hostile "others" (here, a single homicidal individual). Highfalutin’ aside, it’s a damned good crackerjack thriller--one of the finest made anywhere, anytime.

Rue Morgue’s next screening will be held June 21, and it’s another tip of the mortician’s hat to CanCon terror: the late Bob Clark's Deathdream, a Vietnam-era allegory inspired by Jacob’s “The Monkey’s Paw”—don’t miss it!

"The Joker" Revealed?

2007-05-21T00:02:00.001-04:00

Could this really be the first look at Heath Ledger's "Joker" from Christopher Nolan's in-production "The Dark Knight"? The "Harvey Dent" page set up by Warner Bros. slowly erodes from a defaced Aaron Eckhart into this image--and as a longtime "Bat"-fanatic (go ahead, challenge me) I'm lovin' this take...sorta John Wayne Gacy meets Francis Bacon by way of Kelly Jones...

"Pan's Labyrinth" & "The Fountain" Now On DVD

2007-05-16T19:11:00.000-04:00

The two finest films of 2006 (in my humble opinion, and you know I know what I'm talkin' about) were released on DVD yesterday, so now you have no excuse for not having your senses dazzled, your emotions stirred, and your intellect stimulated (yes, Virginia, they are not mutually exclusive...) by two of today's most ambitious and versatile young directors.

I reviewed the North American debuts of Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" and Darren Aronosfky's "The Fountain" at last fall's Toronto International Film Festival--click on either title to read my thoughts. So get renting already (better yet, buy 'em--they're worth revisiting again and again...)