The Return of Bruce

Local hero Bruce Campbell is making his triumphant return to Detroit with an upcoming (November 21-23) screening of My Name is Bruce. Be sure to check out his website for all the details. Maybe Bruce is coming to your town, too!

Stay Sweet - Stay Informed

I just got done watching King Corn, a pretty terrific (albeit low octane) documentary about the Food Industry. From what Skizz tells me, it goes well with the new doc Food, Inc. In an effort to defuse the potential backlash against High Fructose Corn Syrup, a new ad campaign has started appearing on television.

I can't say that these ads are really effective. They basically address that there's problem with HFCS that some people are aware of, they just don't know the details of why it's bad. These people should be mocked and shamed because, obviously, there's nothing wrong with HFCS. We know this because the commercial tells us so.

More than anything, these spots make me want to be fully armed and ready with all of the reasons why HFCS is bad (and it is).

I Don't Buy It

I just don't buy it. Friday morning gasoline at my local station was $3.68/gallon. By the end of the day it was up to $4.04. This is one of the cheaper places around. I saw it as high as $4.19 without looking too hard. How in the world can this jump of $.36 over less than twelve hours be justified?

The excuse being thrown out is Hurricane Ike. I'm sorry, but if our fuel situation is such that a potential disruption creates and 11% jump in price, that's a rather sad place to be. Of course, this is a potential negative. Yet, if a potential positive comes along, you won't see a return to the lower price and an 11% dip on top of that.

Isn't it ironic that gas has raised so much once an Oil Man took office?

Doesn't She Know?

While sitting at the Scotia Bank theater, I got to "enjoy" the same pre-show both Friday and Saturday night. One section of this included an interview with Canadian songstress Divine Brown. Um...

As soon as I saw Miss Brown's name I wondered, "Hey, didn't anyone ever take her aside and suggest a name change?" Something tells me that the notorious prostitute gained infamy before the Canadian songstress.

TIFF 2008: Wrap-Up

It's been a long week. I had a lot of fun seeing my friends -- both Torontonians and Baltimorians who made the trip -- but I was really left wanting by the schedule this year. My schedule had too many gaps and not enough stuff that knocked my socks off. Apart from some of the documentaries I saw this year and narratives like The Burrowers, I was left wanting by the scant number of films I saw.

Investing the time and money I do for TIFF can be better spent in other places. Heck, with my love of documentaries maybe I should check out Hot Docs. Likewise, my love of goofy genre films may lead me to Toronto After Dark or Fantastic Fest or something. I will definitely go back to Toronto but probably not for the festival or, at least, not for a week.

Thanks to all the nice folks who put up with me for the last week in Toronto and thanks, especially, to everyone who took the time to read my coverage from the fest. I hope you enjoyed it!

TIFF 2008: Day 7

Not Quite Hollywood (Mark Hartley, 2008, USA)
An obvious labor of love, Not Quite Hollywood highlights Aussie exploitation films from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Short on social context but long on Adobe AfterEffects, this documentary is an assault on the senses with its barrage of clips and breakneck editing pace (few shots last longer than three second).

Broken into roughly three parts, the film’s structure gives the impression of following a timeline rather than investigating subgenres of sexploitation, horror/gore, and road mayhem. Featuring interviews with many key players involved in Oz genre films, their prolific proliferation makes the absence of a few key players even more of a gap. The most notable absentee, Bruce Spence, appears in the first featured clip (Stork). His roles in 20th Century Oz, The Road Warrior, and many of the films highlighted in Not Quite Hollywood have made him the gangly face of Australian Cinema (at least as much as Dame Edna, Noah Taylor, Paul Hogan, or Yahoo Serious).

The lack of discussion about The Road Warrior is unsettling but far stranger is the inclusion of clips from The Cars that Ate Paris with nary a mention of this unusual artsploitation film. Proudly lowbrow, it’s Australian film critics Jim Ellis and Philip Adams that provide the loudest voices of dissent against the films Not Quite Hollywood embraces. They also are a valuable counterbalance to the pervasive interview with fanboy Quentin Tarantino who proudly proclaims “This is my favorite [Insert Adjective Here] film!” far too often to be sincere.

Mark Hartley does a fine job highlighting numerous films that have otherwise remained under the radar for U.S. genre fans; some gathering dust on video shelves and others never getting release in the United States, much less their native Australia. The frantic pacing of Not Quite Hollywood could use some help as the film runs out of gas right when it should gain its stride with the road movie section. This final chunk stalls out, becoming a hodgepodge of loosely-related clips (though Hartley gets a lot of mileage out of one clip from Mad Max that he uses four times).

A good first attempt, here’s hoping that Not Quite Hollywood spurs another, sharper-focused look at Outback Cinema.

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Sexykiller (Miguel Marti, Spain, 2008)
In 1996, Scream provided an insightful commentary on horror film conventions. It spurred an unsuccessful franchise, parody series (Scary Movie), and countless ripoffs. Remarkably, Miguel Marti’s film manages to be both unsuccessful and a ripoff. And, with star Macarena Gomez looking like a Spanish Anna Faris, the film is also reminiscent of Scary Movie (of which Faris is the recurring star). If you’re keeping track, that’s three strikes.

Starting with a Scream reference, this derivative mess goes downhill from there. Written by Paco Cabezas, Sexykiller tries to lasso too many genres. The movie begins as a serial killer film (a la American Psycho 2), moves to science fiction territory (a la Unforgettable, Wild, Wild West), and then ends up like a zombie film—all of it related to the audience via main character Barbara (Gomez) breaking the fourth wall in her narration of the story. All of this mugging and overstylized pilfering keeps reminding the audience of better films that Sexykiller has taken from and how good it should have been.

TIFF 2008: Day 6

American Swing (Jon Hart & Matthew Kaufman, 2007, USA)
All historical evidence supports that at one time in history sex was fun and free from high risk save for emotional and moral hang-ups. That was the scene in the '70s when swinging came out of the suburbs and landed smack in the middle of Manhattan at Plato's Retreat.

Moving past the stereotypes of bushy mustaches, lotion, and terrycloth robes, Plato's Retreat seemed to legitimize “the lifestyle” for the bridge and tunnel crowd. As wild and outrageous as the LBGT scene had gotten, the heteros wanted their own debauchery and a safe haven for it. Like Studio 54 with more sex and less attitude, Plato's Retreat was a cultural institution as much as it was a physical locale. American Swing documents the lifecycle of the club and the players behind it.

Told via a bevy of archive footage, porn clips, photographs, archival talkshow segments and talking head interviews, American Swing is a straight forward look at phenomenon unthinkable by today's generation. Lasting nearly ten years, Plato's retreat had its ups and downs (pun intended) as one of the hot spots of New York City. It featured a pool, hot tubs, private booths, a very public orgy area, and don't forget the buffet! As the headlines read, “There's nothing platonic about Plato's Retreat.” Despite IRS audits, health code violations, Regan Era “Family Values,” and bad business practices, Plato's Retreat survived it all until HIV/AIDS came onto the scene and ruined the party for everyone.

The brainchild of Larry Levenson, the “King of Swing,” the club brought out in the open what has since gone deep underground once again—polyamorous relationships. Hart and Kaufman create a compelling, fast-paced Cliffs Notes version of the rise and fall of Levenson’s Empire, leaving a number of stones unturned but definitely raising eyebrows and consciousness of the last days of care free intercourse.

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Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008, USA)
Told via a series of episodes, Hurt Locker recounts a few of the final days of three members of Bravo Company as they count down to being cycled out of Iraq. The trio of soldiers travel throughout Baghdad disarming roadside bombs and other IEDs. If you have a bad day on the job, you're dead, and you're most likely taking the other members of your team with you.

Fresh to the scene is Staff Sargent William James (Jeremy Renner – looking like the lovechild of Tobey Maguire and Jason Batemen), a real cowboy who prefers to use “the suit” rather than “the 'bot.” That is, he'd rather go into dicey situations with little more than a padded outfit than send in a drone to do the dirty work for him. This doesn't win him any friends on his team, though he eventually earns their respect. James is a loose cannon while Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) is one explosion away from losing his shit. It's Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) that keeps the unit together as best he can.

Utilizing three lesser-known actors, Hurt Locker threatened to be another misfire like Brian DePalma's miscast epic Redacted. Luckily, the three leads here give spot on performances. Moreover, director Kathryn Bigelow does well to turn the well-worn convention on its head that any “A-List” actors appearing in a film will survive while the unknown soldiers die. Three bigger name stars have roles in Hurt Locker and two of them perish within moments of their arrival.

Though it goes on for a little too long overall (running time 130 minutes), Hurt Locker it's unclear what could be cut to make the film tighter. One particularly extended sequence begins to wear on but it really runs for as long as it needs to, and not a second more or less.

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Martyrs (Pascal Laugier, 2008, France)
You can't be in a torture porn movie in France without being female and having a bad haircut. That's what Haute Tension, Frontière(s), and now Martyrs have proven. Like those previous Midnight Madness entries, Martyrs is trés pretentious and trés boring, perhaps even being the most extreme in these two areas. At times the audience may feel completely empathetic to the lead character being trapped in a confined space and getting the snot beat out of her for no reason—it's a very similar experience to viewing Pascal Laugier's film.

Broke into roughly three parts, Martyrs begins with young Lucie escaping from the set of Frontière(s) and being taken care of by Anna at a mental institute (why Anna is there isn't ever explained, unless it's because of her Sapphic tendencies). Fifteen years later Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï) shows up at the front door of a family and proceeds to slaughter them. She's convinced that this pleasant French family were responsible for her torture as a child. Once the walls are painted red with blood, it's up to Anna (Morjana Alaoui) to help make things right by burying the bodies.

Not quite a sane as you'd like a former mental patient to be, Lucie has visions of another torture victim from her childhood taking a straight razor to her, causing her thankful demise. End of story? After forty five minutes, are you nuts? No way! Now for the big twist... that seemingly innocent family happens to have a fully stocked dungeon in their chalet! It's even got a gallery of “torture's greatest hits” lining the walls. This ain't no dank mudpit. This is the Four Seasons of Agony. And this is where the audience and Anna spend the second half of the movie.

Anna's chained up, beaten, and fed really bad food. Why? Wouldn't you like to know! There's got to be a big twist coming, doesn't there? That's how these movies end, dontcha know? We've been told something about people dying with a rather beatific look on their face. Is that why we're forced to watch Anna continuously getting the crap kicked out of her? Yeah, maybe. It all seems a bit frivolous, especially when the twist happens and it's a complete anticlimax.

The worst thing that a film can be is boring. The next is predictable. Martyrs is both. It's an endurance test—not to see how much violence and bloodshed the audience can take, but if they can even make it through to the end without falling asleep.

TIFF 2008: You've Been Warned

Did you get his with a balled up piece of paper during a P/I screening? That's my subtle hint to TURN OFF YOUR DAMN BLACKBERRY / PDA / iPHONE and quit shining it in my face.

That is all.

TIFF 2008: Day 5

Adam Resurrected (Paul Schrader, 2008, USA)
A blend of Holocaust drama and magical realism, this film redefines the term “hit and miss.” At times it's an intriguing tale of Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum with a vacillating accent), a magician with amazing powers who saves a man's life only to end up serving as his “dog” in a WWII death camp. Adam plays the fool for Commandant Klein (Willem Dafoe) to keep himself alive.

This tale is cross-cut with Adam in 1961 Tel Aviv where he's confined to a mental institute with other Holocaust survivors. This section shifts from Patch Adams bathos to Awakenings pathos (though Robin Williams is no where in sight) with its host of “wacky” psych ward patients and Adam as their savior. The hospital staff loves him – some more carnally than others. Everything changes when Davey, a feral child with whom Adam can relate, is admitted. Adam makes it his mission to save Davey and, by doing so, Adam will redeem himself.

Not surprisingly, this film's blend of light-hearted spiritualism and ponderous Holocaust drama makes it feel like a schizophrenic in need of some meds to calm the disparate chorus of voices from Noah Stollman's screenplay and Yoram Kaniuk's novel. Adam, Resurrected is better than director Paul Schrader's last few films (which isn't saying much). It works best as a drinking game—take a slug whenever any of the major names in the Old Testament are uttered and you'll get one heck of a buzz before Act One is barely over.

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Dungeon Masters (Kevin McAlester, 2008, USA)
This 90-minute documentary walks a fine line between expose and exploitation. Beginning at Indiana's GenCon—a gathering of gamers—the audience is introduced to three dungeon masters (also known as “game masters”) from distant corners of the United States who lead wildly different lives. The only things they seem to have in common are their love of Dungeons & Dragons, their wild imaginations, and their social ineptitude.

While there are relatively normal people who engage in roleplaying of various kinds (World of Warcraft, Second Life, LARPing, Renaissance Fairs, etc), they're not good fodder for an interesting movie. The success of Dungeon Masters rests on its three subjects: Scott, the stay at home Dad and his dream of becoming a writer and Cable TV Public Access host; Richard, the highly closeted homosexual who runs a highly controlled campaign (he's notorious for killing off his players), and Liz, the young divorcee who hides behind obsidian skin paint as a “dark elf.”

As the story progresses, it seems like Fate is constantly rolling the twenty-sided die for double damage against our heroes. Liz keeps searching for love while Scott's writing career can't get off the ground. The loosest cannon of the bunch; just when it seems that Richard couldn't share anything more unusual, he unleashes yet another tidbit out of his bag of holding until you wish he was a plant—an actor putting on airs of righteous indignation about his players not taking him seriously, his family life, and his penchant for naturalism.

There's little more to Dungeon Masters than the slices of these three lives. There's no omniscient narrator discussing the retreat into fantasy as a common defense mechanism for fringe-dwellers. There's no “known expert” going on about the strata defining Cosplay versus LARPing or the need some gamers have for denigrating other “brands” (like those “Magic: The Gathering” pussies). Even amongst an ever-growing geek culture, the subjects are still laughable. This may stem from their lower socioeconomic position (one lives in a trailer, another in a ramshackle apartment) or from their Geek Pride, appearing in public in costume.

While we see Liz trying to be “social” while engaging in online gaming, the irony of “communal individualism” remains unaddressed. Director McAlester merely gives his audience enough saftey through distance to laugh at the geek boys and gamer girls with abandon. Yet, we aren't asked if these laughs are purely derisive or if the retarded socialization of the subjects is inherently comedic and “safe” to laugh at.

Note to PR Person – You may want to spend less time gabbing and more time handing out Press Notes, if that's what the huge pile of papers was (and we both know it was).

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The Burrowers (JT Petty, 2008, USA)
It doesn't take long for the action in The Burrowers to get underway. Before the credits have even begun a mystery is afoot. The film opens in the Dakota Territories, 1879, with the slaughter of some and disappearance of other members of two Plains families. Of course, those Native savages are behind it... or are they?

A posse consisting of Lost actors Clancy Brown, Doug Hutchinson, and William Mapother (more commonly known as The Kurgan, Victor Tooms, and Tom Cruises Cousin) mount up and look for the missing Stewart women. Though not at the lead of the posse, it's Coffey (Karl Geary) that's desperate to find Maryanne Stewart (Jocelin Donahue), his beloved. What they find, instead, is a string of strange holes and a comatose woman buried a few inches under the ground.

Initially, The Burrowers may seem like a prequel to Tremors (which was already done in the fourth installation of the series) but there's a lot more going on. In the skilled hands of writer/director J.T. Petty (S&Man, Soft for Digging), the film is a fun ecothriller with solid pacing, characters, and a clever revelation of its title creatures. With its superb production and cult cast, it's hopeful that The Burrowers will be the first mainstream hit for Petty.

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Detroit Metal City (Toshio Lee, 2008, Japan)
There's a fatal flaw in Toshio Lee's Detroit Metal City and it's as plain as the cat nose on Peter Criss's face. The film begins with country bumpkin Negishi (Ken'ichi Matsuyama) going to the Big City (Tokyo) to pursue his dream of being a trendy pop star. Nevermind his mushroom haircut and that he holds his hands to his chest like a boxing nun puppet. He inspires his Pop Music Study Group with his mantra, “No Music, No Dream.”

Suddenly we see Negisha some unknown time later. He's on stage playing guitar for an rapt crowd. The only problem is that he's the pasty-faced frontman, Sir Krauser, for leading Japanese death metal band DMC, Detroit Metal City. “How did I get here?” Negisha muses in voice over. How indeed?

There's no reel missing. The film merely makes this tremendous leap. Out of costume, Negisha is still the whining wannabe pop singer but how he got the gig as Sir Krauser remains a maddening mystery unsolved for the remainder of the film. Where some might chart this incongruous leap into the limelight as the bulk of their film, and others might choose to explain it via a well-placed flashback, that it's never discussed at all in Detroit Metal City becomes such a distraction that it hinders further possible enjoyment of the film.

The rest of Detroit Metal City shows Negisha struggling with his dual identity, treating it more like schizophrenia than a stage act. The action drags though the conclusion is obvious as soon as Jack Il Death (Gene Simmons) is introduced. Can you say “Battle of the Bands”?

Interminably silly, it's a saving grace the Detroit Metal City boasts a toe-tapping soundtrack. Otherwise, this farce would simply be intolerable.