guilty pleasures

The Film Society of Lincoln Center's magazine Film Comment has a section entitled "Guilty Pleasures" in which they invite actors and directors to share their favourite bad movies. I thought I would try my hand, since normally I stick to pretty high-brow fare on this blog. Here are my top "so bad they're good" picks:

Road House (1989)

Patrick Swayze plays a bouncer hired to keep out the riff-raff at a roadhouse bar called the Double Deuce (scuzzy dive, awesome name). "When the dancing is over, things get dirty." Pure, unadulterated 80's kitsch.

They Live (1988)

John Carpenter (Halloween) is the master of cranking out low-budget camp and has a huge cult following. In this choice nugget, "A drifter discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to wake up to the fact that aliens have taken over the Earth." Whenever the drifter (played by WWF wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper) punches someone, he uses what seems to be  the sound of a car door slamming. So bad, it's hilarious.

Short Circuit (1986) Also see: *Batteries Not Included (1987) and Heartbeeps (1981)

Long before Wall-E, there was a host of "Boy and His Robot" movies made in the 1980s, in which robots display more caring emotion than their human counterparts and thus win the love and friendship of the young protagonists. Heavy on the guilt and less on the pleasure for me, these are probably among the worst movies I've ever seen. But, as a child of the 80's, I have a bit of a soft spot for them.

There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

This one I'm not so guilty about--it stars Marylin Monroe and Ethel Merman and is a good old-fashioned lavish 1950s spectacle about (you guessed it) show business. If you're feeling low, I highly recommend it for a dose of eye-and-ear-pleasing musical technicolor therapy.

Pillow Talk (1959)

I'm not guilty about this one either, although it may be the epitome of fluff. Animosity builds between Manhattanites Doris Day and Rock Hudson, whose shared phone line puts them at odds. Having only heard his voice, Day doesn't recognize Hudson when he tries to woo her while posing as a Texas hayseed. Musical hi-jinx ensues.... The makers of romantic comedy today couldn't hold a candle to these guys.

What Happens in Vegas (2008)

My case in point. I don't really remembers what happens in this movie, just that it was really bad but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. (I guess I had low expectations.)

National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) and Christmas Vacation (1989)

The latter is a holiday classic and the former is just plain corny fun; Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo are side-splitting as Clark and Ellen Griswold. I haven't seen their third film, Vegas Vacation yet but will keep an eye on the satellite for it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

I'm talking about the original, not the TV series remake with Sarah Michelle Gellar. I was a pre-teen when this movie came out and I remember watching it with my friends at at least one slumber/birthday party. Kristy Swanson's Buffy was my ultimate female role model--sexy, tough, and kind of an outcast. I haven't watched it in years and don't intend to, lest seeing it as an adult detract from my idealized memory of it.

As you can tell, most of these picks date from the days before my good taste prevented me from watching them. What are some of your guilty pleasures?

bummed out*

Tonight's première of the RIDM documentary festival reminded me of what a rich city Montreal is when it comes to cinema. In his hilarious introductory speech, board president and indie producer Mila Aung-Thwin joked about how they will not be announcing a merger with Montreal's other film festivals, since certain journalists have been complaining that there are TOO MANY in this town. Too many film festivals? Sheesh! I think that too many festivals is a great thing for cinephiles (although it's not as great for filmmakers, since they usually don't make any money from having their films shown at them).

Anyway, that is a discussion for another day. Today I'm going to talk about....asses. Yes, that's right. Bums. Or, as world-renowned choreographer Philippe Decouflé refers to them in Frederick Wiseman's new doc Crazy Horse, "les cocos". Of the film's 2h15min run-time, there is probably an hour and a half of close-ups on women's bare tushes--floating in the air, being waggling at us, stroked by other dancers and at one point, multiplied by mirrors to look like waves atop the ocean (eye candy in its purest form, even for me, a straight woman). The remainder of the film shows us the excruciating tantrums at production meetings, the brutal evaluating of dancers' bodies at auditions and all the less glamorous aspects of what it takes to put on the world's "chicest" strip show, revered by intellectuals and oglers alike.

After the screening, someone actually yelled out "Sexist!! BOO!!" and I was disappointed because this person had completely missed the point. Although it may look like soft porn, you need to read between the lines. Underneath the disguise this is actually a film about the collaborative creative process: the inspiration, the obsession, the egos, the hopes and dreams and most of all, the hard, hard work. These people are not just in it for the money, they don't do it to exploit women--they do it because they view the striptease as High Art. And I agree. The infinite variations they've come up with on a woman taking 5 minutes to remove her G-string are indeed a sublime accomplishment.

While watching the film, I had a realization about cinema in general: the point of cinema is not to just to get to the point. The point of cinema is to draw out a moment for as long as possible, to create a reverie during which we forget where we are, who we are, and even what we're looking at. In this, what he calls his "most abstract film yet", Wiseman has done just that.

Crazy Horse plays once more at RIDM on Saturday the 12th at 5:30pm, and opens at Cinema du Parc on November 25th. 

*Thanks to friend, filmmaker and pun-master extraordinaire Ameesha for that one!

vampire love

I don't know what it is about the vampire myth that is so enduring. Much has been written on the seemingly endless cycle of repetition and variation on this theme, so I won't spend a lot of time speculating; however, I'd like to compare and contrast two examples of it that I happened to see on the same night this weekend: HBO's dramedy True Blood, and the 2008 Swedish film Let the Right One In. It's like comparing apples and oranges, but I still think it's an interesting cultural exercise.

I haven't always been a True Blood fan but in Season 3 (when Sookie was nursing viking bloodsucker Eric back to health from magic-induced amnesia) things got pretty hot and heavy and I admit I was hooked (apparently I wasn't the only one--the Season 3 finale drew 11.4 million viewers). There is something inexplicably sexy about the idea of making it with a vampire and the show has coasted on this for quite some time, rehashing one of the most deeply-rooted American archetypes: the good girl who loves bad boys.

For me, the other most appealing aspect of True Blood is its small-town Louisiana setting; as the brilliantly-constructed opening credits sequence establishes, the swampy ground of Bon Temp is rife with voodoo, sex and holy rolling. In classic HBO fashion, the seedy underbelly is sliced open and its entrails exposed for us to feast on.

Unfortunately, Season 4 transitions from vampire sex to war on witchcraft, and for me the show has officially jumped the shark. The writers must sense that their audience will eat up whatever drivel they dish out, penning such appallingly bad dialogue as "This fucking sucks!" when Marnie the witch gets taken down. I'm sure they'll keep True Blood on life support for a few more seasons, but I think the whole thing is getting ridiculously campy and over-the-top.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Let the Right One In. This love story disguised as a horror movie is delightfully refreshing, and not just because it seems to have been shot entirely at -30 in the dead of the Swedish winter. Its protagonist, Oskar, is an almost albino-blond 12-year-old who is so innocent and sweet he hardly seems of this world. Of course, the school bullies have a field day terrorizing him. One day, he meets a girl his age (Eli) who seems to understands him but, strangely, she goes around barefoot in the snow and can only come out to play at night. People in the neighborhood start dying mysterious, untimely deaths as Oskar and Eli get closer, until he finally beings to understand her dark secret....

The film's style is old-fashioned and it looks like it was shot 20 years ago on a $10,000 budget, but in a good way (think of what a horror film would look like if directed by Ingmar Bergman c. 1984). That being said, its restraint makes it suspenseful, and its well-spaced, creepy FX scenes give just the right amount of goosebumps. Hard-core horror fans might disappointed (although I'd encourage them to give it a chance), but for me this movie's subtle thrills and endearing protagonist make it a great thinking-person's scary movie and represents a much more sensitive, decidedly un-American take on the vampire love theme. I haven't yet seen the US remake (entitled Let Me In), but without young Kare Hedebrant's angelic face and captivating performance, it surely couldn't compare. If you need something to watch while handing out candy tonight, I highly recommend the original.

Happy Halloween!

"drive" fan

I was going to write a post devoted to Drive, the retro-80's chase movie I had been anticipating seeing for some time, but I'll never top this brilliant "illustrated reaction" by Lisa Hanawalt.

However, I'll still say this: While the grown-up part of my brain thinks that the best part of this movie was the opening sequence, and that it's just a little too "cool" and its style trumps its substance, the teenager in me is totally agog.

It's the kind of movie I would have seen at seventeen and then stayed up all night talking about over coffee with my friend. I feel like plastering my walls with posters and fan art devoted to it. Even though I found the lyrics to a certain song way too on-the-nose while watching the movie, I have a compulsion to listen to the soundtrack on repeat through my headphones while writing Ryan Gosling gushing fan letters in spite of (or perhaps because of) the goofy grin he wears throughout the film.

I haven't had this kind of reaction to a movie in quite some time (to specify how long would be to divulge my actual age). Anyway, if you're looking for something to watch this weekend, go and see Drive. Unleash your inner teenage fan girl in the process....

first we take toronto

Days 2 and 3 were quite a whirwind so I had no time to blog--which is the way it should be, after all. (No, I didn't see any "celebrities," just huge crowds of people gathered around taking pictures of them.)

After sleeping in (I'm getting too old for 9am screenings after party nights) we started Saturday off with a bit of hanging around festival HQ next to the Lightbox just to have a coffee and take in the madness. Had we been a little more bold (or desperate) and a little less proud, we could have run up to Ted Hope (the indie producer/god with over 100 titles to his credit) and others, with our script. But that is not our style; with all the Blackberries going off and industry-types milling about, we were out of there after an hour or so.

Our film of the day (ticket prices are so prohibitive that we had to limit ourselves) was FUBAR-director Michael Dowse's new movie, Goon. After the last night's heart-wrenching Marécages, we were in the mood for a comedy and this one delivered the goods. I am a long-time Dowse fan but had heard absolutely nothing about Goon before going in, so it was even more of a pleasant surprise. The screenplay was co-written by Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg (whose previous credits include Superbad and Knocked Up) and was delightfully over-the-top, as was Baruchel's performance as the foul-mouthed, mercurial sleaze-ball host of "Hot Ice", a web TV show devoted to minor-league hockey fights and hits. Dowse introduced the film saying it's been a hard few months for hockey goons (referring to the untimely deaths of enforcers Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak) and he said that although this film is a comedy and has "no social agenda whatsoever," his heart goes out to these guys and their families. Someone asked him in the Q & A if this film is an attempt to move away from FUBAR and into the mainstream, and he replied that he doesn't know what mainstream is, he just wants to make good movies. The refreshing thing about Dowse is that his movies have a lot of heart (often lacking in our cerebral, ironic national cinema). Furthermore, this film is an interesting case study of what is possible when a bunch of Canadians who have "made it" in Hollywood get together to make a movie in Canada--hopefully this time the distribution won't get bungled and it will be widely seen.

The rest of my stay at the festival was pretty much devoted to the business side: cocktails and schmoozing. For the first time, I really felt that we were getting somewhere and by coincidence we crossed paths with many of the people we were hoping to talk to and some unexpected ones too. As a writer/director I'm often more comfortable in my bubble off in a corner somewhere, but I'm gradually learning not to try too hard and simply be myself in these situations. It can definitely be overwhelming trying to make meaningful conversation with dozens upon dozens of strangers, but that is why there are free drinks. In the end, I felt like we are finally starting to make the right connections and come across kindred spirits who are actually willing to help. They are out there--it just takes a lot of beating around the bush to find them. With a bit of post-festival follow-up, who knows what could happen?

My stay was only three days but that was just enough; a person can only take so much schmoozing, boozing and waiting in line (we actually decided to step out of the rush line for Take this Waltz just before the start because there were so many people our seats would have been terrible). Some of us may have day jobs to get back to, but attending the festival makes us feel like filmmakers again. Regardless of the outcome, I had a good time at TIFF this year.

jour #1

Well, it's been just over 24 hours and already we've already managed to score tickets to the opening night party (along with all of Toronto) talk our way into an industry event, and attend the opening screening of the Canada First! program. We also got some business-related good news, some bad news and a taste of the fear and self-loathing that creeps up at some point whenever we come to TIFF. In all, a pretty full-on first day.


In the morning we attended Telefilm's "Canadian Talent to Watch" panel, featuring Simon Davidson (The Odds), Guy Édoin (Wetlands/Marécages), Anne Émond (Nuit #1), Ivan Grbovic (Romeo Eleven/Roméo Onze), Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas (Amy George) and Nathan Morlando (Edwin Boyd). Atom Egoyan gave a thoughtful, self-deprecating introductory speech about starting out in the industry and how the panelist's first features are "much stronger than my own". The panelists had some interesting advice for emerging filmmakers including "work with your friends, because shooting a film is very hard and you need friends on set" (Anne Émond) and "the biggest challenge as a director is preserving your naivety and intuition within the confines of a shooting schedule" (Ivan Grbovic).


Next, we attended the much-anticipated North American premiere of Guy Édoin's Marécages--another example of raw, powerful Quebec cinema. The film tells the story of a farm family facing bankruptcy and other, more serious setbacks in the midst of a drought. There is a scene in which a calf is torn from its mother by the desperate farmers, only to die; the brutal reality of farm life is rarely portrayed on screen with such honesty (if at all) and it hit very close to home for me, being from a rural milieu myself. Édoin obviously qualifies as "talent to watch" and although I'm still reeling from the emotional kick in the stomach, I look forward to his future offerings. 


We shall see what tomorrow brings....

everyone's a critic

Today is the start of the movie madness that has been branded simply as TIFF. Everyone in the film industry knows what this means: the Toronto International Film Festival (in case you've been living under a rock or without TV for the past decade or so).

This festival is not only on par with Cannes and Sundance in terms of celebrity glitz and indie influence, it is also an annual pilgrimage for us small-potato Canadian filmmakers hoping to ride the coattails of some friend-of-a-friend into fame and fortune (or at least a good party or two).

Nothing can describe the excitement of having a première at TIFF--as a Canadian filmmaker you feel sky-high, thinking the experience is going to change your life. I was lucky enough to have a taste of this two years ago when my short was an "official selection" (allowing me to emblazon my press materials with the coveted laurels and TIFF logo for all time).

The festival did end up changing my life, but not in the way I thought it would. Imagine my dismay after arriving in Toronto, picking up my industry pass, greeting my cast and crew, who had flown across the country to be there, only to open up the free Toronto weekly and read a scathing review saying my film was terrible and brought down the program. "Crushed" does not even begin to describe the feeling. Having invested two years of blood, sweat and tears along with thousands of dollars of my own money in the project, my sense of pride and accomplishment was instantly stomped on.

I still made the most of the festival and had a great time, but was haunted by this skunk in the woodpile. A writer friend of mine once told me to never, ever respond to your critics, but I've decided to respond indirectly--by setting an example.

When I attend TIFF this year (not as a filmmaker, but as a blogger) I will try to refrain from any criticisms that are catty, self-important or deconstructive. In fact, Mom's advice to say nothing at all when one has nothing nice to say is, as always, best; I know how hard it is to make a film and how devastating negative reaction can be, especially to an emerging artist.

Now, let's hope I can get into some screenings.....