With The Dark Knight Rises coming out next weekend I thought it appropriate to finally check out and post this short. In just three minutes you get a pre-cursor a glimpse of the brilliance of Chris Nolan. Its seemingly minimalist in story and set, but as per usual, his story is much bigger than its trappings. That’s about as much as I care to say, lest I come too close to giving something away.
Enjoy!
Another way, perhaps the more interactive and most definitely the most enjoyable way, to have your own short film festival is to have a friend or two (or many) over to watch a series of movies all in a row, and all of which you know are likely to be bad – entertaining hopefully because of that, but all-in-all bad nonetheless. While there’s nothing quite like watching a great movie it is quite an individual, singular and spiritual event. A bad movie, or at least cheesy one, can bring you closer or at least allow you to commiserate in the universal sentiment of “What exactly is going on here?”
This system, of course, works best if you haven’t seen a film yet so you and your friends are all surprised by the cheese, production values (or lack thereof), acting and other elements. Anticipation and hype can ruin such a thing. Try and pick things you have heard of that may fall into this category. If you happen upon something that might fit into a night like this that you were completely unfamiliar with even better, in fact, that’s the best.
For better or worse, there’s nothing better than going into a film, good or bad, as a completely blank slate. I’ve seen many films on either side of the spectrum that way. And of course, you always try to give something a fair chance but the minute you learn about a project you start, at least subconsciously, to form an opinion of it. It’s just human nature. If you’re looking for bad, how do you find it? Everyone has their own tastes and knows their own inclinations. Genres likely to be low-budget are martial arts, other action permutations, sci-fi and of course horror. Aficionados of any genre can spot the straight-to-DVD and other hack-jobs, typically those genres attract the most sub-par products and even true fans will readily admit it.
So to create your own bad movie night you need at least three movies, patience and a lot of snacks. Four were brought to my last one and three were seen, one left un-screened.
Here’s a recap of what we saw. Your proclivities and results may vary. What you will find below is an example and my reactions to the films seen. There were three people in attendance, none of us felt that we had accidentally stumbled into a good movie. You may disagree, and that’s OK:
Shogun Assassin – A movie cited at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 2 where we heard the English-version opening voice-over monologue because Bibi is obsessed with the movie and watches it before bed. The voice over in Shogun Assassin does get to sound more and more like Barrett Oliver in The Neverending Story as it goes on which is odd, and while having a kid along with the assassin makes it somewhat different the story is just essentially a series of individual slow battles with the assassin on the run from the Shogun’s henchman. While it does have its moments; it is proof that the result of inspiration can be much better than the inspiration itself.
Master of the Flying Guillotine – The bottom line is that there is about a 40-minute fight tournament sequence which ends in the wrong man being killed by the enemy and you kind of see that coming, so it really wouldn’t even be a feature if only necessary scenes were included.
Cannibal Ferox – Directed by famed Italian horror director Umberto Lenzi is another failed cannibal film, which follows a similar formula to others that didn’t work. An overly long set-up outside the jungle then a long time being stuck in the jungle to a very short amount of disturbing cannibalism for a film which promises gruesomeness. Now this kind of film is not for everyone, my problem is that I am typically bored out of my mind before the payoff.
The fourth film which was unwatched was also cannibal-themed was Cannibal Holocaust, which I do believe we saw later on. The genres or sub-genres can be more mixed or less mixed if you like more theme-based like these were. Pairings will be discussed more later with better films but bad movies can be just as much fun – if not more.
Don’t You Recognize Me will be a sporadically posted theme wherein I briefly highlight an early role of a now well-known actor. Typically, it will be one where I didn’t immediately make the connection, hence the title.
Society has become a bit more instantaneous in the internet age, very preoccupied with what’s current and what’s next and not as much with what’s past. It’s a generalization but this does apply to the world of film a bit too. Therefore, career trajectories sometimes will sneak up on you. At times I’ll see a name in a casting announcement and only in the piece connect a name with a face. Evans’ case is not quite that, but it happens a lot.
The journey an actor takes from recognizable face to known name is still, in most cases, one that is many years in the making. As I hearkened back to Not Another Teen Movie I checked his IMDb and realized that I did see him since, even before his second more successful superhero incarnation, in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and The Nanny Diaries but this is the one I always think about.
It’s a far cry from the kinds of roles that he’s playing now, but in a lot of ways Not Another Teen Movie is the last wholly successful parody I saw. Acting in a parody requires serious chops. You find yourself in the most ridiculous, outlandish and unrealistic situations placed on film and not only do you have to suspend your own disbelief as a performer and play scenes without commenting on them, but you have to sell the audience and make them suspend it too, at least to an extent. Evans is the love interest Jake Tyler, maybe the only highly-skilled high school back-up quarterback in the annals of teen filmdom (“Mr. Not First String Anymore is not first string anymore” as Austin, his rival, puts it). He’ll be the one who is at the epicenter of the broadcast, cheeky bet to turn the glasses-and-a-ponytail-paint-on-her-overalls Janie Briggs to be prom queen, and succeeds on every level.
Yet, as well as it works somehow this slipped my mind until after I saw Captain America and just before The Avengers. When it clicked it just made me smile and gave me a whole new level of respect both for what he did prior and with his latter roles. If you only know Evans now and like a good, ridiculous parody that is a bit raunchy at times check out Not Another Teen Movie. It has had high replay value for me.
Note: This film is Rated R by the MPAA for strong crude sexual content and humor, language and some drug content.
It’s not exactly new, but any chance for an additional short should be taken. It’s also funny to note that not only does Spielberg appear in this Saturday Night Live skit as himself, in a rather Hitchockian way but it’s also one of the running gags. Not to mention that there are of course references to several of his films, perhaps the funniest being Close Encounters of the Third Kind because it’s a great gag and wonderful commentary from the man himself.
Enjoy!
This past Sunday I detailed some films both that I had seen and not yet seen based on what their location was in honor of Canada Day. In that post I also detailed my difficulty in locating films for certain localities, most notably the Yukon. Well, sure enough one of my wonderful contributors @poced thought one up and linked me to a video shortly after the post went up.
City of Gold is not only an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary, Short Subject it has also been cited as an influence on the works of Ken Burns. How this is so should be fairly evident early on as this film is date 1957 and Burns was trying to convince people his techniques would work on a film about the Brooklyn Bridge in the late 70s and Early 80s.
Aside from the importance the film claims in the progression of documentary aesthetics, it is a great story about Dawson City, Yukon that is wonderfully executed. The script, which has to be strong for a film like this to work, is captivating; and the conjoining of archival photography and contemporary motion picture footage is compelling, and some of the images are magical.
Much in the way computers, be them Apple or PC, can liberate you from zone restrictions for a country-specific film festival the same can be true if you’re building a festival around an actor and they happen to be a foreign performer.
The focus of this film festival, which will serve as an example, is Robinson Stévenin. Acting, it would seem, has always been in Robinson’s blood. He is the son of the well-known French actor Jean-François Stévenin, who is perhaps best known for playing the role of François Truffaut’s Assistant Director in the film about filmmaking Day for Night.
His breakout role was in the film Bad Company (Mauvaises frequentations) where he played a young man who so enraptured his girlfriend she agreed to start an ad hoc prostitution ring with him. It’s a truly effective and great film that a one-line synopsis does not do justice to. For this role Robinson was nominated for a César Award (France’s Equivalent to the Oscar) as Most Promising Actor. He would go on to capture that award two years later for his role in Transfixed (Mauvais genres), which featured in this festival.
The Children’s Revolt
His first recognition came for his role in The Children’s Revolt a film about a rebellion in a children’s penal colony in the 19th century. Although he is by no means the lead in this film his performance, as the so-called Lil’ Shaver (Rase-Motte), he is such a standout as a precocious, funny, eloquent kid that he not only receives a favorable quote on the DVD cover but also captured Best Actor at the Paris Film Festival in 1992. What’s more impressive is that he seems to be playing a lot younger than he is in this part, and his scene with the Countess is most definitely one of the highlights of the film.
La Petit Lili
This is quite an interesting film and a great role for him. The film co-stars Ludivine Sagnier, known from Swimming Pool and Peter Pan, as his girlfriend and muse who stars in a short film he makes. He screens it for friends and family and it does not go as swimmingly as he hoped and in essence it starts snowballing in a way that will affect everyone. The characters retire to their separate quarters and start re-examining their lives. In this part he manages to portray the dichotomy of sensitive, brooding artist and also the malcontent who flies off the handle when hearing something he does not like. Yet his anger is justified at times and he handles intellectual dialogue with tremendous effect. He manages to turn the bitter petulant teenager into a character who is not reviled but can be an identifiable protagonist.
Transfixed
As mentioned above this is the role that won Robinson the César as Most Promising Actor. It is inordinately rare to see an actor completely and totally change his persona and not just his appearance. In this film Robinson plays a transsexual prostitute embroiled in the middle of a whodunit it in Brussels. He is completely and utterly transformed and plays the part to a tee. You are never truly left watching a performance but a character. For whatever is lacking in the plot the performance more than makes up for it.
Mon Colonel
Yet another face of Stévenin – here he plays a soldier serving under a totalitarian Colonel in Algeria. Through his diary he reveals the details of his tour of duty and these pages are slowly delivered to the military assisting the police in the investigation of the Colonel’s murder many years later. Here Stévenin can be seen as a duty-bound man with a conscience who is still a bit of an idealist, but slowly loses some faith but struggles to do what is right and not always just follow orders. It is a tremendous piece of work, and the fact that it is shot in black and white shows the timelessness of his star-quality.
I recall once that Roger Ebert tweeted a link and added to it something to the extent of “See this is why I don’t do lists.” I got his point. It was a completist’s one, meaning how can you legitimately make such and such a list claiming it’s ever or all-time when you haven’t, you couldn’t possibly, have seen every qualifying film. Fair enough.
However, it was only recently that I followed this line of thought out further when thinking of my own lists. If I say these are the 10 Best Examples of This I Ever saw, am I disingenuous? No, if I haven’t seen something or disagree, that film, performance or whatever else isn’t on the list. Surely, there are year-end best film lists made by people who saw less than every film released that year. How do those lists differ? They don’t.
Therefore, what I resolved is that if I make a list, barring year-end ones which are time sensitive, that for all intents and purposes it is perpetually a work in progress. Why should it not be? Do I anticipate never hearing another new voice actor (referring to an older not re-posted here list)? I’m preparing a Spielberg ranking, will it not automatically re-shift when Lincoln comes out? I will also no longer be married to round numbers. If something should demand 11 choices, there will be 11. Much in the way my best films of last year lists were assembled, I felt there were 25 films worthy of being cited. Clearly there were still only 10 in the top 10.
The important thing is to do these things in order to express oneself, create discussions and learn. I may be pointed towards a film I have not yet seen or heard of through a list or a post, and why shouldn’t I?
Similarly, I plan to continue to write on the new releases I see but in ways I find enriching, which will not always mean a standard review. I did as such for The Dictator and I think that Brave and Madagascar 3 should be treated in a unique fashion also.
These new precepts I feel will encourage me to re-post more, to write on films more quickly and to avoid procrastinating, and ultimately I believe they will make my content more interesting and dynamic. I hope you do too.
As I knew Canada Day was coming up, I wanted to write a post wherein I took a trip cinematically around Canada; considering the fact that I know the geography of Canada better than most countries I have never lived in. As I started trying to pick films by province or territory, I quickly realized there were some complications afoot.
The first complication being British Columbia, specifically Vancouver. Vancouver and its vicinity are a host to myriad productions, but due to the areas diverse geography it’s usually doubling as another city. Then there are the maritime provinces and northern territories, which are less frequently featured. It very quickly became clear that this post would first highlight some of the Canadian cinema I have seen and enjoyed, but would also serve an exploratory purpose and cause me to seek out new titles. Therefore, in conjunction with this post I will also create a Letterboxd list.
Essentially, the ideal is to have the film both set in and produced in the Canadian province mentioned. Co-productions will be valid for this list, but ideally I will be seeking Canadian productions.
I can’t exactly pinpoint where my fascination with all things Canadian began. Yes, I’ve always been obsessed with hockey, but this burgeoning affection during my childhood also coincided with many of my entertainment staples being either vaguely or blatantly made in Canada such as You Can’t Do That on Television, The Kids in the Hall, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and to an extent SCTV. Regardless, the affinity has always been there and since thanks both to the internet and internationally distributed calendars I’ve come to learn of Canada Day, and decided to compile at least the beginnings of a list.
All-Around Canada
To start with, I’ll include some films that traverse much of the nation in order to attempt to compensate for some of the areas wherein I’ve had difficulty finding selections.
In the vaguest sense of the word the recent NBC Sports Net documentary Cold War on Ice is an all-encompassing Canadian tale inasmuch as it deals with the 1972 Summit Series that pitted Canada’s best NHL talent versus the Soviet team. If you scripted a 8-game series the way this one unfolded it’d be hard to believe, but it actually happened.
If you trust the IMDb’s filming location info, and you can’t always, Canadian Bacon doesn’t traipse through nearly as much of Canada as it could. However, I do recall this film being quite funny and underrated in my mind. It’s a great collection of many of Canada’s finest and funniest, that does a tremendous deal of US-themed satire also, as it’s directed by none other than Michael Moore.
Now, in compiling these suggestions I realized that many areas in the country were a bit underpopulated in terms of films I have already seen. Therefore, I turned to my Twitter friends north of the border and received many suggestions, which I’ll include throughout all sections of the post starting now:
One international production suggested to me by was The 49th Parallel, a film I’ve meant to see but have not yet, it chronicles a U-Boat stranded in northern Canada during World War II.
One Week was also suggested to me by quite a few people and it’s one that upon being reminded of it I realize that I was interested in it when it had just come out. The film is about a man seeking meaning in his life on a cross-country motorcycle trip.
Quebec
I go to Quebec next because, while Canada is a predominantly Anglophonic nation, it is also a Francophonic nation and due to that fact Canada has regularly submitted a Best Foreign Language Film nominee since 1971. In that time five Canadian films have been nominated: Jesus of Montreal, The Decline of the American Empire, The Barbarian Invasions (Won), Days of Darkness and Incendies.
The Quebecois cinema does have its own mark of originality as it can at times produce perfectly distilled hybrids of European and North American sensibilities, having at the same times an always unique voice on the world cinema stage.
Some other films from Quebec I’ve seen and enjoyed greatly are: The Red Violin, while this is a globe-trotting, time-traveling tale with a star-filled cast, the present day action does occur in Montreal. It’s writer-director is French-Canadian, Francois Giraud, and it’s a film I’ve seen many times over that I enjoy tremendously.
A completely French-Canadian film (were my revisionist BAM Awards still legitimate would’ve won many awards) called Leolo. It’s a poetic, bizarre and unique tale of a young boy’s adolescence in 1970s Montreal. Sadly, this was the last vision Jean-Claude Lauzon brought to fruition as he tragically died in a plane crash in 1997.
Sitting in my to be watched pile is the Criterion Collection edition of Mon Oncle Antoine. Films I was suggested for Quebec include: Ma vie en CinemaScope, C.R.A.Z.Y., Le Chat dans le Sac, L’eau Chaude L’Eau Frette, Gerry, Going the Distance (1979) and Bon Cop, Bad Cop.
British Columbia
British Columbia is one of the trickiest as mentioned above. For the time being, I’ll have to stick with suggestions kindly provided me by a friend. In the meantime, rest assured that if you’ve seen enough movies you’ve likely seen British Columbia in disguise and didn’t realize it.
The suggestions were The Grey Fox, about a gentleman bandit who heads north after years in jail to ply his trade in Canada and My American Cousin, which tells a tale of a mysterious visit from a family member and the intrigue it introduces to a Canadian family’s life.
And also a suggestion was Everything’s Gone Green about a man who’s tries to work a money laundering scheme while working at a lottery magazine.
Nova Scotia
This is perhaps the best and most rewarding part of this post to me. The reward is that again thanks to those who responded to my Twitter inquiries I now have more Nova Scotia-based tales to seek out Margaret’s Museum and New Waterford Girl.
It was, however, one of the places I had a ready suggestion for but just the one. Pit Pony is one of those properties that you come across by chance. I first became familiar with it due to the television series that expanded upon the story, which bounced around several different US broadcasters. It’s one of the few shows I’ve seen in their entirety on multiple occasions. It reaffirms my belief that, although rarely implemented, the half-hour drama, especially when shot single-camera, is the most effective TV format. You have in this series palpable drama, romance, all in a turn of the century mining town so there’s a Dickensian struggle to is also.
Eventually, the TV show lead me to seek out the novel upon which it was based, and also the feature film that kickstarted the series. The film is essentially very faithful to the book and the series picks up from there spinning out new tales. In some ways the film isn’t as cinematic as the show is at its best. However, the emotional truth is there owing mostly to the fact that is shares many of the same actors. The various incarnations of the story but mainly the series is why Nova Scotia is near the top of my list of places to go; those vistas need to be seen in person.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Here is another part of the country wherein I was very glad to have a helping hand. I’ve honestly not seen anything set or produced in this province as of yet. However, with The Shipping News, which was suggested by a few people, and Rowdyman that should be quickly remedied.
Ontario
Ontario, Toronto specifically is another city, which while not as renowned as Vancouver, is a chameleon. Yet there are some very clear examples of films made there where the setting is either clearly Ontario or is vague thus makes it somewhat Canadian in my mind all the same.
If you haven’t seen Pontypool remedy that. I do want to revisit it, and while I’m not currently crazy about the third act, it is truly effective stuff.
It’s likely a film I should’ve included on my Embarrassed to Say list but I saw Videodrome for the first time not too long ago and it wouldn’t be what it is if not made by Cronenberg and Cronenberg wouldn’t be Cronenberg without being Canadian. Both he and Atom Egoyan made many a film in Canada, though perhaps not specifically set there. However, Egoyan’s earlier works all seem to be and are well worth seeing.
I have said previously how underrated and amazing I think The Kids in The Hall: Brain Candy is. While it too falls into the vague category and does make a lot of commentary apropos of 90s America, it’s still The Kids in the Hall, in my head (where it’s 72 degrees all the time) this movie is in Canada.
Suggested to me: Nobody Waved Goodbye and Breakfast with Scot.
Northwest Territories and Nunavut
There are two reasons I had to combine these two territories: First, since Nunavut came into being in 1999 a boundary may have shifted moving a previously made film from the Northwest Territory to Nunavut. Second, specific information is hard to find on productions that shoot that far north so to play it safe I’ll discuss both rather than being incorrect.
One film that was suggested to me was Atanarjuat: Fast Runner, which I recall seeing during its initial US Theatrical release at the Angelika in New York I believe.
That film was the first installment of a loose trilogy, I have yet to see the middle film, but the third Before Tomorrow was one of my favorite films in 2009 and won a BAM for its cinematography. I believe the only location cited in the filming is northern Quebec and I don’t recall if it was supposed to be doubling for the even further north Nunavut isles or if it was supposed to be a literal setting.
From a film history perspective Nanook of the North is an early groundbreaking documentary even though the titles offer a clearly biased (at times racist), dated interpretation of the footage it’s still an interesting film, but an American one.
Manitoba
When I think of Manitoba cinematically one name jumps immediately to the fore: Guy Maddin. I was suggested The Saddest Music in the World but would submit My Winnipeg a wonderfully personal, bizarre and artful portrait of a man and his strange relationship with his hometown. The narration, which is plentiful and great has been published as a book and would make a great companion to the film if you can track it down on DVD.
Seeing as how two National Film Board animated shorts were nominated for the Oscars this year I spotlighted a great Canadian short in a Short Film Saturday post: The Cat Came Back is one of my single favorite animated shorts ever.
The Nature of Nicholas, which is a tremendously creative, well-crafted, surreal fable about a boy struggling with his feelings for his best friend.
Alberta
This proved to be a tough one for me to figure also. I know the Canadian rockies and plains have been used as substitutes but to find a film shot and set there was a challenge. I didn’t want to cheat here with something like King’s Ransom, the ESPN Films doc about the Wayne Gretzky trade. However, answers did find me…
The first was via a tremendous suggestion by one of those I asked for input and a response I got was Passchendaele, which is a tale of a veteran his girlfriend, a nurse and a naive child during World War I, which sounds like a film well worth seeking out.
Then I was reminded of my second favorite Oscar nominated animated short from this year: Wild Life. You can read my thoughts on it here.
Lastly, like a bolt of lightning it struck me to search out information on perhaps the most successful lampoon for the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 gang: The Final Sacrifice. Now, typically I will go on laughing jags in good MST3K episodes. However, never before in one of these episodes was I fighting against asphyxiation so hard, never did my face hurt so from laughing, nor did cry from laughing so hard; as when I first watched this film. Like a typical selection by the show, it’s not quality cinema but this is one of those bad movies that really goes for it, which makes it enjoyable in its own right. It’s not one of those limp, plotless trudges it gives them a lot to play off of. This film tries hard, it creates a mythology and perhaps the greatest character name ever, and I’d argue a decent anti-hero; Zap Rowsdower. So after struggling, I did find some Alberta product that is rather intriguing in one way or another.
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan was another one I had a tough time with. When I first really started to watch and follow Canadian football I was drawn to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in part because that’s the professional team there. I subsequently learned a bit more about the region but I don’t believe I’ve seen a film made in and set in the province, I could be wrong but it’s not coming to mind at the moment.
Here is where a suggestion came in handy, again this one was Brendan Meyer’s: Why Shoot The Teacher? which tells the tale of a young man who just graduated college in the east and the only job offer he receives is in a one-room school house in the prairies. There’s a clear clash and fish-out-of-water element but eventually he does connect to the place and the people and they to him. It’s one of the more intriguing suggestions I received.
Yukon
I had to go and search the IMDb because my inquiries did not yield results for the Yukon, though there are some interesting ones at least in terms of locations.
The recent film The Big Year had scenes there though I suspect doubling. A recent horror film entitled Whisper used the Yukon to double for New England. Therefore, the most recent film that was both shot in and set in the Yukon, I believe, is the 1983 Disney film Never Cry Wolf.
Its an area with a fascinating history and great scenic locations, which could be utilized more.
Prince Edward Island
Part of what I really enjoy about expansive posts like this one is that I invariably learn things. Now, clearly I found many films worth pursuing but where I learned most was here. I got no suggestions for PEI and it nearly slipped my mind. However, the IMDb didn’t offer much in the way of film productions set there. I did discover that there is quite a bit of legacy on Prince Edward Island in the person of Lucy Maud Montgomery whose novels about Emily of New Moon and Anne of Green Gables that are renowned the world over. Television productions, be they series or TV movies of the books, were filmed there but apparently no feature film adaptation was shot there. It is quite impressive that two such well-known series not only came from the same author but round out this post nicely.
Conclusion
I already knew Canada offered diverse film selections but approaching it this way I came away with myriad titles to seek out and discover, along with some others I was aware of but didn’t include here. If you’re interested in assembling your own tour there are several resources you can check out, you’ll find two below:
You can also visit and search via provincial or territorial film boards.
The Movie Rat 