Comic Con in Pictures: Part 1

Every year San Diego hosts the world's biggest gathering of the geeks when Comic Con takes over the city for the better part of a week. Of course, it hasn't just been about comics for a long time; it's really more of a massive pop culture fair now, with a huge share of the action aimed at moviegoers and gamers. Consisting of hundreds of vendors, scores of panels, preview screenings, countless celebrity signings, sprawling parties and fan attendance at over 130 000, there's talk of moving it some where bigger, like Vegas.

Everyone wants to go to Comic Con, it seems. I was lucky enough to be there again this year, and I've brought back pics to give movie fans a look at what geeky goodness was on display. Really, though, it only shows a tiny fraction of the sensory overload that is the San Diego Comic Con.

Universes collide as a cylon faces down R2D2 in the second floor atrium.

Corey Feldman catches me trying to catch his good side during a media round table for the upcoming Lost Boys: The Thirst. (Yep, they made a third one...)

If I could arrive and leave Comic Con in a ride of my choosing, the Ecto-1 would be it. The crowds and small aisles made it tough to get a larger shot. Note the wear 'n' tear on the hood, from the shoot presumably.

Thursday night's party for Machete was held in a parking lot and featured free tacos, beer and tequila; an assortment of restored and modified classic cars and motorbikes; scantily-clad dancing girls; a graffiti demonstration; and actual biker gang members.

(Left to right) writer/director Robert Rodriguez and stars Danny Trejo and Michelle Rodriguez introduce a clip of the film and thank various collaborators.

 

And if you want to put a miniature Danny Trejo in your house, this statue of Machete will be released in September.

Tobin Bell (a.k.a. Jigsaw) from the Saw franchise takes part in a Q&A before a preview for the next, seventh(!) and last movie in the series (so they claim), which will be in 3-D.

 

Craig Glenday, Editor in Chief of the Guinness Book of World Records was on hand to present the filmmakers with a record for "Most Successful Horror Series." Director Kevin Greutert looks on.

If a parade of red swim suited revelers suddenly come around the corner, it can only mean one thing...

...and that's the arrival of The Hoff himself, David Hasselhoff, who sang, danced and tested out his plastic surgery in the sun, while promoting is new reality series.

(That's it for now; more Comic Con 2010 celebs, toys, fan costumes and general pop culture tom foolery to come.)

-Dave Alexander

FanTasia Film Fest Reviews: Part One

Down Terrace

(Ben Wheatly)

Imagine the offbeat, character-driven comedy of the Coen Brothers crossed with the working class-themed dramatic realism of Ken Loach and you’ve arrived at Down Terrace.

Ben Wheatly, who honed his skills working in British television, directed and co-wrote this very matter-of-fact story of a family of gangsters trying to root out a snitch in their inner circle. Most of the, er, action takes place in their very average-looking house, where father, mother and grown up son have very typical family squabbles, drink tea and overall live a very mundane life… aside from the fact that they keep killing off those around them.

The everyday-ness of it all is somewhat reminiscent of The Sopranos, the crime drama has a bit of a Blood Simple feel, but it’s dry and subtle as the British version of The Office. The performances are excellent all around (particularly Robert Hill and co-writer Robin Hill, the real life father and son duo who play a very antagonistic father and son here), but the tone may be a bit too slight for either fans of gangster flicks or comedies. I’d say that’s what makes the film such a unique gem. You never know quite where it’s going – in a good way.

 

Heartless

(Philip Ridley)

If you don’t know who Philip Ridley is, well, you might have a tough time finding out. His last film (he spends much of his time directing live theatre), which came out fourteen years ago, was The Passion of Darkly Noon, and his one before that, The Reflecting Skin (1990) has never been on DVD. The latter title, a truly beautiful, bizarre and morbid prairie gothic tale, starring Viggo Mortensen, is one of my all time favourite films, so I was more than a little excited to see this one, about a young London man with a heart-shaped birthmark on his face who makes a pact with the devil to have it removed.

Jim Sturgess is perfectly cast as photographer Jamie Morgan, who yearns to meet a girl who’s not repulsed by his wine-coloured birthmark. In the midst of a rash of hideously violent crimes, seemingly committed by literal demons, Jamie finds himself in a (again, literally) hellish apartment building where Papa B (a seriously frightenng Joseph Mawle) makes him an offer he can’t refuse. (Oh Jamie, have you never read a story or watched a movie about a pact with the devil? These things never work out well…)

Although it’s well worth seeking out for the excellent cast, original storyline and some great visuals, the uneven tone makes this the least of Ridley’s films. Sometimes dead serious, sometimes unexpectedly comedic, it feels like different writers were given different scenes to write in the same film.

Regardless hopefully we don’t have to wait another fourteen years for Ridley to resurface.

 

Kuroneko

(Kaneto Shindô)

FanTasia also plays a small selection of classic films, and, like Heartless, Kuroneko is by a writer/director who made one of my all-time favourite movies, Onibaba (1964). Kaneto Shindô made this one in 1968 and it’s basically a companion piece to Onibaba. Both movies are set in a similar time in Japan’s war-torn past, where ruthless samurais and the supernatural mix. Here, a band of swordsman comes upon a house in the woods, and the grubby, starving men rape and murder the mother and daughter-in-law who live there, burning down the home with them in it. A black cat licks at the bodies in the charred remains, and soon samurais who travel at night in the area are being lured by an enchanting young woman back to a house in the forest, where they meet their ends. When a war hero samurai is given the task of killing the demons, he makes a shocking discovery that divides his loyalties.

Like Onibaba, Kuroneko is gorgeously photographed in black and white, features an amazing, haunting soundtrack of sparse drumbeats and creepy percussion; mixes the erotic, the violent and the supernatural in an atmosphere of otherworldly desperation; and technically it’s near perfection.

I’d be surprised if Criterion, which put out Onibaba, hasn’t already picked this up for a North American DVD release. Amazing, Shindô, who is almost a 100, is still alive and making films, so let’s hope he does a commentary for this masterpiece.

 

-Dave Alexander

To Know Poe

My sojourn to Montreal to take in a week of the FanTasia film festival has ended, so now it’s time to get into some of the actual films… well, not quite.

Before that, let’s talk Poe. This year’s FanTasia program included a two-night run of Nevermore: An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe, performed in Montreal’s gorgeous former movie theatre, the Rialto, which dates back to the silent era. Poe was the original Master of Horror, of course, and countless film adaptations of his stories have been produced, but what makes this live theatre performance particularly special for film fans?

Easy: the horror film powerhouse trio of director Stuart Gordon, actor Jeffrey Combs and writer Dennis Paoli. If you’re more than even the most casual of horror fans, you’ve seen Re-Animator, the very loose 1985 adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story, which was co-written by Paoli and Gordon, directed by Gordon and starred Combs as the comically narcissistic and mad scientist Herbert West. The trio teamed up again for From Beyond (1986), The Pit and the Pendulum (1991) and the Masters of Horror series episode The Black Cat (2007). Beyond that, Gordon has also directed a whack of cool low-budget films, including Dagon, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Edmond; Paoli did the screenplay for Abel Ferrara’s underrated 1993 Bodysnatchers (yes, an Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake); and Combs has been in all kinds of things, including a whack of Star Trek episodes, from more than one of the latter-day series.

For a couple years now, they’ve been touring around Nevermore: An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe and I’ve been dying to see it. The one man show – which is close to two hours long – has Combs as Poe performing a recital of his work, but self-sabotaging the evening by drinking and bad mouthing his peers, eventually spiraling into a stumbling state of self-loathing and despair. Combs gives the definitive Poe performance, gripping the crowd with his passionate delivery, flair for bringing the writer’s words to life and (often comical, often crushingly self-destructive) faux drunken bravado. It’s a captivating display of cryptic, wounded humanity, and obviously the closest thing a Poe fan can get to hearing the author, who died in October of 1849, read his own work.

If you’re in the San Diego area at the end of the year, you can catch Nevermore here. Other presentations pop up on Combs’ official site, here. However, if you’re in the vast majority, and won’t be able to see Nevermore, yet really want to see Combs as the doomed author, you gotta get your hands on the aforementioned Masters of Horror (the series that ran for two seasons in 2005 to 2007, in which each episode was an hour-long movie directed by a notable “master of horror”) installment The Black Cat (here). It combines the Poe story of the same name with Poe himself (Combs, obviously) being driven murderously mad by the black cat that’s inspiring the famous tale. It’s the best episode in the series, and soars on the strengths of Combs’ increasingly manic performance, the inventive storytelling device and classy direction. Combs, Paoli and Stuart: The Masters of Poe.

 

 

-Dave Alexander

 

Destination: FanTasia

 

Do you like films about kung-fu, mutants, gangsters, aliens, magic, vigilantes, ghosts, maniacs, the undead, rock ‘n’ roll, and all manner of monsters? How about films featuring kung-fu mutants or undead vigilantes? If you’re like me and this kind of cinema gets you stoked, you need to get yourself to the annual FanTasia film festival in Montreal. Every July, for three weeks, the fest hosts well over a 100 features, dozens of world or North American premieres, shorts programs, free outdoor screenings, lectures, filmmakers from all over the world and other guests of honour. Every year I look forward to going to FanTasia, and every year I’m frustrated that I can only stay for a small portion of it, usually a long weekend.

This summer, however, I’m vacationing in Montreal, so I’m around for ten glorious days of the festival, which means even more of the cinematic mayhem that draws filmmakers, programmers, media and fans from all over the world.

Among the highlights for 2010: a program called Subversive Serbia, which features some very confrontational and controversial genre films from that country, some of which have never been seen outside of Europe before now; A screening of Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet with musical accompaniment from Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees; a 25th anniversary screening of Re-Animator, with director Stuart Gordon, writer Dennis Paoli and star Jeffery Combs in attendance; a performance of Comb’s one-man play, Nevermore: An Evening With Edgar Allen Poe (directed by Stuart); and the Eastern premiere of the recently rediscovered and restored (25-minute longer) director’s cut of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Weird, diverse and unparalleled in terms of cinephile geek-outs.

But, it’s more than that. The reason FanTasia – now in its fourteenth year – thrives, is not only because it features a killer line-up of films and events, takes places in a city that boisterously supports the arts (seriously, you can sell out multiple midnight screenings in huge theatres on week nights!) and has a diverse roster of guests, but also because of its approach to the overall festival experience.

Many film fests are all about private parties, velvet ropes, tightly controlled press conferences, paparazzi and other things designed to separate artists, industry types, press and fans. Sure, FanTasia isn’t attracting the likes of Brad Pitt (although it did host a surprise sneak peek of Inglourious Basterds last year, with Eli Roth hosting), but it’s not unusual to have a beer on a patio with the filmmaker whose movie you just watched. Or to chat with major directors and stars from other countries. Or to even get your own movie projected kick-started because you’ve met the right like-minded person. There’s a very relaxed, accessible and international atmosphere to FanTasia that makes it the ideal festival experience for the newcomer and the jaded veteran festivalgoer alike.

Add Montreal's historical sights, the amazing food and other festivals running concurrently with FanTasia (such as Just for Laughs) and it’s a perfect genre cinephile vacation getaway, as long as you don’t mind a little heat and humidity. (I recommend one of the several hotels with A/C and a pool that are within walking distance from the festival – plus there are FanTasia rates, see here.)

I’ll give a sampling of some of the insane films I’ve watched in my next post. In the meantime, remember: Montreal and movies go together like butter and popcorn, or, for the locals, like French fries and cheese curds.

-Dave Alexander

 

Spider-Me, Spider-Me

Is it possible to be bitten by a spider and not be the subject of a Spider-Man joke? I can now tell you from first-hand experience – no. Last week, at night while I was sleeping, something bit me on the foot, presumably an arachnid. The afflicted area became red and swollen, then it became purplish and really painful, then I went to the emergency room and got an IV drip full of antibiotics. I worked from home for a day, at which point my co-workers began referring to me as “Spider-Dave,” one of them re-wrote the Spider-Man theme to be about me (“Is he strong?/Listen, bud/He’s got a beard and prairie blood”) and one of our designers Photoshopped the above picture (thanks, Justin).

The jokes about super powers were relentless (“I didn’t see you at your desk, so I looked up at the ceiling”), as they should be, really – I mean, how often d’ya get the opportunity? Anyhow, no super powers were forthcoming, unless you count laying-on-the-couch-more-than-usual-for-a-few-days an unusual strength.

That’s OK, though because I’d look terrible in spandex, I’m not fond of heights and being a superhero would seriously cut into my movie watching time. Imagine never being able to get through an entire film due to tingling? “I know I should save those kids from the burning apartment building, but dammit, there’s only twelve minutes left in Police Academy 5 and I need to know how it ends.”

Like many kids, I was obsessed with superheroes, particularly Spider-Man. When I was about four, my parents took me to a Levis store in Lloydminister to meet “Spider-Man,” and I’ve still got the autograph and the little button he gave me.” There’s a point in one’s young life where you actually imagine the possibility of being a comic book hero and try to figure out what your life would be like. Would I get out of school to save people? Would I be allowed to tell mom and dad my secret identity? Would I still have to eat zucchini? Please make me not have to eat zucchini.

Sitting around in a hospital for hours gives one plenty of time to think about REALLY IMPORTANT stuff, so I wondered what would happen in the Spider-Man movie about my life, if I’d been bitten by a radioactive creepy-crawly. Then I recalled the Jack Black Spider-Man parody from the MTV Movie Awards and realized that would be the best I could hope for, but without a kiss from Sarah Michelle Gellar.

However, there is a new Spider-Man movie in the works, a reboot, which is ridiculous seeing as the last one came out in 2007. (Then again, that one’s so bad it shouldn’t really count…)

Instead of wishing to be Spider-Man, now I’m wishing for an anti-Spider-Man Spider-Man movie – some reason to care about this shameless cash-grab reboot. For starters, I figure that Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) should direct it – he’s great with colours, likes very quirky characters and can really bring out the pathos of someone grappling with a great sense of responsibility. Father figures play huge in Anderson’s films too, and Peter Parker’s central pathos is that his actions led to death of his own father figure, Uncle Ben.

I think the bad guy should be Mysterio this time around, and he should be sardonically-voiced voiced by Bill Murray. Anjelica Houston could be a world-weary Aunt May and maybe Gene Hackman could do a turn as J. Jonah Jameson. Mary-Jane? Hmmm... maybe Christina Ricci?

Sure, a lot of the film would be self-analyzing conversations, comedic self-loathing and the search for acceptance and redemption, but it’d be a helluva lot better than, um, say, a dance sequence at a jazz club.

Wes Anderson’s Spider-Man, now that would actually get me stoked about a reboot. Then again, I’m also full of spider poison, so take anything I’ve said here with a few grains of radioactive salt.

 

-Dave Alexander

Git Yer Gadgets Away From That Horse

Can’t a western just be a western? Although the western was the most lucrative and virile genre for decades, it largely petered out in the late-‘70s/early-‘80s after it became really self-aware and basically ran out of ways to evolve. There will always be an audience for ‘em, though, and some continue to get made (The Unforgiven, Open Range and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford being three important examples), unfortunately the few “westerns” that show up in the multiplexes are mostly pseudo-westerns, where the genre itself is just novelty dressing.

You’ve got Young Guns, which is really a teen heartthrob action movie; Bad Girls, a Charlie’s Angels-in-the-old-west kinda story; Posse, a modern blaxploitation in the old west tale; Back to the Future III, a blockbuster sci-fi adventure-comedy; Wild, Wild West, a blockbuster sci-fi action-comedy; and The Missing, Ron Howard’s supernatural mystery/drama set in the old West, as some examples. Most of these films use the well-established clichés of the genre, such as shoot-outs, horse chases or saloon fights, to give a spin to a story that could otherwise be set modern day. And most of them are awful because of it. (Back to the Future III actually works pretty well because the story itself is actually about modern technology in an old world, and it puts some pretty clever spins on the juxtaposition.)

None of these movies are as bad as Jonah Hex, though. Being a bit of a fan of the comic book (which ironically later became just Hex when the character was transported into a futuristic post-apocalyptic setting – mwah! Glavin!), I spat in the face of better judgment and went to see it in the theatre. And, yes, I would’ve had a better time being kicked in the neck by a horse. Currently, it’s got my vote for worst film of the year.

It’s terrible in many,many different ways: the dull direction, the horrible editing that seems to smash two or three different, separately shot, versions of the plot together, the gaping logic and character inconsistencies, the unfinished-looking computer effects and the non-presence of Megan Fox – despite the glaring presence of the Megan Fox corset-boobs that are attached to her. I could go on, but, in short, it rained creative horse apples in the theatre that night. (With the exception of star Josh Brolin, who tried his darndest to sell the character, even with all that rubbery scar makeup on his face.)

What does need to be pointed out is the worst offense of all: the pointless modernization of the story. If the Hex character, with his standard Old West hero deadly aim, trusty horse and dog sidekick, plus – PLUS! – his non-standard supernatural knack for communicating with the dead, dodging bullets and surviving shotgun wounds, wasn’t powerful enough, some jackass (maybe one of the screenwriters, maybe not) decided he needed super-weapons.

So, we see Hex level a town via the massive, fully automated, dual Gatling guns mounted on his horse(!?!). Later, he buys grenade launcher pistols. But, I guess it, like, only makes sense, seeing as the bad guy (a very slumming John Malkovich) has a super-bomb he’s trying to destroy the nation’s capital with – on July 4th no less!!! It’s a hilariously failed attempt to modernize the story with a terrorism plot.

There are decades of Hex stories to draw upon, and no need to toss in a bunch of contemporary gadgetry. At all. Y’see, there’s a level of drama to the western genre in the whole man-vs.-nature/the dangerous frontier theme, which is lost when you add weaponized horses and magic exploding cannonballs [slaps head, shakes fist at sky]. There’s really nothing worse than that kinda crap in a western, or in any period film, for that matter (e.g. Van Helsing).

The bigger issue, really, is that Warner Bros. didn’t trust a western to be just a western (because of the relentless need to market to teens). Screw the comic book fans, screw the western fans. Unsurprisingly, the result is a mess that appeals to know one at all, outside the hardcore Megan Fox boob-watchers, of course.

So why bother making the movie in the first place?

 

-Dave Alexander

What Will Samantha Watch?

Say hi to Samantha, she’s not quite two weeks old, she’s done her baby-ly duty by being painfully cute, and she made me an uncle – yay!

My brother and his wife have their work cut out for them, raising a child in world that has changed so radically since the previous generation, notably the access that young 'uns have to information and media. Aside from the obvious dangers that presents, how do you choose what you expose your kidlet to? Not just to keep her safe, but to try to make her, y’know... cool? That’s my job – be the cool uncle.

It pains me to be on the other side of the country right now. Flights back to Edmonton from Toronto this summer are way too expensive compared to last year, for some reason, so I won’t get to see Samantha until December, most likely. At least that’ll give me plenty of time to make a list of movies she needs to see when she’s old enough for a viewing experience that goes beyond shapes, colours and noises (although that pretty much describes the highlights of most movies at the multiplex at any given time – yeah, I saw Jonah Hex this week).

Where to start…where to start…where to start? Hmmmmmm…

I think a good introduction to the post-Teletubbies/Wubzy/Doodlebops/whatever-other-shows-strain-one’s-masculinity-with-their-very-names world is Finding Nemo. Even if you can’t yet follow the story, there are plenty of fun shapes, cheery colours and stimulating noises for the young viewer – not to mention, adults can dig it too. (I want to state for the record right now that it’s not my problem if my brother and sister-in-law have to buy their child a clown-fish afterwards – cool uncle amnesty.)

When she’s older, I’d like to introduce her to Monsters vs Aliens, not just because monsters fighting aliens is way cool when you’re a kid (or adult), but the main character Ginormica, is a great role model for girls, teaching them that it’s OK to be different, you should accept others for who they are, and – the best part – it’s perfectly OK to be an independent woman and not marry a jerk-nut weatherman.

After that, Wall-E, with its cute robots and vital messages about being kind to the Earth and your own body. Sea creatures, monsters, aliens, robots – I’d say that’s a pretty good mix so far.

But traditional animation is a must too – can’t just feed the kid computer graphics. I’m not one for most traditionally animated Disney movies, though, as few things on this earth are worse than singing cartoon animals (that doesn’t include Madagascar, which is pretty hilarious yet has a bit of singing). Kids may love that stuff, I can’t condone it in good conscience. No, cool uncle will bring over a copy of Brad Bird’s Iron Giant – an anti-militarism movie featuring a friendship between a young boy and s giant weaponized robot that wants peace. There’s no need to assume that just because she’s a girl, it should be all princesses, mermaids and unicorns (although, eventually she’ll need to see The Last Unicorn, of course).

Other traditional animated movies in baby Samantha’s future will hopefully include the imagination-sparking Fantasia, Spirited Away (or anything by Hayao Mayazaki) and any of the Dr. Seuss specials, starting with How the Grinch Stole Christmas!  And, one day, later down the road, Charlotte’s Web, naturally. And absolutely no Shrek! I'll spare her the shameless mugging and badly dated pop-culture references.

Ack, the list is getting huge and I haven’t covered live-action yet! What about the Muppet movies? Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Microcosmos? Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang? The NeverEnding Story? The freakin’ Wizard of freakin’ Oz?!? I didn’t realize this cool uncle business was going to be so much work!

Good thing you’re worth it, Samantha – welcome to the world. (And congratulations, Brad and Erin.)

 

-Dave Alexander

The Gist of The Mist

I’m intrigued by the way cinema affects our perception of reality, especially how certain images or feelings from films stick with us for days, months, years, even a lifetime. Jaws (which just turned 35, by the way), is one of those movies that’s often cited as having that power, making viewers terrified to go in the water permanently after watching it – even in fresh water lakes, which is completely irrational.

Of course, it’s not just horror films that can cause such strong associations; Vegas reminds me of Swingers, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Hangover – humourous films that amplify that carnivalesque, party too-hearty, anything goes reputation. I bring up fear though, not just because it’s such a strong emotion, but also because it sparks my imagination more than other feelings.

For example, this weekend, myself and five others got the hell out of Smashronto to a rental cottage in the woods. The destination was near Huntsville, site of the G8 Summit, and the entire lake was unusually quiet – hardly a boat out on a sunny Saturday afternoon. We were the only people renting a cottage at the property; all felt peaceful and serene. Well, at least until late that night.

We were sitting lakeside, around a campfire. It was nearly a full moon, which illuminated the still water, the opposite shoreline and an island. Then the mist rolled in shortly after midnight. It was actually really beautiful, but those of us that had watched the movie The Mist, Frank Darabont’s 2007 adaptation of my favourite Stephen King short story, immediately remarked how creepy it was and how it was devouring the land across from us, and that it was most likely chock full of hideous monstrosities from another dimension that were waiting to devour us with tentacles, pinchers and fangs. Y’know, it was 26 above with a chance of Lovecraft…

The Mist is so effective at creating an atmosphere of dread emanating from that rather ordinary barometric phenomenon, that since seeing it, every time it’s foggy out I think about the film and get just a little creeped because of it, in a way that I never did before seeing the movie. In my head I replay those scenes in my head where the mist rolls in off the lake, and then later spills through the town, into the parking lot of the supermarket where our heroes are forced to hole up.

As the mist crept closer to us, I could almost hear the unearthly moaning of the terrors within. That’s the power of cinema when it preys on you oh-so perfectly.

Of course, it may just be that I watch way too many horror films. After the mist arrived, we went down to the dock and shone a flashlight across the water; I illuminated a raft for swimmers that’s was a little way out in the water, and the first thing I thought of was the raft in “The Raft” segment of Creepshow 2 (the movie anthology comprised of adaptations of, again, Stephen King short stories). Then we looked up at the cottage on the hill, which was surrounded by mist and appeared particularly frightening with the porch lights casting strange shadows amongst the trees. First thought: the cabin in The Evil Dead.

Is this an unhealthy default – to think of these movies? To imagine hideous terrors? Should I lay off them for a while?

Of course, not. When I got back home last night, I watched The Mist again. My imagination also lives in that white shroud with all the monsters, and the last thing I want to do is put a leash on  it. If cinema can create such strong connotations, it's telling you about yourself, and that's a good thing.

 

-Dave Alexander

Land of the Delegates

A fenced-off Toronto, conflict in the streets, brain dead decision making and the recent death of Dennis Hopper – how I could not have Land of the Dead on the Brain?

George A. Romero’s 2005, T.O.-shot  zombie film is a return to the flesh-eating zombie subgenre that he created. It takes place in a walled city, where the rich, led by Hopper’s character, Kaufman (apparently based on Donald Rumsfeld), live in a luxurious tower protected by the military. Eventually, through human error and zombie ingenuity, the dead overtake the city, literally eating the rich. Meanwhile, a rag-tag groups of heroes escape with the intent to go to Canada (the film was shot here but set in Romero’s home city, Pittsburgh).

Aside from Hopper’s impersonation, the satire on Bush’s America is more than obvious – the growing gap between rich and poor, a militarized state, corrupt government, etc. Many urban Toronto features are recognizable, and when I was downtown last weekend and saw those giant fences for the first time, the first thing that leapt to mind was Land of Dead. It looked like preparations for a zombie apocalypse down on Front Street.

Of course, nothing in Romero’s satirical movie matches the hyperbole of Toronto’s Theatre of Security. Red and yellow zones, bicycle posts removed with the bikes still on them, saplings uprooted for fear that they could be weaponized… Really, when was the last time you saw a protestor whittle a poking stick?

I wouldn’t believe this sort of stuff was taking place if it was in a movie, and it would be pretty hilarious if it wasn’t so embarrassing and unnecessary. There’s nothing to showcase here for the G20 delegates, other than concrete and chain-link fence, so why not hold it somewhere isolated and sublime, like a ski resort, where a regular old fence and some bear spray could take care of unwanted visitors. Why not on the edge of an actual lake, instead of a fake one built for the cost of $2 million. To put it in perspective, that was the cost of Romero’s 2008 zombie film Diary of the Dead.

As this Star article points out (prepare to be very, very angry after reading it), the G20 is costing Canadians about $1.1 billion dollars, with $930 million of it for security. I can barely get my head around that figure (though it does bring to mind another movie title: FUBAR…).

Romero has lived in Toronto for several years now, and he shot his last three zombie movies in the city and surround area. Given the man’s politics, a factor in that decision to move north may have been the desire to escape this kind of militaristic insanity. The legendary filmmaker resides in a high-rise condo somewhere downtown, and I wonder if he stands out on his balcony and surveys the whole thing with a laugh. I wonder what he thinks about Toronto’s downtown being turned into the world’s most expensive zombie movie set. I wonder if it’s inspiring another one of his Dead films.

I hope so, because that’s about the only good thing I can somehow, maybe, possibly see coming out of this who G20 fiasco.

 

-Dave Alexander

Sense and Censor Ability

Without government funding, there would be no Canadian film industry – that’s not breaking news. Canuck flicks get made with the help of funding bodies on both the federal and provincial levels, with different provinces having different incentives and mandates for distributing the money. Traditionally, this has resulted in “culture-building” projects, meaning narratives about racial, social, sexual, political diversity; historical struggles against this, vast, unforgiving landscape, which shaped the character of our nation; and more high-brow (read: non-Hollywood) projects exploring the struggle for national identity.

Or, as the average Canadian will tell you: a lot of really boring movies.

But not always. Some of our greatest and most famous films have been horrific (David Cronenberg, for example), critically-acclaimed dark dramas (Atom Egoyan’s award-winning work) or light comedy (films by sketch comedy actors come to mind).

I’ve been thinking about this since reading a couple of New York Times pieces. The first is about how, in the U.S., state funding bodies increasingly are acting like censors by denying funding to projects that they don’t agree with on moral grounds, often using provisions in state law that allow them to deny funding if a film portrays the state in a negative way.

The second piece is a companion article that hilariously re-envisions classic New York-set films as being sanitized to make the city look favourable. In Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle is a helpful cabbie trying to return a laptop left in his car by a twelve-year-old girl; in Wall Street, Gordon Gecko is an environmental crusader using his financial know-how to stop big business polluters; and King Kong just wants to scale the Empire State building to soak up that famous skyline.

What if the same thing happened to some of Canada’s most famous Toronto-set films? Let’s rework the plots of three T.O.-based stories to make them less morally questionable.

 

Strange Brew

This time, the Rick Moranis/Dave Thomas film sees two friends, Robert and Douglas (bonded over a mutual enthusiasm for soda pop), take a break from job hunting to visit the Canada Dry factory, in order to offer their advice on how to improve the product. To their surprise, they’re both offered employment and embark on careers as quality control representatives. However, while on the job, they uncover a troubling plot in which the ginger ale brewmaster plans on donating expired cases of pop to a local hockey team for troubled youth – and telling them that it’s fresh! To thwart the nefarious plan, Robert drinks all of the expired soda at once, causing him to balloon up to a comical size. Douglas rolls him over to the hockey rink, where the two men lecture the team on the dangers of consuming an abundance of sugary liquids, before the brewmaster, seeing the error of his ways, arrives to deliver fresh Canada Dry to the team. Everyone on the squad also gets a free toque.

 

Exotica

Atom Egoyan’s film gets re-envisioned, so it’s about a Revenue Canada employee who regularly visits the library, where he requests that his favourite librarian, a pretty young woman, help him peruse the exotic plants section. A clerk at the check-out desk who used to date the librarian becomes jealous and tampers with the man’s account so it appears that he’s assessed a massive late fine, and he is then barred from going to the library. A pet store owner, grateful to the man for auditing him so he could pay the correct sum to the government, decides to help. Together, they construct a detailed timeline – depicted in a series of flashbacks – proving that the late fee could not possibly be correct. When confronted with the evidence, the clerk decides that the right thing to do is resign. In a final flashback, we learn that the librarian reminds the man of his daughter, who he misses dearly because she’s gone away tree-planting in British Columbia for the summer.

 

Crash

In this version of the David Cronenberg film, a husband and wife with marital concerns get in a car accident and become inspired to hold a demolition derby to raise money for people injured in automobile mishaps. Along the way, they meet others – including a doctor and a James Dean fan – who had similar experiences, and they all decide to work together to channel their mutual car crash-related interests for the greater good of society. The group members go out dancing together and, while switching partners, decide to overcome their anxieties stemming from the various accidents by participating in the derby themselves. In the end, they realize that the ultimate thrill is helping others, which brings the husband and wife closer together, effectively saving their marriage. Prolonged sequences showcasing the importance of seatbelts, hammers home the film’s ultimate message of vehicular safety.

 

-Dave Alexander