Just in Case You're in Montreal Today...

Did I mention that I don't just watch films and write about 'em, sometimes I make 'em? I'm currently in Montreal for the FanTasia film festival. This is my fourth year here covering the fest, but my first year as a filmmaker, as well. I'm here with my filmmaking partner Colin Landry for the world premiere of our fifteen-minute horror-themed short Fallow. I wrote it, we both directed it and edited it (although Colin deserves more props than myself on this point for his mad computer skills), and a whole lot of other very dedicated people helped us make it. Anyhow, should you be in Montreal today, and feel like seeing a bunch of killer short films, Fallow is playing as part of FanTasia's Short Gauge Trauma program (5pm, Concordia Hall).
If it doesn't feel terribly self-promotional, I'll write about the experience later. Regardless, I'll be giving you the low-down on the movies that checked out, because if you like horror/action/fantasy/sci-fi/kung-fu/animation/Asian cinema in general FanTasia is the place to be.
In the meantime, if you want to see the trailerand/or a larger version of the poster (which was made by Justin Erickson and, as you can clearly see, rules!), check out the film's official website, here, which we'll be spiffing up and adding a bunch more content too very soon. Vive le cinéma!

The Filth and the Fury

It’s hot, sticky and filthy – so what better way to celebrate a month of the Toronto 2009 garbage strike than with one of the dirtiest movies ever made: Street Trash. And by “dirty,” I mean literally dir-ty. The 1987 film is part of a strange, small sub-set of low-budget splatter films from the ‘80s that portrayed NYC as a crime and garbage-ridden hellhole – and hammered that worm into the Big Apple with a crass cocktail of violence, nudity, urban decay, mutants, black humour and gooey gore effects. Street Trash’s bad brethren include The Toxic Avenger, Slime City, Brain Damage and Basket Case – films that took the city’s bad reputation at the time (before Guliani brought in reforms), inflated it and turned it into an aesthetic.

If you think the site of an over-ripe City of Toronto garbage bin is gross, well, you can practically see the stink-lines coming off J. Michael Muro’s Street Trash.

It was shot in a decaying, crime and vandalism-ravaged section of Brooklyn and concerns a group of grimy, junkyard-dwelling hobos who do anything they can to get drunk. Their daily routines of scamming people, scamming each other, talking about their scams, getting pie-eyed, giving and receiving beatings and not showering, are interrupted when a liquor store owner discovers a dusty case of booze, called Viper, hidden behind his basement wall. Never missing a chance to make a buck – literally – he sells it to the hobos for a dollar a bottle. He doesn’t realize, though – until after it’s way too late – that seconds after drinking it, it causing one to melt, erupt and explode, in ways similar to the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark who didn’t get the safety memo about the importance of never looking into an opened ark. Imagine a movie where that kind of thing happens all the time, and in a wide variety of graphically disgusting ways – notably a hobo dissolving into a runny mound of gunk inside an already defiled toilet bowl – and you’ll start to understand exactly why Street Trash is a prince among sleaze.

It was written by Roy Frumkes, who’s also known for his famous documentary about George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, called Document of the Dead, and it’s obscenely hilarious gorefest. And it’s not just a series of gore gags strung together either.

For starters, it’s full of colourful characters, such as the young runaway who wants to better himself and falls in love with the scrap yard manager; the crazed king of the hobos who sits on a throne made of an old car seat and other crap and suffers homicidal ‘Nam flashbacks, a crazed gangster looking for his moll (who has the misfortune of stumbling into the hobo encampment), the violent, hard-assed cop investigating the bubbling body count, and a mayor who can’t settle a garbage strike after a month. (Just kidding about that last one – trying to keep things relevant...)

With greasy hobos having sex among the junk, more than one sexual assault taking place, and a game of bum football played with a severed penis, Street Trash absolutely revels in both literal and moral filth. It’s intentionally and gleefully repugnant, which makes it so awfully enjoyable – like a really good fart joke. (If you want to see for yourself, the film was reissued a couple of years ago in a deluxe double-disc edition by Synapse and probably can be found at your local cult-movie friendly rental house.)

So, as we sit and stew in our own filth here in T.O., I’d like to salute Street Trash for reminding us that being durty sure ain’t purty, but sometimes you just gotta get down with the detritus.

-Dave Alexander

Any Anti-Creation-ists Out There?

Apparently there’s an uproar in the Canadian film community over the fact that the programmers for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is breaking an unwritten rule by not opening the fest with a homegrown feature… apparently…

An article in yesterday’s Toronto Star by columnist Martin Knelman, about TIFF’s decision to screen the British Darwin-themed drama Creation, begins as follows:

“Is it a slap in the face to the Canadian movie industry?

“Or is it a welcome sign the Toronto International Film Festival has grown out of the flag-waving parochialism that sometimes made visitors from New York and L.A. roll their eyes?”

Knelman’s piece also proclaims that the decision is “bound to cause shockwaves,” however among who exactly remains unclear. He interviews festival programmer Cameron Bailey, who gives the honest (and appropriately diplomatic) answer when asked why a British film is taking the Canadian slot: “We just fell in love with this movie.”

Yet there’s nobody interviewed, or even mentioned who’s upset with the decision – just who is Bailey defending against?

I figured that at the very least there would be some voices crying foul in the comment section underneath the online version of the article, but none of the six comments posted there – at the time of me writing this, anyhow – are against the decision. I was actually surprised as just how in favour most of them are, like, angrily in favour.

 

For example, “StellaBella” exclaims:

 

Well done, TIFF! And I truly mean it. Bailey and Handling [the other programmer] put on their big boy pants and picked the best of what was on offer. Maybe next year there will be a Canadian movie worthy of the top spot. Maybe not. But maybe this will be a wake-up call to an industry that hasn't produced anything world-class in ages.

 

“Harumph” complains:

 

I can always tell a Canadian film on television, after a few seconds – inferior cinematography, sound, dialogue, editing; in short, corners cut everywhere. I played a lead in one, twenty years ago (to be fair, it was half-"produced" in the States). I must say, too, that much of the acting is intestinally constrained (or tight-assed, if you prefer), and many of the performers have a northern British look, not wholly attractive.

 

“Magregrrr” rails:

 

Fer cryin' out loud ... It's an INTERNATIONAL film festival. Or would we rather showcase the TIFF with a battle cry such as: "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of ... mediocre, ever sub-par CBC programming ..."

 

Trying to untangle the briar patch in the quagmire that is the dysfunctional Canadian film (and when I say “Canadian,” I mean English Canada, of course, because Quebec has its own thriving film industry) in a single article isn’t possible; I took entire courses about Canadian media in University that looked at our attitudes towards, and problems with, our own film and television. However, there are some basic truths to be gleaned here.

Firstly, we know our cinematic and televisual media generally pales (or, as many would say, “sucks”) in comparison to that of the U.S., which we absorb much of all the time, being such close neighbours ‘n’ all. We’ve seen enough multiplex films to know what can be done (and promoted) on budgets that dwarf those of our own movies.

Secondly, we may be hosers but we’re not idiots, and we don’t like it when the government, or film festivals, or anyone tries to tell us that something is better than it is. You can call a doughnut a “cake” but you’re not fooling anyone. Knelman points out in his piece that producer Ivan Reitman turned down the TIFF opening gala slot for Atom Egoyan’s new film because the night has turned into a joke – considered “an exercise in dull Canadian self-congratulation.”

Thirdly, these kind of attempts at cultural protectionism backfire. We have this inferiority complex, where we worry what the Big Boys in New York and L.A. will think of us (valid concerns if you’re trying to build a reputation within an international film community). And nobody wants to be the fat kid who gets the “participation” medal – your peers might politely clap for you, but they’re sure as hell not going to pick you first for the baseball team.

The worst part of it all is the negative attitude it creates towards Canuck movies. When “StellaBella” says, “But maybe this will be a wake-up call to an industry that hasn't produced anything world-class in ages,” she’s making an unfair (or uniformed) generalization. Some of the best movies I’ve seen in the past few years include a bunch of Canadian titles, such as 2006’s Away From Her (this one floored me – it rules), Cronenberg career highlights A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007), Radiant City (2006), Fido (2006) and Pontypool (2008).

Knelman ends his column by saying that “opening night will cease to be a ghetto,” and that’s the bottom line. As someone who programs films, I can tell ya that you’ve got to show work that your audience will come and see, and you can’t force them to like anything just because it’s good for… for what? Our national identity?

More importantly, as an audience member, you just want to trust that you’re seeing something worth your money, time and effort. And that’s why I doubt there will be a lot of tears of beers spilled over the TIFF decision to open with Creation. After all, the industry’s gotta evolve somehow.

 

-Dave Alexander

The Adventure Begins... Again!

I’d given up hope of being bitten by a radioactive spider long ago, my birth certificate doesn’t say anything about Krypton, and I’m way too lazy to build a Bat-Cave, but at least my psychic abilities finally seem to be developing. In my last blog post I celebrated Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins and wondered if “maybe it’s ripe for a remake?” Shortly after this I was sent a link (thanks, Kristal!) to a news story that appeared a day later announcing that a new Remo Williams franchise is in the works!

According to this story at Riskybusinessblog.com, "The Dark Knight producer Charles Roven and Transporter producer Steve Chasman are teaming up to produce The Destroyer, a franchise vehicle that brings back ’80s action hero Remo Williams. The pair have [sic] set up the project at Columbia.”

Perhaps I have the power to will remakes into existence, which is pretty useless, seeing as pretty much everything has been remade or is going to be remade. A better power would be the ability to will remakes out of existence, which I would use immediately to erase Rob Zombie’s  Halloween, Gus Van Sant’s Psycho and Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, to names but a few of many.

Anyhow, I think bringing back Remo Williams has promise, seeing as the series never had a chance to fly (or run across water, if you prefer) in the first place. But there are some obvious challenges in terms of exactly what kind of a Remo Williams film these guys should be making. The Destroyer novels source material is very tongue-in-cheek, apparently, and half the fun of the original Remo Williams is the silliness of it (i.e. the running across water). It doesn’t make sense to do something serious to compete with Bond or Bourne, so I say preserve the lunacy but avoid going into outright comedy. (I don’t want to see a Wayans or a Farrelly within a hundred miles of this thing). Something along the lines of The Transporter, but not so try-hard in its action movie posturing, could work. Maybe Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor – the guys who made Crank could do it justice?

But more importantly, whose gonna play Remo? Fred Ward will be pushing 70 by the time this gets made, so we need someone else with that right mix of physical prowess, and goofy incredulousness and unlikely-action-hero experience. Christian Bale? Colin Farrell? Robert Downey Jr.? Naw, and besides, realistically these guys are out of the price range for a Remo movie. I think the absolute perfect choice for a new Remo Williams is Nathan Fillion. Admittedly, I'm a tad biased because he a fellow former Edmontonian, but I look at him in Serenity and Slither and I know he’s the right man for the job (hell, look at him to your right, he's already got the Remo wardrobe down pat). He’d bring the right amount of levity to the role, he’s the right age and he’s in good enough shape to take the physical (and mental abuse) from his trainer, Chiun.

And who’s gonna play Chiun, the other key role? Joel Grey played him in the original, under heavy makeup; due to the physical demands, the actor needs to be younger than the character, in excellent shape, and a background in martial arts and comedy is a must. Jackie Chan? Too goofy. It was just suggested to me that Chow Yun-Fat could handle the role (thanks, Marie-Eve!), and I think it’s a possibility. However, what about re-inventing the Master character a bit and having Jean Reno as the trainer? Hmmm… I dunno, This is definitely the toughest character to cast.

Easier would be Wilford Brimley’s character, Harold Smith, the computer nerd. At first I was thinking Brian Cox, but for realistic budgetary concerns, I think Maury Chakin could do just as good a job. As for Harold’s secret agent cohort, Con MacCleary (the guy in the trench coat who recruits Remo), I think it would be a nice touch (particularly given the sexism in the original film) to make this character a woman. And the best woman for the job – someone older, wiser and tough as nails – is Pam Grier, of course. And lastly, there’s the uptight, kind of plain, sort-of love interest, Maj. Rayner Fleming, played by Kate Mulgrew. I’d vote Radha Mitchell for this one, as she can do tough and serious in a uniform (e.g. Silent Hill, Pitch Black), isn’t overly glamourous, and she might actually have some onscreen chemistry with Fillion. (At least she can't have less than Ward and Mulgrew...)

Regardless, I'm so excited about a new Remo Williams movie adventure that I could just – yup, you guessed it – run on water.

-Dave Alexander

No Remo, Mo' Problem

The death of Heath Ledger; the McCarthy-era blacklist; the destruction of Orson Welles’ director’s cut of the Magnificent Ambersons; the lost Tod Browning film London After Midnight – dark times in cinematic history for sure, but do any of them really cause the kind of heartache resulting in there being only one Remo Williams? Tough to say, really, but one thing’s for sure: although the movie’s subtitle was “The Adventure Begins,” the adventure most certainly did not continue.

The year was 1985 and the American tradition of trying to compete with the James Bond franchise took the form of Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. Dean Martin had been in the Matt Helm Bond rip-off series in the ‘60s; there was a bizarre, half-assed attempt to make Clint Eastwood into an action hero spy in 1975 with The Eiger Sanction; Tom Clancy’s spy hero Jack Ryan was played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck in the ‘90s and early 2000s, over the span of four films; and, currently, there’s a planned fourth installment in the Bourne series, starring Matt Damon. In 1985, when A View to a Kill Came Out, it was challenged by Remo Williams. It was an unsuccessful challenge, granted, but not in the hearts of pre-teen boys who taped it off of Superchannel or rented the video. We knew Remo Williams was a man with stones.

The video cover is a classic: Remo – drawn terribly out of proportion – is hanging onto one of the spikes on the Statue of Liberty’s crown, an image which isn’t in the movie, as the statue was being renovated at the time and the action sequences on it take place on scaffolding. But it was a direct challenge by Orion Pictures, as the image seemed to be trying to one-up the A View to a Kill poster, which has Bond on top of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Plus, Remo was made by Guy Hamilton, who directed Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun. And it was written by Christopher Wood, who penned the scripts for The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. But Remo Williams isn’t anything like the suave spy with the gadgets and tuxedoes. Played by the rough-around-the-edges Fred Ward (Tremors!!!), he’s a NYC cop who’s beaten up and left in the river to drown, spirited away by a super-secret and super-small government agency, declared officially dead, given plastic surgery, renamed “Remo

Williams” (after the manufacturer’s insignia on the bedpan in his hospital room) and then sent to train with a sensei (clearly the mid-‘80s ninja obsession was in full force). This all happens against his will, which begs the question: why didn’t they just ask him first? Oh well…

The hilariously insulting, impossibly to impress sensei (veteran stage and screen actor Joel Grey) teaches Remo loads of really important things such as how to run on the edge of rooftops, dive through a sand pile and pop out of the top, and how to dodge bullets at close range! All the while, Remo laments the fact that he’s not allowed to eat a hot dog. Yep, he’s essentially the blue collar Bond.

The rest of Remo’s team consists of his handler and a computer nerd, played by Wilford Brimley, who uses his home computer – hooked up to a massive warehouse-sized room of hardware – to gather information from all over the world and watch video feeds. (Damn, if only something like that had become a reality!)

When an evil arms dealer must be stopped, Remo is pressed into service and infiltrates a military base on a mountain, where he saves a soldier played by Kate Mulgrew (a.k.a. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Captain Janeway) and runs from the army. I’ll avoid spoiling the not-surprising-at-all ending, but know this: Remo outruns a mortar attack, he cuts glass using the diamond on an enemy’s tooth, and the sensei literally runs on water. Runs. On. Water. The only thing missing is a fistfight with a sasquatch, really.

Watching Remo Williams again for the first time in over twenty years, with a bunch of like-minded movie nerds, made for tons of fast-paced, ironic fun, and I highly recommend it (the bare bones full frame DVD, which allows you to clearly see the wire harnesses, isn’t hard to find) – while drinking beer, of course. Although the film is a weird mix of humour (the series of Destroyer novels that it’s based on are lighthearted), fantasy-based martial arts action, dated spy shenanigans and, well, Fred Ward as a lead, it’s still a blast for your inner ten-year-old – which may explain why the film flopped.

As soon as the credits rolled, our Remo Williams Auxiliary Support Group bemoaned the lack of a sequel. According to the Wikipedia, it lost tens of millions theatrically, so no surprise that the adventure was discontinued. (Maybe it’s ripe for a remake?)

The box office return was one bullet Remo Williams couldn’t dodge. Tragic indeed.

 

-Dave Alexander

The Psycho You Know

Remember when you were a little kid and you got so out-of-your-mind angry that you couldn’t even string together a proper threat, so you’d end up screaming something like, “I’M GONNA PUNCH YOUR STUPID EYES OFF YOUR STUPID UGLY FART-FACE!!!” You know, that blind kiddie rage reserved for older siblings who steal your freezies or bullies that throw your G.I. Joe men on the school roof.

I’m reminded of those moments of mind-melting savagery when I look at the cover for Psycho Kickboxer, for an obvious reason: some dude is literally getting his head kicked off! Clean off, like a soccer ball!! And look at all the blood ejaculating from the neck!!! Ha!

I absolutely love this DVD cover; it’s over-the-top-ness makes me smile every time I see it, and not just because cartoon violence is hilarious in general, but also because there is no better image to illustrate the title of this movie. Nothing – absolutely nothing – screams “Psycho Kickboxer” like a kickboxer decapitating someone… with a kick. So simple, yet so effective. And way cooler than guillotine boots! (Whatever those are.)

I’ve become downright obsessed with the cover for Shock-O-Rama’s Psycho Kickboxer DVD. For starters, the victim: what did he do to get his melon punted off his shoulders like that? Was he responsible for killing the kickboxer’s loved ones, what the back of the box cover describes as, “the brutal murder of his father and fiancée?”

Or was that the guy who stole the kickboxer’s shirt?

Hell, the grey cartoon cityscape in the background tells us this is an urban tale, so maybe this victim simply walked up to the psycho kickboxer – apparently mistaking the masked man with the crazy eyes for a regular kickboxer – and asked, “Hey buddy, I’m new in town, can you tell me where to find the Greyhound stat–”

CRACK! No more head. Next time buy a map, dumb-ass.

Then there’s the explosion behind the psycho kickboxer. At first I thought it was fire, but on closer inspection it seems to be lava or orange liquid. Either it’s a visual metaphor for the eruption of action in the film, or, maybe, it’s the explosion that results when the psycho kickboxer fires off his deadly, cranium-removing leg, breaking the sound barrier in the process and spilling a can of Orange Crush. Jury’s still out on that one.

Lastly, there’s the otherworldy glow around the psycho kickboxer. Most likely he’s standing under a really powerful streetlight with a really soft glow. But I like to think there’s actually an alien spaceship hovering over him. Maybe one day the psycho kickboxer was walking down the street, minding his own psycho kickboxer business, when a UFO appeared and the aliens inside it said, “Earthling, we are here to destroy your entire planet unless you can prove the worth of all of humanity by kicking the head off of the next person who walks near you.” It would be the decapitation heard ‘round the world in that case.

The thing is, though, I’ll never really know the answer to these questions because I don’t plan on watching Psycho Kickboxer. There’s simply no way that the actual movie can live up to the DVD cover. If it could, it’d be a cult classic, perhaps in league with gore comedies like Dead Alive or Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, but I’ve read reviews of it, and the consensus is that you shouldn’t even attempt to watch it sober.

The fact that it stars “5 time world kickboxing champion Curtis Bush” isn’t going to sway me; nor is the cover quote taken from the IMDb (“Blood and gore galore”); and not even the inclusion of a second feature, Canvas of Blood, will do it. Admittedly, I’m tempted by the back cover text, though, which promises an “odyssey of vengeance,” a “skull-crushing killing machine” and “an army of inner-city assassins.”

But sometimes the movie in your mind can only be irrevocably ruined if you venture past the cover image. For me, Psycho Kickboxer is like the glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction – knowing what’s inside would only ruin it.

 

-Dave Alexander