Me vs. Ecks vs. Sever - Part 1

Just how rotten is this tomato? That’s what I’ve been wondering since Rottentomatoes.com announced its list of the 100 worst movies of the past decade, and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever scored the lowest rating in that category. That title alone ranks as one of the all time worst film names in history, but could the movie really be as awful as Battlefield Earth, one of absolute favourite so-bad-it’s-good films? Of course, there is only one way to find out…

So, let’s go on celluloid safari into the dangerous Action Flick Amazon as I write about my experience while watching Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.

 

Off we go into the heart of dorkness.

 

1:30 The opening: generic action film music over an aerial shot of Sydney Australia. The movie is directed by “Kaos,” which is actually Thai filmmaker Wych Kaosayananda, who hasn’t made a film since this one in 2002. “Kaos” – shouldn’t that be a sticker emblazoned on the back of a Honda with a spoiler, ground effects and spinning rims? “Yo, homie, my street racing peeps call ‘Kaos’ when I’m burning mad asphalt in my Tercel.”

 

2:30 A woman has picked up her young son from the airport. There’s an altercation on the road. The woman’s obviously rich ex has his men take the boy away in a convoy.

 

4:00 Four minutes in and we have our first explosion. A car goes up. Another car is rammed by a garbage truck – ah, that old chestnut. The woman driving the dumptruck is wearing a cloak and now she’s kicking ass, as “The Name of the Game” by Crystal Method is playing. After dispatching the henchmen, the woman walks towards the boy – in silhouette – through the ample steam rising through the streets. It’s Lucy Liu, the caboose on this cliché train!

 

6:30 A haggard-looking Antonio Banderas sits in a bar. His character, “Ecks” (OK, safe to assume that Liu is “Sever”) is approached by two F.B.I. agents. Uh-oh, they’ve interrupted his drinking and will have to take him in “the hard way!” He kicks their asses and is approached by an older agent hiding in the shadows. So dramatic… This is the part of the movie where the bureau offers him his old job back if he takes this special assignment. Embittered, he refuses… at first…

 

8:30 Why is he so embittered? It seems his wife blew up. The guy tells him she’s actually still alive, though. Now he’s reliving the accident in his mind as he walks in slow motion through the rain. The cliché machine is really revving up.

 

10:30 Wow, that didn’t take long, he’s on the F.B.I. task force!

 

10:45 Meanwhile, at Sever’s secret hideout, the boy is sitting in a cell while she works in her lab. So science-y.

 

11:00 Oh, oh, the boy’s dad is telling the lead henchman to shoot himself – and he’s wearing a long black coat and fedora. Directive: no cliché shall be left unused.

 

13:30 Government types are looking at a surveillance photo of some dude. Seriously, they’ve packed like an entire feature’s worth of clichés in the first 15 minutes of this film. I’m kinda impressed!

 

14:30 A stolen robot assassin! OK, at least the movie is letting us know it’s supposed to be cartoonish, so points for taking it there.

 

17:00 An F.B.I. team is going after Sever. This scene was shot at the Vancouver library, which has served as a location for numerous in film and T.V. productions. And wow, they’re actually calling it the “Vancouver library” – points for not pretending it’s some ubiquitous U.S. location. Of course, that doesn’t explain why the F.B.I. would be allowed to conduct such a dangerous operation in a public, crowded place – in freakin’ Canada!

 

20:00 Sever is in the midst of a shoot-out with the feds and the cops. By the way, we’ve learned that she’s a super-duper-DUPER assassin – the perfect killing machine!

 

21:50 A S.W.A.T. guy was just shot off a ledge and the camera tracked him as he fell in slow motion onto a car roof. That is an awesome shot.

 

22:00 Exploding car number two.

 

22:50 For no reason at all, the tactical team brought an armoured vehicle with a 50-calibre machine mounted to it. It was explicitly stated that they needed Sever alive, so why bring that? Were they going to the Armoured Car-Mounted Large Caliber Machine Gun Range after this operation? The answer to that one is that so she could use it against the lawmen to make more cars explode.

 

23:19 Exploding car number three.

 

23:26 Exploding car number four.

 

24:26 The FBI guy that hired Ecks assess the aftermath of the carnage: “What’s the matter, somebody get too much foam in their latte.” Nothing like a little levity when the bodies of two dozen cops are strewn about.

 

26:08 Ecks has a feeling and warns the cops to clear out because Sever “is not done yet.” OK, I get it, she’s a Rambo-ninja.

 

26:16 Annnnnd, she just shot the FBI guy.

 

27:02 Ecks is chasing Sever and he looks pretty prancey while holding a shotgun. Sever runs into a building. Moments later a yellow Mustang crashes through a garage door, almost mushing Ecks. The license plate reads BAD 598. You can bet Kaos thought that was totally bad ass.

 

27:42 Sever throws a bomb under a truck; a moment later Sever blows out her tire. She crashes into a truck exactly at the same time the bomb goes off. Exploding car number five and exploding car number six.

 

29:00 Sever escapes, Ecks gives chase – he gets the drop on her. But if he shoots her, they’ll never find the kid! Oh yeah, and we’ve been told that she knows where Eck’s wife is for some reason. I’m on the edge of my seat! Well, actually, part of my butt is hanging off one of the couch cushions, but that’s as close as it’s gonna get.

 

30:19 And now one of the worst choreographed fight scenes in motion picture history. It looks like a dance lesson for germaphobes.

 

30:48 Ecks and Sever are face to face, almost touching. I hope they don’t fall in love… . Actually, they won’t, as the role of Sever was written for a man, originally.

 

31:13 A “sniper” on an adjacent roof top is firing a heavy caliber machine gun at them. Huh?!?

 

31:50 Sever escapes after falling into some trash. It’s like a metaphor for Lucy Liu’s experience making this movie.

 

33:36 I wonder if they used a paint roller or a shotgun full of Brylcreem to get Antonio’s hair to look like that?

 

34:12 Sever is back at her secret lab, working on two laptops. There’s steam rising in the background. Why? Fog machines are cheap to rent in Vancouver.

 

34:35 OK, so from what we’re seeing on her laptop, there’s a tiny robot inside someone’s stomach. It swims around and has a claw for one arm and a needle for the other. It injects poison. She visits the little boy in his cage and runs a Star Trek-like electronic device over his arm, right in the spot where the computer depicted a nanobot! The kid’s dad is using him to smuggle a deadly nanobot!! “Happy Father’s Day, dad – remember all those fun times we had when you used me as an experimental weapons mule.”

 

36:00 Ecks is using a laptop to hack into a restricted file. He’s reading Sever’s file. At the same time, Sever is at her lab, reading his file. We see her with a baby, info on his wife. It’s like Lavalife for secret agent types. Suddenly a S.W.A.T. team breaks down the door and arrests Ecks for the shooting of an agent (again, huh?). Irony, drama, action, a twist – I need lay down for a bit.

 

38:36 I was wrong all these years: it’s not pronounced “See-ver” but rather “Se-ver,” as in that’s probably what I’ll feel like doing to my femoral artery after watching this crap.

 

39:00 Sever is making a paper crane. This demonstrates her soft side. That’s called character development, kids! Also, Liu is as wooden as wooden gets in this performance. The producers could’ve just put a wig on a totem pole and saved some money.

 

40:10 Ecks is being questioned in a cell by a guy who works for the jerk-face dad with the missing son. If you turn off the sound, you can pretend Antonio is being interrogated by s film critic about why he’s in this movie.

 

42:20 Also, the jerk-face is now married to Ecks’ former wife. That’s called raising the stakes, kids!

 

44:30 Sever just shot an explosive into the bus carrying Ecks. Luckily, he already slipped his cuffs, so while the bus is sliding on its side, he grabs a gun, gets on top of the bus while it’s still sliding and fires at Sever.

 

44:45 The bus is still sliding.

 

44:50 The bus crashes into a car, making both vehicles erupt in flame; they hit another vehicle that also erupts in flame. Exploding cars number seven, eight and nine.

 

45:15 More pounding techno. Sever is escaping on a motorbike; luckily Ecks finds one laying nearby and gives chase. This is so bad ass I could walk into a wall.

 

47:15 Sever just used a grenade launcher to blow up a police vehicle. Exploding car count officially reaches double digits.

 

 47:35 Sever just shot a stack of four junk cars off the back of a big rig. Then she shot another grenade and blew them up. And just like we’re at exploding car count: fifteen.

 

47:56 Two cop cars just smashed into the wreckage and flew into the air. What the hell? Neither of them exploded. I feel ripped off.

 

48:53 Sever just told an injured Ecks where he can find his wife.

 

51:05 Sever just brought the caged kid his dinner: mac ‘n’ cheese, Jell-o, a Twinkie, a Hostess cupcake and giant brownie. Apparently giving a child diabetes isn’t covered by the Geneva Convention. And too bad the little guy doesn’t have a toilet in his cell.

 

51:20 Also, that kid has one facial expression: deer-caught-in-headlights.

 

 

OK, that’s the end of part one, surf over here tomorrow for the exciting conclusion to Me vs. Ecks vs. Sever, when Ecks is reunited with his wife, more cars explode and then some other things that aren’t cars explode.

 

-Dave Alexander

There Was No Joy in Dudeville

The non-events of last weekend cast a pall over Toronto Achievers. White Russians didn’t taste quite as creamy, it was harder to pick up a spare at the lanes, and dammit, nobody was takin’ it easy for all us sinners. Yes, last weekend was supposed to be the first Canadian Lebowski Fest here in Toronto – a Canuck edition of the travelling celebration of all things Big Lebowski that was started by Kentuckyians Will Russell and Scott Shuffit in 2002 – but it was cancelled, due to “extenuating circumstances,” according to promoter LiveNation. (I suspect nihilists, of course, but perhaps I’m just being fatuous.)

Anyhow, since we experienced a Lebowski Fail, I figure I should encourage you to travel to the nearest Lebowski Fest or throw your own Big Lebowski-themed party because there are few things in life more worth achieving than being at a Gathering of the Dudes (and Dudettes, of course).

I myself hit the dusty trail for Lebowski Fest West in 2004 (Feb 27-28), when Russell and Shuffit took the show to Las Vegas. Spin sent me there to cover it as my editor at the time was also BL geek. (My cred at the time included throwing a “Dudefest” party, which included a screening of the film, a costume contest, white Russians on special at the bar, custom Urban Achiever T-shirts and two bands – Calgary’s The Dudes, and a one-shot collaboration of local musicians called The Achievers.)

The first evening in the Sin City (how easy would it have been to get a toe, I wondered) featured a screening of the film, in a hotel conference room where hundreds of Achievers gathered to drink Caucasians, recite lines verbatim, buy T-shirts (I still have the one with the cowboy-Nixon bowling, as pictured above) see footage from past fests, drink white Russians and meet James G. Hoosier, who played the Jesus’ bowling partner Liam in the film. Hoosier was, well, bowled over by the response, as he didn’t really know the film had such a following and had never attended something like that before. In fact, he’s not an actor, but rather a guy who answered an ad at his local bowling alley to be in a movie. Quite an achievement, of course…

The next night was the big bowling party at Sunset Lanes. I arrived there in a shuttle bus and regretted not having a costume. Most of the 700 attendees had dressed up and some of the outfits were inspiring to say the least. For example: there was a girl dressed as Larry’s homework, another as the missing toe, yet another as Jackie Treehorn’s notepad, and a guy who went as the rug.

The costume contest, cool tunes, bowling and white Russians galore were the order of the night. Hoosier was there, as was Jeff “The Dude” Dowd, the guy the character was based on. I interviewed ‘em both, and Dowd was eerily like his onscreen counterpart. In between bites of cheeseburger and gulps of white Russian (some of which ended up on his faded Hawaiian shirt), he dished anecdotes about all kinds of what-have-you – from his reaction to fan culture (“They’re a cut above Trekkies.”) to his vaguely defined job as a guy who helps gets movies made. Truly a man for out times.

As the white Russians flowed throughout the night, so did the quotes (“Over the line!” being the most popular, of course). Everyone was very friendly, no one was un-Dude in any manner, and much bonding was achieved. In fact, the night ended with the carpet costume being thrown in the parking lot and a group of carpet pissers standing in a circle taking a leak on it.

And thus the legend of Lebowskifest continued to grow…

So, you can’t truly call yourself an achiever until you’ve made the pilgrimage to Lebowskfest. Five years later it has travelled across the US and even to Europe, so we’re very overdue here in Canada. This is a call to all the Can-Dudes out there takin’ it easy for all us hosers: join Lebowskifest on the Facebook page or add ‘em on MySpace – let ‘em know that we’re not a bunch of f**kin’ amateurs, man!

 

-Dave Alexander

Caine is Able

Just in case you haven’t been reminded of it recently: Michael Caine is awesome. In fact, as far as I can determine, Michael Caine always been awesome. When he was born in 1933, the moon was in its Awesome Phase and it aligned with the rest of the planets, which were also in their Awesome Phases, causing some sort of cosmic chain reaction which concentrated an unheard of amount of awesome into one human being. Saddled with what could’ve been the crushing burden of having to deal with that much awesome, Caine didn’t fold under the pressure, but instead used that awesome to go forth and make decades and decades worth of awesome movies, thereby only increasing his already considerable awesome into a supernova of awesomeness.

Now, past the age of 75, he continues this unparalleled awesome streak with Harry Brown, essentially the Michael Caine/British version of Dirty Harry. Harry Brown was my favourite film at this year’s TIFF for a lot of reasons, but the primary one being that it’s a revenge film starring a pensioner… played by Michael Caine. It’s helmed by first-time feature director Daniel Barber (imagine scoring Caine to star in your first feature) and it was penned by Gary Young, who has written a few minor crime/action features.

The story for the film is pretty simple. Harry Brown is a widower living on his pension in a run-down apartment complex. Gangs of young thugs routinely destroy the place and terrorize the residents. Harry’s best (and only) friend stands up to them and is violently murdered, leading Harry to revisit his old ways as a royal marine, pitting him against the thugs – all while a police detective (played by Emily Mortimer) investigates. He’s outnumbered, outgunned and nearly crippled by age and illness, but he’s cunning, well-trained and extremely resourceful. And he’s Michael Goddamned Caine: you can’t defeat that kind of awesomeness – just accept it.

This is a straight-up revenge movie, and the novelty of senior-as-action-hero has been explored in many a Clint Eastwood movie, and before that in films such as Tough Guys, and before that in loads of westerns, including John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence and Sam Pekinpah’s Ride the High Country. But Caine brings so many layers to the character that it elevates the film considerably. Harry is loving husband, a proper British gent and a man with a code; but he’s also a soldier, a killer and an unrepentant man of violence when he’s pushed. Once Harry comes to terms with his dark side (a past that’s only hinted at), he gets a serpentine glint in his eyes that recalls one of his greatest characters, Jack Carter in 1971’s Get Carter. (And if you haven’t seen Get Carter, well, I don’t know what to say – you might as well gouge out your eyes, you’ve wasted them…) It’s no surprise that Harry wears a vaguely similar coat to that of Jack – he could be that character four decades mellower.

Eastwood has questioned the violent nature and deeds of his aging characters over and over again in his films. Here, Harry also questions his return to violence, but quickly embraces it, with vengeance as his singular mission. The moody, washed out cinematography, exceptional electronic soundtrack and some delectable dialogue (“You failed to maintain your weapon,” rasps Harry before offing a junkie) are the elements that make this one of the best films of the year.

So, you’ve appreciated Caine of late in supporting roles in The Dark Knight movies, The Prestige and Children of Men, but this is a chance to see him in the lead, when the film opens later in the year. And when you’re done watching Harry clean up the streets, you’ll want to watch Get Carter, of course, and then some of Caine’s older classics – the likes of Death Trap, Sleuth (the original one), The Italian Job, A Bridge Too Far and Alfie.

Just be careful you don’t overdose on awesome. I warned you.

 

-Dave Alexander

Port of Call: Herzog

Werner Herzog is a madman. This is a given, he makes mad movies, documentaries and narrative films about “mad men” – people who challenge nature and seriously jeopardize their sanity in the process, or sometimes just outsiders with warped visions and bizarre dreams. Cases in point: Fitzcarraldo, in which the title character tries to haul a steam ship over a mountain; Grizzly Man, a doc about a guy who spends his summers in the wilds of Alaska trying to commune with grizzly bears until one eats him; Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a doc about a pilot who was shot down during the Vietnam War; detained in a tortuous prison camp and made a seemingly impossible escape through the jungle; and Herzog’s own adaptation of that film. The filmmaker takes his audiences on adventure, whether it’s through the depths of the Amazon in Aguire: Wrath of God, or to an ice cave in the Antarctic in Encounters at the End of the World. I’ll watch anything he makes.

While I greatly admire The ‘zog’s quality, he also amazes with his quantity. This year he completed two features, which I saw back to back this week at the Toronto International film Festival.

First up: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, which was produced by David Lynch. Shot on video (mostly) in San Diego for under $10 million, the low-budget narrative is inspired by the story of college student and aspiring stage actor who, 30 years ago, stabbed his mother to death with an antique sword in order to save her from an impending “nuclear holocaust” (more details here). Creepy-looking character actor Michael Shannon is the unbalanced Brad McCullum, with Willem Dafoe as the cop trying to coax him out of his house after the crime. Chloë Sevigny plays Brad’s fiancé, Ingrid, who, along with a theatre director (played by my, erm, old buddy Udo Kier), tell of the events leading up to Brad murdering his overbearing mom. Brad Dourif also co-stars as Brad’s xenophobic ostrich farmer uncle.

Herzog? Lynch? All those weird character actors? Ostriches? Sounds like a party, right? More of a tragedy, actually. This isn’t so much of a movie as it is a contest between Lynch and Herzog to out-art each other, a character study that plays out in one nonsensical scene after another.

Aggravatingly, despite scene of Brad acting all loony toony, none of the people in his life seem to notice that he’s dangerously unstable until it’s too late. Along the way there are characteristically Herzogian scenes of animals running and Brad in the Peruvian jungle, where he starts to lose his mind after his dumb-ass hippie friends kill themselves kayaking during the rainy season. Then you’ve got Lynch’s surreal touch in scenes where the actors freeze, look at the camera or, in one instance, do a scene in which – for no reason – a midget in a suit stands in the forest (talk about self-parody). The filmmakers’ sensibilities come together in the unstable suburbanite Brad, and too much of the film meanders through scene after scene of him being disturbed, being profound and being profoundly disturbed. Once the point is made, though, My Son, My Son is an exercise in self-indulgence.

And it looks like crap. Shot on muddy video, aesthetically it’s almost as cheap as Lynch’s even more tedious 2006 fiasco Inland Empire. Would it have killed them to have Dafoe and Dourif race each other on ostriches just once in the film to spice things up?

But just as Herzog’s cinematic sense of adventure bites him in the ass, he does something even wilder that completely works. The second part of my Herzog double-header was Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – a project that seemed like an April Fool’s Day gag when it was announced. The concept: German arthouse/documentary director Werner Herzog does a sort-of remake of a 1992 Abel Ferrara film best known for star Harvey Keitel’s full-frontal nightstick scene, but this time it stars Nicholas Cage…

Whut?

Believe it or not, te film actually exists in this dimension. And while My Son, My Son is one of the worst things I sat through at this year’s TIFF, Bad LT is one of the best. Herzog and Cage were in attendance for the premiere, and they explained that they always wanted to work together, and although the director didn’t want to use the title because the movie has little to do with the original, the film’s producer owned the moniker and insisted on it.

Cage, of course, has become one of those actors everyone loves to hate, mainly because for every quality small film he does, such as Vampire’s Kiss, Leaving Las Vegas or Adaptation, he’s made several unforgivably crappy Hollywood junkers, including the Gone in 60 Seconds remake, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, The Wicker Man remake, National Treasure, Ghost Rider and Knowing. (Really, what kind of a jerk stars in those movies?) His performances are generally over-the-top and cartoonish. Plus, with his fake hair, cosmetic facial surgery and general lack of facial expressions, he’s basically a mannequin. (Indulge your dislike of Cage further here, if you dare – not safe for work.)

But then Herzog comes along like Oscar Goldman in the Six Million Dollar Man and rebuilds Cage into a machine. In BL, he stars as Terence McDonagh. Terence isn’t your garden variety cop-on-the-edge, though, he’s way off it, kicking his legs in the air like the Road Runner, waiting to plummet off the cliff. After injuring his back while saving a prisoner during the Katrina flood, he’s become a coke-snorting, weed smoking, pain pill-addicted car wreck with a drug-addict call girl for a girlfriend (played by Eva Mendes), a gambling debt, alcoholic stepmother (Jennifer Coolidge), penchant for blackmail and almost no respect for the law.

Despite this, he’s tasked with heading up a particularly brutal murder investigation. As he attempts to snare the prime suspects he stops sleeping, starts binging, crosses the mafia, loses a key witness, pisses off his co-workers (including a cop played by Val Kilmer), robs drugs from the evidence room, falls under investigation by internal affairs, sells info to a drug kingpin and even assaults a senior citizen.

Terence’s hallucinatory descent into a sleepless narcotics-fuelled orgy of depravity perfectly suits Cage’s bug-eyed, twitchy mannerisms and Herzog had him go for broke (he has remarked that Cage is his new Klaus Kinski, and similarities between Cage and the late star of Herzog films such as Aguirre is evident), improvising dialogue and harnessing that manic energy for laughs. The mix of cartoonish self-destruction and gritty crime drama actually works, especially when played out to a Cajun-flavoured soundtrack.

Add in appearances by My Son players Dourif, as a bookie, and Shannon, as a rookie cop, plus a strong performance from Xzibit as a drug kingpin, a steamin’ hot Fairuza Balk in lingerie, and some random shots of alligators and lizards, and it more than just works – it’s a cult classic in the making.

In the end it’s Cage, who rattles off so many memorable lines (“This is my lucky crack pipe. You don’t have a lucky crack pipe?”) while generally freaking out, that he’ll be quoted in dorm rooms for years to come. It took a madman like Werner Herzog to recognize the potential, harness that energy and use it for good this time. And while Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a showcase for the title character becoming a wreck, I’m extra thankful that at no point are we forced to see Cage’s junk. Extra props for doing your own thing with the Bad Lieutenant story, Werner.

 

-Dave Alexander

At the Stroke of Madness

The Toronto International Film Festival has arrived, and the best part of it is, of course,  the Midnight Madness genre program. Ten films play at midnight at the Ryerson theatre from September 10 to 19. The man responsible for programming it all is Colin Geddes, who’s been on the job since 1997, scouring the world for insane genre programming for rawkus midnight audiences. Simply put, you haven’t truly lived as a genre film fan until you’re attended a Midnight Madness screening.

In order to get to know this year’s line-up, and Colin himself, I’ve conducted a ten-question Q&A, with each question related to one of the Midnight Madness films.

There’s also a Midnight Madness blog with all kinds of updates and videos chronicling the experience. I gave them my three most anticipated picks, which you can read all about here (yes, I'll probably never live down that ridiculous picture...)

And now it’s time to Know Your Programmer…

 

Jennifer’s Body (Thursday, Sept 10)

 

Diablo Cody wrote this film about a popular girl at school turning into a demon and her not-so-popular former friend having to face her. What monster did you most relate to as a teenager?

 

A toss up between zombies and any of Croneberg's internal horrors like The Brood, Shivers or Rabid.

 

 

Daybreakers  (Friday, Sept 11)

 

Speaking of bloodthirsty hellspawn – although not sci-fi action vampire ones from Australia involving a future where bloodsuckers rule the roost – if the makers of the next Twilight movie said they wanted their world premiere at Midnight Madness, what would you tell them?

 

Simple – I'll tell ‘em to take it to where the sun doesn't shine.

 

 

George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead (Saturday, Sept 12)

 

Romero’s latest zombie flick takes us to an island where two groups of survivors with different philosophies about the undead have a show-down. Where’s the first place you would you go if there was a zombie apocalypse?

 

[Note: I asked Colin the questions out of order – this one makes a lot more sense if you scroll down and read the Bitch Slap entry first!]

I'd grab guns and head to the CN tower with Russ Meyers and his harem. Zombie ankles can't handle those stairs.

 

 

The Loved Ones (Sunday, Sept 13)

 

Another Aussie film – this one featuring a teen haunted by a fatal car accident who gets involved in (literally) bloody havoc at his prom. Kids sure have changed! Describe your own prom experience in three words.

 

Heartbroken and chaste.

 

 

Bitch Slap (Monday, Sept 14)

 

Busty, heavily-armed babes on crime sprees are the lurid order of the day in this homage to Russ Meyer film; if he were still alive and came to visit you in Toronto, where would you take him?

 

Top of the CN tower to survey the city from our phallic vantage point.

 

[REC] 2 (Tuesday, Sept 15)

 

Round two of a quarantined apartment crawling with zombies – say you’re under quarantine and forced to stay in your apartment. You see this as a good thing because you finally get to catch up on…

 

At this point in the middle of TIFF chaos, it would be SLEEP.

 

Solomon Kane (Wednesday, Sept 16)

 

From the creator of Conan comes a tale of swords and sorcery (and pistols!), in which the title character sells his soul to the devil and must become a pious ass-kicker in order to save his soul. What might you sell your own soul to the devil for, and, if you already have sold it, what would you do to get it back?

 

I'd ask for the left testicle that Sacha Baron Cohen took from me in 2006 when the projector broke 20 minutes into the world premier of Borat.

 

Symbol (Thursday, Sept 17)

 

This way out there Japanese film features a luchador named Escargot Man; if you were a wrestler, you’d go by what name? (Bonus: tell us your signature move!)

 

Since most people mistake the image of a Japanese superhero on the biz card of my company Ultra 8 Pictures as a luchadore, I'd be ULTRA 8!!!!! And since I am Canadian, I'd kill ‘em with kindness.

 

 

A Town Called Panic (Friday, Sept 18)

 

Explain how this French G-rated stop-motion animated film full of plastic toys trying to “deal with” 50 million accidentally ordered bricks can have a home at Midnight Madness alongside zombies, vampires, demons, kung fu violence and sexploitation shenanigans.

 

It’s like a palette cleanser to balancing this year's Midnight  Madness – a wild, wacky and surreal sorbet that will have the audience howling at the sheer absurdity  of it all!

 

 

Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning (Saturday, Sept 19)

 

You are the sensei of the Kung-Fu Fridays blog– quick, what is the most insane thing you’ve seen in a kung-fu movie?

 

Sword Stained with Royal Blood (the 1993 version): A villain who is already mortally wounded, gets his exposed rib broken off and is stabbed to death by the hero with it.

-Dave Alexander

 

Fan Expo 2009, Part 2: Kier for a Good Time

 [This is Part Two of my 2009 Fan Expo wrap-up. Part One is here]

 

There was no way I was going to top meeting Roger Corman at this year’s Fan Expo, although I suppose if he would’ve introduced me to Vincent Price’s ghost (who could have signed my Masque of the Red Death poster), that would’ve done it. That said, a close second was my encounter with Udo Kier, but you’ll have to read on to get the story behind the ridiculous picture.

Before that: Max Brooks (pictured below – sorry man, Udo gets top billing on this one). I hosted his Q&A on the Saturday, and it was a snap because basically he ran it himself like a spoken word/stand-up routine (in case you didn’t know, he’s Mel Brooks’ son, so the guy's a natural; iin the pic below he's pretending to get high). The author of the comical Zombie Survival Guide, he also penned one of my favourite novels, the zombie epic World War Z, about the aftermath of a global undead apocalypse, told first-hand by survivors around the world. Brooks, who also has an academic background in history, explained how he conducted extensive research in order to tell the most epic zombie tale to date.

The film rights were the subject of a bidding war and it’s currently being turned into a film by Brad Pitt’s production company. And as far as the movie goes, Brooks told us that he saw a first draft of the script, which was penned by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and was apparently pretty amazing, but hasn’t had a peek at subsequent drafts (Straczynski's script is now in the process of being reworked by other writers, as is Hollywood standard operating procedure, unfortunately). To be honest, it ain’t lookin’ good for World War Z the movie.

In better news, Brooks did give everyone a lesson in how to deal with a heckler. When one young guy called him “Mel,” he made the kid come up on stage and tell us all what projects he had been working on lately. Nicely done, sir.

I also took part in three panels over the course of the weekend. The first was on genre film programming, as I program for Rue Morgue’s monthly CineMacabre movie nights. Basically, a bunch of us film-loving dorks talked about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of finding films prints, getting the rights to play them, bringing in special guests and how to turn a screening into the type of event that you can’t experience by simply watching a DVD or Blu-ray at home. I learned from more than one person on the panel that Crispin Glover is a loose cannon, so think twice about booking him for an event. Apparently the guy made one of the panelists drive all over town for a special meal that consisted of tuna seared for exactly 32 seconds per side, and he accused another panelist, who'd booked him on a completely separate occasion, of stealing a single frame from his film! That’s a special kind of crazy that I never want to deal with. (Although I’d probably take a lot of crap to hear just one George McFly bit.)

As a celluloid enthusiast, I found it very encouraging to see such a packed room of people who love the idea of seeing a movie on film in an old theatre with an rawkus crowd. There’s just no substitute for that kind of atmosphere. But I digress…

My second panel, on Sunday afternoon, was in conjunction with the SPACE network, and was called Sci-Fi in the Mainstream, and it was hosted by SPACE’s Teddy Wilson. I joined other journalists, writers and various “experts” to talk about what “genre” means, how that’s changed, where the boundaries of genre are and how that affects the fan community. It just didn’t get any geekier than this and I had a blast talking about the film side of things, arguing that sci-fi went mainstream with the release of Star Wars. I really love these sorts of discussions because genre fans are so passionate and protective about what they love. There was much mwaaaugh-glavin spilled in that room, rest assured. Again, I was surprised at the standing room-only house, and pleased that all these Fan Expo goers – of all ages, walks of life and, um, costume preferences – held a vested (and spandex jumpsuited, for that matter) interest in exploring the definitions and meanings of their subculture(s), whether they’re really into Star Trek movies, Star Wars comics or Starbuck/Battlestar Galactica fan fiction.

Lastly, I hosted a second panel on Sunday how to make a short horror film, along with American short filmmaker Mark Steensland and Czech Republic short filmmaker Robin Kasparik (all three of us had shorts that played the Festival on Saturday). We tried to cover as much of the process as we could in an hour – from finding a concept that fits the short form and your limited resources to avoiding online scam “film festivals” once your project is finished – hopefully dishing some useful advice to a bunch of budding filmmakers. Again, another packed room; it’s very rewarding to how now, more than ever, the fervent fans are becoming the artists, creating and shaping film on a more grassroots level.

I could see this evolution throughout the events of the weekend. It's like this: the Max Brooks panel was full of fans who loved a particular piece of art; the film programming panel hosted fans curious about the process of bringing art to fans and creating a fan culture for it; the Space panel welcomed fans curious about what it means to be a fan of particular types of art; and, lastly, the short film panel saw fans who wanted to make their own art.

Oh yeah, that Udo Kier picture...

Kier was one of the Fan Expo Festival of Fear guests and he attended the parties over the weekend. He even hosted the horror costume contest for Saturday night’s Dance of the Deadites party. I met him at the party and he told me about how he was new to the convention experience and loved meeting the fans but was having a hard time with people constantly taking his picture without him being prepared for it. He was very animated and happy to be the life of the party, if expectedly, well, odd in a German actor stereotype kinda way. (I was mostly hoping he wouldn’t incinerate me with his crazy laser eyes.) When someone suggested a photo, he hopped up and voila: here I am holding onto one of the world’s coolest cult movie actors. (Indeed, he’s known to goof off at fan conventions, and here’s proof.) Of course, moments later, he turned into a timber wolf and ate the camerman, but c’est la vie.

So yeah, panels, Q&As, buying cools stuff and meeting your favourite artists is all good, but you gotta make time to party too. Geek hard, play hard after all...

 

[Thanks to Jovanka Vuckovic for taking the Udo Kier pic, and Marie-Eve Larin for the Max Brooks panel pic]

 

-Dave Alexander

Mad Movie Posters

I love vintage/foreign/strange movie posters, and this selection of hand-painted ones from Ghana, posted on Ephemera Assemblyman, is amazing. The images are really wild, and the artists really seemed to have had a thing with body parts being cut/torn/bitten off. As the author of the post (FYI: I discovered the link to it on Boingboing) points out, they were painted on the backs of used flour bags for a now defunct practice in which "mobile cinemas" would travel between villages and show films on VHS using a VCR and TV hooked up to a portable generator. They sold tickets to the screenings, which would take place in any space available, or simply outdoors, and the posters were used to advertise the screenings. As you can guess, the artists didn't see the films beforehand, so liberties -- pretty awesome ones, if you ask me -- were taken. I mean, really, wasn't Evil Dead II sorely lacking in the flying-skull-with-bat-wings department?

Also, as I suspected, some of these are from the insanely prolific Nigerian homegrown film industry (a.k.a. Nollywood), which is known for cranking out massive numbers of shot-on video hyperbolic religious horror films/morality tales. Hence the poster for Stolen Bible 2. I found the trailer for the first Stolen Bible on YouTube, here, and it's completely mental. Imagine an African version of Paul Schrader's Exorcist prequel crossed with Sister Act and a late night used car dealership ad. The special effects are sort of like the low-brow video version of the aforementioned movie posters. You can also find the entire film on YouTube, if you're so brave...

Back to those posters -- they're apparently from a now out-of-print book that I'd never heard of called Extreme Canvas: Movie Poster Paintings from Ghana, and damn, used copies are pricey.

Assemblyman also links to this page, which has a few more images, and this page, which sells the posters through eBay. I also found a few more here, and a great write up on the history of them here (including more awesome examples).

But this hand painted movie poster tradition isn't limited to Africa. I've got one from Pakistan, which was sent to me by a filmmaker there who had some made up for his horror movie in order to revive the dying art. I'll try to post a pic of it soon. In the meantime, you can see some examples here.

-Dave Alexander

Fan Expo 2009, Part 1: Corman among Men

Spent the weekend at the Fan Expo here in Toronto, and my geek hangover lingered on today. My wallet hurts from buying art and vintage movie posters; I’m drained from walking that floor, talking to hundreds of people and participating in/hosting panels; and I’m still feeling the effects of being a bit punch drunk from the giant crowds that descended on the Convention Centre during the day, followed by being literally drunk at the parties at night. No complaints, of course – there are a helluva lot worse ways to wear yourself down.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Fan Expo, it’s a weekend-long Con(vention) that takes place once a year at the end of August. It has five components: Anime, Comics, Gaming, Horror and Sci-Fi, and there are hundreds of vendors and artists related to all of those fan needs in one giant room (that smells pretty funny when packed with tens of thousands of nerds, many in sweaty spandex). There are also related panels and celebrity Q&A’s, autograph sessions and off-site events. Rue Morgue magazine (my day job) runs the horror component, which is called The Festival of Fear. Movies, naturally, play a large role and this year our guest of honour was Bruce Campbell. You could also see Udo Kier, Barbara Steele, Leslie Nielsen, James Duvall (Frank the Bunny from Donnie Darko), Linda Hamilton, veteran Canuck actor Art Hindle and Tobin Bell (a.k.a. Jigsaw).

For me, it was all about one guest, though: Roger Corman. His influence on film as a director/producer simply can’t be overstated, from his crazy low budget rubber suit monster movies and his horror comedies Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors to his classy Poe adaptations (mostly) starring Vincent Price; his crazier genre pics such as Death Race 2000, Piranha, House, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School and the awesome Humanoids From the Deep; the iconic art house films he distributed in North America, including Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, The Harder They Come and Fellini’s Amarcord. Not to mention, he gave a staggering number of famous Hollywood directors, actors and writers their big breaks (some of them are listed here).

I’m normally not much of an autograph guy, and I’m definitely not one to get starstruck, but Corman is it, as far as I’m concerned, so it was a thrill to attend a panel where he talked about his career, gave some insight into how the film industry has changed and told some tales, including one about his acid trip, which he decided he should take before making the movie The Trip. Eighty-three-year-old Roger Corman talking about how much he enjoyed hallucinating a gold clipper ship with jeweled sails fly through the air, before turning into a woman, isn’t the kind thing you’ll forget anytime soon. He also described how he’d anticipate trends in audience tastes and the market (Hells Angels in the headlines = make movies about bikers, using real Hells Angels, no less!), and how he survived and thrived when major studios wanted him gone (taking a chance on young talent, for starters). I should mention that the panel was hosted by Rue Morgue Radio’s Stuart F. Andrews, who walked us through Corman’s career with a series of very well-researched questions. He even covered one of Corman’s least successful but best (and most socially conscious pictures) The Intruder, starring a young William Shatner as racial agitator in a small town, based on the Charles Beaumont novel. The filmmaker said that the topic was so incendiary at the time (the early ‘60s) that the production was run out of three different towns by local law enforcement. If you ever get a chance to meet or see Roger Corman speak, do so because he’s very eloquent, captivating and gracious.

As you can see, I had the privilege of meeting Corman in-person (for the second time – the first was San Diego Comic-Con a few years ago) and this time I had him sign my big weekend purchase: a massive French movie poster (it’s about the size of four standard-sized movie posters) for Masque of the Red Death (featuring the famous image of the red Vinnie Price head). Of course, I will now be starting a chain of meth labs in order to pay to have it framed, but – barring any major shack  explosions – it’s worth it. (That buy pretty much cleaned me out but, I also picked up a Spanish Cannibal Girls poster for my Canuck horror one-sheet collection – geeky!)

I also had him sign my copy of How I Made 100 Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, his filmmaker’s autobiography. This is one of the best books on filmmaking I’ve ever read, as it blends Corman’s personal history with insider business info, the philosophy of an innovative artist/businessman and some compelling anecdotes about working with some huge names in cinema – and you don’t have to know anything about the man or his work to be entertained by it.

I’ll end this geek-out by highly recommending it as essential movie lover reading, so you can see for yourself why Corman is the man, and everyone else in the world didn’t make the Vincent Price Masque of the Red Death. Ha!

 

-Dave Alexander