Smurf Cats and Other Movie Miscellany

Before I get to the big 2009 best/worst picks, it’s probably important that you know what films have the most use of the F-word, read some cool news about Michael Jackson’s Thriller and discover some other random cinematic things.

 

1. Smurf Cats (a.k.a. Avatar)

I saw the film for the second time last night and it cemented my opinion of it. Which is: technologically and visually (aside from the silly aliens that look like Smurf-cats), it’s absolutely astounding and needs to be seen in 3D on a big-ass screen to fully appreciate its mind-blowing, groundbreaking look, but… the script is pretty bad. Avatar is rife with clichés and cringe-worthy dialogue (“You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora, ladies and gentleman.” – yeesh!).

Upon first viewing, I was too dazzled by the eye candy to really notice the script shortcomings, but they sure stuck out the second time. A few of the worst offenses include the cheesy noble savage cliché, which is made worse by James’ Horner’s didactic pan flute-ified score; the portrayal of the Navi as great and stealthy warriors, but then have them stupidly charge their horse-thingies into a line of machine guns and heavily armed mech-suits (and, come to think of it, why did the army even deploy troops and mech suits on the ground in the first place?!?); and the fact that the hard-to-get mineral that the humans are fighting for is called, hilariously, “unobtanium.” Terrible, James Cameron, simply terrible. You shouldn’t be allowed to write your own scripts.

I’m not the only one that feels the storytelling falls short; Rob Beschizza over at Boingboing, asks What storytelling risks could Avatar have taken?

 

2. I stumbled across this Wikipedia page that lists the films that use the F-word the most. The number one, with a whopping 824 instances, is so obvious, you won’t guess it. (FYI, The Big Lebowski has 260 uses of the word, but didn’t make it into the top twenty. Surprising, I know.)

 

3. Speaking of The Big Lebowski, the New York Times has an article on a new collection of Lebowski-themed academic essays, called The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies. If you can make  time between bowling, driving around and having the occasional acid flashback, you might wanna explore some acadudeia. [Thanks, Alex, for sending the link.]

 

4. Today, the library of congress announced the annual list of “25 motion pictures that will be preserved as cultural, artistic and/or historical treasures for generations to come.” Included is The Incredible Shrinking Man, Dog Day Afternoon, The Muppet Movie and John Landis’ music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” All very worthy additions. See the full list here.

 

5. Lastly, someone was good enough to make a clever YouTube compilation of scenes from movies and TV shows where image enhancement is used to uncover a vital piece of visual information. By no means does it cover all the films that use this cliché, but it’s still awesome. And for the record, that’s just one more of the clichés you’ll find in James Cameron’s Smurf Cats. Let’s enhance!

 

On that note, may you all have a fantastic, white Russian-filled New Year’s.

 

-Dave Alexander

Movies You Missed in 2009

'Tis the season for movie reviewers to scramble and see all the keys titles they missed through the year, in order to compile their best of lists. I am no different. And while poring over the films released this year, I realized that Hollywood was close but got it totally wrong. To set these things right, I present the ten films of 2009 that I wish I could’ve seen.

 

1. Brüno: Port of Call New Orleans

This envelope-pushing comedy sees the post-Katrina people of New Orleans subjected to the outlandish antics of Sacha Baron Cohen’s uncomfortably flamboyant Brüno character (pictured above in front of a levee), as he spreads homoerotic tension throughout the ravaged wards, handing out tight flood pants, touching alligators in an inappropriate manner and searching for “dirty” cops. Five words: Those aren’t Mardis Gras beads!

 

2. Terminator: Mall Cop

The good news: in the distant future humanity has won the war against the machines. The bad news for the T-9000: it’s been relegated to security detail at the John Connor Shopping Mall, where it gets no respect. But when a bunch of hoods take over the mall, the part Seqway/part killing machine must rediscover its efficiency for terminating humans. Deadly hilarity ensues, especially when the machine levels the food court with its chain-guns.

 

3. Madea Goes to District 9

Smack-talkin’ grandma Madea gets in a car chase and accidentally ends up in a ghetto populated by illegal aliens… from another planet! After threatening local officials with a gun, she hides out amongst the displaced visitors and protects them from the heavily-armed police – mostly by learning how to use advanced alien weaponry and kicking a lot of people in the groin. Sci-fi comedy is rarely this sassy.

 

4. Men Who Stare at Jennifer’s Body

A secret government agency somehow manages to get funding to stare at teenage girls in order to make sure they aren’t really demons. Despite the pleasures of ogling Megan Fox’s curves, the soldiers soon find out that her and her friends are simply way too irritating and the project is abandoned. It’s creepy premise… yet, somehow, most guys can relate for some reason.

 

5. Monsters vs Aliens, Angels and Demons

When extra-terrestrials, angels, demons, the illuminati and an assassin threaten humanity, a secret brotherhood enlists a wacky team of government-employed monsters to prevent a catastrophic biblical prophecy from coming true. Tom Hanks has never looked so human in this animated conspiracy film, especially when he yanks out his eyeball and bounces it around the Vatican.

 

6. Inglourious Basterds: Rise of Cobra

“I want my Cobra scalps!” When an elite, secret military force with a reputation for cruelty to their enemies is called in to fight an arms dealer with a doomsday device and his own private terrorist army, explosions and one-liners ensue. Although filled with hi-tech weaponry and elaborate stunts, the best scene is still when Sgt. Donowitz caves Zartan’s head in with a baseball bat.

 

7. Transformers: New Moon

When Shia LaBeouf’s character is caught in a love triangle between Optimus Edward and

Jacobtron (pictured with his piercing red eyes), sparks literally fly. LaBeouf’s most believable onscreen transformation yet has hearts racing, as he must choose between the Transformers and the Deceptagons, before one of the chaste robots pours sugar in the gas tank of his heart. There is much, much more here than meets the eye.

 

8. Zombieadventureland

Jesse Eisenberg was the obvious choice to star in this coming of age zombie comedy as a neurotic hypochondriac who gets a summer job at an amusement park only to find out that the girl he’s got a crush on has been secretly seeing the older guy that runs the shooting range. And to make things worse, the park is routinely overrun with the undead. Look for a hilarious cameo by Dan Aykroyd as a crazy carnie – yes, playing himself!

 

9. Where the Hangovers Are

Max hates his reality, so he escapes into the bottle, getting so completely drunk that he thinks he’s in Las Vegas living it up. After what he believed was a night spent parting with his big fuzzy friends, he wakes up dressed like a tiger, and wearing a wedding ring. Max then hilariously retraces his steps to see what happened during the alcohol- and drug-fueled wild rumpus.

 

10) Invictus With a Chance of Meatballs

Based on the true story of the soccer match that brought post-apartheid South Africa together, this one’s a rousing historical drama featuring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. Against all odds, he encourages his country’s soccer team to win the World Rugby Cup by promising them a free spaghetti dinner at Tony Roma’s if they bring home the championship.

 

-Dave Alexander

A Wing and a Player

When it comes to customer service, Air Canada is on par with the characters in Clerks – minus the witty banter and endearing shenanigans. In fact, it’s the only company I’ve written an angry snail mail letter to because of multiple screw-ups (and a customer service line that went to a full voicemail box!). As a film programmer, though, I gotta admit that it does alright.

This month I broke my vow to never fly the airline again after I waited too long to book a flight back to Edmonton for a pre-holiday visit and Air Canada had the cheapest/most convenient flight by a sizable margin [shakes fist in indignation]. Sooo… for my flight back to Toronto, I arrived well before their recommended check-in time and, unable to use the online service, I joined the rapidly growing line up for the check-in counter. Over the next hour and 45 minutes, the line-up stretched back about a block, people were freaking out about missing their flights and I considered breaking both my legs and seeing if I could crawl back to Toronto quicker. The reason: although there were ten check-out stations, only two were manned, despite the number of Air Canada employees milling around, joking and whatnot. When a third person was finally added, she admitted to me that she’d try her best because she hadn’t actually done the job in a year. I looked around for the hidden Just for Laughs camera.

OK, now that I’ve got that off my chest, whoever oversees the in-flight films for Air Canada deserves some praise and a bag or two of that crunchy mix stuff. The movies are free, unlike on some airlines, and there are plenty to choose from, in categories such as Contemporary (mainstream titles you’d find in a video store but not in the new release section), Classic, Hollywood, Canadian and French. Obviously, watching a movie on that small screen isn’t the best way to see a big screen film, but for me, it’s perfect for seeing mainstream stuff that’s not on DVD yet and I wasn’t able to catch in the theatre, or that I kinda wanted to see, but not for $12 to $15.

My pick for the flight to Edmonton fit perfectly in that category: A Perfect Getaway. This Hawaii-set thriller was written and directed by David Twohy, who made the modern sci-fi-action-horror classic Pitch Black, the severely underrated historical supernatural-war-thriller Below and the unforgivably bad Chronicles of Riddick. A Perfect Getaway stars not-so A-list types Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich and Timothy Olyphant and was in theatres for probably just slightly longer than the film’s running time. However, it’s a tense, twisty little film that makes the most of its tropical paradise setting, even if the big reveal is a bit of an eye-roller. It’s the kind of movie that you’d be happy to rent, pleasantly surprised by, but not wanting to see a second time – ideal for killing 90 minutes on a flight.

I also like to use the in-flight movie opportunity to take a chance on a film. My choice for the flight back, a Quebecois heist comedy called Les doigts croches (a.k.a. Sticky Fingers) was just the thing. Though it stars one of the biggest actors in Quebec, Roy Dupuis, I’d never heard of it, but the premise – a group of inept 1960s Montreal gangsters pull of a robbery, yet in order to claim the money are forced to walk hundreds of miles on a pilgrimage – was entirely original, so I gave it a shot. With some clever plot twists and a bunch of lovable characters, it was a great discovery (though, not one I’d watch twice), and, again, ideal for watching on a plane.

These are exactly the kinds of films that should be on a plane’s movie menu. Sure, there was also the new Harry Potter film, but you can see that anywhere. I’m all for using the in-flight movie experience to take a chance on non-mainstream stuff, especially if it’s harder to find. Air Canada’s Canadian and French selections offer a bunch of quality Can-con selections that most people wouldn’t bother with, as well as a bunch of short films that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else (and which make great time killers if you don’t have enough minutes available for a feature). Of course, it says something about the state of Canadian cinema that Air Canada is one of the best sources to discover our homegrown films.

Now, if only the company was half that good at the other, y'know, airline-type stuff.

 

-Dave Alexander

So Long, and Thanks for All the Braaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiinsssssssss

Sad news for genre fans: Dan O’Bannon died yesterday. I had the pleasure of interviewing the writer/director for a 2007 Rue Morgue cover story on his 1985 zombie comedy The Return of the Living Dead – one of my all-time favourite horror films. He had fought Crohn’s disease for three decades, and you could hear the weariness in his voice, but despite that, I found him to be very friendly, passionate when talking about his work and unafraid to throw stones. He was what you’d call “a character.”

O’Bannon was still working on scripts (there are a couple upcoming projects listed on the IMDb and Wikipedia), so I hope we get to see more of his stuff hit the screen yet. The one thing that he emphasized that really stuck with me was how important he felt it was, above all else, to be original when writing stories.

The filmmaker was responsible for a lot more than just The Return of the Living Dead, though. I’ve compiled a list of ten reasons we’ll miss Dan O’Bannon.

 

1. Helped launch John Carpenter’s career.

When he was attending the USC School of Cinema-Television in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, O’Bannon met John Carpenter and the two of them collaborated on the sci-fi horror comedy Dark Star, which Carpenter later expanded into his first feature. O’Bannon served as co-writer, editor, production designer, FX supervisor and co-starred as Sgt. Pinback. The film became Carpenter’s calling card when he was trying to break into the film biz.

 

2. Worked on Star Wars.

Before he decided to abandon the tech side of filmmaking for the more creative side, O’Bannon did some computer animation work on Star Wars. I hate to think what would’ve happened if he’d loved the work and pursued a career making space ship models move around instead of writing, and sometimes directing, cool stories.

 

3. Almost made an awesome version of Dune with Alejandro Jodorowsky.

The budding filmmaker traveled to Spain to work with mad surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre) on an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune. After spending months and months working on the project, funding fell through. Of course, David Lynch would later make it, but it’s considered one of his lesser films. The combination of O’Bannon and Jodorowsky’s talents could’ve made for one insane and original sci-fi film. Regardless, O’Bannon told me that the time he spent with Jodorowsky had a profound impact on him.

 

4. Wrote Alien, launching Ridley Scott’s career.

After the Dune debacle O’Bannon returned to the U.S., where he was broke and couch surfing. Instead of giving up on the film business, he was motivated to write Alien (original title: Star Beast), one of the greatest sci-fi films ev-er. In interviews he discussed his fascination with taking a cue from nature and making the aliens parasites that use other species as food and incubators. It made Ridley Scott an A-list director, creature designer H.R. Giger an art superstar and everyone else scared of face-huggers.

 

5. He was a cyberpunk pioneer.

In the mid-‘70s, O’Bannon also wrote comic stories that appeared in Heavy Metal magazine, including “The Long Tomorrow,” which is considered an early “true” cyberpunk tale. According to Wikipedia, it was used as reference material by Ridley Scott when he was making Blade Runner.

 

6. Penned one of the greatest H.P. Lovecraft-inspired films.

O’Bannon co-wrote the 1981 film Dead & Buried, directed by Gary Sherman, about a creepy seaside Rhode Island town where inhabitants are killed but return – leading to the discovery of a cult-like conspiracy surrounding an undertaker. Celebrated by horror geeks for its atmosphere of dread, bizarre twists and – surprise – an original plot, it’s an unsung classic.

 

7. Gave us brain-eating zombies.

Whenever someone imitates a zombie by saying “braaaaaains,” he’s referring to The Return of the Living Dead. For his comedic punk-rock riff on the Romero zombie archetype, O’Bannon (who also directed) felt it was vital to bring something new to the ghouls, so he gave them the ability to speak (“Send more paramedics…”), allowed any part of their bodies to keep on (un)living regardless of whether or not the head was removed, and he made them crave brains (as the zombie torso explains, it eases “the pain of being dead”). Plus, he created the coolest zombie ever in the form of the mucky, frightening Tarman.

 

8. Wrote the weirdest vampire movie ever.

That year (1985) also saw the release of Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce, which O’Bannon wrote, based on a Philip K. Dick story. You’ve never seen anything like this wacked-out genre mash-up, which ties together Haley’s Comet, alien vampires (they suck your life force!) in suspended animation, telepathy, a zombie-like plague that ravages London and a lot of animated laser effects. Silly but totally fun. Although it was a flop at the time, it’s got a considerable following among horror fans who are fascinated by it’s utter weirdness. Proof here.

 

9. Helped put a governor on Mars… in drag.

I’m referring to the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring, Paul Verhoeven-directed, 1990 film Total Recall (also based on a Philip K. Dick story), which has the famous “two weeks” sequence. O’Bannon had a hand in the script, in which the future governator’s hi-tech female disguise fails in the most awesome way possible.

 

10. He was not afraid to speak his mind.

Often, when you’re interviewing someone in the film biz, they’re very diplomatic when discussing troubled projects, as not to burn any bridges. But O’Bannon was very candid about his work, whether he was talking about his disdain for Tobe Hooper directing Lifeforce, his anger with anyone who monkied with his scripts or (as he told me) his frustration at not being able to do all the gore gags he wanted to pull off in The Return of the Living Dead. Although he sometimes came off as a negative, when I interviewed him, he also had a lot of praise for artists he loved working with, calling Jodorowsky one of the most influential people on his life. One suspects that O’Bannon’s uncompromising nature didn’t help his career in terms of working well with others, but the more he fought to protect his vision, the better the results probably were in the end, with The Return of the Living Dead, being the best example.

 

So long, Dan, and thanks for all the braaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiinsssssssss.

 

[photo: Dan O'Bannon in 2008, used under Creative Commons license, courtesy JaSunni]

-Dave Alexander

The Scariest Film About Antwerp You'll See All Year

What do the four A’s – Antwerp, archery, ancient evil and athlete’s knee hair – have in common? No, some arcane European cult has not tried to introduce sasquatch hunting into the Olympics, but rather these things are all integral to the plot of one of the best films of the year that you didn’t see: Left Bank.

IFC released this 2008 Belgian film on DVD back in mid-October, and I’ve had it sitting around my apartment since then. The title isn’t very inspiring, and the DVD cover isn’t much better, but I’d been told by a few movie geeks that this is one of the most overlooked genre titles of the year, especially if you’re a Polanski fan, as it draws heavily from the filmmaker’s early psychological works of the ‘60s and ‘70s. I finally rescued it from the unwatched movie pile and, sure enough, it’s a five-alarm creep-out in the style of The Tenant, Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion – the kind of slow-burn, edgy horror movie that North America hasn’t really made for a long time.

It’s from Dutch filmmaker Pieter Van Hees (note the mis-spelling on this poster!), who has done several shorts involving sports. Appropriate then that in Left Bank (a.k.a. Linkeroever), which he co-wrote, the protagonist is an up-coming track runner, named Marie (Eline Kuppens). An unhappy loner who pushes herself too hard, Marie develops a blood-related problem which forces her to take a month off, ruining her chance to compete in the next big meet. Things look up when she meets Bobby (Matthias Schoenaerts), a young man from the other side of the river in Antwerp – the left bank, of course – who’s the head of his archer’s guild, sells cars and seems to have few friends himself.

The first part of the film sets up their relationship, as Marie starts staying at his apartment. While he’s a work, she learns that the suite’s former tenant went missing. After receiving a piece of mail addressed to her, Marie contacts the former tenant’s boyfriend. Together, and to Bobby’s chagrin, they follow a trail of evidence that suggests the building is built upon a pit that may be a demonic portal (try explaining that when applying for homeowner’s insurance), one of particular interest to a certain guild.

Van Hees takes his time drawing viewers into the mystery, letting us piece things together ourselves, all while keeping the world of the movie just strange enough to maintain an air of the uncanny, punctuated by moments of terror. Off-putting characters (such as Bobby’s neighbours and Marie’s clairvoyant mother), combined with creepy imagery (including historical photos and a grotesque wound on Marie’s knee that sprouts long black hair!) keep the mood tense and mysterious.

Instead of tying up all the loose ends and spelling everything our, Left Bank, like those aforementioned Polanski classics, is often more concerned with the what is happening, rather than the why its happening, as we watch our main character start to question those around her, herself and, eventually, reality. Beautiful cinematography courtesy Nicolas Karakatsanis, depicts Antwerp as a chilly, stark and strange, and Van Hees makes the whole place further alien by using an affecting score (by electronic artist Eavesdropper), some bold camera moves (especially a traumatic shuddering effect) and ambitious editing, which gives us flashes of things you feel like you’re better off not knowing about.

Eline Kuppens, who’s a spitting image of a younger Sherilyn Fenn, goes for broke with a performance that has her running outside in the cold, performing several fully nude scenes (crap, I shouldn’t have said that, a bunch of you just quit reading this and went over to Amazon), and running around in the cold buck naked (d’oh! There go a bunch more of you. While all that’s totally awesome, of course, she also plays an intelligent protagonist who doesn’t simply run screaming or turn jaw-droppingly daft at the most convenient moments of the plot.

It’s no surprise that when it comes to horror, foreign films are leading the pack because they’re not so beholden to Hollywood conventions. I’d be surprised if Left Bank hasn’t already been picked up for a North American remake, and you can bet it’ll be a watery, PG-13 kind of affair with a suntanned blonde as the lead, a hunky street racer as the boyfriend and an ancient evil that resides under a California high school or something along those line that’ll make you want to cheese-grate your eyes.

At least we’ll always have Antwerp.

 

-Dave Alexander

Putting Food On the Table

Ever feel like someone’s trying to fatten you up, Hansel and Gretel style? You know, those times, for example, when you turn off the highway onto a road that funnels you between rows of fast food restaurants, where your only meal options seem to be greasy chicken, greasy pizza, greasy hamburgers or The Other Guy’s greasy hamburgers. It’s the same with food courts and buffets. Even since I saw Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste – about extra-terrestrial baddies turning people into fast food – I imagine an alien race fattening us up, en masse, so they can harvest us when we’ve finally tipped the scales enough for their space butchers.

The truth, of course, is more frightening: we’re doing it to ourselves. We’ve been trained to value food that’s cheap, fast, in large portions and riddled with salt, sugar and fat. Morgan Spurlock explored this reality in Super-Size Me, but he was only telling part of the story. Spurlock, in the most masochistic way possible, showed us the results of eating such crap; Food Inc. follows the food back to its sources, to tell the larger story or where the food we eat – not only fast food – comes from.

When I say we, I should clarify that it’s an American doc, so while there are major similarities, I imagine there are some significant difference in the way our food goes from field to face. At least I freakin’ hope so…

The film very thoroughly shows us how the big industry got so big; how those few controlling companies streamlined the production process through the use of chemicals, genetic engineering and cheap labour; how they gained power and influence with government in order to entrench themselves and put profit over public health and safety. There’s an interview with a lobbyist whose three-year suffered a horrible death from ecoli poisoning in a tainted hamburger and she’s now battling congress to pass a bill that would give back power to the Food and Drug Administration to shut down meat plants with repeated violations. Kenner also talks to farmers who are controlled, pressured and, apparently, bullied by multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto, which has a chokehold on seed processing. There’s a look at not only the horrifying conditions under which livestock are cared for, but also a talk with a union organizer trying to get humane conditions for the humans working at meat packing plants.

But Kenner also talks to the everyman farmers who are just trying to make a living by following the industry demands and trying to produce food at cheaper and cheaper costs in order to compete. He spends time with lab techs who, for better or worse, explain the ins and outs of chemical engineering. And he visits poor families who – at the risk of diabetes – subsist on fast food because it’s cheaper to buy a burger than a head of broccoli.

There a ton of really eye opening info (food for thought – hardy har ), but Food Inc. is also very well structured and paced, and rounded out with colourful personalities who keep the film engaging. The  best of the bunch is the organic farmer who, despite his hayseed straw hat and overalls, is incredibly articulate, observant and entertaining as he explains why organic farming is the solution to the toxic status quo (and why it's important that pigs are free to engage in their "essential pigness"). There’s also Gary Hirshberg, the man behind Stonyfield, one of the biggest organic farm companies, who explains why it’s important to get into Wal-Mart if you really wanna affect change. The best thing that Food Inc. does is take a complex issue and examine it thoughtfully without being a Michael Moore-style  polemic.

That said, there’s a reason all of the huge companies involved in the livestock and other farming industries declined to be interviewed for the movie: it’s damning. Yet, it’s also hopeful, showing us solutions and alternatives, with a reminder that, big business is not untouchable. Like the once mighty Big Tobacco companies, Big Food companies can be taken to task, as well.

I switched to eating organic a few years ago and it was one of the best lifestyle choices I’ve ever made. In general the food tastes better (milk, meat and produce in particular), I’m forced to eat fresher (no preservatives!) and, after reading up on the chemicals, hormones, and other weird-ass things that goes into so many items, I’m eating a lot healthier. Of course, it’s more expensive, and not everyone can afford it; I sacrifice other things to eat organic.

As far as your cinematic diet is concerned, Food Inc. should be a vital addition to it because the most important point that it makes, and the reason to watch it whether you’re interested in organic food or not, is the very simple idea that everyone has the right to know where their food comes from.

Well, except people who eat Soylent Green; they’re better off not knowing.

 

-Dave Alexander

This Does Not Funkin' Blow

Bangers of a feather stick together: that’s the life lesson we learned in Fubar… well that and how to give’r. The 2002 comedy by Calgary filmmaker Michael Dowse introduced us to hoser headbanger best buds Dean (Paul Spence, left in the above pic) and Terry (David Lawrence, right), whose mission and ambition in life is to drink beer, listen to metal and party hard – you know, just give’r.

The mockumentary reworked the hoser archetype for a new generation that grew up knowing (or were!) white guys with long, feathered hair, tight jeans, lumberjack jackets, too many AC/DC cassettes and more often than not, an appetite for drunken destruction.

Now the hurtin’ Albertans – kind of a mix between Bob and Doug and Beavis and Butthead – are back in Fubar II: Dean and Terry Head North, which is currently shooting in Alberta. To properly celebrate this modern Canadian comedy classic, I should drink a twelve of Pil, blow the dust off my Maximum Overdrive soundtrack and throw a garbage can through a bus stop window, but alas, I’ll have to just write something about the new movie instead.

This week I received a press release about the sequel (which included the above shot). So, first off, the synopsis:

 

The story starts in Calgary where the boys are tired of trying to give’r while barely scraping by, when their old buddy and party leader, Tron (Andrew Sparacino) hooks them up with jobs in Fort McMurray. Before long they are rolling in dough and good times. Flush with money and confidence, Terry starts dating Trish (Terra Hazelton), a local waitress, and things get serious in a hurry. Meanwhile, Dean is playing up the part of the cancer survivor, and upon hearing about the glories of workers’ compensation, purposely bungs up his leg in an attempt to qualify. When Terry moves in with Trish, Dean does his best to save his buddy from swapping the banger life for domestic captivity.

 

Sounds solid. Get Dean and Terry out of the city and up to the oilfields in the North of the province, give them too much money and then introduce an element that’ll test their friendship.

One of things that made Fubar so popular is that everyone knew/knows guys like Dean and Terry – especially in Alberta, where a lot of ‘em end up in the oil patch, working hard, partying harder and getting into trouble because they have a fat pay cheque, steam to blow off and not much else to do in a small(ish) town other than, y’know, give’r. It’s exactly the kind of place Dean and Terry would seek out – the kind of town where the sun never sets on moustaches and denim. (Plus, their married buddy Tron is returning, and everybody loves Tron, even if Terry and Dean occasionally get drunk and write that he "funkin' blows.".)

Like the first film, this one was also co-written by Dowse, Spence and Lawrence, so that bodes very well. Hopefully the film is only using a working title for now, though, as Dean and Terry Head North is uninspired, and definitely needs to have its suck turned down.

Regardless, the film started shooting on November 16^th, in Edmonton, and is set to wrap in Fort McMurray on December 16^th, so it’ll be a while before we’ll see Fubar II in theatres (and I really hope it goes to theatres). In the meantime, though, there’s some hilarious content posted on the movie’s official blog site, which you need to visit, here. There are bunch of hilarious videos and pics of Terry and Dean posted, and a link to Dean’s Twitter page, but the best thing on there is actually a rap video by Tron himself, Andy Sparacino, about his testes. This needs to become a viral hit ASAP.

Lastly, there’s no word on what will be on the sequel’s soundtrack, but if it has at least one gem as good as The New Pornographer’s cover of Toronto’s “Your Daddy Don’t Know” (it rarely leaves my mp3 player), which is on the Fubar soundtrack, it’ll put a spring in my white high-tops.

 

Dean, Terry: welcome back, boys. May all your six packs be cold, your hats be leather and all your lawn chairs be flammable. We’re countin’ on you to give’r for all us sinners.

 

-Dave Alexander