tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21644719911985705172024-02-20T18:02:43.847-08:00CinertiaFilm and video reviews by Jonathan Culp.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.comBlogger370125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-23056999393244717852014-11-01T10:04:00.003-07:002014-11-01T10:05:47.223-07:00'tax shelter cinema' - a Canadian chronologySee, this blog isn't <i>really</i> dead ;) <br />
<br />
Recently I did a presentation at Toronto's "Small Talk" event, in which I presented my standard qualified defense of tax shelter cinema from a viewer perspective. Since I was (finally!) being called on as an authority, I figured it was time for me to clarify the timeline of Canadian government policy on film financing.<br />
<br />
My preconceptions were challenged. Of course the 'tax shelter' was not one policy but many policies in a rather chaotic sequence. The most interesting thing I learned, which nobody really talks about in my experience, is that at each stage the issue was not the introduction of the policy itself, but its capacity to be exploited for mercenary means - at each stage, things got ugly a couple years after the policy itself was introduced. (Of course, this raises the question of whether tax credits are really the optimal way to fund the arts - a question many readers will have already answered for themselves.)<br />
<br />
My friend and <a href="http://www.canuxploitation.com/" target="_blank">canuxploitation</a> emeritus Paul Corupe asked to check out my research, and I figured it was about time this info was generally available in a concise form, so here it is. Note that I'm not a historian or an accountant and did this research in my spare time so it's not authoritative, but I haven't seen a more complete or penetrable account myself. Hopefully others will continue to run with it as I tinker away.<br />
<br />
In compiling this chronology I made reference to the following books in particular:<br />
<br />
Susan Crean - Who's Afraid of Canadian Culture?<br />
Ted Magder - Canada's Hollywood*<br />
Manjanuth Pendakur - Canadian Dreams and American Control<br />
Douglas Fetherling, ed. - Documents in Canadian Film<br />
Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film<br />
<br />
*invaluable.<br />
<br />
<br />
TAX SHELTER TIMELINE<br />
<br />
1954 <br />
Capital Cost Allowance introduced<br />
60% of a given investment could be written off against taxable income<br />
Regardless of national origin of production<br />
Little activity<br />
<br />
1968<br />
CFDC created to support Canadian cinema - $10 million, ran out quick<br />
<br />
Over time: producers allow investments to be ‘leveraged’ via loophole - CCA calculated on TOTAL cost of the film (CFDC, lab investors etc defer ownership rights to private investors)<br />
Spencer: “based on investors’ expectations that films will be losers”<br />
<br />
<br />
November 1973<br />
Government closes leverage loophole (in the wake of Harold Greenberg's particularly egregious "The Neptune Factor")<br />
English feature production ‘almost completely paralyzed’<br />
<br />
April 1974<br />
Council of Canadian Filmmakers (CCFM) advocacy group launches offensive demanding action on distribution and exhibition<br />
<br />
August 5, 1975<br />
New policy introduced: 100% deduction in first year on feature film investment<br />
eligibility:<br />
75 minutes long<br />
producer and 2/3 of creative personnel Canadian<br />
75% of technical services undertaken in Canada<br />
<br />
International coproductions automatically eligible<br />
<br />
Also ‘voluntary’ quota of 4 weeks per theatre (not per screen) - “a sham” that unsurprisingly went nowhere<br />
<br />
March 1976<br />
Tompkins Report<br />
Citing “Jaws”, “the Canadian feature film industry has to aim for a world-wide market, and that any actions taken by the various governments in Canada should lead to this end.”<br />
Quotas out of the question- “The leaders of the Canadian film industry must become sufficiently knowledgeable and skillful to face this competition with marketable standards”<br />
CBC and especially the NFB “impeded the market mechanism, disregarded all yardsticks of competition and reduced the private sector to a marginal existence.”<br />
<br />
1978-1980 <br />
“the boom”/gold rush<br />
producers use ‘public offer’, shares to small scale investors for immediate tax writeoff (Lantos/Roth's "Agency" was the first)<br />
Also ‘private placement’ offers which did not require public disclosure (hence no FOI info on these investments is available, as I found out)<br />
Soon after, ‘package’ investments limited risk (and potential returns)<br />
<br />
Investment firms and brokerages advised clients; eg. CFI Investments (chaired by John Turner!) prospectus indicates ‘family’ plots and ‘immediately recognizable stars’, and specifically spurns ‘self-indulgent producers’ and ‘personal statements’.<br />
increased exploitation of intl copro treaties with: France, Italy, UK, FDR, Israel.<br />
<br />
CFDC moved toward big budget productions under McCabe:<br />
1978: 37 films 48.6 million (1.3 mil avg)<br />
1979: 66 films 171.8 million (2.6 mil avg)<br />
1980: 53 films 147.4 million (2.8 mil avg)<br />
<br />
December 1978<br />
Revenue Canada clarifies policy around what portion of a film investment is ‘at risk’ and therefore eligible for deduction. Investment rises dramatically.<br />
<br />
Jan 1 1981<br />
New CAVCO (Canadian Film and Video Certification Office) ‘points’ system reforms:<br />
6/10 ‘points’ to classify as Canadian<br />
All producer functions to be carried out by Canadians<br />
No points where Canadian shares creative position with a non-Canadian<br />
<br />
1981<br />
November 12 - MacEachen CCA cut to 50% in first and second years<br />
Loans to finance films no longer tax deductible<br />
outcry, meetings<br />
December 17 - 100% tax shelter extended to 1982 (in fact held on to 1987)<br />
<br />
Jan 1 1982<br />
Further CAVCO revisions:<br />
2/4 points for director/screenwriter obligatory, as well as 1/2 lead actors<br />
<br />
1988<br />
CCA reduced from 100% to 30% over two years<br />
"tax shelter era" is functionally overJChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-21689954158719967212013-03-13T14:07:00.001-07:002013-03-13T14:12:35.241-07:00House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films(Kier-La Janisse, 2012)<br />
This book's fantastically ambitious agenda is all there in the title: Janisse aims to situate trash-horror and art-horror representations of crazy women within the narrative of her own crazy life as a means of explaining their worth and import, and does so 'topographically' - by surveying the entire terrain rather than privileging any one route to enlightenment. The approach is valid and overdue, the personal narrative is compellingly told, and the volume of information and insight into the individual films discussed is invaluable in and of itself. One does wish, however, that it had the benefit of one more rigorous re-drafting, because much of the time the pieces don't quite hang together. Janisse is to be commended for rejecting the 'academic' approach as such in her intro, but given this - and considering the compelling first-person storytelling of the confessional content - it's curious and disorienting that her diction keeps shifting to passive voice in the discussion of the films themselves. This schism reinforces the feeling of the book being two separate things, especially since the anchoring of individual films in her life narrative is tenuous at best; one wants more impassioned celebration and less plot summary, especially since the latter is given a generous 150 pages of appendix. Only in the discussion of cinematic self-harm does one feel the passion that imbues her tales from the trenches. Still, this is a solid (and gorgeously-appointed) step toward a non-alienated approach to genre film criticism, and it follows a compellingly independent moral compass that one is pleased to engage and, on occasion, argue with. JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-72746061652719551912013-03-13T13:41:00.002-07:002013-03-13T13:41:41.033-07:00Termini Station(Allan King, 1989)<br />
This attempt at Tennessee Williams North flunks hard first of all because after a decade of dramatic filmmaking King still can't direct comedy to save his life. Sour and bellicose, his actors trample all over a significance-sodden script that begs for salvation by finesse, and when they do attempt a lighter touch, the moody vagueness of the cinematography renders their efforts near-invisible. This tale of everyday cruelty and shades of failure in semi-urban northern Ontario aims to render daily life poetically, marrying social satire and psychological melodrama while pulling the curtain back on an array of big issues - repression, sexism, racism, suicide, psychological abuse, elder neglect. But King has no feel for this milieu, and the dirty words and unenlightened banter sound like they're being recited out of a textbook. Play-acting the angry young woman archetype, Megan Follows does well on the occasions when she's not instructed to bellow, and Colleen Dewhurst's 'symbolic' grandma is mainly an occasion for frustrated pity. But the key to the movie's failure is Hanna Lee's sad, stupid sex worker - all her info is nonverbal, and King can't get anywhere near her to let us in on her truths. Because of this nagging lack of intimacy, the critiques of rednecks and airheads feel like alienated cheap shots. Overwhelmingly banal themes shouted with a scowl, decorated by flashback digressions that don't work and yet another atrocious musical score.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-22703409322057555912013-03-13T10:36:00.000-07:002013-03-13T10:36:12.423-07:00Vertigo(Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)<br />
More than anything else, this film is a document of a master filmmaker in crisis. At the peak of his powers, none of his perfectly realized entertainment devices seem to mean anything anymore. So the typically expert, breezily vernacular performances are awash in a sea of forlorn, solitary meandering; the 'mystery' of the narrative is constantly discredited as a meaningless diversion; and, in the world-historic masterstroke, the surrogate protagonist's pursuit of obsessive love is suddenly and permanently interrupted by the perspective of the distressed, used, abandoned love object, who just wants to be accepted for who she is. In Kim Novak's eyes, James Stewart's lonely quest for feminine perfection is as inhuman as the unattainable apparition she had presented as in the earlier scenes - the gap is never bridged, and the self-doubt is overwhelming as Hitchcock parallels Stewart's unspeakably solitary cruelty to his own life work of managing presentations and manipulating the vulnerabilities of needy, beautiful people. But while he's wracked with doubt, he's still the greatest filmmaker alive with ready access to the greatest film craftspeople alive, so that his soul-searching takes on an almost unbelievable wholeness of form and texture. Before our eyes, he's turning his demons into the template of high-art cinema that would sustain the medium for the rest of the century, but impressive as that is, it's not why this deserves to be called the greatest movie ever made. It deserves it because it calls into question the adequacy of its own greatness, because it knows that Kim Novak's soul is greater still.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-53273961853631150582013-03-13T10:00:00.002-07:002013-03-13T10:00:18.061-07:00Django Unchained(Quentin Tarantino, 2012)<br />
Once again, Tarantino sets out to
prove the redemptive power of trash cinema by brazenly applying his
glibly aestheticized carnage to a real-life historical atrocity - a
provocation by design, and one that positively counts on pissed-off
guardians of truth to react against it to complete the effect. Christoph
Waltz's brilliantly fleshy performance as a mercenary Jewish
abolitionist at once exemplifies the film's deeply eccentric tribute to
the spaghetti western and serves as a kind of surrogate for Tarantino's
own complex relationship to the subject matter. DiCaprio is also fine as
an unexpectedly dimensional slave master - although his phrenological
musings seem like a gratuitous demonstration that Quentin did some
research. Jamie Foxx's love-torn fugitive slave, on the other hand, is
neither dimensional nor complex - he's a force of nature, a symbol of
righteous vengeance. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with
this approach, it puts him at a dramatic disadvantage - he's just not as
interesting as the characters who are actually allowed to be
characters. He's not stereotyped, he's archetyped, and the effect is
almost as damaging. And that goes double for Kerry Washington's utterly
useless, piece-of-meat love interest - a disastrous choice that
inadvertently lays bare the moral limits of fealty to trash formula and
upsets the balance of the whole movie. Entertaining scene for scene, but
the episodic structure tilts away from Inglourious Basterds' visionary
impact toward mere capriciousness, and for such a maestro of violence he
seems to have serious difficulty striking a consistent tone for his
bloodbaths - cathartic one minute, ironic the next. JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-43465668047562737982012-12-27T18:49:00.005-08:002012-12-27T19:32:55.779-08:00Terminal Choice(Sheldon Larry, 1984)<br />
Here the Magder clan bequeath us a movie about a computer-controlled hospital run amok that doesn't even set up its own premise - why bother when "Coma" did the job already? This frees them up to pack the first act with so much sexual innuendo and 'witty banter' that you nearly have time to forget what the movie's actually about. Admittedly this material also helps them establish an agreeably goofy tone, but soon enough things degenerate into disagreeable nonsense, cramming in mad scientists, illegal betting pools, accidental vivisection rescue ops, and so on. The actors are game enough - and the dated-for-1984 'high tech' trappings silly enough - that it could have worked as camp. Unfortunately, the TV-style slickness is a drag, the pacing is turgid, and the character development is a mess. Key supporting characters disappear for an hour at a time, Don Francks plays a jogger who's really an attorney who's really an investigative journalist, and Joe Spano's alcoholism and romantic subplots just evaporate into the underwhelming crescendo of Commodore 64 carnage. JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-46060600527824125392012-08-22T16:04:00.002-07:002012-08-22T16:24:08.145-07:00Down the Road Again(Don Shebib, 2011)<br />
Shebib's belated "Goin' Down the Road" sequel is heartfelt and honest, but that doesn't mean it's any good; its elegiac tale of mortality is tragically bereft of craft. The first half of the film is a wistful epitaph for the long-gone Paul Bradley, and there's no there there; the flashbacks and exhumations from the original fail to find any semblance of form or focus. The East Coast sequence cedes some ground to original characters and present situations, but only glimmers of poignancy survive the overwhelming air of contrivance. The skeletal narrative taxes credibility in outline and pulverizes it in execution, with way too many unmotivated leaps in character development. None of Shebib's artistic strengths shine through; his dialogue, once so full of wit and surprise, is leaden and literal, and the direction shows no trace of the spontaneity and open space that used to breathe life into his languid intimacy. Kathleen Robertson's Betty-Jo is the invention of a man who can't recall the distinction between 40 and 25, and the sympathy and charm of the cast as a whole is left to wither and die.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-37811132554505327822012-08-08T22:30:00.000-07:002012-08-09T13:06:24.972-07:00Marie Ann(Martin Walters, 1978)<br />
Hard to believe the producer (Fil Fraser) who brought us the adorable <i>Why Shoot the Teacher?</i> proceeded directly to this dire thing, the story of the Canadian west's first white woman. But what kind of "story" is this? The entire movie feels like an inciting incident, forsaking all revealing details of the pioneer woman's life for an exceedingly halfhearted love triangle plot. Andree Pelletier is required to do so much standing around looking pretty that whenever the occasion arises to express an emotion she pounces on it like raw meat; meanwhile Tantoo Cardinal lurks and broods, broods and lurks. The project looks like it was dreamed up by local historians who had never seen a movie; the production design may be 'authentic', but neither the sets nor the characterizations feel lived-in. The flat cinematography, amateurish lighting, erratic location sound, and naggingly incongruous harpsichord soundtrack are all hallmarks of a provincial cinema that can barely hold its oar. Scholastic-style narration, carelessly slapped on to the head and tail, sheepishly explains why anyone should care.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-55217668685268944072011-10-30T16:19:00.000-07:002011-11-01T23:06:03.798-07:00Shivers(David Cronenberg, 1975)<br />Cannily baiting the audience's erotic neurosis at least as much as he indulges his own, Cronenberg's first 'real' feature was also probably his most reviled pre-Hollywood production. He definitely has a lot of fun imagining the utter disintegration of a sterile, controlled apartment complex at the hands of ravening sex-zombies, begat by some rather dodgy men of science with their own delusions of control. The first half hour recalls the creepy, quiet austerity of his sixties stuff, only penetrable, grounded in some kind of recognizable real life; most scandalous of all, the great bulk of these upstanding citizens are brazenly promiscuous, on the make from frame one. And as the hellraising climax comes on, we are treated to a perfectly calculating and sometimes hilarious roll call of flouted taboos, with old ladies, little girls and nellies all joining the fun. In between, our auteur botches the tension build, distracts himself and us with useless homages to George Romero, and deploys a lead actor who looks badly hung over even when he's not visibly flubbing his lines.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-39092042836222054212011-05-27T20:41:00.000-07:002011-05-27T21:16:36.753-07:00Cold Comfort(Vic Sarin, 1989)<br />Possibly, maybe, somebody could have made something out of this script - could have tweaked its gothic burlesque of rural perversity into something appropriately lively, without all the empty gestures toward beauty and mystery. With a rewrite or two, it might have even conceivably been possible to wring consistent, comprehensible characters out of the thing, instead of the unreadable jumble of tics which survives. I can even imagine that these particular characters could have been brought to life by the rather urbane trio of Maury Chaykin, Margaret Langrick and Paul Gross; all have been winning elsewhere and show glimmers of life here. But Sarin's debut at the helm affords an almost too-perfect illustration of directorial cinematographeritis. Not only are his pretty pictures static and meaningless, but the sound editing is incompetent, the dialogue looping is halting, and the too-atmospheric musical score is mixed ridiculously high, stomping all over the film's many inert tableaux in a desperate attempt to simulate content.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-32529970584417063942011-05-27T12:30:00.001-07:002011-05-27T21:18:11.191-07:00Fatal Attraction<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:.1pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:.1pt; margin-left:0cm;mso-para-margin-top:.01gd;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd;mso-para-margin-left:0cm"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">(Michael Grant, 1980)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:.1pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:.1pt; margin-left:0cm;mso-para-margin-top:.01gd;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd;mso-para-margin-left:0cm"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">No not THAT Fatal Attraction. This mess is at least interesting for its obsessively perverse sexuality – about 15 years ahead of the Canuck cinema curve. After a freak head-on collision, psychology professor Stephen Lack and psychotherapist Sally Kellerman progress from hostile litigiousness to red-hot amour fou, in an extramarital affair whose fanciful play-acting goes dangerously over the top in record time. In fact, it frequently seems like all of the character and plot development are happening off screen; relationships shift and mutate so quickly that the protagonists become completely unknowable and credibility is strained to the breaking point. On what planet does a university professor barge into a loaded restaurant, humiliate random diners, fire a loaded handgun into the glassware, and stage a mock-kidnapping without repercussions? And since when does the non-consenting mock-kidnappee wet her panties at the thrill of this arbitrary behaviour? With the dramatic context providing no substantial challenge to the banal realism of the era, the arbitrary eruptions of kink come off as desperate and disfiguring. Kellerman is all right under the circumstances and John Huston’s cameo is a charming afterthought, but Lack is bedeviled by the kind of atrocious post-dubbing that destroys your faith in a movie, and the entire first half is drenched in incongruous 80s synth-boppery, often with gratuitously literal lyrics that prod at the action like a Greek chorus with nothing to say.</span></p>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-18954241522996462462011-05-25T07:16:00.001-07:002011-05-25T08:03:39.399-07:00Black Christmas(Bob Clark, 1974)<br />Never immersive or cathartic, this distinctly gamey horror film is pure entertainment, saturated with craft and intelligence. The tension between amusement and anxiety that is Clark's trademark has never been more extreme than it is here, as a sorority house full of humorously incompatible types finds itself menaced by a ranting, slobbering, obscene-phone-calling killer from within. What an awesome cast! From Margot Kidder to Kier Dullea to Andrea Martin to Doug McGrath, everyone is clearly having a ball as they tense against type, and no one dominates - Lynne Griffith is still stealing scenes a full hour after she's been murdered. Yet the star of the show doesn't even appear onscreen - very few of the slasher films that "Black Christmas" prefigured are as adept in honoring the ambiguity of their psycho, and the integrity of the conception pays off in spades at the end, with a set piece even more haunting and controlled than the rest of them.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-68363958018175593272011-05-25T06:21:00.000-07:002011-05-25T07:06:53.473-07:00A Christmas Story<p>(Bob Clark, 1983)<br />Wherein Clark the populist provocateur sets out to create a modern holiday classic. And classic it is - but before it is anything else it is <span style="font-style: italic;">broad</span>. Eyes roll, people run around in fast motion, dad talks in a high voice after he's bagged with a bowling ball, everyone mugs and preens into the camera. And it really, really works. Clark's nasty, cynical yet humane conventional wisdom is absolutely made for Jean Shepherd's folksy takedown of every Xmas cliché in the book. Every scene has a payoff, and with (Daniel Pinkwater's) narration tying up all loose ends it moves like slightly clunky lightning. Above all, this movie really gets the inner life of kids. Peter Billingsley's comic delivery carries the film even more than Darren McGavin's, and this absolutely nails familiar but underused types like Billingsley's utterly unreadable brother and a 'terrifying' bully-wimp named Scott Farkas. A couple self-conscious mitigations fail to redeem the gratuitous R's of the climactic Chinese restaurant thing, but coming after a mall Santa sequence as terrifying as anything in "Black Christmas", it's difficult to care.<br /></p>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-63086566840980927342011-05-20T08:12:00.002-07:002011-05-20T08:17:37.078-07:00Gainsaying myself - the dumpAnyone out there? As I mentioned earlier, the enormous dump of posts below - listed alphabetically and culled from my secret personal blog, where this project began - are provided as a kind of apology for the lull in my current reviewing activity - a lull which will continue for another couple months. Please read them with patience; if you have arguments with them, don't worry - so do I. Having been written at the very beginning of my rapprochement with Canadian cinema, I find many of these reviews embarrassingly inaccurate, glib, misinformed, and incomplete. And prolonged exposure seems to have moved around my good/bad goalposts as well - I am increasingly sensitive to the 'cultural' cop in my head. As I gradually return to the writing half of this Herculean engagement, I expect many of these to be revised substantially. Anyway, they'll still help you kill some time.JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-75159543724201146902011-05-20T08:12:00.001-07:002011-05-20T08:12:32.484-07:00Visiting Hours<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family: Times;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US">(Jean-Claude Lord, 1982)<br />Here's another one where you should forget about parsing the text. The gabbing about violence and morality via tormented journalist Lee Grant is no more decisive or interesting than the half-assed attempts to get inside the head of yet another Michael Ironside psycho; not that Ironside could defrost the window to his soul with a blow torch and a sunny day. So he grimaces and hacks, hacks and grimaces, in a manner so singularly ineffectual that he actually manages to upstage the idiot cops who give him every opening they can arrange. You'd think, having had a little practice, the guy would be able to plan and execute a decent murder. Instead, everyone keeps getting carted off to the hospital, so he can try again. I should say that, scene for scene, things can get fairly tense and atmospheric, and the actors largely do their job; but the absence of structural logic ultimately does it in. There's no focal point; Grant, Ironside and Linda Purl take their arbitrary turns at the fulcrum, with no sense of ensemble except for an occasional supporting-role interjection. And in this I am NOT referring to Shatner; they must have written his totally extraneous role on short notice, when they found out he was in town for the week.</span>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-77598797815671347712011-05-20T08:11:00.008-07:002011-05-20T08:12:16.648-07:00Rejeanne Padovani<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family: Times;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US">(1973, Denys Arcand)<br />Let's try to forget, for just a moment, that this is a Canadian fiction film that actually has something to say about the real world, that it is actually vents rather than channels collective anger - to the point of casting lookalikes of the then-current Montreal power structure, and portraying them as unutterable monsters to a man. And let's not get into how genuine or enduring or correct Arcand's radicalism might be; let's talk about what a fantastic movie he makes out of it. The camera seems to hide in the corners of this mausoleum-like mansion, lingering over entrances and exits until they become the content: the conduction of power and command. There's no mistaking the class commentary of the parallel parties in the dining room and basement. But the king's messengers - inarticulate, glowering, self-absorbed - are far from helpless victims. Nor does Arcand idealize the women who wander from partner to partner seeking their cut of the good life. This movie absolutely nails the sensual allure of wealth and comfort even as the emptiness is laid bare - a percussive shock cut to a close up of pants being unzipped almost steals the whole movie. Until the denouement, that is, where we learn all too clearly the consequences of underestimating the evil powers at play: appeals to human decency will not cut the mustard. In other words, this tiny, claustrophobic movie is actually an epic of human tragedy - a visionary one, and just about perfect too. </span>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-38330729188337608602011-05-20T08:11:00.007-07:002011-05-20T08:11:50.672-07:00Passiflora<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family: Times;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US">(Fernand Belanger/Dagmar Teufel, 1986)<br />Another in the seemingly endless chapters of shame at the National Film Board of Canada, this dazzlingly ambitious, daring, formally unique movie finally emerged from 22 years of stealth suppression, for a SINGLE subtitled screening at Inside Out last night. No wonder the Board cut and ran, though - this movie gives no quarter. It is 'about' the Pope's visit to Montreal, with a sidebar on the concurrent Jacksons Victory Tour, and the key refrain is "On your knees!" - spectacle equals subservience, and the upward gaze encourages us to forget those left behind. Queers, transvestites, abused women, old people on meds, crazy people, alcoholic rednecks - all are represented, but not as objects of pity, but as active agents on their own, connected if disparate journeys; and what vision it took to make those links in 1986! And what cheek to interrupt the documentary footage with these FICTIONAL scenes and characters, to layer real-life action with wacky sound effect commentary and creative dubbing and unmistakably non-'objective' asides, and that too-cute animated anarchy snake that keeps showing up. By rebelling so vividly and vitally against the strait-jacketing conventions of documentary, the filmmakers lay bare the way that these conventions are only conventions because they serve exactly the interests of power and repression that the film portrays. Never mind the anticlericism: it is expressly forbidden for a state-produced film to have this much FUN! Which is no doubt why the visionary creators of this amazing film were never allowed to make another. </span>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-27577316489048755872011-05-20T08:11:00.005-07:002011-05-20T08:11:37.781-07:00My Bloody Valentine<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">(George Mihalka, 1981)<br />In some ways, this is a remarkable movie. It is genuinely impressive to see an utterly generic slasher-movie plot unfold in a basically social-realist milieu - the characters are not teenagers but young and not-young working stiffs, and instead of Everytown, USA, we get an unrepentant (if re-named) Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia. Both the ramshackle town and the mine itself are exploited for texture and detail, and the plot is built on a theatricalized variation on the kind of tragic underground mishap that is all too familiar to this setting. There's some good characterization and staging amid the clunkers, and up to a point you have to give the film the benefit of the doubt: as a flamboyant gore-fest with virtually all the gore shorn by its own backers, it's like a comedy routine with bleeps over every single punchline. Even the "director's cut" DVD version is no such thing, a few salvaged scraps that mostly restore only a taste of what was intended; though the pickaxe-through-the-eye-socket number is pretty wicked. Nonetheless, the filmmakers have to share the failure: the movie is stupid in all the wrong places. The rationale for Don Francks' sheriff to not just tell everyone to stay home and lock the doors because a psychotic is loose is agonizingly weak, an obvious afterthought. The Romero-derived idea of having one victim's boyfriend become catatonic for the rest of the movie is sabotaged by the guy's atrocious performance. The love-triangle plot is so predictable that you are taken by surprise when, in the third act, it seems to take an interesting turn, as the two guys team up to rescue the object of their mutual affections; but when they actually get to her they pull a 'wait here, I'll be right back', and not the first one either. And the climactic struggle alternately demands that the murderer be as sluggish and inaccurate as possible, and that the others stand around for minutes at a time, dumbly sizing up the carnage. That adds up to producers, writers, actors and directors all doing their part to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and while you can see them genuinely trying to make it work, they don't.</span></p>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-4705084446043696542011-05-20T08:11:00.003-07:002011-05-20T08:11:25.175-07:00Life Classes<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family: Times;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US">(William D. MacGillivray, 1987)<br />In reviewing this tale of a Cape Breton woman mingling with the Halifax art crowd, Gerald Pratley describes it as "a biting comment on what passes for art today." Maybe he was in one of his rare sour moods that day: for me, this film is remarkable precisely because it straddles worlds <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">without</i> resorting to such heavy-handed dismissals. From life classes to cable-TV bestiality porn, from color-by-numbers to New York video art to transatlantic object envy, on down to the Gaelic lullabies that protagonist Jacinta Cormier will carry with her to her grave, this is first and foremost a comprehensive and exquisitely balanced examination of how art works in our everyday lives. No - in the everyday lives of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">these specific people</i>, in this specific place, a Halifax where tradition and modernism meet and clash. All of which is communicated through a remarkably patient character based narrative, not auteurist pyrotechnics - which isn't to say that the auteur's ultra-timely fusion of Don Shebib and Atom Egoyan is anything but brilliant.</span>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-70584475990841628452011-05-20T08:11:00.001-07:002011-05-20T08:11:10.943-07:00Hog Wild<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family: Times;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US">(Les Rose, 1981)<br />This movie was made before the teen-smut comedy renaissance of the early eighties, sat on the shelf a couple years, then got released after the genre was proven commercially viable. But this film was not viable in any sense of the word. It's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">unbelievably</i> clunky. Is it even remotely possible to milk laughter from a car up a flagpole, or a stolen hearse dumping the casket at the funeral, or a fat kid acting wounded because he's instructed to murder his mother, or some guy sneaking up on a skinny-dipping woman and stealing her clothes, or a sexy teacher getting turned on by pretending to ride a motorbike, or two people groping each other lasciviously in a vat of honey? We'll never know. Tony Rosato's inscrutable mumbling biker is occasionally mildly amusing, which makes it a solid cut above the rest and the best thing I've ever seen him do, poor guy. But that's cancelled out by the stupidest putative 'resolution' imaginable. </span>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-84465220635975910482011-05-20T08:10:00.005-07:002011-05-20T08:10:56.447-07:00Highpoint<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family: Times;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US">(Peter Carter, 1982)<br />This 'mainstream' tax shelter movie hints at what's wrong with this whole era of Canadian filmmaking. I mean, if you are going to pay somebody a MILLION dollars to do a stunt jump off the CN tower, how about CAPTURING IT ON FILM??? The footage of this alleged climax is so shoddy it looks like Dar Robinson lost his grip before Peter Carter yelled 'action'. This director made "Rowdyman", "Rituals" and, well, "High-Ballin'", so don't blame the hired gun: laborious and pointless, this movie was clearly made by bean-counters who lost their calculator. This is the kind of movie where Richard Harris and Beverly D'Angelo will fall in love the first day they meet for no reason except that the genre demands a romantic subplot; and where Toronto and Quebec City locations seem to have been selected as a sop to Tourism Canada. Slathered in too-loud voiceover, its chase scenes eventually degenerating into stereotyped Quebecois bumpkins running down the street in fast motion with chipmunk sound effects on the soundtrack. Harris is game, and the Maury Chaykin/Saul Rubinek bumbling-hit-men routine might have been priceless, but this movie has gaping black holes where the jokes should be. If you're going to be crassly calculating, you better make it worth my time, and this movie sucks. </span>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-68819344530642653562011-05-20T08:10:00.003-07:002011-05-20T08:10:35.305-07:00Fish Hawk<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal">(Don Shebib, 1979)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">An amiable kid's flick with Will Sampson as an Indian who gets in touch with himself while hunting bear and boar on behalf of his white settler friend; he kicks the bottle after his negligence causes the death of his dog. Sampson projects such strength and purpose that his settler counterparts almost disappear. Dad is sheepish and inactive; mom experiences a conversion from her racist beliefs which is sudden, absolute, and barely motivated. The kid stares a lot, and learns an important lesson about life: don't kill the agitated blind boar that killed your dog and 'slow' friend, because he'll be dead by winter anyway...hmmmm. Shebib gives this familiar and calculated script his best shot in hack mode; the animal footage isn't very well integrated, but you can see them trying. And where it doesn't work logically it kind of works emotionally, which I suppose is how it goes with kids' films.</p>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-48929652375179561452011-05-20T08:10:00.001-07:002011-05-20T08:10:22.528-07:00Firebird 2015 AD<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal">(David M. Robertson 1981)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The sci-fi angle is extremely thin cover for a movie comprising a handful of cars driving around (and around) an undifferentiated desert landscape. It doesn't even pass muster on the car movie's idiotic terms: they don't roll, they don't crash, they don't blow up - well, one does but it's standing still so it doesn't count. They just...drive. This is emblematic of the confused reverence with which the filmmakers approach a fetish that they really don't seem to share: the auto-shop talk and right-to-drive libertarian outbursts seem to be pleading with an audience that knows more about their subject than they do. That would also explain the Radio Shack freebie LP of a soundtrack, which cancels out the shiny outfits that are the only real 'futuristic' gesture. The rednecks are super-normal and nice, the cops frown passively through a feature-length coffee break, and the dune-buggy love interest just can't shut up with the fey double-entendres, And then there's this Native American psycho guy who rolls with the cops, whose presence seems to be aimed at two main functions. First he's the required Big Bad Guy - a lazy 'symbol' of someone stuck in the past, aligned with authority, for the car-lovin' heroes to oppose. And when he finally DOES something, round about the end of the second act, it enables the filmmakers to remake The Searchers in their back yard, in almost total darkness and to no great purpose of course. Apart from that, you'd think no one on set had ever even seen a real movie. Good old Darren McGavin acts like he's still working the floor at the horror convention. </p>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-5324583085315095432011-05-20T08:09:00.006-07:002011-05-20T08:10:00.573-07:00Fireballs<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family: Times;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US">(Charlie Wiener, 1987)<br />I started with the last of the loose and autonomous cycle of tax shelter "Balls" films - Meatballs, Screwballs, Oddballs, Goofballs, etc etc - which actually bear more of an affinity with Porky's than with Ivan Reitman's breakthrough: boys, boobs, beer, and attempted belly laughs. I said attempted. This is probably the cheapest and least competent of the lot - not automatically a bad thing since smut is not improved by slickness. But these people really, really don't know what they are doing. From humorous talking parrot to the worst mullet in all cinema to the zaynee beer-hatted wildman, these guys took a sow's ear of a genre and made it into a bowel movement. The best thing you can say about it is that the relief fire crew from Japan doesn't wear buck teeth and pointy hats - unfortunately they don't do anything else, either. I am petty enough to hope no one on the creative team got laid for their efforts. </span>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164471991198570517.post-28159013663561447132011-05-20T08:09:00.005-07:002011-05-27T12:29:50.428-07:00Find the Lady<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:.1pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:.1pt; margin-left:0cm;mso-para-margin-top:.01gd;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd;mso-para-margin-left:0cm"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">(John Trent, 1976)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">An absurd farce in the great British tradition, only the Canadian apple has fallen very far from the tree and got all wormy. Not only does this feature John Candy’s first marquee role, but they fly in Peter Cook, Dick Emery, even Mickey Rooney, who unlike the others is actually given some ostensibly humorous lines to deliver – well, actually just one line, but he gets to deliver it eight or ten times. In the absence of verbal wit, we are granted the most rehashed, labored slapstick imaginable, with a penchant for smashing automobiles that puts John Landis to shame. We also get an anachronistic armload of objectionable stereotyping – an inscrutable Asian cop who is introduced with a gong, an uppity secretary whose skin color is played as a climactic sight gag, and especially the omnipresent drag queen of nightmares (named Bruce LaRousse, ring any bells!) played with nagging aggression by, believe it or not, a young Richard Monette. The film ends with a chase through an abandoned funhouse whose utter familiarity doesn’t prevent the director from botching every single comic opportunity available. Makes Benny Hill look like Oscar Wilde.</span></p>JChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314247891105582302noreply@blogger.com0