Harry Brown

Daniel Barber | 2009 | 97 mins | UK

I don't really like to open with glib "it's like X meets Y but with more zazz!" descriptions in my reviews, but truly, Harry Brown is like Gran Torino, only it's Michael Caine, and he blows people's heads off. The film's understated badass-ness is obvious from the opening credits, which simply proclaim in small white letters on a black screen: Michael Caine (pause) is (pause) Harry Brown. Yeah he is. And if you mess with him, he will murder you in the face.

Harry is a widower living in a house near a rather rough apartment complex in London. He sees the thuggish kids who hang out at the nearby underpass, and he avoids them by taking the long route. People in the neighbourhood are harassed, fed up and on edge. Harry can feel the bad vibes building up around him but it's not until an old friend of his tries to defend himself and ends up dead that he realises that he can't just sit by and watch. Coincidentally, Harry happened to have been in the Marines as a young man. Those skills might come in handy.

Soon, Harry is on a mission to clean up the 'hood, while a well meaning but ineffectual cop (Emily Mortimer) who started out investigating his friend's death starts to suspect him of the recent spate of gang-member deaths.

There's not much to this film other than Michael Caine's amazing acting chops and some clever action sequences, but that's totally good enough to make it 97 minutes of awesome. Caine is a much more three dimensional and frail vigilante than Eastwood's Kowalski. There's depth to his old-guy-badass, and it makes for some great action. Of particular note is an extended gun purchasing scene in which the tension is so drawn out that when it finally breaks, it's hard not to let out a cheer.

Machotaildrop

Corey Adams & Alex Craig | 2009 | 91mins | Canada / USA

Imagine if John Paizs had nephews who were a bit ADD but still really looked up to him. And imagine that those boys were raised in a some magical Winnipeg art-commune where they got to just use their imaginations all the time and only had access to pre-1990s technology. And then imagine that they were really into skateboarding, and decided to make a movie about it. The result might look something like Machotaildrop, probably the quirkiest surprise of TIFF this year.

I don't actually know whether Corey Adams and Alex Craig have a Winnipeg connection, but I saw glimpses in this of the same comic instinct that makes Paizs the funniest filmmaker Canada's ever produced. This film's nowhere near as funny as Crime Wave or Springtime in Greenland, but it's reminiscent of his style.

Walter Rhum (Anthony Amedori) lives in a curious world in which skateboarding is a regal and revered sport. Like most boys, Walter wants the elusive corporate sponsorship that will allow him to live the dream of being a pro skateboarder, and spends all his spare time putting together a VHS tape of his tricks to send to Machotaildrop, the company all aspiring pros dream of working for. While he waits for their response, Walter plays video games at the local cake & skateboard shop. When Machotaildrop finally calls, Walter drops everything to attend their prestigious academy - a remote mansion run by an eccentric Baron (James Faulkner) and his creepy, stuffed-bird-obsessed sidekick Perkins (Lukács Bicskey).

Walter trains with other aspiring skate stars, battles a gang of rogue skaters called the Man Wolfs, finds himself embroiled in the Baron's scheme to open a skateboarding theme park called ApeSnake, and inevitably becomes a star. Awesome, right? Who wouldn't want to go to an amusement park centred around a giant King Kong-esque figure with an enormous snake coiled around its body?

The world of Machotaildrop is full of old-timey VHS and audio cassettes, wacky outfits, campy acting and elaborate, kooky sets. It's extremely creative, but the story's pacing is a bit off, so that it feels longer than it should and so that the stylized, over-the-top acting feels too hammy. The atmosphere here is carefully constructed, but by the end of the film's 90 minute runtime, it starts to wear thin.

Mega points for some of the most original storytelling I saw at TIFF. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite sustain. I definitely look forward to seeing what writer/director duo Corey Adams & Alex Craig do next.

I never dreamed of being famous...

We are awesome, thus Shane Rivers of Only Good Movies saw fit to interview us for his ongoing series of conversations with other critics. If you want to spend more time really getting inside our souls, please peruse our shallow answers.

OGM offers movie reviews, a message board, and a blog collecting film news and articles. There is a lot to wade through so be sure to take a look at the site. And thanks for inviting us to take part, Shane.

The Wild Hunt

Alexandre Franchi | 2009 | 96 mins | Canada

For the first hour, this strange drama about LARPing is kind of funny. Erik (Ricky Mabe) has just been left by his brooding, hot-and-gothy girlfriend Evelyn (Tiio Horn). Instead of moping in his apartment (which he shares with his senile dad), Erik decides to follow her and get some answers about the ambiguous I need space-ish dumping. As it turns out, Evelyn's gone off to participate in a weekend long live action role playing event, invited by Erik's kooky brother, Bjorn (Mark Antony Krupa, who also co-wrote the screenplay).

In the LARPiverse, Bjorn is a mighty Viking warrior, Evelyn is the Viking princess, and they are poised to fight some Celts. When Erik arrives at the game's site, he quickly learns that he will get nowhere near Evelyn without donning a costume and playing along. Erik soon discovers that the Viking princess has been kidnapped by the evil Shaman Murtagh (Trevor Hayes), who intends to "kill her" in order to begin the Wild Hunt - a rampage throughout the camp that will lead to the weekend's final, crucial battle.

Erik's meddling inevitably messes up the well laid plans of the LARPers and causes significant rifts in the make-believe world. As the wild hunt draws near, the game turns terrifyingly real for some of the players. It is here, in the final act of the film, that The Wild Hunt threatens to become really interesting - but doesn't quite get there. Men who take their fantasy life all too seriously are forced to confront the realities of their choices, the harsh juxtaposition between real and imagined allegiances. The tone drops and a harsh and sobering finale is marred only by the otherwise somewhat ludicrous and contrived plot twists.

The Wild Hunt is Alexandre Franchi's first feature, and while the script wasn't stellar, the director's sense of story and pacing is not bad. A film about LARPing could have been a lot funnier than this, but Franchi tries to provide laughs without mocking the players or the game. Unfortunately, when the film gets serious, Franchi & co start taking themselves a bit too seriously as well.

Jennifer's Body

Karyn Kusama | 2009 | 102 mins | USA

Diablo Cody's first post-Juno effort is a teen horror comedy about BFFs Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried, in a very different role from her other TIFF appearance in Chloe), two very different girls who've stuck by each other since the sandbox, but find themselves growing apart when Jennifer becomes a crazy man-eater (literally).

The two girls go to a corrugated metal shack in the woods to see an emo band (fronted by Adam Brody) play. Jennifer is mesmerized, and when the bar suddenly catches fire, she's whisked away in the band's van. Needy is a bit worried about her friend's disappearance with the unsavoury rockers, but when Jennifer returns home later that night covered in blood and vomiting up some revolting black stuff, Needy becomes understandably frantic.

Pretty soon, Jennifer's back to her old self, and Needy is left trying to convince her adorable, loving boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) that something is terribly wrong, and that the mysterious deaths of several classmates are indeed connected to what happened at the bar that night.

Chock-full of snappy, Cody-esque one liners, Jennifer's Body is sure to be loved by Cody fans and hated by her haters, but it basically worked for me as a hip (if considerably less biting and socially incisive) homage to Heathers and the like, though a few things about it did not sit well. Casually racist jokes in the script (such as Jennifer's "get a Chinese girl to buff your situation" comment, re: Needy's messy fingernails) were unnecessary and odd, especially since the world of Jennifer's Body was almost self-consciously diverse. The dysfunctional friendship between hot-hot-Jennifer and dorky Needy also made me wonder about Cody's ability to write a female character who isn't totally effed up in some way. Love her or hate her, Cody receives more media attention than any screenwriter has in decades, so it will be interesting to see whether she has the chops to ever transcend her hipster lingo and perhaps write a film about grownups.

Though it's technically been given an R rating in the states (14A in Canada), Jennifer's Body feels like a decent PG horror film. More laughs than scares.

Chloe

Atom Egoyan | 2009 | 99 mins | USA / Canada / France

Atom Egoyan's latest foray into the murky world of sexual intrigue, real and imagined betrayal, desire, longing and jealousy is a great, slow-burn thriller, up to a point. That point comes toward the end, and while the final act doesn't completely ruin the film, it certainly does make it a bit of a mess.

Chloe is really Julianne Moore's film. Her performance and the complexity of her character far outshine everyone else, though Amanda Seyfried's titular Chloe is also pretty compelling.

Moore plays Catherine, a rather prim gynecologist who's married to charming and flirtatious university professor David (Liam Neeson). Their luxuriously comfortable lives are busy with lecture tours and nights at the opera, their teenage son Michael (Max Theriot) has started tuning them out, and when David fails to turn up for his own surprise birthday party due to a missed flight, Catherine begins to suspect he's been unfaithful.

Catherine is beautiful, poised, perfectly put together, but obviously struggling with the fact that her husband gets handsomer with every wrinkle, while she feels herself fading into the background, no longer an object of anyone's desire.

Catherine's "woman of a certain age" is perfectly juxtaposed with Chloe, the very young high-priced escort who works out of a hotel near Catherine's Yorkville office. When Catherine decides to hire Chloe to try to seduce her husband, in order to prove to herself that her suspicions about him have been right all along, it's easy to see that things are not going to work out well for anyone involved. As Chloe and Catherine's relationship becomes more tense (sexually and otherwise), Seyfried's character flits between giggly teenhood and seductive womanhood all with the unhinged undertone of Fatal Attraction-esque obsession. Chloe needs love, and she wants it from Catherine, whether the other woman is aware of this fact or not. Egoyan is a master of twisted desire and disturbed sexuality, and Chloe delivers on the red-hot intrigue. Unfortunately, in the final act, the film's tone of simmering suspense turns a bit absurdly over the top.

Major bonus points for Egoyan's insistence on revising the originally San Francisco based script in order to give Toronto a chance to play itself (for once). It's both delightful and a bit strange to see locations like Cafe Diplomatico, the Rivoli, and Queen Street's streetcars not masquerading as someplace else. That works, even if the plot doesn't always.

Franklyn

Gerald McMorrow | 2008 | 98 mins | UK / France

I'm a bit late posting about my Toronto After Dark experiences this year, but one of the films that really stuck with me was Franklyn, the debut feature of UK filmmaker Gerald McMorrow, a neat little puzzle of a movie that takes place partially in the real world, and partially in the dark corners of Meanwhile City, a strange place full of religious cults, fervent believers, and a masked vigilante (Ryan Phillippe).

In present-day London a young artist (Eva Green) feuds with the wealthy mother who just doesn’t understand her, working on an intimately confessional 'art project' that involves videotaped monthly suicide attempts, which seem to be connected to her difficult and tenuous family relationships. Meanwhile, a young man (Sam Reily) tries to cope with having been left at the altar - another in what is apparently a string o failed relationships that forces him to confront his lingering feelings for a girl from his childhood. While this is going on, the masked vigilante (the lone non-believer in Meanwhile City) is on the hunt for The Individual, the leader of a malevolent religious group. As he tries to evade capture by city and hospital officials, it becomes clear that his quest is connected to the disappearance and possible death of a little girl.

It takes a long time for the three stories to begin coming together, but the journey is great fun, and the performances are all pitch perfect. My only complaint Franklyn is that the futuristic Steampunk world of Meanwhile City is so slick, stylish, painstakingly detailed and gorgeously shot that it’s a shame more of the story doesn’t take place in it. By the midway point, the edges of the fantasy world begin to slowly crumble and we're pulled into reality as the pieces of the puzzle of intersecting relationships comes into focus. Watching McMorrow reconcile the two worlds of Franklyn is rewarding, and the film fits all the disparate pieces of its story together quite seamlessly. Still, I would have been happy to watch an entire film set in the fantasy world. Once you go to the trouble of creating a universe so complete (and so beautiful) it seems a shame to let it only comprise a third of your story.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Stephen Sommers | 2009 | 116 min | USA

McCullen, the latest generation from a long line of weapons dealers (the film's opening shows us that it's been the family trade since at least the 1600s) has developed a deadly new weapon with NATO funding, and plans to steal it back in order to take over the world. Thankfully for the world, an elite group of soldiers called G.I. Joe have taken it upon themselves to stop him and his gang of baddies.

The good guys are (cheer)led by General Hawk, as phoned in by Dennis Quaid. He doesn't once leave G.I. Joe HQ, and is injured early on so that the laziness of his performance can be helped along through the use of a wheelchair and later a cane. The rest of the featured "Joe" team is Duke, Ripcord, Snake Eyes, Scarlet, and a couple of other dudes whose names I just looked up and discovered to be Heavy Duty and Breaker. So it's the usual variety of characters. A couple tough guys, the wiseass, a ninja, a hot girl, and a nerd.

The bad guys, lead by McCullen, are the Baroness, Storm Shadow, Zartan, numerous armoured soldiers who've been injected with a fear and pain inhibitor, and a masked scientist who created the deadly weapon they're trying to steal. So... Smarmy leader, babe, tough guys, ninja, and nerd.

Filled with connected backstories, many of each team conveniently alrady have some sort of history with each other which is told through fairly entertaining flashbacks. The best being a fight between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow as children in Japan.

The film moves along at a good pace, never dragged down by it's sometimes hilariously convoluted story. Most of the film's performances are fun for the type of movie GIJ:TROC is, and Stephen Sommers has made sure that the type of movie is a big dumb summer movie with lots of fighting, destruction, fancy vehicles, good looking people who are relatively likeable, and an ending that sets up a sequel. I'm looking forward to that sequel.

TSADT Podcast Episode 06

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Lots of reviews from this year's Fantasia Fest, loads of babbling about the films announced thus far for this year's Toronto International Film Festival, plus the usual junk. It's like eavesdropping on a conversation of the boring friends you avoided having. I apologize for describing every movie as "awesome."

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Orphan

Jaume Collet-Serra | 2009 | 123 mins | USA / Canada

Orphan is one of those oddities that’s hard to recommend without spoiling. On the surface, it's 50% failed thriller and 50% failed horror, but deep down, there is a lot of entertainment value in its stupendously stupid (but funny) premise.

The film is about a couple, Kate and John Coleman (Vera Fermiga and an oddly fey Peter Sarsgaard), who have recently suffered the stillbirth of what was to be their third child. By way of dealing with their tremendous grief, they’ve decided to give the love they had for their child to someone who “really needs it”. One excursion to a school for orphaned girls later, they bring home Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a nine year old Russian girl with impeccable manners, a talent for painting and a penchant for wearing ribbons around her neck and wrists.

Esther seems wonderful at first, but soon mom starts feeling uneasy around the preternaturally genteel child. As Esther begins to show her manipulative, sinister colours, Kate must try to convince John that something is terribly wrong before it’s too late.

Kate's an ex-alcoholic, and some terrible accident involving the couple's younger, deaf daughter is hinted at but never fully explained. This subtle subplot is one of the things that makes the first half of Orphan a successful slow-burn thriller. Unfortunately, the third act seems to be tacked on from a completely different film. Basically, the ending of Orphan is the most crazy shit since Sleepaway Camp, but don't worry, no spoilers here. The shocker reveal is much more preposterous and thoroughly implausible.

Orphan is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster of a film. Had the ending been preceded by much goofier horror fare, or had the beginning been given a more dignified finale, it might have been great. Instead, the odd patchwork becomes laughable. And really, I'm not scoffing at the entertainment value of unintentionally funny films!

One of the best things about Orphan is the gorgeous architecture (a prerequisite for any film about a family being terrorized at home, it seems). The wood-and-glass structure set against the stark wintry forest is not just idyllic - it's a perfect backdrop for terror. Sarsgaard plays an architect, and the design details in this film (like the Eames rocking chair in the couple’s living room) did not go unnoticed by me.

Also: I wasn't sure why the film company logos played before the opening credits were tinged with weird day-glo hues until later in the film when it became obvious that Orphan was going to deliver one of the creepiest and funniest black light scenes in recent horror history. Thumbs up for that.

Power Kids

Krissanapong Rachata | 2009 | 90 min | Thailand

A rag tag group of young muai-thai students spend the first half hour or so of Power Kids, fighting a drunk meathead American, stealing money from their teacher to buy an RC car, racing said car, and getting their hides tanned. It's all fun, games, and character development until Wun, the youngest of the group, needs an emergency heart transplant. He's very lucky that another young boy in Thailand who had been in a coma (“asleep like a pile of vegetables” according to the film's sometimes iffy English subtitles), passes on, making his heart available for transplant. There's a catch though. The hospital across town that the heart is neatly packed away on ice in is being visited by the U.S. ambassador, and terrorists lead by The Rebel's Johnny Nguyen have decided to take the hospital hostage.

With only four hours until the heart is useless, Wun's muai-thai-for-kids classmates/pals take it upon themselves to go to the hospital to get the heart. Of course it's not quite that easy, and they need to deliver and receive some big fun beatings. Call me sick, but there's something really really fun about watching a child getting kicked across the room into a wall. At the same time though, it's just as fun to watch them deliver flying knees to the heads of full-grown adults.

The film's far from perfect but its flaws are entertaining. The far-fetched plot and intense melodrama enhance the film somehow by unintentionally making the film more fun than intended (though make no doubt it is meant to be very entertaining). Power Kids' solid fight choreography is its strongest element. It never feels like the moves have been simplified for the kids to be able to perform them or softened to keep kids from getting bad ideas upon viewing the film. If you've got kids, watching this will give them lots of really bad (and awesome) ideas on how they could kick your ass when you come home drunk and hit them. So keep that in mind, and if you do show it to them, be sure to replace all of your fluorescent light fixtures beforehand. Your face will thank me later.

TSADT Podcast Episode 05

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This week we review a Charles Bronson one-two punch-up of Hard Times and Telefon. We also blab about Undisputed, Kathryn Bigelow's Hurt Locker, and gossip, gossip, gossip! It's the cocktail party edition.

Oh, and one correction to the podcast: we used the title Full Battle Rattle when we meant to refer to Phil Donahue's Body of War. Then we were unable to remember the title when actually speaking about Full Battle Rattle. Because we are dumb.

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Hunger

Steve McQueen | 2008 | 96 min | UK + Ireland

Steve McQueen won the Turner Prize for his photography at some ridiculous fucking age like twenty-seven and it most certainly shows in his feature film debut. Every frame looks like it could hang in a gallery. A good gallery, even. Yet Hunger still sticks as one of the most brutal films I have seen in a long time.

Bobby Sands was an inmate in Northern Ireland's notorious Maze Prison from 1977. This was a period in which IRA prisoners had been stripped of their recognition as political prisoners by the British government and the inmates were organizing themselves to carry out a series of increasingly disgusting protests. Hunger begins during the "dirty protest" in which prisoners refused to wash themselves and smeared their excrement of the walls of their cells. Following the fallout of that protest Bobby Sands assembled prisoners in a hunger strike. He began refusing food on March 1, 1981 and his health dramatically deteriorated until his death two months later.

This isn't a step by step accounting of events in that way that In The Name of the Father was, though. Events are told via visual cues, speeches, and archival sound clips of Margaret Thatcher denouncing the IRA. There is very little dialogue, aside from one outstanding scene, and the end result feels like a collage of emotions one travels through far more than it feels like a biopic.

The film's presentation is ruthless. It will likely cause you to involuntarily recoil a number of times. But for all of the brutality, Hunger is poetry of a kind you rarely get to see on screen. It is so slow and methodical that it earns comparisons to the Cremaster Cycle. That is a compliment, but also a warning. Hunger is a movie that one invests in, but it is as rewarding an experience as you are likely to find in theatres this year.

TSADT Podcast Episode 04

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This week we bring you a fancy Cannes report following Kat's trip to the festival. She gives us the low down on Enter the Void, Inglourious Basterds, Antichrist,, and Thirst. There is also keen insight offered regarding Drag Me To Hell and The Muppet Movie.

Apologies for the audio this week. I ran it very hot, Kat whispered, and Jeff screamed. Next time we record underwater.

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