BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW - Review By Greg Klymkiw - WOW! Need a cool movie? Here it is!!! Need a fix of a truly creepy science fiction cult film? Got a few fat doobies to suck back? Forget Ridley Scott's Lugubriously Dull, Bloated, Pretentious PROMETHEUS and just see this movie instead!!!

Beyond The Black Rainbow

(2012) dir. Panos Cosmatos

Starring:
Michael Rogers,
Eva Allan,
Scott Hylands,
Rondelle Reynoldson,
Marilyn Norry

***1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash." If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded, and that a modern system of science had been introduced, which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical; under such circumstances, I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside, and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. -- "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

In 1983 the world's foremost scientists tirelessly collaborated with naturopathic healers, forging new and exciting psychiatric pathways. These iconoclasts of mind expansion, secured under a massive glass dome within a secluded arboretum just outside Vancouver, aimed their sights upon, in a word: "happiness".

A short corporate film that opens Beyond The Black Rainbow, was commissioned during this era by the Arboria Institute. Like any good piece of hucksterism, it teases and pleases with the goals and discoveries of its sponsor.

Between images of bucolic splendour, positive on-screen intonations from the corporation's chief scientist and select glimpses of behind-the-scenes activities, a series of tantalizing taglines flash by and include such come-hither gems as:

"A state of mind, a way of being."

"A practical application of an abstract idea."

"Born in a dream to create reality."

"A different way to think. A new way to live. A perfect way to believe."

"A new, better, happier YOU!"

Alas, for young Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers), a steadfast belief in his mentor Dr. Mercurio Arboria (Scott Hylands) is not unlike that of young Victor Frankenstein's belief in the dangerous alchemical theories of Cornelius Agrippa.

Playing God is not without intermittent highs, but like crack cocaine, the heights of ecstasy lead to dangerous lows. Such dabblings often lead to the loss of all that is dear. Barry learns the hard way when he implements his soul-damning dabbling upon his beautiful daughter Elena (Eva Allan).

Beyond The Black Rainbow features one of the most thrilling debuts in years. Panos Cosmatos, who both wrote and directed this supremely enjoyable first-feature (including the brilliant aforementioned film within the film), is the son of the late and grossly underrated director of Massacre in Rome (a heartbreaking tragedy of WWII with Richard Burton and Marcello Mastroianni), Tombstone (featuring one of the best Doc Hollidays in moviedom, played by Val Kilmer) and Cobra (with Sylvester Stallone's best line of dialogue ever - "Crime is the disease. I'm the cure.").

Though perhaps unfair to the younger Cosmatos, one can't help but think a chip or two of flair and proficiency off the old block managed to find its way into his DNA. That said, the elder Cosmatos, a slam-bang commercially-minded director with considerable panache would never have made a movie as utterly insane as his son has. (Though, in its own perverse fashion, Rambo: First Blood II, occasionally verges on Ecstasy-infused Buñuelian surrealism.)

There's no two ways about it: Beyond The Black Rainbow is a 70s/80s-style "head" film that has "cult" emblazoned upon its celluloid forehead. In fact when I ran a repertory cinema during the same time period the movie harkens back to, it's EXACTLY the sort of picture I'd have been thrilled to get behind and try to generate a cult-friendly theatrical exhibition atmosphere to shoot it up into the midnight movie stratosphere of such "wacky-tobacky" hits as Eraserhead, Pink Flamingos and El Topo. (Sadly, in these days of theatrical, there are fewer venues for a picture like this to succeed and it will likely find its most appreciative audience in the home entertainment arena.)

Gorgeously shot by Norm Li, vigorously edited by Nicholas T. Shepard and blessed with a cool score/soundscape as well as an imaginative production design, the movie is replete with a delicious combination of creepy psychiatric experimentation sequences, dollops of shockingly grotesque bloodletting and several dreamscape montages that are pretty trippy all by their lonesome. If truth be told, the movie can work quite nicely without added stimulants, but far be it from me to deter anyone from enjoying the movie with a massive ingestion of some fine west coast weed.

The pace of the film is slow, but seldom sluggish. Its creepy-crawly tempo alternates between ominous and repellent, yet it's almost always compelling. That said, the movie really does feel about 10-15 minutes too long. Cosmatos and his team have an abundance of cool shit in the movie and I can only imagine how hard it must have been to let any of it go.

From a plot standpoint, things are relatively slender save for the vaguely Frankenstein-ian elements, but one slightly confusing shred of story that could have used some pruning involves Rosemary (Marilyn Norry) an odd-duck second (I think) wife to Barry (or perhaps she's his first and only wife and the gorgeous woman who resembles his daughter in the dream/flashbacks is a result of the Arborian mind control methods gone wrong). However, pruning this character would have resulted in losing an absolutely hilarious (and creepy) deadpan exchange between the clearly disconnected husband and wife.

Besides, confusion is okay. It's a bloody head film with cult appeal, for Christ's sake. If someone is into the picture, they might, if they're even so inclined, figure it out on repeated viewings.

So, what else could have been cut?

There's one elongated trip sequence - mostly in black and white - that probably could have been sliced and diced, but then the movie would be bereft of one of the most insanely overlong trip sequences in recent memory.

Damn! Even I don't want to lose anything.

The movie also has a few elements that resemble, uh, ideas. Thankfully, they're not too offensively obvious and/or obtuse and/or "film-school-ish". In fact, they're frankly, way less ludicrous than Ridley Scott's half-baked philosophical meanderings in Prometheus and one of them is actually kind of cool. Given the early 80s setting, we're blessed with some brief nods to the Panamanian military leader Noriega and Rompin' Ronnie Reagan. This ties in with the 80s Cold War insanity quite nicely. It's also a cool nod to the work of Cosmatos's Dad during this period.

Most engagingly, these touches of Reagan-era nuttiness play perfectly with the whole survivalist mentality prevalent back then (and creeping back even now). At one point, Barry refuses to let Elena see her father. "The world is in chaos and we live in times of great uncertainty and danger," Barry warns in a ruthlessly icy monotone.

Speaking of monotones, I loved all the straight-up performances in the film. Nothing is played for cheesy tongue-in-cheek effect and even the magnificent Scott Hylands, in the role of the Cornelius Agrippa-like founder-mentor, could have easily torn the scenery to shreds, but instead offers up something quite chilling and understated. And I loved Rondelle Reynoldson as a perfectly foul nurse. Conjuring up bad memories of Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Cosmatos also gives the character a well-earned and deliciously disgusting demise.

For me, I got way more bang for my buck out of this modestly budgeted SF whacko-fest than Sir Ridley's plodding mess. I suspect, I might not be alone in this, but like most cult items, it might take some shelf life for the devotion it deserves to discover it.

So settle back, folks.

Fire up a fat doobie and enjoy!

"Beyond The Black Rainbow" is currently in limited theatrical release via Mongrel Media.

WAKE IN FRIGHT (aka OUTBACK) - This extraordinary classic Australian film by the acclaimed Canadian director Ted Kotcheff ("The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz"), was, at a mere 30-years-old, a Cannes Palme D'Or nominee and the first film to revitalize Down Under as an important force in cinema, was ONE WEEK AWAY FROM HAVING ITS ORIGINAL NEGATIVES DESTROYED.

Wake in Fright – also known as: Outback (1971) Dir. Ted Kotcheff
Starring: Donald Pleasance, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty, Al Thomas, Jack Thompson, Peter Whittle and Sylvia Kay

****

By Greg Klymkiw

It seems unthinkable in this day and age of film preservation and restoration that a motion picture classic made – not during the silent period of the early 20th century, but in 1971, a Cannes Palme D’Or nominee no less, and often cited (along with Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout from the same year) as the beginning of Australia’s revitalization as a filmmaking force – was one week away from having all of its original negative elements destroyed. After a two-year search all over the world at his own expense, the film’s editor Anthony Buckley finally discovered the elements in the bowels of the CBS vaults in Pittsburgh (no less) in a pile of items marked to be “junked” (industry parlance for “destroyed”) and, I reiterate, ONE WEEK from the date he found them.

Because of his Herculean efforts as well as the frame-by-frame restoration by the National Film and Sound Archives of Australia and Deluxe Labs, Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright (released outside of Australia as Outback) has a new lease on life – to shock and mesmerize audiences all over the world. Screened at Cannes in May of 2009 (only one of two features ever to be screened on two separate occasions at Cannes) and in a special presentation featuring Kotcheff in a personal dialogue on the film at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, Wake in Fright stands as one of the most powerful explorations of male savagery in the context of a topography that seems as rugged and barren as the surface of the Moon. In a world of Samuel Fuller and Sam Peckinpah, Kotcheff’s brilliant film holds its own.

I first saw the movie when I was about 13 or 14 years old as Outback during a late night showing on the CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) when, during this time, Canadian content guidelines allowed for the broadcast of ANY film that came from Britain’s Commonwealth to meet said guidelines. (Because of this, we saw some really fine movies and TV series during the 60s and 70s.) It was a movie that completely bewildered and obsessed me. Even a full frame standard telecine transfer did not detract from its strangeness, its terrible and terrifying beauty and its depiction of a world so foreign to my own, yet seeming to be imbued with a quality that suggested to me, even then, that what I was seeing was the stuff of life itself. For over thirty years I looked and waited, seemingly in vain, to see it again. To think I almost didn’t have that opportunity because of the aforementioned disappearance and death sentence is now, after seeing it again much older and (hopefully) wiser (on a big screen in a pristine, lovingly restored 35mm print), makes me feel like I have been witness to a miracle.

And what a miracle this movie is! Kotcheff, the Canadian born, raised and trained director (trained via and not unlike Norman Jewison, within the legendary CBC television drama department of the late 50s and early 60s), has made his fair share of good pictures – most notably the Berlin Golden Bear Award winner The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, the droll Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? and the first and, by far, the best of the Rambo pictures First Blood – but nothing in his canon comes close to the mind boggling perfection of Wake in Fright.

Stunningly photographed by Brian West, the picture opens on one spot of the desolation that is the outback of Australia and the camera proceeds to do a slow 360 degree turn – shocking us with the reality that the land is the same whichever direction one looks and that it seems to go on forever. Into this environment we’re introduced to the impeccably groomed and fussily attired schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) who is about to leave the two-building rail town for a much-needed vacation to Sydney.

Grant describes his position as being enslaved to the Ministry of Education as they have required all new teachers to post a one-thousand-dollar bond to ensure they serve their entire first term in the most desolate postings imaginable. During a stopover in the bleak mining town of Bundanyabba, Grant meets Jock (played by legendary Aussie actor Chips Rafferty), an amiable policeman who plies him with beer and gets him into a card game where he loses all of his money. Stranded, perpetually drunk and eventually and brain-numbingly hung-over, Grant is hosted by a motley crew of locals (several hard drinking macho men and one extremely horny single female) who proceed to take him into the very heart of the Australian darkness.

Grant is practically force-fed steady supplies of beer, seduced by the lonely woman (which is scuttled when he pukes while trying to penetrate her), taken on a mad, drunken and vicious kangaroo hunt and finally locked in a sweaty, smelly and almost violently homoerotic coupling with the mad alcoholic doctor Tydon (a malevolent Donald Pleasance).

At first, we are shown a passive observer, but as the film progresses, he regresses to the same savage state as the men he initially holds his nose up to and he decidedly and actively engages in acts so barbaric that he is forced to confront his inner demons to the point where he is sickened to the point of contemplating suicide.

Not unlike the world of playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Edward Albee, we find ourselves in the realm of alcohol-fueled depravity and game playing. Like any respectable Walpurgisnacht, booze is sloshed into empty cups with abandon and full cups are drained greedily, but these pagans who celebrate ARE the tortured spirits walking amongst the living and any bonfires they create seemed to be aimed squarely at themselves. Furthermore, the movie presents a “Paradise Lost” situation where depravity is merely presented and much like John Milton’s “hero”, Grant makes a conscious choice to immerse himself in the foul macho shenanigans like a pig in shit.

This is one daring, nasty piece of work and without question, the movie Kotcheff will ultimately be best remembered for. He not only elicits fine performances from a stellar cast, but his mise-en-scene is pretty much perfect.

It’s also no coincidence that he is Canadian and perhaps the perfect director outside of Australia to have tackled this story so rooted in that nation’s pathology. Given that the vast majority of Canada’s population resides within 100 kms along the Canadian and U.S. border, the rest of this vast country north of the 49th parallel is not unlike the world of the Australian outback. (To all non-Canadians: just think of a land populated by SCTV’s hosers Bob and Doug McKenzie – seemingly benign, but below the simpleton surface, a roiling, frustrated, angry, bitter nation of moose-hunting psychopaths.)

As well, it is no surprise that it was Anthony Buckley, the editor of the film, who searched high and low for the lost negative elements, since the cutting in this picture has few equals. For the most part, things are delivered at a steady, unobtrusive pace, but when we’re in the territory of dreams or overtly physical action, the editing veers from measured to positively Eisensteinian. At times, the action borders on the hypnotic, while at other points, it’s as jarring and disturbing as the images and action engaged in by the characters.

This action, as designed by director Kotcheff, is expertly blocked. His shot choices are impeccable and most importantly, he seems perfectly at home in capturing the claustrophobic nature of both barren exteriors and interiors – where the only way to break free is to rage against the dying of the light that has, for the characters who populate this world, become life itself.

This picture rages, alright!

It’s one hell of a ride and we’re all the better for it.

Sadly, the movie appears to not be available on any home entertainment format outside of Australia. A PAL version is available here:



Here is an extended item from Australian television:

DON'T MISS GUY MADDIN'S "KEYHOLE" and a host of other Canadian films (features and shorts) representing TIFF's CTT at the TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX

TIFF CTT

By Greg Klymkiw

Every December since that hallowed year when man was supposed to go to Jupiter and meet the Star Child, a jury of filmmakers, critics and other noted mavens of movie culture in Canada would assess and award the acronymous accolades now referred to as the TIFF CTT, or, if you will, the Canadian Top Ten. This genuine honour is primarily due to the tireless efforts of Steve Gravestock, head honcho of all things Canuckian at the TIFF cineaste dude ranch (or, if one must, Associate Director of Canadian Programming at the Toronto International Film Festival).

Following the announcements of what constituted the best films in Canada would be screenings of all the honoured titles at the Cinematheque Ontario - now better known as the premiere art house in Canada, the TIFF Bell LightBox, year-round home to Canada's largest, most star-studded film festival. The screenings are another way for movie-lovers to get another gander at these movies before they go on to first-run engagements.

And I reiterate, all this and more is possible through the efforts of one ass-kicking man of cinema and his partner in crime Magali Simard (TIFF's Senior Coordinator of Canadian Programming). Like the late, great Jack Palance as Curly in the immortal "City Slickers", Gravestock calls the shots for all wanna-be cowpokes - guiding them amisdst the joys and splendours of all Maple-infused movies the whole year through - year after year.

The bonus here, for all the films, is the publicity they receive, but I think, more importantly, they get to be screened theatrically in a communal atmosphere via the best means of projection since those halcyon days when most big-chain cinemas sported first-rate union projectionists instead of the underpaid, glorified concession staff and/or manager trainees who push buttons at the big box emporiums, mostly operated in this country by one faceless corporate entity that cares only about pleasing its shareholders rather than providing good, old-fashioned showmanship and first-rate presentation (and worse, displaying very little corporate responsibility in supporting homegrown product).

Seeing this selection of Canadian films at TIFF Bell Lightbox, might be one's only chance (at least in English Canada) to see these films properly presented and in an atmosphere conducive to the true celebration of cinema (save for the few independents and other festivals that actually care about what they show and HOW they show it).

There are a couple of notable omissions on the CTT list. The most egregious snub is Ingrid Veninger's astonishing no-budget joy-fest "i am a good person/i am a bad person" (Cassavetes meets "Bridesmaids"). The no-surprise omission is one of the most delectably original Canadian films just this side of Maddinville, the grotesquely hilarious splatter/sodomy-fest "Father's Day" from the brilliant Winnipeg filmmaking collective Astron-6. No matter, if the Gods are smiling, maybe TIFF Bell Lightbox will have the courage and foresight to program these two films a bit later.

The TIFF Bell Lightbox CTT mini-festival includes the following:

"Monsieur Lazhar", Jan6, 4PM
"Keyhole", Jan6, 7PM & Jan7, 4PM
"Edwin Boyd", Jan6, 9:30PM & Jan 8, 3PM
"Hobo With A Shotgun", Jan7, 9PM & Jan10 4PM
"Canada's Top Ten Shorts Programme A", Jan8, 7PM
"Canada's Top Ten Shorts Programme B", Jan8, 8:30PM
"Starbuck", Jan10, 7PM & Jan11, 3PM & Jan13, 3PM
"Marécages", Jan11, 7PM & Jan12, 3PM
"A Dangerous Method", Jan 12, 7PM
"Café de flore", Jan 13, 9PM & Jan15, 5:30 PM
"Le Vendeur", Jan 14, 6PM & Sunday Jan15, 12PM
"Take This Waltz", Jan14 9PM & Jan15 3PM

Guy Maddin's "KEYHOLE" made my TEN BEST FILMS OF 2011 List and the astounding Louis Negin from "KEYHOLE" made my Best Supporting Actor of 2011 Citation at KLYMKIW FILM CORNER(KFC) and Steve Gravestock (via my nod to TIFF), "Take This Waltz" helmer Sarah Polley, Guy Maddin and his screenwriter George Toles all made my 2011 TOP 10 HEROES IN CANADIAN CINEMA here at CANADIAN FILM CORNER(CFC).

The absolute MUST NOT MISS EVENT is Guy Maddin's "KEYHOLE". Below you'll find a slight rewrite of the full version of a review I wrote that was published last fall in "Electric Sheep Magazine - a deviant view of cinema". Read it and go! Or don't read it, go and then read it. Most of all, GO! I assure you that you'll have never seen nor will ever see anything like "KEYHOLE" ever again.

And below the "KEYHOLE" review, you'll find my merciless pan of Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method", a slight rewrite of a piece previously published by Electric Sheep Magazine.

Again I urge you to see the CTT movies at LightBox to support their efforts in promoting and screening both Canadian and THEN, if you love any of the movies you see there, see them AGAIN if and when they open theatrically. I reiterate that Cineplex should be a leader in programming a much wider variety of product - Canadian and otherwise. I even suggest people do their second helpings of stuff they like at LightBox and/or any cinema OTHER than Cineplex. Screw the Man, until the Man does what's right - not just for their customers, but for BUSINESS and to fulfill their corporate responsibility to the community at large. Until those losers earn their right to be winners, do not give them money unless you absolutely have to. Also, if you go to Cineplex, it's soooo easy to sneak in your own food and beverages. Keep doing that, too - UNLESS they start doing the right thing.

KEYHOLE

Keyhole (2011) dir. Guy Maddin
Starring: Jason Patric, Louis Negin, Udo Kier, Isabella Rossellini

****

By Greg Klymkiw

Full disclosure: I produced Guy Maddin’s first three feature films, lived with him as a roommate (I was Oscar Madison to his Felix Unger – Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple sprang miraculously to life on the top two floors of a ramshackle old house near Winnipeg’s Little Italy district), continue to love him as one of my dearest friends and consider his brilliant screenwriting partner George E. Toles to be nothing less than my surrogate big brother.

Most importantly, I am one of Maddin’s biggest fans and refuse to believe I am not able to objectively review his work. Objectively, then, allow me to declare that I loved Keyhole. What’s not to love? Blending Warner Brothers gangster styling of the 30s, film noir of the 40s and 50s, Greek tragedy, Sirk-like melodrama and odd dapplings of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, it is, like all Maddin’s work, best designed to experience as a dream on film. Like Terence Davies, Maddin is one of the few living filmmakers who understands the poetic properties of cinema, and this, frankly, is to be cherished as much as any perfectly wrought narrative.

This is not to say narrative does NOT exist in Maddin’s work. If you really must, dig deep and you will find it. That, however, wouldn’t be very much fun. One has a better time with Maddin’s pictures just letting them HAPPEN to you.

The elements concocted in Keyhole to allow for full experiential mind-fucking involve the insanely named gangster Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric as you’ve never seen him before – playing straight, yet feeling like he belongs to another cinematic era), who drags his kids (one dead, but miraculously sprung to life, the other seemingly alive, but not remembered by his Dad) into a haunted house surrounded by guns-a-blazing.

Populated with a variety of tough guys and babe-o-licious molls, Ulysses is faced with ghosts of both the living and the dead, including his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini – gorgeous as always and imbued with all the necessary qualities to render melodrama with joy and humanity), her frequently nude father (the brilliant Louis Negin – perhaps one of the world’s greatest living character actors, who frankly should be cast in every movie ever made), chained to his bed, uttering the richly ripe George Toles dialogue and Udo Kier (the greatest fucking actor in the world), whose appearance in this movie is so inspired I’ll let you discover for yourself the greatness of both the role and Udo himself.

Keyhole is, without a doubt, one of the most perversely funny movies I’ve seen in ages and includes Maddin’s trademark visual tapestry of the most alternately gorgeous and insanely inspired kind. For movie geeks, literary freaks and Greek tragedy-o-philes, the movie is blessed with added treats to gobble down voraciously.

Like all of Maddin’s work, it’s not all fun and games. Beneath the surface of its mad inspiration lurks a melancholy and thematic richness. For me, what’s so important and moving about the film is its literal and thematic exploration of a space. Strongly evoking that sense of how our lives are inextricably linked to so many places (or a place) and how they in turn are populated with things – inanimate objects that become more animate once we project our memories upon them – or how said places inspire reminiscence of said objects which, in turn, inspire further memories, Keyhole is as profound and sad as it’s a crazed laugh riot.

Of all the pieces about the movie that I bothered to read (after I saw the movie), I was shocked that NOBODY – NOT ONE FUCKING CRITIC – picked up on the overwhelming theme of PLACE and the SPIRIT of all those THINGS that live and breathe in our minds. It was the first thing to weigh heavily upon me when I first saw the movie. It has seldom been approached in the movies – and, for my money – NO MORE POIGNANTLY AND BRILLIANTLY than rendered by Maddin, Toles and their visionary young producer Jody Shapiro.

All the ghosts of the living and the dead (to paraphrase Joyce), the animate and inanimate, the real and the imagined, these are the things that haunt us to our graves, and perhaps beyond. And they all populate the strange, magical and haunting world of Keyhole – a world most of us, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, live in. We are all ghosts and are, in turn, haunted by them.

A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method (2011) dir. David Cronenberg
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley

*

By Greg Klymkiw

When David Cronenberg is good, he is very, very good.

When he is bad, he’s cerebral.

A Dangerous Method is dour, dull and decidedly humourless. That said, the first few minutes do suggest we’re in for a hootenanny of the highest order. The score, oozing with portent over a twitching, howling, clearly bonkers Keira Knightley, thrashing about in a horse-drawn carriage as it hurtles towards Carl Jung’s Swiss nuthouse, initially suggested a belly flop into the maw first pried open by such Cold War wacko-fests like The Snake Pit or Shock Corridor.

Alas, Cronenberg seems to have abandoned his pulp sensibilities and instead appears to be making an Atom Egoyan movie fused with Masterpiece Theatre. Sorry David, Atom Egoyan makes the best Atom Egoyan movies. And Egoyan has never, nor will he ever make Masterpiece Theatre. However, if Cronenberg himself genuinely fused Masterpiece Theatre with The Snake Pit and, say, Salon Kitty or The Story of O, with dollops of the madhouse scenes in Ken Russell's The Music Lovers, then he might have generated something not guaranteed to induce snores.

Cronenberg’s unwelcome return to the cold and clinical approach from his pre-Eastern Promises and A History of Violence oeuvres quashes all hope for a rollicking good wallow in lunacy.

Come on, David, we’re dealing with psychoanalysis and sex here.

A little oomph might have been in order. (Or as Norman Jewison is wont to say, "A little bit of the old razzle-dazzle.")

Lord knows Cronenberg’s dealt deliciously with psychoanalysis and sex before – most notably in The Brood. It starred a visibly inebriated Oliver Reed, crazily cooing about "the Shape of Rage" amid spurts of horrific violence laced with a riveting creepy tone. Most notably the movie provided us with the indelible image of a semi-nude, utterly barmy Samantha Eggar adorned with monstrous pus sacks dangling from her flesh, licking globs of gooey, chunky afterbirth from a glistening mutant baby expunged from one of the aforementioned pus sacks.

Now, THAT'S entertainment!

Annoyingly, no similar shenanigans are on view in A Dangerous Method. It’s pretty much a Masterpiece Theatre-styled period chamber drama with with Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) jousting with his mentor-rival Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) betwixt spanking sessions with Keira Knightley, a daft want-to-be-psychiatrist with Daddy issues.

Sadly, no proper views of open palms connecting with buttocks or slap imprints on said buttocks are afforded to us.

A pity.

For more info and tix, visit the TIFF website.

Here's my original coverage of TIFF 2011 (including the two above films) for Electric Sheep.

Brilliant Astron-6 FATHER'S DAY Gets Theatrical Release in NYC via Troma Films - Read Greg Klymkiw's Daily Film Dose Review

NYC FATHER’S DAY PREMIERE

FEBRUARY 10th and FEBRUARY 11th, 2012

SUNSHINE CINEMA 143 East Houston Street New York



Father's Day (2011) dir. Astron-6
(Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney)

Starring: Conor Sweeney, Adam Brooks, Matt Kennedy, Brent Neale, Amy Groening, Meredith Sweeney, Kevin Anderson, Garret Hnatiuk, Mackenzie Murdoch, Lloyd Kaufman

RATING (out of ****) ****

By Greg Klymkiw

A father's love for his son is a special kind of love. As such, Dads the world over face that singular inevitability - that peculiar epoch in their collective lives, when they must chauffeur the apple of their eye from a police station, for the third time in a month, after said progeny has undergone questioning upon being found in a motel room with a dead man covered in blood, après le bonheur de la sodomie, only to return home after dropping said twink son on a street corner, so the aforementioned offspring of the light-in-the-loafer persuasion, can perform fellatio on old men for cash, whilst Dad sits forlornly in the domicile that once represented decent family values and stare at a framed photo of better times, until he succumbs to unexpected anal rape and as he weeps, face down and buttocks up, he is doused with gasoline and set on fire, then frenziedly tears into the street screaming, until collapsing in a charred heap in front of his returning son, who reacts with open-mouthed horror as the scent of old penis, wafts, ever so gently, from his delicate twink tonsils.

READ MY FULL REVIEW AT DAILY FILM DOSE

MANBORG - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2011 at Toronto Underground Cinema

MANBORG (2011) dir. Steven Kostanski
Starring: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Ludwig Lee, Conor Sweeney, Meredith Sweeney, Jeremy Gillespie

RATING (out of ****) ****

By Greg Klymkiw

The time will come when we are dominated by a One World Government. This will be no mere conspiracy theorist's idea of a New World Order. Art Bell won't be predicting this one!

In fact, the Illuminati are pussy-whupped-momma-boy-teat-sucklers compared to what waits for us just round the corner. As dramatically postulated in the latest production from the kubassa-stuffed-to-overflowing loins of the Winnipeg-spawned hit machine Astron-6, be afraid - be VERY afraid of the future.

Straight from the jaws of Hell comes Draculon (Adam Brooks), a crazed totalitarian infused with a slavering desire to inflict pain. He makes the Dictator combo-platter of Adolph Hitler (former German Chancellor), Joe Stalin (former butcher of ten million Ukrainian garlic eaters), George W. Bush (annihilator of Islam) , Stephen Harper (current Il Duce of Canada) and Michael Bay (Brain Sucker Extraordinaire) look like your kindly Granny Apple Cheeks knitting her umpteenth doily and churning butter.

As brilliantly rendered in the opening minutes of this 70-minute masterwork, you will cringe as our pitiful armies do their best in battle with the demons of Mephistopheles, but even the best of the best of the best of mankind will be no match for the foul, pus-oozing Satanic beasts.

When a brave young fighting man hits the turf and pushes up the daisies, he is mysteriously and miraculously transformed by the mad genius Dr. Scorpius (Adam "Fuck me and a month of Sundays, this guy gets around!" Brooks) into the next best thing to Jesus H. Christ Almighty (or Robocop - take your pick!).

He is, and always will be:

MANBORG!!!

Blending cutting edge technology, Frankensteinian alchemy, Einsteinian science and the mind of mankind's leanest, meanest fighting machines, Manborg (Mathhew Kennedy) has, alas, retained the heart and soul of humanity. Instead of serving Draculon and his evil henchman The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie), he joins forces with three superHUMAN heroes in the struggle to free Earth from the clutches of Hades.

This trio of badass mo-fos includes the wildly pompadoured kick-butt-Kiwi (or Aussie, or Brit, or what-the-fuck-ever-his-deliciously-delightful-accent-is) played by Conor Sweeney, a blade-o-licious platinum-tressed kick-butt, delectably-racked, red-grease-painted-faced babe (Meredith Sweeney) and a melt-in-your-mouth, magnificently buff kick-butt Asian martial artist (Ludwig Lee) dubbed into English by someone who sounds like the offscreen voice artist who dubbed all of Steve Reeves's lines into English in his numerous Italian sword and sandal epics of the 50s and 60s (in spite of the fact that Steve Reeves actually, uh, spoke English).


Needless to say, our heroes save the world. (Yeah, I just released a wet fart of a spoiler.)

The movie is replete with mega-martial-arts, chase scenes on what appear to be ATVs without wheels that fly, Tron-like arena jousts and plenty of shit that blows up real good. Oh yeah, have I mentioned yet that the movie was made for about a thousand smackers, shot on glorious DV-CAM and includes tons of in-camera and rudimentary effects that resemble early 80s community cable blue screen? No? Well, I have now and there's not one damn thing in this movie that looks awful.

In fact, it is endowed with the kind of visual splendour that can only come from filmmakers who love movies and movie-making. Special effects that LOOK like special effects, have always held a humungous soft-spot in my heart. I love knowing that I'm watching a MOVIE. I love knowing the effects are - uh, just that - effects. I love to be reminded that I am in a world that only exists up on a big screen. For me, this IS magic.

The ultimate magic in the movie comes when two babes square off for a cat fight supreme. When one of the babes morphs into a demon, all my hopes and dreams momentarily diminished. Sure, it's fine to watch a babe kick a demon's butt, but for Christ's sake, babe-on-babe action always takes precedence.

But I digress.

As rendered by Steve Kostanski, MANBORG is a fairy tale of cosmic proportions for geeks and freaks the world over. It makes perfect sense that this, and the other Astron-6 works of consummate film art come from the recesses of Winnipeg.

In addition to the asbestos-lined water pipes, an insane need to tear down heritage buildings to build parking lots when the entire city is a fucking parking lot and a bowling alley bearing the name of the late, great Billy Mosienko (who, prior to his death, would man the counter and rent you bowling shoes), the 'Peg (my own former winter city) is not only the geographical-near-centre of North America, but boasts a grand tradition of what film critic Geoff Pevere dubbed as Prairie Post-Modernism.

Filmmakers like John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Noam Gonick, Lorne Bailey and Matthew Rankin forged a path that few in the 'Peg have been able to follow as memorably (though Regina-based cousins like Brian Stockton, Brett Bell and prairie-boy-at-heart Richard Kerr HAVE, in their own demented ways). Kostanski, by the way is a brilliant effects artist and his most recent makeup design is on view in the terrific Xavier Gens sci-Fi thriller The Divide (see my Daily Film Dose review HERE)

Make way, now, for a new generation of mad geniuses from Winnipeg.

They are Astron-6. And though some from this collective of total filmmakers have temporarily (one hopes) left the world capital of napping and Salisbury House Mr. Big Nips for bigger locales, the snug blankets and Icelandic sweaters of the prairies sprouted their grand vision that are and will continue to take the world by storm.

That said, I do expect that MANBORG II will have plenty o' babes catfighting.

MANBORG screened at Toronto After Dark 2011. While it'll be available for home consumption, it demands a BIG SCREEN heapin' helpin' of its considerable hospitality. Coming to CFC: An equally laudatory review of FATHER'S DAY, another Astron-6 picture co-produced by Troma and on glorious display at TADFF2011.J

3 Canadian Films at TIFF 2011 - Capsule Reviews of the New Maddin, Veninger and Cronenberg

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