St. Patrick's Day event tonight at Lanalou's

Well, here's a gig to be at. Friend and collaborator of the Rebel Spell - but also a co-conspirator with the Creaking Planks! - Jeff Andrew will be playing a St. Patrick's Day show at Lanalou's tonight. No idea who the Staggers & Jaggs are! I'll go to see Jeff tho'.

Tonight!

Northwest Horror Show at the Vancity Theatre: a festival of gore, trash, bad taste and insanity

With the opening night film in the Northwest Horror Show just eight days away, it looks like it's time to put my email interview with event organizer Shane Burzynski into the world! The festival is going to be a must-attend for fans of Vancouver's much-missed Cinemuerte festival, and a celebration of some of the goriest, sleaziest, weirdest and most outlandish horror/ exploitation films out there. Does it really require an extended introduction? On with the feckin' interview!

AM: So this film festival is your baby, right? How did you come to organize it?

SB: My big, beautiful, bloody baby! It mostly came about because I've been trying (to no avail) to get these two Duke Mitchell films (Massacre Mafia Style and Gone With the Pope) booked in Vancouver for the last three or four years. The obscurity seems to have kept the interest down for any of the theatre managers, so I eventually decided to bring them myself! During the summer I picked up my blu ray copy of Cannibal Holocaust and found a feature that was shot at Cinemuerte in 2001 and it kind of made me say to myself "Goddamnit, I wish we still had something like that." It also kind of gave me the idea that I could pitch these films a lot easier if I did it as a festival, so here it is!
Its the first film related event I've ever set up and certainly wont be the last.

AM: The film I'm most curious about is Nightmare City. I haven't seen it. It seems like one of the most divisive zombie films out there - people either love it or hate it. People on the Horror Blu Ray Maniacs page have described it as "one of the worst zombi films," "horrible trash," "such a shitter," and "crapola," and even people who like it praise the "shittiness" of the film, which is a bit of a left-handed compliment at best. So, uh, could you explain this film's charms? How should we approach it? Does it have any actual ideas in it, is it just outrageous shlock, or...? Is there a must-see scene? 

SB: Some of the stuff I've been reading does seem pretty divisive, but most of the horror fans I know seem to really enjoy it. I think there's a couple of problems that keep some people from really enjoying it for what it is. One of them is approaching it as a zombie film which I would call mistake number one. Its a contagion flick and they really don't share any of the characteristics of zombies. They run, shoot guns, stab people, and rip open a lot of blouses! What I really like about it is that its a really fast paced film with a lot of kill scenes that never let up. I also like movies that are constantly changing locations too. A couple of DVD sites might have its naysayers but IMDB sure has a lot of praise for it. And of course Tarantino and Rodriguez are both big fans, but they like a lot of schlocky cinema. I would say that outrageous schlock seems like an apt description of it. Go into it expecting a low budget, a fast pace and a bad ending and I think you'll have a great time! 

AM: My experience of Brain Damage is that it's an anti-drug movie that drug users generally love. You? Do you know of anyone who has seen it on acid? Would you recommend that?

SB: Haha, definitely on both accounts! The very first time I saw it was at the Rio and the friend who came with me was on acid at the time. The film's got some great humour and visuals so I think I could recommend it to people who are into that kind of thing.

AM: And what's with (Brain Damage director) Frank Henenlotter, anyhow? Is he a big anti-druggie? An ex-druggie? If there's a nastier anti-drug film out there, I haven't seen it, but he seems to be speaking from lived experience..

SB: From what I can tell from the audio commentary tracks on his films, interviews and brief words I've had with him myself, I would definitely say he doesn't seem like the type to have been into drugs. He just has a sick sense of humour and probably saw a lot of drug addicts from being around 42nd street so much in the 70's and 80's.

AM: You've said it is your favourite of the films you're screening...?

SB: It's the film that I've watched the most times and will probably return to most often. I really love that movie.

AM: I have not seen the Duke Mitchell films, or Pieces. Care to explain their appeal?

SB: Probably about the same appeal as most of the other films in our line up. The Duke Mitchell films just have that great low budget charm to them as well as being strange and slightly incompetent that just makes for good group viewing. You can also still see the passion for the stories that Duke Mitchell had like with most good cult films. They're really entertaining and the more I learn about Duke the more fascinating everything becomes. The story behind Gone With the Pope is pretty much as great as the film itself and I'm really excited to introduce Vancouver to Duke Mitchell, I think people will be just as enamoured with his work as I am. 

AM: How gory is Pieces?

SB: Pieces is just one of the best midnight movies you could ever hope for! It starts and finishes in the most spectacular fashion and has plenty of the good stuff in between! (and I assure you I'm NOT talking about the acting or direction ;) ). There's lots of gore as well as a fair amount of nudity and a lot of ridiculous things that have absolutely no reason to be there. So many moments that have me in hysterics. Great movie to watch with a drunk crowd!

AM: I fianlly forced myself to sit through Cannibal Holocaust a couple of years ago, though I think around minute three of the "turtle gore" sequence I hit "fast forward," because I was both disgusted and really kind of bored by the "look, it's guts" level of filmmaking. I am not a fan, would watch Cannibal Ferox over it any ol' day. But should I give the film another chance? By the way, Eli Roth is out there on video talking about the "impalement girl" and implying that it can't possibly be fake, the way that Deodato claimed. And it doesn't look fake to me. That looks like one dead person impaled on a stake. Do you buy the bicycle seat story?

SB: I totally believe it! Some of the best effects always turn out to be the simplest. In terms of seeing it again, it depends. Some films really benefit from being seen a second time, maybe this is one of them? At this point you at least know what to expect and when to expect it which might be beneficial. Could also be fun to watch the rest of the audience squirm, I always take great joy out of that. I've seen Salo twice in theatres and found it to be a lot of fun counting the walk-outs and reactions. And I didn't really feel like that was what he was going for with the turtle scene. Stylistically I think the way it was shot was more of Deodato's background in Neo-Realism sneaking its way in. I think Cannibal Ferox is a lot of fun but Cannibal Holocaust is better made and more effective.

Jungle Holocaust might be my favorite though, its really hard to top that human barbecue. 

AM: What' are you projecting The Beyond off, out of curiosity? I've had no luck on ordering a Blu- of that, I had it on order for six months at HMV, then a new edition was announced... and then delayed.

SB: Everything is being projected off of glorious 35mm my friend. No DVDs, no Blu Rays. A rule I fully intend to stick by with my company. 

AM:  Wow! That's really putting some effort and money into the fest! So... if there was someone out there with a non-horror geek girlfriend, who would never make it through Cannibal Holocaust, say, what's the "safest" night to come out? (Or is the answer, none of them?).

SB: Either of the Duke Mitchell films should be pretty safe, and probably Trailer Apocalypse. That one in particular is going to be a lot of fun! So I guess the answer is the second night if you left before Pieces... but even that is funny enough to recommend.

AM: Out of curiosity, what's on your most-coveted list of films that are not yet on Blu (or DVD?). And if you do this festival again, what are the films you'd most like to play?

SB: Well, still waiting on that Brain Damage Blu ray! That ones a bit of a thinker as I would've said Massacre Mafia Style and Suspiria, but both of those are coming this year (or have come in the case of Massacre Mafia Style). Would love for Master Of the Flying Guillotine, The Big Racket, Almost Human and Jungle Holocaust to come out as well. Some of the movies I'd like to book in Vancouver are the titles I just mentioned as well as I Spit On Your Grave, House On the Edge Of the Park, Class Of 1984, Street Trash, Cannibal Ferox, Maniac....the list could go on and on! In and ideal world I'd love to get a new English friendly print struck for Beyond the Darkness by Joe D'Amato. I tried to find one for this years festival with no luck. It seems like a stretch to do but crazier things have happened! Never say never!

I have a lot of ideas floating through my mind and some exciting events already being planned. Keep an eye out because Northwest Nightmares Entertainment will be coming full force...

Northwest Horror show kicks off at the Vancity Theatre March 20th with a screening of Italian self-reflexive horror classic Demons. See you there!

More to come re: Todd Serious

I spent part of the weekend listening to my last interview with Todd, spent today wearing a Rebel Spell t-shirt (I know the band prefers a "the" in front of their name but it screws it up as an adjective!). I was in Maple Ridge, so there was only one person I ran across who recognized the shirt, and we talked a bit. He saw them at Adstock last summer, thought they were great, and yes, he'd heard the news. There's lots more to be said but it will have to wait. I haven't really been sending out a lot of condolences but his band, his family, those closer to him than I all get my heartfelt... something-or-other. I have no real idea how to express it. The reality that he's gone seems to be sneaking into my brain a fraction at a time; mostly I'm still just stunned.

Ryszard Bugajski mini-interview re: Clearcut

Ryszard Bugajski had been told, after the Polish censors reviewed his film The Interrogation - made during the early 1980's, while the Solidarity movement was keeping the authorities distracted - that, short of becoming a government informer, he would never be allowed to make a movie in Poland again. Though this turned out not to be true - he would eventually repatriate to Poland, and continue making films there - these circumstances ended up being to the benefit of Canadian cinema, since he made one of the most remarkable, provocative political thrillers ever to be directed in Canada, after he relocated here. That film, Clearcut, screens tonight at the Vancity Theatre. Here are some excerpts from my interview with him, for those interested in coming to tonight's screening. Mr. Bugajski and I spoke on the phone in late 2013, on a long distance call to Poland. 

AM: Was it difficult to relocate to Canada?

RB: It depends what angle you want to look at it from. At the time it was difficult to go abroad, because when martial law was introduced in 1981, me and my wife, we had wanted to go abroad for awhile. But we were not allowed to - we didn’t have a passport. Of course, we could have emigrated right away, if we wanted, but my wife didn’t want to emigrate. So we waited a few years before we decided to leave Poland forever, permanently. And then the security police agreed to let us go – and so we did. From this perspective, it was not of course easy, but on the other hand they encouraged us to go. It was also difficult from the Canadian side – like, coming to Canada, and being for the first time in North America for me, it’s another story...

AM: It’s a story I’d be interested in!

RB: First of all, we may ask why I chose Canada – and not the US. And it was just by some coincidence, because in Warsaw I knew the American cultural attaché at the American embassy, and he discouraged us from going to the US. We had a two year old son, and he said we would not be able to get help, that it would be very difficult for me to get a job or an apartment, how would I support my family, and on the other hand, I would be applying for an immigration visa and it can take a very long time before they answer, and the answer, of course, could be negative. And then for a long time I would not be able to go to America at all. But he said, I have a friend in the Canadian embassy and he said, there is a special program for political refugees. And he said that you can apply there, and I did, and I got a Canadian Visa in two hours! And we decided to go to Toronto. I had never been to Toronto. I knew a lot of people in New York – I had many friends who had been to New York, but Toronto was a completely unknown territory. So I first flew to New York on my own and I spent about a month in New York, making contacts in Canada. Some friends gave me addresses and phone numbers and gave advice – what to do, where to go first, and so on. And at that time I went to Toronto, rented an apartment, and then my wife arrived from Poland with my son. So we started everything from scratch.

AM: How was your English?

RB: It was quite good, I think. It wasn't perfect - it's never been perfect - but it was sufficient to communicate and to be understood, so it was not a problem.

AM: Were you subject to any degree of culture shock?

RB: No, you know - the US, generally, in Poland, has a special place. First of all, we know American literature quite well - old stuff, Steinbeck and Hemingway and other things, but I also read Jack Kerouac as well. So I knew American culture theoretically, just from books and the movies. For example, when I was a student of the film school, it was 1969, my first year, and the American ambassador to Poland brought Midnight Cowboy. It was not released in Europe yet - it had already been shown in America, maybe it had already gotten an Oscar. But it was a completely unknown film here, and we were so shocked by this picture - not only how New York looks, that there are poor people, poverty and drugs addicts and stuff like that, but that the American ambassador actually brought a film that shows a negative picture of America to a communist country. We thought America must be a wonderful place, that films that Americans make about themselves can be shown anywhere and Americans are not ashamed of that. It was just the opposite here in Poland, where the image of Poland and how Poland was perceived abroad were still touchy subjects. They would never actually show a negative film about Poland abroad. 

AM: On that topic - it's leaping ahead a bit, but your two most recent Polish films, General Nil and The Closed Circuit, both are quite critical of the Polish government. Were they subject to any sort of censorship?

RB: Well, censorship as an institution does not exist here, it was abolished in 1989. It was changed after the free elections in Poland. But there are other forms of pressure - for example, General Nil is a true story of a Polish general and war hero and so on, and his daughter was still alive when I was making the film. And she tried to pressure the producer of the film, saying that she didn't like my previous films for some political reasons I would assume - I never found out exactly what she didn't like about me. But she was a pious Catholic woman, y'know, and I'm openly anti-church, I'm an atheist and I'm not hiding it anywhere, and probably she had read about it and she didn't want me to direct this film. She wrote letters to many places, the minister of culture and so on, and the producer got really scared and said he must actually accept some of her demands because there could be a court injunction, they could stop the movie in production, and it would be a catastrophe for him, a financial catastrophe. It's too complicated to tell you the whole story right now, but it was actually a turning point in this production. But I made a compromise - I actually accepted some of the pressure, because otherwise I would have blown the film out completely. There would be no movie. And another form of pressure was here with the latest film, The Closed Circuit, but of a different kind. Because when we applied to the body which is called the Polish film institute, they give perhaps 50% of the total budget for feature productions, and there was no reason why they wouldn't do it in this case, because there were some good reviews from the same institute. People read it (the screenplay) and they had a positive reaction. But they nevertheless turned it down, and it was difficult to figure out why, what happened...

AM: You mentioned that you were surprised to hear that Graham Greene has said that Clearcut is his favourite of the films he's done - that he wasn't very happy with the experience of making it. Can we talk about that?

RB: It's not a secret - people noticed that. When I was in Toronto [in 2013], I met with Ron Lea, the guy who plays the lawyer, when he quite incidentally came to see my film The Closed Circuit. [The composer of the film's music,] Shane Harvey" [who also scored Clearcut] invited him, and it was a nice meeting after so many years. He was quite surprised to hear about the development that Graham has changed his story. I checked with Ron if he knew what had happened, and he didn't! I remember being in this hotel - a comfortable hotel - in Thunder Bay, where the production office was set. We were sitting on a room with the windows facing a forest, and I was speaking with the actors, telling them what I expect from them and how I direct actors. I asked them to imagine an actor playing something, some feeling, saying that he loves a woman, say, and he makes a proposition to her, but on the other hand he looks outside the window and he sees a naked man running through a meadow. And yet he is into this confession, so he doesn't change his story, but what he's seeing is changing the way he says 'I love you.' I explained all this to the actors, and then we started reading the script, and at one point Graham is reading his part, his lines, and he says something about the mill manager - and then he says, 'oh, I'm seeing a naked man!' And I said, 'whoa, Graham, it's not that you have to say this, what I meant was, you see him and you react to him but you don't say that.' And he says, 'no, but I see a naked man.' And we looked out the window, and there really was a naked man running from the hotel into the forest. And he was so stunned, completely. And Graham said to me, 'Ryszard, you are a magician, you made it all up - you conjured him!' And he started respecting me very much - he treated me like a sorcerer, like a man who does magic.

AM: But it didn't last?

RB: It passed after two or three weeks. It changed completely to the opposite, you know, like he started criticizing my way of shooting, like I started shooting a scene from the last set up, for example, someone enters the room and then exits the room, so I shot those two things together, which is logical, you always do it. And he said, no, you have to do it one-by-one in a chronological order, and we had an argument about that. Once the film opened, I don't exactly remember, but he gave an interview and said it was bad work, the film is bad - something like that.

AM: I'm glad he's come around. I think it's the best thing he's done, the strongest thing. I was discussing this with Tom Charity, and the adjective that came up in regard to his performance was, "indelible."

RB: His personality is very important, because he's a guy that - you don't really know who he is. On the one hand, he smiles, and he's a nice Native man - but the smile changes into some vicious grin, and he becomes very menacing, a very dangerous kind of guy. And Graham realized that, he knows that - he's an intelligent guy, I think - and he was very good at using this switching between a docile nice guy into a monster, someone who is ruthless and cruel. I think now he created he created a great character!

AM: How did it feel to revisit the film again? (When we spoke, Bugajski had recently reviewed the movie, in preparing a broadcast master for German TV).

RB: I was actually quite satisfied with the results, I think, because it has some spiritual elements, which I never did anywhere else. All my films are realistic, you know; none of them touch on this magical and spiritual side. The next film I'm preparing right now, for the first time since Clearcut, is actually touching on this metaphysical side of life, so it resonates. There are some similarities between them. It's a Bergmanesque story of a woman, who was a real person who lived in Poland, a very high officer of security in the 1950's. She was considered a very important and very cruel person. She was Jewish, by the way - she came from a middleclass, secular Jewish family - and of course a communist. And towards the end of her life, at 60, she converted to Catholicism. She got baptised and died Catholic. And the story of my film is actually about the process of becoming Catholic, becoming a believer, which is all the more interesting to me, because I'm a non-believer, myself.

***

That's all I have time to transcribe, folks (and I have no idea about the status of Bugajski's current project, for the record). I'll be at the Vancity Theatre tonight to introduce Clearcut - a remarkable, seldom-seen film. Read Adrian Mack on the screening here (a trailer for the film is included!). And don't miss the chance to come out; you may never get another to see this film on the big screen! 

RIP Toss Serious

It's nothing but a coincidence, but it still has an unsettling effect to learn that Todd Serious, singer for The Rebel Spell - easily my favourite current punk band, maybe barring a couple of old timers - died on my birthday, March 7th, while rock climbing in Nevada. My girlfriend and I would have been watching TV (maybe curling) or maybe a movie, visiting my Mom in Maple Ridge, when he fell. I wrote an obit for him here. I didn't really count him as a friend, but he was one of my favourite people to interview, and I have lots and lots of unused material from talking with him, so I might do something else, as time permits, with some of that material. RIP Todd Serious - you will be missed.

Movies, movies: upcoming must-see films at the Vancity Theatre and the Cinematheque

Okay, so natch, I'm hosting Clearcut at the Vancity on Tuesday. Those unclear on my enthusiasm for that film are directed here. It's a great film, really smart and provocative (though a bit nasty at times, and maybe - mayyybe - kinda politically irresponsible; a certain Lakota who had a big impact on my life thought so, thought it was really bad press for First Nations peoples; there's some truth to the observation, though I love the film no less) See it while you can, folks: this doesn't screen often, is a nearly lost gem (though you can see a wayyy shitty presentation of it on Youtube, in the wrong aspect ratio, with stretched images and washed out colours, if you want).

Also at the Vancity in the very near future, the utterly fantastic family-oriented documentary All The Time in the World plays as part of the Women in Film festival this Sunday. It's a must-see for neoluddites everywhere and a surprisingly fun film, blogged a VIFF review of it here.

David Matychuk assures me that the Polish film Ida is a great film and that it has amazing black and white cinematography. I will see it based on that! Two oddly timed afternoon screenings in the next week make it perfect for a dude who works til noon.

There's a whole series of environmentally-themed films as part of the Sea Shepherd Presents. Alexandra Morton, featured in The Pristine Coast, is a pretty interesting person; I admired Salmon Confidential a lot, for her outspoken criticisms of government attitudes towards fish farming and the Harper regime's muzzling of scientists. It's interesting to note that she worked with John Lilly with dolphins some years ago. I'd love to know more about that time in her life, and how her experiences there inform her work with salmon.

I wonder if Wrenched will touch on the ridiculous/ unfair lawsuit against Kelly Reichardt's (underrated, essential) Night Moves? I doubt it.

Also, three of the most interesting new horror films I saw last year - The Babadook, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and It Follows - are going to play. I'm told the last film in the list was inspired by the same source material as Night/ Curse of the Demon - you know, this guy!:

And speaking of horror movies, there's the Northwest Horror Show, which has some essential horror viewing for horror geeks. I'm really fond of Frank Henenlotter's anti-drug allegory Brain Damage, which I was turned onto while high by a pot grower I knew back in my youth. You gotta love anti-drug movies that drug people gotta love. Darkly funny, in that Henenlotter kinda way. Having totally loved, to my surprise, Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox, I'm also very curious about his Nightmare City - a divisive zombie film if there ever was one, it seems to either inspire hate or love in those who have seen it. And speaking of Italians, I've been really wanting to see The Beyond again for sometime (see image below). And the proximity of Eli Roth's The Green Inferno might actually drag me out to see a proper presentation of Cannibal Holocaust - a film I thought repugnant and weirdly overrated when I had the sad misfortune of watching it on a shitty, censored Korean DVD, but which maybe I should see one more time. Haven't seen these other films - Duke Mitchell? Who? - but I might do something else on them, watch this space.

Oh, and while it's not a horror movie, there's also Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter. This is about the Fargo woman, right? It sounds like a must see, too.

I have less to say about upcoming Cinematheque fare but the series of BC movies, The Image Before Us, has several must-see films, a few of which I've already missed (boo). I might check out Blockade on Monday, since it's so apropos. And both On The Corner and Dirty are essential viewing if you care about Vancouver cinema. More on Dirty later! Those with an interest in psychedelics should see the Oliver Hockenhull documentary on the same if they haven't. And I liked the one Alexei Gherman film I managed to see a few years ago, and am very curious about Hard to Be a God. I think I'll leave my girlfriend home for that one, because I can see her needling me for falling asleep during it (which I will possibly do; arthouse cinema tends to make me nap briefly before my brain kicks in, these days, what can I say?). But this sounds like too powerful a film to miss. (That's where the still at the top of this blogpost came from).

The Smilin' Buddha returns. And DOA plays there on Saturday!

I walked by the Smilin' Buddha the other day. It's re-opened, minus its famous neon sign (which is in a museum somewhere, like that's a better place for it), at 109 East Hastings. It was a pretty interesting walk to get there: I braved the open air "street market of the disenfranchised" that is East Hastings, where people have pretty much any easy saleable you can imagine spread out on the sidewalk, from boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix to crack pipes (which, I should note, I didn't actually see but heard people talking about: "do you wanna buy a crack pipe?"). Jewellery, cellphones, clothing: I kept a vigilant eye for my Bison Quiet Earth shirt, stolen from me at Funky's while Auroch played a few years ago, but in the end I found only one thing I wanted, a Fort Apache The Bronx DVD for $1.50. It is possible that the walk soured my day, because I was kind of bummed about life for most of the night, which has not been my usual state in the last few weeks. It's a depressing area to be in.

But I'll go to Bev's show there, opening Friday... and hey, the doorway of the new Buddha looks cool! DOA plays there on Saturday in a new lineup, too, but - jeezus, it says something that I'm sad to see that Dan Yaremko is no longer in the band. It's like... miss Rampage, sure, but...

Happy still-being-alive day to Matt Clark!

Some guy named Mick Clark died and I keep mis-reading the Wikipedia obits page and thinking that Matt Clark died. I always, always liked Matt Clark - he's one of a long list of character actors that only improves the movies he appears in. Is he still even alive, though?

Guess what?  And he was in a Million Ways To Die in the West, just last year, which I'd had no plans to see, and now must. MATT CLARK IS STILL ALIVE AND WORKING! That's a nice thing to discover.

So I'd like, on my 47th birthday, to wish Matt Clark a happy still-being-alive day. I'm glad to know you're out there, still, Matt! (He celebrated his 78th birthday on November 25th). Someone should make a movie with Matt Clark, Harry Dean Stantion, and M. Emmett Walsh while they're all still with us.

Also, this:

Thank you, David M.! (He's the secret musical guest on Tuesday. Shh.)

Of Crazy 8's

Okay, now I really don't understand Vancouver film culture.

I've been at many fantastic and unusual film screenings where only a pittance of people turned up, finding myself sitting in audiences of four or five cinemagoers, watching fantastic movies in a more-or-less empty house. This has happened far too often.

I've found myself having to explain to people even in the last year where the Vancity Theatre is, what it is, and why people should go see movies there. (In fairness, at this point, the people who still do not know that cinema probably don't know where the Cinematheque is, either).

I've seen many sold-out screenings at the Vancity and the Cinematheque, mind you, but I haven't always understood why people turn out in droves for one movie - some topical documentary, say - while passing on fresher and more inventive cinema. It seems like Vancouver attendees are by-and-large middlebrow middleclass types, who like socially-self-important cinema that flatters their moral perspectives, rather than, say, challenging, critiquing, or confusing them. One of the words I would never use to describe the majority of film audiences in this town is adventuresome.

Then I go to the Crazy 8's gala - because my girlfriend and her coworkers are all going, to show support for one of them who worked on a film in the event, and because I've never gone and am curious. The idea is simple - beginning filmmakers compete to win a small prize and work with a production team, to complete a short movie in 8 days. When Erika first mentioned it, I got it confused with an event that, as I recall, used to go down at VIVO, where a couple of dozen experimental filmmakers would turn out to show each other Super 8 films. I remember Alex MacKenzie competing in one such event.  I think I went to one once.

Okay, sure, I'll go to that.

But no. Crazy 8's is NOT an experimental film competition. If anyone in the competition knew the work of Stan Brakhage, say, it was in no way apparent. Judging by last night's films - six of them played - it's a competition of narrative film. Some are playful and subversive in some ways (the amusing queer Cinderella film The Twisted Slipper, say). Some are shot by people who probably have a future in narrative cinema, if the skill of their assembly is any indication (like One Last Ride). A few of them have notable actors attached, like Cameron Bright in Outside the Lines - a film that could have been developed into something bigger, that was more interesting than its short form could do justice to. And one of them was a perfect, funny, delightful experience unto itself - The Wolf Who Came to Dinner. All in all, it was an entertaining presentation of six polished but more or less student-level films.

1700 people came to it. Granted, there was an afterparty with a chocolate fountain and a performance by No Sinner, a fine Vancouver band whose lead singer Colleen Rennison appeared in one of the movies (One Last Ride). One of the two hosts, Diana Bang, was a very visible presence in The Interview, as well. There were opportunities to schmooze, to dress up, and to celebrate the ambitions of your friends and colleagues, all of which are good things; and the films were fun to watch - even the ones I have neglected to link above.

However: 1700 people? This makes it the single best-attended film event I have been to in Vancouver  (or anywhere!) in my life. For short films by relative unknowns! It's great, it's great, it's a good event,  and I had a good time. And the $30 was worth it if  you include the band and the free chocolate. But in all honesty folks, I don't get it. 1700 people? ...Somebody explain this to me?

Shearing Pinx for Xtra

I've really been getting into Shearing Pinx' new album People. I don't think it was JUST that a certain local cab driver who loves them so finally convinced me to really try to do them justice - I mean, I've seen them live more than once, have spun a few of their albums all the way through, even had Rituals on my phone for awhile in recent memory. Said cabbie might have played a smidgen of an influence, but part of why I like this new album so much also might be that I got to talk to them for Xtra,  because sometimes having a band explain themselves to you can really help you understand them in a new way (I was never that big a fan of A Minute To Pray, A Second to Die until I got to talk to Chris D. about it, for instance; I had always considered it a somewhat anomalous/ oddball album in the Flesheaters' catalogue, preferring No Questions Asked, A Hard Road to Follow, and Forever Came Today... but now I get it, truly!). In fact, I don't think it's a mere shift in my perceptions that makes me like this LP so much; I actually think People is one of ShPx's stronger albums - that they've produced a really hooky, passionate/ smouldering/ adventurous masterwork this time out. Check out their bandcamp here - though it doesn't actually appear to have People for offer... maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place?

Upcoming: bev.davies show, plus DOA at the (new!) Smilin' Buddha

Bev tells me that the images in the show will all be shots she took at the original Smilin' Buddha. She'll be on hand for opening night (March 13th) and then again for the 14th, when DOA plays.

A rant re: BC film (again)

I've always found Vancouverites (to speak of them as a vast homegeneous mass, which they obviously aren't) both narcissistic and insecure about their city. Are we or are we not the most beautiful place to live in the world? Are we or are we not a world class city? Are we or are we not one of the least affordable cities? Good or bad, we love surveys that place us in the top ten of anything (do we or do we not have the highest population per capita of drug-addicted homeless and mentally ill wandering our sidewalks?) and we seem to be forever quoting them at each other, like we're trying to prove our pretty little provincial backwater actually counts for something. But there's obviously more than a little fear that we don't. A hint from my years of psychedelic introspection, folks: if there's something you're afraid of about yourself, if you go around worrying all the time that you're too this or not enough that... then the fact is, it's probably true, and you need to accept it and get on with things. BC is a pretty little provincial backwater, though not without value. If we're not exactly a world class city, we're a world class location, because of the trees and mountains and fresh air and water and so forth, but that doesn't mean we should feel an inflated sense of pride for living here; none of these are things we have accomplished. (Nor are they things that we'll have much longer if we keep selling our resources off to the lowest bidders!). We need to take stock of what really is valuable about this province (whether it's our water or our culture or something else) and to take steps to defend it, to preserve it, to feel a real pride in what we really have accomplished here, rather than obsessing about where we rank on this-or-that international survey...

When it comes to cinema, considering how self-obsessed we are, it seems strange to me that there's so little awareness of BC as a hotbed for film producton. There are odd books, sure, like Spaner's Dreaming in the Rain, but, like, during my time at UBC, I brought up to a couple of people in the film department the idea of having a course that dealt with films made out of BC, or even out of UBC, and people seemed puzzled by the idea, not exactly enthusiastic. There are some very interesting films (anyone remember Mary Daniel's Connecting Lines?) that have been completely forgotten by our province. that never resurface, that probably are just aging in cannisters somewhere, essentially lost due to total neglect and lack of resources to preserve them. Even active filmmakers like Oliver Hockenhull, whose doc on psychedelics is going to play the Cinematheque soon, can find very little interest in properly archiving their older films for preservation; his first film, an experimental documentary about the Squamish Five, Determinations, is only viewable on home video through a VHS tape that Hockenhull made by pointing a recorder at a wall where the film was being projected! (Or so he told me, last year; maybe things have gotten better since?).

If we need external validation that these things are worthy of preserving, note that one of my proudest moments as a BC film enthusiast came when I visited Japan, popped into a VHS rental store in Kawagoe, in Saitama-ken, and saw not only that they had a "Canadian film" section, but that Lynne Stopkewich's Kissed was on the shelf. I actually went out of my way on eBay to buy a Japanese poster for that movie, because of that connection. It was her UBC thesis film, folks, and here it was representing BC on the shelf of a video store across the Pacific! ...I can't begin to explain how proud I felt. As I've ranted about elsewhere, I find it really troubling that a filmmaker as talented as Stopkewich - who should be regarded as a provincial treasure - has been working in TV since 2000, when her second feature film was completed, Suspicious River. (I mean, she's made one short film somewhere in there, too, but - I mean, it's a short film. How do you even see those, anyhow?). I mean, great she's working, but why shouldn't it be easy for someone as accomplished as she is to have a career making feature films? What's wrong with our province, these days? (Could it have anything to do with the shallow vulgarians we elect for office?).

And okay, so - never mind BC film, what about the films that were shot here? If I were responsible for tourism on Bowen Island, for instance, I'd do my best to curate a little museum with stills from actors who have been there, along with a map of locations that people could visit on the island ("visit Ida Lupino's cabin from Food of the Gods!") and a DVD library from which overnight visitors to the island could check out movies that were shot there. (Silly as I am, I actually have phoned a couple of places related to Bowen Island tourism to see if any resources for promoting Bowen's film history exist; of course none do!). And if I ran Cineplex or so forth I would make a point of promoting every single shot-in-BC film as having been made here - to put a little star or something beside every listing for a BC made film, so that consuming our own province could be part of the experience of watching these movies. A recent case-in-point: I neither enjoyed nor despised Fifty Shades  of Grey - it's not a horribly constructed film, it has a couple of cute moments, and its problematic gender politics are simply not surprising or unusual enough to seem actively offensive (la la... viriginal sexless girl loves controlling rich man... la la... look at her tits!). But I totally enjoyed trying to spot the Vancouver locations. How I had been allowed, as a BC film viewer, to get into the theatre without knowing it was shot here I don't know, though I enjoyed the surprise. Still, I bet there were a few people who had no clue that they weren't actually seeing Portland or Seattle up there on the screen. I would have one of those useless little minions who have to walk in front of the audience every now and then to do some silly safety check bullshit announce to the audience to keep an eye out for familiar locations so that even the sleepy-eyed can play. Hey, maybe there could be a smartphone section of the seats where people tweet places they recognize - Hotel Vancouver! - and win a prize for the most correct answers....?

People with an interest in reading me rant further on this topic should see my interview with Bruce Sweeney, Gabrielle Rose, and briefly, via email, Lynne Stopkewich herself, in Cineaction 89. They also might want to check out The Image Before Us: A History of Film In British Columbia, at the Pacific Cinematheque. I've seen and loved two of the films in the program, Bruce Sweeney's unforgettable dark comedy Dirty and Nathaniel Geary's harrowing, honest portrait of life on East Hastings, On the Corner. They'd be on any top ten list I could prepare of BC films that everyone living in this province simply must see - and see on film, since Dirty is presently unavailable for any home video viewing (unless you find the old VHS around somewhere) and On the Corner, while it did come out on DVD, looks far, far better projected (the shot-on-video quality is far less glaringly obvious, for some reason; it actually looks like a film, when projected, but looks like it was shot with Uncle Joe's camcorder when you see it on DVD). There's also a bunch of films I've never seen that are going to screen - like The Grey Fox, also unavailable digitally, and Double Happiness, by Mina Shum. I'll be sure to check Blockade, as well, screening the night before my Clearcut event at the Vancity Theatre... interesting that there are documentaries as well as fictional features set to screen...

British Columbia has had a really interesting and active film culture, and too few of the people living here make time for it. This is a very interesting programme, curated by Emily Carr's Harry Killas. We've already missed a few films on it, but there's plenty more where they came from, so... let's get out and support it, eh?

RIP Bruce Sinofsky, Clark Terry

Bruce Sinofsky, the co-director of the Paradise Lost films - sorry, Lucinda Williams, but these are the docs you want to see about the West Memphis Three, not that West of Memphis thing - has died of diabetes. I can't really say much about his contributions to cinema, as opposed to Joe Berlinger, because I can't differentiate between their contributions to those films, and I've seen nothing Sinofsky did outside his work with Berlinger, but together they made some of the most striking documentaries in history, so that's something. And it's interesting to note that Sinofsky and Berlinger made a guest appearance in Devil's Knot, which I hadn't realized... maybe playing themselves? That's kind of cute, actually, though no reason to see the film.

Also, jazz trumpterer Clark Terry has just died, at age 94. I had a conversation about him just last month, when Tom Charity and I chatted about a then upcoming film at the Vancity Theatre, Keep On Keepin' On, which dealt with his life and work, including his mentorship of a young, blind pianist. He'd mentored both Miles Davis and Quincy Jones in his history, and when the film played, just last week, he was still alive (something that surprised me - I hadn't realized). Clark Terry died on February 21st. Check the man's discography here - he played with Mingus, Monk, Dizzy Gillespie...

I'm still sick, though the nature of the illness seems to be morphing a bit. I felt almost recovered yesterday in the early afternoon. Now I feel worse, in some ways - more nauseated, like I might vomit. Shitty days!

BC film: Sitting on the Edge of Marlene

I did a fair bit of writing, reviewing, and film-watching during the last VIFF, and as any critic will tell you, you don't always have time to do justice to certain films. One that I failed to fully take in was Sitting on the Edge of Marlene. I liked it enough that I thought I might want to see it on the big screen, so I didn't finish the online screener I'd started; then when the VIFF actually began, my schedule didn't allow me to catch it. Admittedly, the most unsettling/ memorable thing about it for me is that it  uses several locations I know very well from having grown up in Maple Ridge. There's a strange little pedestrian tunnel that I always thought would make a great location, so I was happy to see it appear onscreen. I was unsettled, on the other hand, to find my own present APARTMENT BUILDING in the movie; I'd never had the experience of sitting inside a building watching a movie and seeing an image of that same building from the outside, like I was suddenly caught in some weird surveillance feedback loop or something; the space-time continuum seemed briefly to be in jeopardy. But nevermind all that, Sitting on the Edge of Marlene is coming up again at the Vancity Theatre, so maybe I'll get to finish it properly this time? 

The description on the Vancity site does it justice, for those who want to know the story. It's a "dealing with an impossible parent" narrative - one you can't help love, but who is undoubtedly toxic. People with remarkable-but-toxic others in their lives will find things to identify with in the movie. It has terrific performances from its leads, and is really nicely designed and shot; the film has a lush, Sirkian retro quality that rather spoils the eye. It also has, at least in the version I saw, a very strange "timelessness." I couldn't begin to figure out what decade the film was set in. The money we see is contemporary Canadian stuff; the swindles and the decor/ hairstyle/ costuming of the title character - played by Suzanne Clément, above left - is very 1950's; and the evangelical group seems to favour a sort of square 70's roller-disco-Christian aesthetic or something. I actually asked the young star of Black Fly, the excellent Dakota Daulby - who also appears in this film, and whom I interviewed just a few blocks from the locations mentioned above, in the Starbucks attached to our now-doomed Target - whether he could figure out what decade the film was set in, and while I don't recall his exact answer, the very clear upshot was, "no." Which makes me curious to revisit the film, to see if this anachronistic quality comes across as a deliberate stylistic choice - some sort of meta-cinematic way of connecting the film to other genres or movies? (Or perhaps it was an error not yet corrected, and the brand new Canadian bills will all be CGI'd to appear older or something?). 

I'm more excited about Clearcut, sure. (See below). And about my favourite life of Christ movie, the provocative, political, unabashedly Marxist Pasonli film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew. But still: this is a neat BC film. And hey, Callum Keith Rennie is in it! Those cinephiles in whom I have an interest will more or less see anything that he's in, just on principle...

Clearcut to screen at the Vancity, March 10th

Those of you in Vancouver who share my love of the 1991 "political outdoor ordeal" film Clearcut, made in Ontario during a period of more-or-less exile by Polish filmmaker Ryszard Bugajski, should keep the night of March 10th free. The film will screen at the Vancity Theatre, with me introducing it; I may manage to get some quotes from my interview with Bugajski prepared before then, too (and might have other surprises in store, like a musical guest...). It will be screened from an illegitimate German DVD based on a TV broadcast master that Bugajski himself prepared a couple of years ago, but which he never intended for release on disc. Fact is, it looks pretty good, at least compared to all other options to see it since the film played Vancouver theatres back in the early 1990's. It has (I believe) the correct aspect ratio, for one thing, so you don't have to deal with that horrible toggling between stretched and pan and scan images that the VHS/ Youtube/ pirated US/ torrentable version all have; and though the colours are a bit stark and everything a bit dark, they're a vast improvement on the previous option. One happy note is that though the DVD is in fact illegitimate, made without his consent, Bugajski has given the screening his blessing. (He only has one 35 mm print of the film, with him in Poland, which he's not prepared to send to Vancouver, so he understands why we're using this particular source. The TIFF may have a print, too, note - but when there's only one known print on a continent, and maybe it's one of two prints in existence anywhere, people with an investment in preserving cinema can get reluctant to part with it...! We did ask...)

Read my previous big article on Clearcut here. Michael Gimenez has started a Facebook page for the film, as well - we may have news there, too...

Worryin' about myself

Totally sick... working reduced hours as it is and we get no sick days... Going into work with a deep viral cough, shivers and sweats and aches and pains, feeling weak and fatigued and dopey (partially from dope: the only meds I have around are Tylenol with codeine or Naproxen, and I'm opting for the former, since the aches have been quite uncomfortable). The doc I saw didn't think it was strep, which my girl just had, which is a bummer because I was hoping I could fight it with antibiotics. No such luck! But the show must go on.

Worryin' about Gary Floyd

Apparently Gary Floyd isn't doing so well - he posted on Facebook that he was pissing blood Saturday, in a lot of pain, with a vastly elevated white count. He spent the weekend in the hospital. Dicks fans out there might want to cheer him up and send him their love as he recuperates. Here's a terrifying, moving Sister Double Happiness song about mortality - I think - that might be a little too apropos; it's one of my favourite of his vocal performances. My old Gary Floyd interview for Xtra is here. Wishin' you love, Gary! Get better!

Thinkin' about Spike Lee

My film consumption of late has featured a couple unexpected forays into the world of Spike Lee. A dude selling off his DVDs at Commercial Drive station had a copy of Summer of Sam, which I'd always wanted to see, even when I didn't realize it featured Adrien Brody as a persecuted punk rocker on the early CBGB scene. The film was utterly, surprisingly great, maybe now my favourite of Spike Lee's films. I'd enjoyed all of the early Spike Lee films I saw, in fact, back in the 1980's and 1990's, but somehow in the mid-1990's I kind of stopped caring. Critics praised 25th Hour (2002) as a return to form, so I went to see it when it was first run, but I wasn't so impressed that I ever looked it again. I revisited it last night and liked it a lot; while I remembered Edward Norton, of course, I had forgotten that Phil Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Brian Cox, Rosario Dawson and Anna Paquin were in it, each one of them doing great work, and all of them are a pleasure to watch. The film waxes a little too sentimental at times but if you want character-driven/ actor-oriented cinema it definitely delivers.

The trouble is, I don't want to see Spike Lee making conventional movies. I don't mind at all about him documenting slices of life in the non-black community, which he does really well, but I don't have any need for him as a commercial filmmaker, and I keep tuning out when he makes a film that any action filmmaker could have made, like, say, Clockers or, more recently, Inside Man. That film, as I recall it, plays like it could be a Tony Scott movie; it's certainly not a badly-made thriller, but so what? And all you hear about his recent films, if you hear anything, tends to be negative or dismissive; he's somehow gone from being one of the hotter young American filmmakers of his generation to being a marginal figure. In recent memory, I didn't go see Oldboy because I was put off by the apparent blatant theft of that dude's design work, and didn't really NEED an American remake of that film, anyhow; the Korean one is just fine, thanks. A few of his films on IMDB I have never even heard of, like Bamboozled or Passing Strange. It's pretty interesting that he would choose to remake the arthouse blaxploitation vampire movie Ganja & Hess (Da Sweet Blood of Jesus) but I don't even know how one would legitimately acquire that film these days. I don't want to buy it, it won't be at any Maple Ridge rental store or library, and I don't want to stream it online, so short of torrenting it, I'm not sure what can be done. I won't torrent it, though; it feels wrong to steal something that so obviously seems a labour of love (and one unlikely to make anyone a lot of money, at that). Wonder what else I'm missing, by not having followed Lee closely? Maybe I should see Miracle at St. Anna, or Red Hook Summer, or...?

The Final Terror Blu-Ray/ DVD review

Every few months I break down and buy a couple of Scream Factory Blu-Rays. They're hit or miss - in fact, around Christmas, I ended up giving a stack of three to a friend (The Nest, Final Exam, Night of the Demons) because I didn't think I'd ever watch them again, and I thought sharing them with someone else would make me feel less foolish for having shelled out actual money for them (it beat trading them in for $2 each, which just adds insult to injury). There are bonafide classics on the imprint, mind you - I'm still grateful for their Nightbreed Director's Cut - and a few films I haven't seen since I was a teenager (like Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse) that I've been glad to revisit, but a lot of the films they're releasing are pretty obscure, which is part of their appeal, for me. I mean, The Nest is only okay - some very Cronenbergian special effects and lots of cockroaches that add spice to a somewhat silly story - but how can one resist a film where the box art (however misleading) looks like this - especially if you've never bloody heard of it before?

Another example of a film I hadn't seen before risking a Scream Factory purchase is The Final Terror. A film believed more or less lost, with no negative or interpositive to restore it from, Scream Factory compiled the best surviving elements from six prints owned by collectors to restore the film. It looks pretty decent, considering. A lot of horror geek reviews online mention that there is a very low body count and very little gore for a 1980's slasher film, which leads said reviewers to dismiss it as boring and uninspired, recommending instead films like The Burning (which this does resemble, but which I actually found vastly less interesting). If your love of horror really does involve wanting to see novel ways for your stalker of choice dispatch of campers, you might not care much for The Final Terror either, though you'll have to credit the beautiful scenery (California redwood forests), and the lush photography (by director/ DOP Andrew Davis, who went on to direct The Fugitive with Harrison Ford, and the tidy cold-war thriller The Package, with Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones). And you won't fail to notice the cast. You can sort of suss out what kind of movie geek is writing the review in question if they single out Mark Metcalf, Daryl Hannah and Joe Pantoliano, and neglect any mention of Lewis Smith (Stuckey* from Southern Comfort, itself the subject of a terrific Scream Factory Blu-Ray/ DVD package). In fact, if you're a fan of Southern Comfort - if your idea of brilliant backwoods ordeal films is Southern Comfort, Rituals, Deliverance, and Clearcut (my faves, in no particular order), then this is a must-see: a slasher film with craft and style and an interesting subtext (which I'll leave you to puzzle out for yourself). It stands up as a nicely crafted piece of cinema, full of suspense and convincingly executed details, doing fresh things with a genre that mostly was content to repeat a fairly stale formula. 

What remains a little confusing to me, however - I have not scoured the extras thoroughly to see if this is fully explained, but from what I can see, it is somewhat understated - is that apparently what Scream Factory is presenting to us is a re-imagining of the film, edited into its present form by "Post Production Supervisor" Allan Zolman, who talks in one featurette about how the original film  - which had languished un-distributed from 1981 to 1983 - was tedious, had overly-long torture scenes that weren't "fun" (!), and generally needed re-imagining. When exactly in the process this re-imagining took place is a little nebulous, but the version of the film put on Youtube a couple of years ago seems identical (though vastly inferior in image quality) to what's on the Blu, so I'm guessing it happened in the 1980's. At the same time, puzzilingly, while this is apparently a tinkered-with version of the film, you have the participation of Andrew Davis, providing a commentary where he waxes cranky about an early scene added without his consent back in the early 1980's, but - in the first twenty minutes or so, anyhow - doesn't breathe word one about how someone else has apparently re-edited his film after the fact. He seems entirely accepting, speaks of it as if it were his film, and not Zollman's take on it. (The reviewers who don't mention Lewis Smith don't know about this either, apparently, because I can find no enlightenment online). I'm also left wondering if the "original" version of the film is out there in some way, and if anyone has seen it. I've only seen the Scream Factory release, but those missing torture scenes could have been exactly what the gorehounds out there needed to swing their vote in favour of this film!

Anyhow, this is the most pleasant surprise I've had from a blind buy movie purchase in a long time. Good thing I don't read other people's reviews! (I would have read Stephen Thrower's but he doesn't deal with it in Nightmare USA). Being sold for 2/$30 at HMV Metrotown, if that's any help (though whatever you do, don't pair it with George A. Romero's The Dark Half (Romero's first terrible film, which I yawned my way through this evening. Three minutes of excellent gore as the bad guy is devoured by SPARROWS, for fucksake, is not enough to salvage a plodding, repetitive, dully-literal imagining of what surely must be a fairly self-indulgent and mediocre Stephen King novel (if this film is any indication). 

_________

*You know, Stuckey:

Happy 10th anniversary Shearing Pinx

Sleep (the band), plus Lucinda Williams, Shearing Pinx

To compensate for having missed tickets for Electric Wizard, I briefly, before my life reasserted itself, contemplated going to see Sleep tomorrow night. Just as well that it can't happen: turns out Sleep is sold out too. Which is as it should be. Electric Wizard fans would probably still want to try to get in, though. Start here.

And I'm missing Petunia and the Vipers tonight. Ah, well - I have lots to do this weekend anyhow. And I'm getting to learn to like Lucinda Williams, prior to her Thursday show at the Vogue (which I will be seeing). Essence and West are both better albums than her (okay but kind of mainstream/ lukewarm) current one, though I do like her song about the West Memphis Three. (That's only a bit of footage of her in studio, not the whole song, but you'll get the idea). Two of her best songs appear to be on the current setlist (or at least are listed on recent setlists on setlist.fm): "Essence," which apparently conflates semen and heroin (!), and "Unsuffer Me," which also seems to have a lot of druggie stuff lingering in the peripheries (is she kind of hard-living? You get the impression that she might be).

I'll have a cool announcement soon about a birthday event this March. Something I've been working on for a long time.

Oh, and Shearing Pinx fans note, they'll have a record release on February 14th, something somewhere relating to the Red Gate (I'm out of the loop, ask somewhere else!).

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Some films are must-sees not because of what they achieve, but because of what they are.

Truth is, I didn't think A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night achieved THAT much, cinematically. Its language and tone is more or less that of Jim Jarmusch, though it avoids some of his occasionally off-putting cutesiness. And its story, while interesting enough, is fairly slight, nothing that compelling. Still, I think anyone who follows this blog should go see it. I wrote when I reviewed it during the VIFF awhile back that the film seemed to be "about changing roles for women in Iran, coupled with a mistrustful ambivalence about what, for purposes of simplicity, I will call 'the west.' I imagine it can never be shown in Iran - there's female nudity, for one, and pretty frank depictions of prostitution, drug addiction, and other 'that-happens-in-Iran?' kinda things; hell, there's even a fellatio scene! But some of its images - the female vampire skateboarding down a sidewalk - are pretty indelible, and the film is undeniably successful at what it attempts. I saw it after a hard day at work, and found myself fighting the 'movie nap,' so I did miss a few things, like: was the gully filled with corpses ever even explained? But I liked it, I liked it."

It's been awhile since I wrote that, and I must confess, the film has not lingered much in my mind. I haven't picked it up on video, don't think about it very often. In fact, the most striking impression that remains is of the transgressive quality that I mentioned above. I mean, you don't really imagine Iranians hanging out in basement suites listening to Joy Division, do you? Well, I don't. If the film weren't a representation of life in Iran, I would probably say it was cute but negligible, but the Iranian dimension makes it a must-see. I have seen no other signs of a cinema quite like this coming out of Iran (or made by Iranians outside Iran). And hey, it IS an interesting, enjoyable film, to boot, even if it's a little slight. 

Oh, and if you see it, and can explain the corpse-gully, post a comment here, okay?

Petunia and the Vipers/ Quincy tonight!

Fans of roots music who have not yet seen Petunia and the Vipers should head down to the Imperial at Main Street to catch them tonight, on a bill with Miss Quincy and the Showdown... My Big Takeover feature on Petunia is here, my Georgia Straight one is here...