Starting on Monday 19th October is Splice's 13 Days Of Hallowe'en. Basically it's just looking at a ton of scary movies in the run up to Hallowe'en (the 13 day time period chosen purely because I'm a cheesy hack).
Last year's choice of movies was a quickly cobbled together affair a week before the event (you can check them out by clicking on the Halloween link at the side over there in the post label section). This year the list is thirteen films which cover a more diverse scope of the horror genre. Most of them are films I haven't seen either so this list is going to be a guide on which films are thumbs up or down for your Hallowe'en night viewing.
To shake things up further the ways in which the films are viewed will vary (DVD, TV, YouTube) and the review deliveries will do so as well (written, filmed, live Twitter session).
So join us from Monday 19th October for almost two weeks of chills, or if most of the films are shite, a cheap jump caused by a cat pouncing.
Woke up refreshed on a Saturday morning having had a stunning nights sleep. Got the tram in as usual but never thought it out properly as becuase it was the weekend there was next to no traffic on the roads and I ended up downtown in record time. Instead of getting the subway i decided to walk up Yonge Street since it was a nice morning.
So, the shift was pretty standard, as is becoming clear to any readers out there. It is very interesting watching people coming in and out the library however. Latin Journalists come in and generally take out the Spanish language films, makes sense considering their readership i suppose, Festival reps from around the world fly through titles twenty minutes at a time, they must watch them with the fast forward on or something, all the time looking for the type of films that could appear in the festival in their neck of the woods. There are guys i assume are in acquisitions at their respective company, weedling through the films looking at twenty minutes or so looking for something wiht commercial value or what not that they could buy and distribute. Or maybe thats not what they are doing, its not my job to ask but i cant help but be curious. Must be something like that.
What i can say is that some of these folks engage you in conversation from time to time and its always good to talk to people who clearly know their films and love their films, its both inspiring and gratifying.
At some point during the shift, I dont know whether i came out during the conversation or what as i almost missed it, we (the three of us) were offered the chance of a ticket to a red carpet screening which is essentially a premiere with stars of the film and such like at it. As i say i almost missed it as my boss who offered it up asked for a final time before she left and i had no idea what she was talking about. She explained again and I thought why not it will be interesting if nothing but no doubt it will be pretty damn cool too and so took the ticket off her hands. My decision on what film to see that day had been made for me and i was happy of that, plus i wouldnt have to use a token meaning when i finished i would now have three sitting unused!
I should probably mention what film it was that i got a ticket to, heres a photo
I have absolutely no idea why this photo appears length wise as i definitely took it horizontally, my hands dont work that way either, but the upshot is yes, i was going to the premiere of the new Hugh Hefner documentary called Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel at the Visa Screening Room in the Elgin Theatre. Oh, and he was there! The director too and Shug's 3 girfriends were there, it was a big bag of excellent all round.
So here is what happened according to me, with a bit of a review thrown in for good measure. This being my first actual screening at the fest (Steamboat Bill Jr not withstanding) it was a different experience to going to the cinema as normal. The filmaker and star on show being one thing but also other aspects are different. It all begins with a Festival representative getting up and introducing the film, then the director, a lady called Brigette Berman, got up and said some stuff (introductions and nice stuff bout Mr Hefner mainly), all new things to me but all good. Then with introductions over, the movie started.
You know what, its really good. Its a little overlong at just over two hours and lots and lots of stuff is skipped over without much of a mention, his first and second families for instance, but on the whole its very very interesting. There is so much i just didnt know abot the man they call Hef. If I am honest my knowledge about him was that he was a bit (a bit is a slight understatement) of a shagger who ran a magazine. Now this could be because i have never gave him much thought beyond the shagging loads of women thing and the whole multiple girlfriends at the same time stuff, i am sure if i had actually took time to think it would have dawned on me that running magazines is kinda hard work and to run one fo the most successful and popular magazines in the world is the work of someone special, but hey, i have never got my mind beyond the shagging.
What he was was an actual activist who fought for civil rights (in his own way of course) both for black people in America and also for women believe it or not. Using his media platforms, both in print and TV at the time he put black people on the map, jazz musicians, actors, singers, you name it. He gave black activists a voice in his magazine. He also stood up for Hollywood types tarred by the commy brush during the McCarthy era. He was also a bit of a genius becuase he did all this while building a magazine up to be what it is and at no time really give up any of the reigns on it, even now. I was shocked and amazed. There is lots of excellent people as talking heads and really it could have gone on forever as he is, to say it again, so intersting!
But i suppose therein lay the problem for me, it could definitely do with a trim, the points it makes are made regular and the stuff it skirts over is amazing. Maybe, a trilogy could have been commisioned, Part 1: Playboy, Part 2: Activist and Part 3: Rebel but who would bother witht he other two if one is called Playboy? You would just watch part 1 three times surely!
So afterward the credits rolled a few chairs were brought up on stage and Hef, Berman and the intrduction guy took seats to field some questions from the audience (photo below is my view from way back on the balcony, i had a chance to go on the floor and for some reason i never took it, idiot) it was a shambles really i thought, mainly due to the fact that Hef seems to be deaf as a post now and to me he seemed frail. Its odd because even though i know he is an old man, his persona in the public eye is such that he pertetualy seemed to be a man in his fifties or sixties. what i saw that day was a old man however, stark contrast to the guy talking in the film in his own house. I would maybe stretch to say that this may be the last we see of Hef in the public eye, thats how frail an old man i felt he seemed. The reason incidentally i thought it was a shambles was becuase whent he questions were asked the TIFF guy would repeat them to the hard of hearing Hef but would shorten them so the context of the question would be lost and so Hef would be lost and end up just talking about something else. Maybe not so much Hef's fault as I may have made out.
Lets be honest, it was cool as anything seeing someone like Hefner in the flesh, i mean if this film makes it to the cinema chances are i wouldnt go, in fact the time i would be getting to see this film would be 10o'clock on a Sunday night on channel 4 or something, myself! So i thank my lucky stars for the opportunity that presented itslef that day. Also i may have mentioned (without checking further up) that he was there with his three girlfriends whoa re all smoking hot, not that my photo does them justice however. lets just say that TIFF gave me a peek at Hef and his chicks and i adjourned home a happy man.
Incidentally, i searched about for a trailer for the film but found this instead, its the shambles that was the after film Q&A. Worth a look.
I will finish up with what i wrote on facebook after i got home full of beans from seeing the film plus Hef live and in colour:
got a freebie to premiere o hugh hefners doco film today, was pretty good. hes an interesting man & could be argued he did more than most 2 pave the way 4 the world today ie obama in white house. sadly it was slightly overlong & no enough tits from 2000s on show, more 60s, 70s and 80s boobs. anyway, review aside, i want2 say that heff & his burds were there watching too, so i saw hugh hefner today! so that was cool
Working when you're young's shit int it? Slaving away at some nothing job for amounts you could make rummaging under the sofa cushions isn't the way to spend your free time. Yet to buy that illicit booze or whatever substance you need to forget that you do a shit job that self same shit job is essential. But working in a funfair, that would be a cool way to spend your summer, right? Turns out no. It's just like any other shit job.
That's the central conceit of Adventureland. Instead of the setting being mined for endless jokes it's really just the place that brings the characters together. It could just as easily have been set in any workplace like a supermarket or a fast food place with some jokes needing changing, but that's all. But that's not the only dummy that Adventureland's pre-release hype sells you. If the trailer is to be believed it's an uproarious comedy from the people who brought you Superbad. Actually it's just that film's director Greg Mottola, who's also on writing duty here, and it's really more of a character based comic drama than out-and-out guffaw fest.
In fact for a comedy there aren't that many laugh out loud moments. Instead Mottola has created quite a gentle, leisurely little film. It has its moments, mainly thanks to Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig's funfair owners, but for the most part the laughs are pretty subtle. Adventureland instead chooses to focus on its story of of young love, hopes and dreams and how real life tends to get in the way. In that respect it's a film that'll ring true to anyone who ever made grand plans only to see them dashed.
It's hardly an original story then and sadly it's told with characters who are in the main kind of unlikeable. Of course the main reason for this is probably that they're all teenagers, with all the arrogance, idiocy and whining that tends to entail. So basically Mottola has written a pretty believable bunch. As for the actors portraying them there are some fine, even surprising turns. Jesse Eisenberg convinces as ambitious James. Ryan Reynolds as randy handy man who once jammed with Lou Reed (but doesn't seem to know Satellite of Love) Connell is equally so. Looks like when he's not playing opposite Sandra Bullock in will they-won't they (of course they will) Rom Coms there's a pretty decent comic actor in there. Kristen Stewart does something similar to what she did in Twilight, a broody, confused teen lass. The difference here is that instead of playing a badly written, horrendously calculated teen aspirational character who at once is world wise and confident, yet also shy, awkward and confused, here she's just the latter set. She's playing a realistically fucked up young woman and as a result her performance clicks. Whether Stewart is able to play anything else may be debatable but here she works. Best of all though is Martin Starr. Mottola's best move was recruiting his Freaks And Geeks alumni, and themore major roles he gets the better. Sadly he's destined to be typecast as "geeky friend".
Much of Adventureland works. The pacing may put many off, but given the subject matter, long, boring summer full of work and weed, it's a nice choice. Instead of trying to be gross-out it's actually quite a sweet little film. And its soundtrack is fantastic. A few more laughs, and a better use of the setting wouldn't have gone amiss but as it stands Adventureland isn't too bad a way to kill some time. It beats work anyway.
On to Friday at TIFF, probably should have added in part 1 that the Buster Keaton silent film i watched and enjoyed on day 1 had a live accompaniment which was rather ace.
But Friday, day 2. Ok I am sure these early starts are going to be goof for me in the long run, but getting up at half 5 is no fun for anyone! The snooze button gets pressed a few times as i am decide that showering in the morning isn't for me, not when those ten minutes can be spent in bed i can achieve just the same amount of waking up with throwing cold water in my face for the tap.
I get in to the city centre and up to Sutton Place easy enough, I am actually early again so i wait. All this information is pretty dull i guess, so i will fast forward. The shift today is pretty dull, a whole bunch of posters get dropped off in our wee library and I get a good look through some of them but still my knowledge of titles at the festival is lacking so most pass me by. I did at the end of the shift see my first celebrity however, if i saw her again i couldn't pick her out. Turns out she was on Battlestar Galactica, the new series and the reason she was in the library was that she was getting her photo taken and the place where that was happening is only a few doors along.
Looking through the stars of BG i think it was the actress who played "Boomer" but then i cant see anything in her filmography which would give her reason to be at TIFF. But what do i know at the end of the day.
So this spotting of a celeb happened at the cross over of shifts in the Library, there is two shifts that take the library from opening at 8am through till closing at 8, my shift for the week was the first half which finished at 2pm but the afternoon shift starts at 1.30. This was for a variety of reasons, for one if anyone was late they have 30 minutes grace as the 1st shift istn yet finished, and also if the likes of me or any of my other morning shifters want to see a film and need to dash away earlier then there is someone there to cover this. It works a charm. So it was one of the afternooners who spotted this TV star, this led to another afternooner tell us of his morning shift in the Press Office where he was trying to keep photographers at bay while press conferences were taking place. While he was doing this he inadvertently walked into one George Clooney. Pretty cool I think.
So to clarify slightly, the library is a floor up from the actual press office and on the floor the press office is on is a room which is turned into a room for press conferences. Lets call that the Press Conference room. These Conferences started today (not that I knew about it until the Clooney story came up, he also say Megan Fox too) and run basically all Festival. You, me and anybody can watch these conferences as they are available online here. it would appear that Mssrs Damon, Soderbergh, Bridges, Von Trier, DaFoe and MacGregor were there also. Not only that, Mr and Mrs Bettany were there following their Creation film opening the Fest. All very cool and I saw none.
The Clooney revelation did make me think I should pay attention a bit more when leaving the hotel in case someone is coming in at the same time. So i did.
Red was leaving T.O. that day after having enjoyed a lovely holiday (i surmise) so I met him again at Yonge and Dundas Sq where he was enjoying the end of the noon rockumentary about the Dixie Chicks, think he has mentioned it on another blog post on here. We decided not to wait for the Friday silent film as the film fest takes a wee back seat as embark on a journey that will see him arrive at the airport to catch his flight home to Blighty, and me home to have an early night and hopefully function better as a human being when the alarm goes off in the morning.
I managed it with bells on, i was sleeping before 10pm.
What i missed while in my slumberfest was the Men Who Stare at Goats premiere and The Informant! premiere plus a slew of other films on on the second day, but sleep was far more. The following day i begin my cinema going odyssey with earnest, the vouchers i have accrewed burning a hole in my pocket.
Turns out one of Splice's favourite* actors Nic Cage is in massive debt. Maybe he felt a duty to personally refund all those punters who went to see The Wicker Man remake.
Failure to pay taxes could see him facing jailtime. Anything that stops anysort of sequel to Bangkok Dangerous is welcome if you ask me.
Of course if he doesn't then he's probably going to have to raise some major cheddar to pay off his creditors. That would mean making a ton of films in as quick a time as possible, suggesting the name Nic Cage being attached to a film means it's less likely to be quality like Raising Arizona or Leaving Las Vegas and more likely to be of the level of Splice's favourite** film of whatever year it was released, Next.
Obviously this situation has to be monitored closely. That pert of our brains that tries to comprehend Nic Cage's success depends on it.
*Sometimes I get my words mixed up, favourite means you think he's an overacting, lucky hack who owes much of his career to who he's related to, doesn't it?
** Favourite in this context I'm trusting means most shambolic pile of bum leakage.
Kevin Smith is gonna be on Newsnight Review tonight with Kirsty Wark. Kirsty Wark is a celebrity Killie fan of sorts. Think they are going to discuss the rise of cult fiction to mainstream or some other such stuff. if your in Britain you can watch it on TV realtime tonight or online on the iplayer for a week after or if your not in the UK you can do whatever your (illegal?) thing is to watch it.
Me, i am getting it taped, i will see it in 3 weeks!
Hockey, North American speak for Ice Hockey is a really good game actually. Football (soccer, sic) is also a very good game. I am probably wrong but hockey is almost (but not quite) as neglected in the movie world as football but it will soon have a new film in its canon and this one is by a respected and good director (in my opinion at least) and that is reason to rejoice.
As i have given this blog the title of "Kevin Smith Hockey Movie" it shouldnt be too hard to decipher as to which director is taking a pop at an actual sports movie so i suppose i should just get going with some info if you want it and highlight how excited i am about the prospect even at this early stage.
My interest was piqued by a few things, having liked Smiths films a lot over the years i have recently finished his book My Boring Ass Life and thought it was great and kinda developed a wee crush on him when i spot his name in anything i am instantly drawn so while hunting out the hockey scores on Tuesday night, mooching around the nhl website i chanced upon a piece about him and read with interest that following A Couple of Dicks which is due out soonish, his next project will be a film about hockey!
The link i have put on explains it all in detail but to surmise, its a film based on a song (when at uni my scriptwriting lecturer oftens said that songs could form the basis of decent scripts and i long held the belief that that was bullshit but not no now) by a guy called Warren Zevon and is called Hit Somebody and so now on the imdb page for the expected film that is the title it is going under. Other links on this page have Will Wheaton as the lead, but i Think this was taken from some throwaway remark on twitter. Where else? Though i in no way have any opinion on Wheaton playing a role when i dont know what that role is, god, even if i did know the role i probably wouldnt have much of an opinion!
So, well, a thouroughly thought out blog would have some insight into the song from listening to it but there will be none of that here. I may seek out the song in the future but right now i am just happy that the film is being mooted. I have read its about an enforcer type player who would dearly love to score a goal but is sent out onto the ice simply to beat the crap out the opositions good players. Sounds good, it may even be a period piece which would be sweet.
So there we have it, 2011 is the estimated date of arrival which is kinda vague, but a date of arrival none the less, you could check back here regular to get updates on this project but i recommend Smiths own twitter account or his excellent websites.
Oh and Smith is in Britain right now and is visiting Scotland to talk, and Im in Canada.
okay lets kick this off way back at the beginning, the 10th of September, almost a month ago now but still, we wont let my ineptitude to get something like this up while its still relevent get in the way of a decent opportunity to have a slew of posts about a cracking time in my life!
Sept 10th; its the first day of the festival and I wake up on this Thursday morning with a jolt at 5am, I then snoozed the alarm a few times (why is a snooze 9 minutes?) and dragged myself out of bed and into the shower for about twenty past. Left soon after as I really had no idea where I was going or how long it would take. A forward thinking version of me would have possibly done a dry run at some point in the days leading up but no, guess work at how long it would take on early morning public transport and vague ideas of how to get there would need to see me alright.
Having no idea what i would be doing in my volunteer role at the festival i spent the day before doing a little study on the internet, basically i picked out the films I recognised from the first few days, it wasnt indepth or anything but it did mean that i was secure enough in my post to completely zombie it the whole journey in on the street car (tram service to non Torontonians) till i had to shake it to take my first trip on the citys underground, on the whole its not bad, more akin to Glasgows Clockwork Orange than Londons underground service, but hey this isnt a travelogue, its supposed to be an account of an (almost) insider view of a major film festival, the second biggest behind Cannes, and so i will continue.
So i got to Sutton Place pretty early, this was the idea actually as the Wednesday was an induction day of sorts and I didnt attend (watching Scotlands World Cup dreams die with Splices co-author Big Red was more important) so in am email i received it was advised i arrived early to get myself accustomed to the library. But then i was the first person i think to arrive so no press office no library, no nothing was open. Finally, (it was actually dead on time, if not a bit early) staffers arrived and to the library i went, shift started at 7.30am and were in!
This is what my role was in the communications department. At the hub of the Festival is Sutton Place, in this hotel (Sutton Place is an old hotel in the city, its very nice actaully) a room is set aside and acts as a library and is called the press and industry screening library. In this library some of the films featured in the Festival are available as screeners and in a adjacent room there is a bunch of TV's and DVD players set up for them to be watched on. I worked in this room. Basically, arranging time slots for viewings, handing over the discs, and trouble shooting any such problems with TV's or DVD players that arise. I was not alone though i had another two fellow volunteers doing the same job with me.
Can I just say it was pretty cool, lots of interesting people mill around this area, guys and girls in acquisitions for big production companys, representatives of other film festivals around the world and members of the world press all using this library to catch films that their schedules (their heaving schedules no doubt) couldnt. It was a pretty decent first shift, the folks i worked with seemed like good folks even though their seeming knowledge of films and in particualr the films at the festival seem to be way way way above me, i did kind of keep myslef to myslef however, lack of sleep usually means my words are pretty basic and long sentences can sometimes be beyond me in these situations so i decided to just to sit back and soak in everything and hope that in next few days i could catch some zeds and perk up.. Ho hum, day one and shift one over and I eased myself through it.
After the shift finished at half two i moseyed down to yonge and Dundas Sq to experience my first film of the festival. I kicked off with Steamboat Bill Jr and it was pretty good, i had never seen it before, actually the reason I went to see it is becuase Red told me it was good and he would meet me there to watch it, he didnt mind you he saw the last ten minutes or so after staying at the baseball till the final out. It was still a decent shout by him though Buster Keaton though is the man, some of the stunts are amazing. I did however have a bit of the "am i sleeping with my eyes open here?" moments though as the early rise began to get the better of me. I met up with Red afterwards and he took me and my good lady for dinner, what a gent. I suppose with all the films kicking off the first day of the fest it was an inauspicious beginning for me but hey, thats how it goes sometimes.
I suppose i should give some context to what i did with what else went on in the city in places i wasnt. The Festival officially kicked off with a film called Creation starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly who is his wife in real life, now i am not a Ok! or Hello fiend but i was surprised i didnt actually know that. Anyway, i am led to believe that it is the first time ever (if not ever then definitely in a while) that a Canadian film hasnt opened the festival. The photos of Connelly at the premiere are smoking i have to say, the film I hear is ok, Bettanny is Oscar material by all accounts, however one chap who say it said the monkey was was the best thing in it! scathing! I should note to those who have no idea what Creation is, its a film about Charles Darwin with Mr Jennifer Connelly as Darwin. Also having its premeire was Jennifers Body which is Diablo Cody's (Juno) new thing she wrote, its a horror or something. Anyways, Megan Fox was there and this caused all sorts of media attention, and why not. Antichrist and the new Almodovar film also got opeing night screenings but for this guy the day was all about Steamboat Bill Jr and being tired.
Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. You senile, old fool you. For a while now you've been doing these things that suggest that you're past it, ignoring every Pixar film for best picture and then giving them the derogatory best animated film award, say. Or how about giving Scorsese an award for a film that wasn't that great purely because you forgot to give him one for any of his great works. That one had you hanging by a thread.
Old time readers will know that I've got a bit of a problem with Corman and his Wonderful World of Budget Constraints, in fact the second ever Splice post was about him.
Frankly some of the true greats have never won an Oscar, or had to take the Scorsese-like one, so it's frankly galling that one will rest on the mantelpiece of the man who made these:
Now I love cheesy B-movies as much as the next weirdo but Corman's aren't even as fun as the trailers make them look! Basically this is a man who can take the idea of a mutant pickle invading Earth with his army of bats and make it boring!
So why is he getting this award? The argument about the talent he has fostered doesn't ring true. It's an impressive list of genuinely brilliant talent, Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppolla, James Cameron to name a few. But the stuff they made under him was almost entirely garbage, mainly thanks to him. He may have given them a break but that's it. I doubt that the Oscar is being given to him because of association with others who were worthy winners. If that really were the case then an honourary gold chap is surely in the offing for, say, the Weinsteins.
No this smacks of of the industry honouring a great business man, which it must be said Corman is. In these troubled financial times Hollywood is feeling it, look at the way the entire industry appears to have pinned its hopes on Avatar being the biggest thing ever. As such Corman's business model, spend so little on the film that it actually isn't possible for it to fail to make the money back, is very appealing to the suits.
In fact, it's pretty much the model that the industry works on, just on a far larger scale. Hollywood doesn't fail to turn a profit thanks to all the ancillary markets, it's really all about how big that profit actually is when the scare stories about the industry in decline start spreading. Awarding Corman points to the fact that his way of doing things is the ideal for the industry so look out for more story-less trash designed to smash your senses into submission instead of films with any sort of substance.
An award such as this should be about honouring artistry, but in this case it's purely a business thing. Giving an Oscar to Corman for his work makes a mockery of an award's ceremony that should mean something but has instead become a mass marketing tool. It dilutes anything already given out under the name to others for their "outstanding achievements" and "artistry".
At this rate it'll soon be preferable to have an MTV Movie Award on your mantelpiece. Do you hear that Oscar? I said AN MTV MOV..., aw forget it you deaf, old bastard.
