ANT-MAN, JURASSIC WORLD, SAN ANDREAS - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - MySummer of 75 versus My Summer of 2015: What a Difference 40 Yearsmakes! Ant-Man also opening night gala at 2015 FANTASIA INTERNATIONALFILM FESTIVAL in Montreal

What a difference 40 years makes! My Summer of Love in 1975 was replete, as per usual, with going to the movies every single day. My three favourite films that summer also happened to be big box-office hits. JAWS, of course, made history with its humungously wide release (the largest of its kind back in those days) and lineups round the block for every show, for every day. The picture itself was a roller coaster ride (and then some), but it also had a plot, characters, great performances and a morbid sense of humour. LOVE AND DEATH filled smaller specialty houses that summer in all major cities. Woody Allen's hilarious take on Ingmar Bergman and Russian Literature had me rolling in the aisles. Then, of course, the horrifying eye-opener MANDINGO by Richard Fleischer, the movie set against the backdrop of a pre-Civil-War slave-breeding plantation and so brutal and ahead of its time that even now it makes the dull Oscar bait 12 Years a Slave look like a Sunday Picnic. Not only was Mandingo huge (lineups round the block), but it was aimed squarely at - GOD FORBID - adults.

In fact, all three pictures had far wider appeal than any blockbusters released this summer, the sad summer of 2015. Taking inflation into account, 1975's summer pictures had far more bums in seats in far fewer cinemas for longer periods of time than anything supposedly breaking box-office records this summer. Watching my three favourite blockbusters this year (Ant-Man, Jurassic World, San Andreas), all pleasantly entertaining, all very competent, but generally safe for anyone's consumption has proven to be especially disappointing. (I don't really include Mad Max: Fury Road in this list as it's a real movie and far more in keeping with pictures released during my 75 Summer o' Love.) These three films with their superhero, dino and earthquake shenanigans, are ultimately missing the kind of personal voices of filmmakers like Spielberg, Allen and Fleischer. The "Safety" factor with these films (and most movies out of the studios today) is borderline sickening. I can assure you, "Safety" was never an issue in the 70s. The more dangerous the pictures, the better - even those in the mainstream.

Ant-Man (2015)
Dir. Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lily, Michael Peña

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is yet another Marvel Comics Superhero extravaganza, not as awful as the others and relatively inoffensive. In this one, ne'er do well Daddy (Paul Rudd) gets out of the hoosegow and hooks up with old buddy (Michael Peña, as the de rigueur Spanish-American sidekick comedy relief) and agrees to pull a cat burglar job to get enough dough to win his daughter back from his ex-wife. Another ne'er do well Dad (Michael Douglas), an old scientist who abandoned his daughter when his wife died and allowed his assistant to take over his corporation is worried sick that his secret experiments will be discovered and used for nefarious purposes. The two Daddies team up to fight the power and a new superhero is born.

The movie is amiable enough, not without some laughs, a nice light leading man turn by Rudd and Michael Douglas is allowed a few sprightly moments. The direction of the action scenes is better than most of these things, but not once is there a moment where we feel the slightest hint of danger in the proceedings and the picture's denouement is as predictable as ingesting a Big Mac. There's certainly nothing genuinely dark, nasty or cynical in the film which, of course, is always the problem with these things and it's certainly lacking the magnificently manic Looney Tunes hi-jinx Sam Raimi brought to the Spider-Man franchise before the recent and utterly negligible reboots (and it is most certainly bereft of Zack Snyder's breathless visual aplomb and his hilarious destruction of humanity via collateral damage in Man of Steel).

Finally, like all recent superhero pictures, the predictability factor reaches a point where the whole movie starts to become dull and exhausting (though less so than the awful Avengers/Captain America/non-Raimi Spiderman efforts). If anything, Ant-Man comes a bit closer to the first Iron Man and the first hour of Thor, but is lacking those film's occasionally cynical sense of humour.

Safety and competence are the order of the day. Ho-hum.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **½ Two-and-a-half Stars

Jurassic World (2015)
Dir. Colin Trevorrow
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Steven Spielberg's Jurassic franchise is interesting on a number of fronts. The first film in the series featured astonishing special effects - so real and tangible that today's reliance upon digital magic seems fake and ugly. Oddly, Spielberg eschewed the grim, grotesque, ultra-violent nastiness of Michael Crichton's novel and he delivered a movie that safely played to anyone and everyone. It was no Jaws. Kids were not eaten, the dinosaurs weren't especially cruel in their torture/decimation of their victims and there was nary a real character amongst the entire all-star cast. How one missed the likes of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. The Lost World took a lot of heat from critics and audiences for its derivative nature, but frankly, it was an improvement over the dullish Jurassic Park, featuring plenty of feeding frenzies which were closer to the nastiness inherent in the Crichton books and though lacking the genuine edge of Jaws, was still plenty vicious.

There's no viciousness in Jurassic World, save for the fun supporting performance of Vincent D'Onofrio as the park's crazed militaristic director of security. Here director Colin Trevorrow jockeys the camera with relative efficiency as this reboot of the franchise has the park up and running successfully. We get a pleasing leading man by way of the raptor expert and dinosaur trainer (Guardian of the Galaxy's Chris Pratt) and though there are plenty of children to die miserable deaths in the jaws of the romping Dinos, no such kiddie buffets occur.

All we get is the plodding predictability of the new hybrid of dinosaur escaping and Chris Pratt rescuing two fucking kids who deserve to die.

Seriously, who wants to see a movie with Dinosaurs where no children get torn to shreds (a la Jaws or even Joe Dante's hilarious Jaws rip-off Piranha)? If there are going to be bloodthirsty dinosaurs we want to see as many innocent children (and adults) being eaten and crushed as possible.

No such luck, though. We're living in kinder, gentler times where the new generations of movie viewers are the progeny of wimps.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **½ Two-and-a-half Stars

San Andreas (2015)
Dir. Brad Peyton
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Giamatti

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When the San Andreas fault genuinely wreaks some real havoc, the level of death and destruction is going to be so massive and vicious that I was hoping to see some delightful over-the-top (and, of course, hilarious) carnage in this contemporary disaster film. Given that the picture is directed by the crazed Edward-Gorey-Tim-Burton-influenced Canadian Brad Peyton, I had every reason to suspect the kind of nasty, funny dollops of humour he infused Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island with.

No such luck here. Peyton handles all the derring-do of helicopter rescue man Dwayne Johnson with expert efficiency and effortlessly juggles the melodramatic sub-plot of our hero re-connecting with estranged wife Carla Gugino and rescuing his daughter Alexandra Daddario from certain doom. Yes, we get to see mega-destruction of property, but frankly, the movie is lacking the kind of super-delightful up-close-and-personal deaths of live humans which, of course, one demands from a disaster movie.

A year earlier than my aforementioned Summer of Movie Love, the huge 1974 summer blockbuster was Mark Robson's magnificent Earthquake which not only had lots of gruesome deaths and on-screen body counts, but also featured a 59-year-old Lorne Greene playing 52-year-old Ava Gardner's father and Charlton Heston playing her 50-year-old husband. This insane casting allowed us plenty of time to do the math twixt the carnage and realize that Lorne Greene was about 7-years-old when his wife gave birth to Ava Gardner.

Herein is my disappointment. Peyton's first two Hollywood efforts were chock-full of personal touches and his unique voice that he established in his legendary short film Evelyn The Cutest Evil Dead Girl and What It's Like Being Alone, his madcap Canadian comedy series (all rendered in stop-motion animation) and set in an orphanage full of FREAKS!!! Yes, FREAKS!!!

So here he's doing a disaster movie and I was definitely expecting carnage and insanity to rival that of Earthquake since Peyton is a clear lover of all the right retro stuff. But no, nothing of the sort. Just "The Rock" stalwartly rescuing his goddamn daughter.

Where, pray tell, was the equivalent to the delectably offensive running gag of an alcoholic played by Walter Matthau, giddily surviving the disaster whilst belting back booze as everything crumbled around him? Why, do we see "The Rock" using his steely resolve and expert training to rescue people? Couldn't Peyton have found it in his heart to include a moment a la Earthquake where Lorne Greene ties a hysterical woman to a chair, then lowers her to safety with - I kid you not - PANTYHOSE!!!??? And horror of all horrors - was it not possible to create a role for the legendary George Kennedy (who not only starred in Earthquake, but has the distinction of having starred in all four Airport movies)? Hell, even though Kennedy's 90-years-old and might not have been up to a major role in San Andreas, surely there was an obvious choice here. Given the ridiculously huge amount of CGI in San Andreas, was it not possible to render s digital version of George Kennedy to be "The Rock's" cigar-chomping sidekick?

Ah, the disappointment. The shame. Peyton was the one director with the genuine potential to drag us through the 70s muck of blockbusters from 40-years-ago and instead we get a safe, efficient disaster movie instead.

Whatever is this world coming to?

THE FILM CORNER RATING **½ Two-and-a-half Stars

Full disclosure: Brad Peyton was a student of mine at the Canadian Film Centre. Not long after he was snatched up by Hollywood in 2009, Peyton revealed the following in the National Post:

"[Peyton] credits director in residence John Paizs and producer in residence Greg Klymkiw with being particularly helpful. "I went in with a very distinct idea of what I wanted to do," he says, "and they were supportive of my creative risks. I was handed the strange stuff because I was considered the weirdo in residence."

He laughs, "I was doing Coen brothers homages to Gone With the Wind on a $500 budget in a small room . . . they embraced what I wanted to do and supported me wholly as a creative person." Peyton further paid homage to his old mentor by creating a character for his TV series called "Greg Klymkiw" (an actual stop-motion doll resembling me in every detail, although representing my circus freak days when I was 300 lbs. heavier than I currently am) who shows up as an expert on all things cinema-related to render advice during a filmmaking competition within the orphanage of freaks.

Ah, surely you understand my pain.

Especially the George Kennedy thing.

All three films are in mega-wide-release worldwide. Ant-Man enjoys its premiere as an Opening Night Gala at the 2015 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in Montreal. For Times, Tix and Dates Visit the festival website HERE.

JUGGERNAUT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Gritty 70s Disaster Film, Richard Lester - style!!!

Juggernaut (1974)
Dir. Richard Lester
Starring: Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, David Hemmings,
Anthony Hopkins, Shirley Knight, Ian Holm, Clifton James, Roy Kinnear,
Freddie Jones, Roshan Seth, Caroline Mortimer, Simon MacCorkindale, Cyril Cusack

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Director Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night) could always be counted upon to sweep away every vile, matted clump of dust bunnies amassing and fouling all the nooks and crannies of pretty much any traditional approach to cinematic storytelling. What he does for the moronic disaster film genre of the 70s in Juggernaut, is nothing short of a miracle. With the force of an entire army of Hoovers, he sucks every vile particle of cliche, leaving only the barest bones of necessary structure to build something altogether fresh, funny and exciting.

With the full support of executive producer David Picker, Lester took writer-producer Richard Alan Simmons' screenplay (inspired by the real-life hijacking of the QE II luxury liner) and polished it within an inch of its life with a brilliant uncredited rewrite with his old pal and favourite script doctor, the legendary British playwright and television writer Alan Plater. (Simmons was so upset, he took his name off the film and chose the onscreen monicker Richard DeKoker, itself a cleverly sarcastic play on the word used to define a standardized shipping container which could handily transport its contents from one conveyor of carriage to another.)

Thick skin, however, is a prerequisite for moviemaking and Simmons/DeKoker can be grateful to Lester for initiating the superb on-the-page rethink of the material. Deftly and efficiently dealing with a huge cast of characters against the backdrop of a major disaster on the high seas allowed Lester as a director to fashion one corker of a pulse-pounding thriller.

The "juggernaut" of the title refers to a couple of key elements. First and foremost is the obvious use of the word to describe the massive cruise ship SS Britannic which is ably commandeered by dashing Captain Omar Sharif (Dr. Zhivago) as it plunges through the dangerous waters of the Atlantic. Secondly, though, the word has been nicely co-opted by the Irish-lilted voice belonging to a mad bomber psycho (the great character actor Freddie Jones, whom many will recall as the vicious sleaze bag in David Lynch's The Elephant Man). Juggernaut has nefariously outfitted the full ship of innocent passengers with several metal drums, all containing timed explosives which have been booby-trapped to explode if tinkered with.

The ship's chief executive officer (Ian Holm) is keen to pay the ransom, but the Government of Dear Old Blighty will have none of it as they refuse to negotiate with common miscreants engaged in criminal/terrorist behaviour. It's up to the head man at Scotland Yard (Anthony Hopkins) to race against time to track down Juggernaut on land and the British Navy's top explosive experts (Richard Harris and David Hemmings) and their formidable team to be dropped into the icy, turbulent waters to board ship and defuse the bombs.

Though the movie pays a bit of lip service to the Grand Hotel-style melodrama of disaster movie trappings (Shirley Knight can't seem to get a commitment from her lover and Anthony Hopkins' annoying wife and children are on board the ship), Lester focuses on the nail-biting mechanics of the bomb squad and Scotland Yard. Adding gloriously to the mix is the character of the ship's entertainment coordinator (played by Lester's good luck charm, the good humoured, roly poly Roy Kinnear) who insanely keeps arranging dances and bingo tournaments, etc. for the ship's passengers who become well aware of the dire circumstances when one of the bombs is ignited as a show of force.

The film includes a perfect thematic subtext involving the shoddy treatment of Britain's war veterans and how this narratively dovetails into an intelligently-wrought bit of cat and mouse twixt the mad bomber and the bomb expert who share a very close connection.

Juggernaut is a magnificent suspense thriller which suppresses its disaster film roots and always keeps us gnawing at our fingernails until we begin ripping away at the cuticles and fleshy bits, all this tempered by some delectable dollops of gallows humour. Amazingly, there's nothing in the film on any level of both art and craft which feels dated and frankly, one could imagine it opening theatrically today as a brand new film and playing quite perfectly (especially given contemporary political and social strife).

Then again, that's Richard Lester - always ahead of the curve and his time.

God bless, Richard Lester. God bless him, everyone!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Juggernaut is available on a nicely transferred Blu-Ray disc via Kino-Lorber. Alas, it is bereft of any extras which, given the film's importance within Lester's canon, could have at least used a solid essay booklet or even commentary track. For now, though, the film's so terrific, it alone will more than suffice.

LEFT BEHIND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Best Comedy of 2014 save for nutty Christian fundamentalists

Here's some dialogue that might have improved the
already-loathsome, though often hilarious dialogue
in this dreadful God Squad disaster debacle.

Left Behind (2014)
Dir. Vic Armstrong
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Nicky Whelan, Cassi Thomson, Lea Thompson, Jordin Sparks, Michael Klebba, Alec Rayne, Quinton Aaron

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are movies more dreadful than Left Behind, but few as funny. It's a slightly bigger budgeted reboot of an early 90s version starring Kirk Cameron which, I've not seen but is perhaps even funnier than this one, but until I partake of that, this will do nicely. What we're dealing with is a cellar-dweller disaster movie with an inept screenplay, oh-so blessed with an irredeemably Christian fundamentalist slant.

A somnambulist airline pilot (Nicholas Cage) contemplates an adulterous tryst with a hot stewardess (Nicky Whelan) because his loopy wife (Lea Thompson) has found Jesus H. Christ. Cage's hot daughter (Cassi Thomson) isn't too crazy about Mom's new marriage to the Son o' God, either, but she's still cheesed at Dad for never being at home and ogling a young lady who's young enough to be his daughter and, uh, bears a not-too-dissimilar look to her (blond, perky, sexy and well-proportioned for humping).

It seems Daughter Dearest is wet for a hunky journalist (Chad Michael Murray) who'll be flying in first class aboard Daddy's plane, but not before the two potential sack-mates engage in an interminable conversation within an airport cafe (which is supposed to be LaGuardia in Queens, but looks suspiciously like no airport in New York State). Once the plane heads across the pond to Blighty, Cage's daughter goes to their suburban family home, looking suspiciously like a neighbourhood nowhere near the isle of Manhattan.

As Mom prays to Jesus, Darling Daughter grabs her little brother and heads to the mall, looking like no mall from the neck o' the woods in which the movie is supposedly set. Soon, the fake airplane Cage flies is sailing through the skies and we cross-cut twixt this locale and the mall. And wouldn't you know it, but on the plane and at the mall - at the same time, no less - every single child and quite a few adults completely vanish into thin air, leaving behind piles of their previously-adorned (though freshly-cleaned-and-pressed) clothing. Seems like something sinister is afoot.

God only knows what.

Speaking of God, He, as in God, the Father, that is, appears to be the Holy Culprit behind this mystery. The fake airplane encounters major troubles and the leafy, suburban paradise in New York is hit with all manner of Hellish activity and hysteria. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that, Our Lord has snatched up all the Believers to keep them safe in Heaven, while all the non-Believers suffer disaster and violence within a veritable apocalypse, rendered not-too convincingly on the movie's supposed budget, most of which has clearly been spent on Nicholas Cage's salary. Given that Cage expresses only two emotions (I'll not spoil them for you), one suspects the producers might have been financially cold-cocked by his agents.

In addition to one hilariously unintentional line of dialogue after another, the movie delivers a midget who is a racist and a devout Muslim who is NOT saved by God because, he is, well, a Muslim.

And this, believers and non-believers alike, is how this awful(ly) funny movie rolls. Christians, especially of the fundamentalist variety, are not too bright to begin with, but any of them who swallow this bilge water are no doubt completely and utterly bereft of brain.

The rest of us, though, can have ourselves a good, old, knee-slapping frolic through The Rapture.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

Left Behind is in wide theatrical release via eOne.

AFTERSHOCK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Blood-soaked Eli Roth-produced disaster thriller hits Blu-Ray via VVS

An American vacationing in Chile (Eli "The Bear Jew" Roth from Inglourious Basterds) and his two local pals hook up with some babes for a taste of the exotic sights and sounds of various tourist traps as well as the delights of inebriation, dancing and meeting a clutch of hot chicks. Danger rears its ugly head when our 30-something revellers become trapped in an underground nightclub during a massive earthquake. With several deadly aftershocks and constant tsunami warnings, they escape onto the surface, but with the potential for further natural disaster, they look for higher ground. Their goal, of course, involves making it through the perils of societal collapse, crazed looters and escaped convicts looking for babes to rape. With globs of proverbial shit hitting the fan, mankind proves to be the most deadly adversary of all.

A BABE IN PERIL!!!

Aftershock (2012) **1/2
Dir. Nicolás López
Starring: Eli Roth, Andrea Osvart, Ariel Levy, Nicolas Martinez, Lorenza Izzo, Natasha Yarovenko

Review By Greg Klymkiw

From their 70s heyday and up to the contemporary Roland Emmerich laugh-fests, disaster movies have been a staple of big screen entertainment at various points throughout film history. They are most definitely not without their pleasures. Lots of stars, big money and state of the art special effects pull out all the stops to allow us the visceral edification of safely, passively and vicariously participating in the mega-destruction of our fellow man. I have no real problem with this. Who, after all, doesn't enjoy watching people suffer and/or die?

THE SAME BABE IN PERIL!!!
I CAN LIVE WITH THAT.

Well, inexplicable as this might be to some, a good many don't. However, within the categorical context of the bonafide disaster genre (including the likes of Airport, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno), as opposed to genuinely harrowing dramas detailing the effects and/or after-effects of natural and/or man-made disasters such as A Night To Remember or Fearless - many, under the right circumstances do indeed drool over the prospect of watching (mostly) innocent people bite the bullet. God knows, even James Cameron's Titanic (wishing to be in the latter and loftier aforementioned category as opposed to the former) has us all rooting for the iceberg - impatiently waiting for mass death and, in particular, the death of Leo DiCaprio - his demise meaning we can listen to Celine Dion sing "My Heart Will Go On".

A BABE IN PERIL - Is she, perchance, the SAME
BABE IN PERIL? It sure seems that way!

The textbook approach to natural disaster in the former catefory forces us to get to know a whack of dull, stereotypical characters all played by stars and almost always unrelated to each other save for the fact that many of them will die. Aftershock, however, happily focuses on a small group of protagonists who we stick with like flies to shit. This is a blessing, but also a curse since all of the characters, save for one, are pretty dull, stupid and/or reprehensible. Like the cliches of the aforementioned, here we wait with baited breath to see how each one of these losers will die. Eli Roth, the director of such torture porn hits as Hostel, is not only the male lead, but the producer and co-screenwriter os the film. It's a pretty good idea for a disaster thriller. There's something creepily plausible about a stranger in a strange land facing a major natural disaster that then becomes even more terrifying when a nearby prison is shaken to its foundations by an earthquake and releases huge swaths of bloodthirsty hardened criminals amidst the societal breakdown already occurring.

Babe in Peril
Helps 2 Dumb Guys

Unfortunately, Roth does himself a disservice by penning a character with few reasons for us to care and his performance in infused with a smugness that keeps us even more distant from him. Though the movie clumsily attempts to infuse his character with humanity by continually bringing up his little girl, it just renders him even more a knob since we're wondering why he's needed to come so far to score some poon-tang after his wife's left him. His Chilean buddies are also no prizes and the female characters are little more than bubbleheads on the prowl for drinks, drugs and dick. Luckily, the script gives us a very tough and appealing character in the form of a single Mom who has all the instincts of a den mother and lots of smarts. That the actress who plays her is the supremely talented Andrea Osvart, a mega-babe the camera loves to death, is the film's primary cherry atop the ice cream sundae.

Of course, there's something vaguely offensive about this babe with maternal instincts and no real need to get dinked like the other damsels in distress that places her in the stereotypical position of all those 70s slasher movies where the "virgin" survives being carved up by the psychopath killers. Here, since she requires no schwance up her quim and no dope down her gullet is a sure sign she doesn't need to be raped and will be spared this indignity. In spite of this, she IS a damn fine heroine and Osvart more than once makes us wonder why she's not a bigger star than she is.

Director Nicolás López is to be commended, however, for keeping the latter half of the film moving in a classical tradition and his handling of the action and suspense here is first rate and Antonio Quercia's cinematography is lively, colourful and sans the horrendous herky-jerky so many action movies are afflicted with. It's too bad the screenplay by Guillermo Amoedo, López and Roth is so aimless and moronic during the film's first half and can't seem to get out of the these-sinners-will-get-there's mentality. It almost ruins everything else it does right which include taut action direction, a great female lead and some really spectacular visual and makeup effects that almost never make use of CGI.

"Aftershock" is available on Blu-Ray from VVS Films. It's a great transfer and it does have a few extras - though frankly the two making-of pieces feel like glorified EPKs and the commentary track with Roth and López is meandering and rather inconsequential.