THE FILM CORNER'S 4TH ANNUAL TOP 10 HEROES OF CANADIAN FILM as selected by your Most Reverend Greg Klymkiw in this, the year of Our Good Lord, 2014 (in alphabetical order, of course)

THE TOP 10 HEROES OF CANADIAN CINEMA 2014

as selected by the Film Corner's Most Reverend Greg Klymkiw
(in alphabetical order, of course)

Amberlight PR: Commandeered by the inimitable Chris Alicock (music marketing guru, producer and overall legendary launcher o' great Canadian talent) and buttressed by the formidable PR powerhouses Leah Visser (the tireless, committed doyenne of film and home entertainment PR) and Kristen Ferkranus (the sharp, youthful face and voice of numerous film PR initiatives), Amberlight has been on the front lines of promoting a wide variety of superb Canadian films distributed by their equally heroic client Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada. Such cutting edge indie Canuck genre masterworks by the likes of Foresight Features, the Twisted (Soska) Twins and, among many others, Steven Kostanski, have been in excellent hands with this crack team of classy flacks. The team is rounded by Jason Acton in graphics/IT and Vanessa Neschevich in social media. (And gee whiz, Amberlight also reps their fair share of super-cool non-Canuck items for Canadian audiences).

Audrey Cummings: Along with the Soska Twins, Karen Lam and Jovanka Vuckovic, Canada can now add yet another astonishing female filmmaker dedicated to generating Canadian Cinema designed to scare the living crap out of audiences. Cummings has toiled away in short-film hell, creating a variety of suspense and science fiction-themed work in addition to her lovely slice o' life mother-daughter relationship dramedy Burgeon and Fade. Cummings has recently completed her first feature film Berkshire County, a chilling babysitter versus piggly-wiggly-costumed psychopaths with its telling critique of traditional roles expected of young women (especially) in rural areas, the sexual assault, exploitation and bullying of same said young women and super-charged empowerment and vengeance burning with brains and blood-letting. Already a major award winner in genre film festivals, Berkshire County joins a huge swath of intelligent scare-fests made independently from occasionally dour, pole-up-the-ass publicly-funded investment agencies like Telefilm Canada. Berkshire County is being released theatrically via A71 in Canada and sold worldwide via Raven Banner Entertainment.

Avi Federgreen: This youthful powerhouse of art and industry has been a producer on numerous quality Canadian films like As Slow As Possible, One Week, Leslie My Name is Evil, Random Acts of Romance and Empire of Dirt. As the founder and CEO of Federgreen Entertainment and Indiecan Entertainment, his commitment to the creation and distribution of our national cinema has remained fiercely and boldly independent. 2014 saw Federgreen launch an important new production initiative, the INDIECAN10K Film Challenge, a cross-Canada enterprise that will launch several new first feature films which will be personally mentored by Federgreen in addition to respected producer-mentors in every province and/or territory selected for participation. In March 2014, seven productions were selected from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Ontario. Keep your eyes glued to the marquees, Canada. Product is a coming.

Jason Lupish: He's a nice Ukrainian boy in Ontario's wine country hinterlands and he makes movies there. This is cool. With a team of friends/colleagues, his St. Catharines-based production company Open Concept Films has been an awe-inspiring regional force in serving its indigenous community and the country at large. Short films, commercials, promo films and documentaries have been a major stock in trade, but the real triumph for Lupish is the absolutely lovely no-budget award-winning feature film A Kind of Wonderful Thing which is, frankly, a kind of wonderful movie. In fact, it's not just "kind of" wonderful, it's moving, funny and fabulous. Lupish and his collaborators created a film that is indigenous, yet infused with a universal quality of genuinely offbeat Canadian fruit loopiness. And now Lupish and his team are working on a new project that is going to completely blow the lid off. . . well, I'm not allowed to say, but it's gonna knock people on their collective butts.

Bill Marshall: The man is a legend. He founded the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 1976 and was its first director. He's produced some of Canada's finest feature films including the classic Outrageous and among a myriad of achievements in both the film industry and public life, produced over 200 docs, PSAs and other specialty items. 2014 continued to be a banner year for Marshall's support of Canadian film. As Artistic Director of the Niagara Integrated Film Festival's first year, Marshall brought some of the finest international films to Canada's glorious wine country in a lovely amalgamation of the region's cuisine and delectable spirits. One of the festival's outstanding achievements was its commitment to programming Canadian Cinema including the tremendous Niagara-region-produced feature length debut of Jason Lupish's A Kind of Wonderful Thing. Marshall is a senior member of our industry who commands the highest degree of respect, but he maintains a modesty, honesty and sturdy work ethic that's rare in our business. The man never quits. He could rest easy with any fraction of his achievements, but we know he never will.

David Miller: This estimable young man roared onto the motion picture scene with an unmatched fury and in a few short years he's become one of Canada's brightest young producers and a leading entrepreneur in the packaging, promotion and distribution of our indigenous motion picture product. Amal, Blackbird, Berkshire County and It Was You Charlie are just a smattering of important titles Miller's attached to. Not surprisingly, the man has a whack of pictures that are either recently completed or in development. In 2006, he wisely connected with the brilliant branding gurus Chad Maker and Kirk Comrie and he is now President of A71 Productions Inc which aims at the highest heights artistically and backs up its product with high level marketing savvy. Miller and his partners are genuine "friends" to some of the very best filmmaking talent in Canada. Recent properties include Kivalina, Foolish Heart and Sidharth. And lest we forget, Miller was the guy who led the major marketing charge at the National Film Board of Canada with a glorious Oscar campaign which garnered two additional NFB nominations and a win for Ryan. Canada is in very good hands with the likes of David Miller and A71.

Ryan McKenna, Mark Morgenstern, Randall Okita and Matthew Rankin: These four young men are national treasures of Canada's grand tradition of cutting edge cinema. Ryan McKenna's Controversies is one of the most haunting and poetic short documentary films ever made in this country and his first feature film The First Winter is an utter gem which captures, the bleak, sad, elegiac and utterly hilarious qualities of a bitter Winnipeg winter through the eyes of a stranded young Portugese immigrant. (McKenna also directed Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story, a one-hour doc that I understand is not without merit.) Mark Morgenstern is not only a phenomenal cinematographer, but as the director of Curtains (co-directed with sister Stephanie), Shooter and the jaw-droppingly gorgeous, moving and thematically rich Avec Le Temps, he's one of Canada's leading practitioners of alternative drama and the avant-garde. Randall Okita is one of Canada's greatest young visual artists and his films blend a variety of approaches and media to the art of storytelling including machine with wishbone, the knock-you-on-your-ass portrait as a random act of violence and 2014's highly acclaimed multi-award-winning the weatherman and the shadowboxer. Matthew Rankin is one of the leading heirs to the tradition of Winnipeg's unique wave of Prairie Post-Modernism led by John Paizs and Guy Maddin. His rich cinematic output is perhaps one of the most important historical, cultural and artistic reflections upon the unique midwestern big old small-town, Winnipeg. His works include Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets (co-directed with his equally brilliant and demented 'Pegger colleagues Walter Forsberg and Mike Maryniuk), HYDRO-LÉVESQUE, Negativipeg and among far too many (yet never enough works of inspired madness), 2014's Mynarski Death Plummet (one of the best short films of the year and one of the best short films made anywhere - EVER!).

John Paizs: Cinema in Canada, in terms of a highly lauded international reputation for its sheer demented genius, does not exist, nor would it exist, if not for one of our truly greatest auteurs, John Paizs. His groundbreaking short films The Obsession of Billy Botski and Springtime in Greenland, his hilarious madcap satire of 50s science fiction The Top of the Food Chain (aka Invasion!) and the legendary and quite perfect Crime Wave, an ode to garish 50s crime pictures, NFB documentaries and corporate training films of the 60s all betray a huge body of stupefyingly extraordinary work that define English-Canadian cinema at its very best. Guy Maddin and Astron-6, both of Winnipeg, owe everything to Paizs and frankly, so does the entire new wave of independent cinema in Canada during its Golden Age of the late 80s to mid-90s. Everyone and anyone of any consequence whatsoever has been a follower in Paizs's mighty footprints of ingenuity, originality and just plain anarchic brilliance. Crime Wave was recently the recipient of a gorgeous 2K restoration thanks to TIFF's Steve Gravestock and filmmaker Jonathan Ball authored an exhaustive U of T Press book which details both its production as well as providing a punchy, intelligent, but easily digestible egghead critical analysis. Appallingly, Crime Wave is legendary for being one of the world's most beloved cult films to have been squashed and squandered by Canada's pathetic tradition of lame-ass distribution of our indigenous cinematic culture. Crime Wave has been locked in an egregious 40-year-long distribution agreement which has been passed on from one miserable company to another and now sits idly in the vaults (or rather, upon a dusty shelf) of E-1 Entertainment's bottomless pit of superb product that virtually nothing has been done with. (They're so impressively huge that they're out-Miramaxing Miramax in its heyday.) With the recent TIFF 2K restoration, Crime Wave is primed for a major campaign to address the wrongs perpetrated against it. The movie begs for a major DVD/Blu-Ray Special Limited Edition in addition to a decent theatrical platform release. E-1's pockets are deep and a mere coin toss would restore and maintain the film's rightful place amongst our country's most legendary masterworks.

Raven Banner Entertainment: Led by the impressive team of Michael Pazst, Andrew T. Hunt and James Fler with a crack crew of valued associates, Raven Banner has become one of Canada's most vibrant and influential companies worldwide. Devoted to the international and domestic sales of razor-sharp genre and art cinema, it has quickly secured fame and respect for breaking new ground in a wide variety of media within the world of independent cinema. The enduring passion of its team is virtually unparalleled and in terms of Canadian Cinema, they (along with Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada) have been the go-to guys for quality genre product in this country. Impeccable taste, sales savvy and a seemingly indefatigable work ethic, Raven Banner puts most Canadian sales entities to complete and utter shame. The overwhelming list of brilliant, talented Canadian filmmakers represented by the company is steadily mounting and it's gotten to a point where virtually no quality, kick-ass genre picture created domestically (or, for that matter, internationally) doesn't have a Raven Banner finger in the exalted pie of blood gushing, mind-fucking, nerve shredding suspense, horror and action. Founders and creators of the Canada-Wide theatrical initiative Sinister Cinema, the company continues to mine potential audiences for our delectably twisted national cinema.

VSC (Video Services Corp.): Jonathan Gross is a former rock critic, television script writer and producer who has turned his unique skills and passion to the promotion and distribution of first-rate product via his company VSC. Gross is a visionary who has long-supported a wide variety of quality motion picture product in the Canadian home and theatrical marketplace. His commitment to Canadian film and television is astonishing with a huge number of Canuck TV series, sports documentaries about our greatest athletes and original dramatic product. He's recently brought a huge number of great new internationally acclaimed independent films to Canadian audiences including Frank, Alan Partridge and, among many others, Big Bad Wolves. He's brash, bold and brilliant - just like the product he represents and the company he operates.

Klymkiw Reviews 3 short films U can't miss at FNC (Festival international du nouveau cinéma de Montréal) - AVEC LE TEMPS (aka BEFORE I GO), MYNARSKI DEATH PLUMMET, THE WEATHERMAN AND THE SHADOWBOXER

WHITE LIGHT OF SNOW
LIGHT OF NATURAL WORLD
LIGHT OF FLASH FRAME
LIGHT OF FLASH FRAME SHADOW
LIGHT OF SPIRIT

AVEC LE TEMPS
aka Before I Go (2014)
Dir. Mark Morgenstern

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Mark Morgenstern's exquisite new film reminds us of the oft-neglected poetic qualities of cinema. Avec le temps/Before I Go also happens to be a real film. It's "real" in that it was actually shot on real film. Its beauty and importance lies in the evocation of the greatest narrative of all - life, death and the seasonal journey of every beat of our lives. Like a short end, life is like a series of leftover bits, seemingly unused and discarded, yet there to be used and to comprise the whole of our existence. Like a flash frame, life is also adorned with those mistakes of perception that are very real, but are so fleeting that we might only be aware of them in times of either repose, reflection and/or death. Like Tom Berner, life only has meaning when we give selflessly to the passion which drives us and, in turn, drives those who receive the benefit of gifts given by those with no other agenda other than to do what has to be done in order to make life richer.

A "short end" is unexposed motion picture negative that is left over at the end of a film roll when the next take cannot be achieved with the amount of stock actually left on the roll. Over the course of shooting any film, especially a series of shorts or a single feature, there can be enough "short ends" to make a whole new film out of. A "flash frame" occurs when the camera is stopped while the gate is still open, leaving a blank frame of extremely overexposed stock. Even better is when the camera takes a few pubic hairs to get up to speed before cranking and allows a frame or two of "flashes", which are, essentially, blasted out frames which include picture. A "Tom Berner" is a man who made independent film a reality for several generations of artists. On the surface, he was a lab rep at Toronto's Film House and Deluxe, but beneath the layers of flesh, he was the spirit of cinema in Canada during a time when it needed him most. It still needs him, but he retired in 2001 and passed away in 2004.

Those whose lives were touched by his, will hopefully be able to infuse others with their own touches of self-sacrificing devotion to the art of film. If cinema is not consecration, it's nothing.

Avec le temps/Before I Go begins with the image of nature resting under a fluffy blanket of snow. The film moves into an interior where faceless shadows appear furtively amidst objects of both beauty and decay. The film has quite literally been constructed with short ends. With occasional flashes of fleeting frames the movie ultimately leaves us with the words "for Tom Berner" on its final frames before the end title credits.

Throughout Morgenstern's haunting, yet joyous and yes, occasionally and alternately creepy film is the light of day through the windows. The light changes as do the seasons - from darkness into light. Ultimately, we're left with the whiteness we began with. No longer is it the chilly scenes of winter, but the warmth and spirit of life itself, which is, ultimately death - a new stage in the journey of existence. A montage of flash frames and extremely short ends (shots), blow our mind during the film's climax, like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey Stargate sequence, albeit with neo-realist dollops, which lead to and leave us with the dedication to the late Tom Berner, enveloped, of course, by light.

We're reminded of two other key moments in cinema.

1. Clarence, the guardian angel's words to George Bailey in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life:

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives.
When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

2. Most evocatively, Morgenstern's film reminds us of Gabriel's voice-over at the conclusion of John Huston's immortal film adaptation of James Joyce's short story The Dead:

"One by one, we're all becoming shades. Better to pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. . . Think of all those who ever were, back to the start of time. And me, transient as they, flickering out as well into their grey world. Like everything around me, this solid world itself which they reared and lived in, is dwindling and dissolving. Snow is falling. . . Falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living, and the dead."

Avec le temps/Before I Go is 12 minutes long. Morgenstern evokes a lifetime in that 12 minutes. It's proof positive of cinema's gifts and how they must not be squandered, but used to their absolute fullest.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Canada's Great War Hero, Andrew Mynarski VC,
Shooting Star of Selfless Sacrifice, a man of Bronze.

Mynarski Death Plummet (2014)
Dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Alek Rzeszowski, Annie St-Pierre, Robert Vilar, Louis Negin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The true promise, the very future of the great Dominion of Canada and La Belle Province lies beneath the soil of France and Belgium. Between World Wars I and II, Canada lost close to 2% of its population, the vast majority of whom were the country's youngest and brightest from the ages of 16 to 30. Canadian lads bravely served on the front lines, well ahead of the glory-grabbing Americans, the Yankee Doodle mop-up crew that dandily sauntered overseas after all the hard work was paid for by the blood spilled upon European soil by the very heart and soul of Canada's future and that of so many other countries not bearing the Red, White and Blue emblem of puffery. As a matter of fact, any of the best and bravest in Canada came from Winnipeg and if you had to pick only one hero of the Great Wars from anywhere in the country, Andrew Mynarski, a gunner in the famed Moose Squadron, would be the one, the only. He is the subject of Matthew Rankin's perfect gem of a film, the one, the only genuine cinematic work of art to detail the valiant sacrifice, the one, the only, the unforgettable Mynarski Death Plummet.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars
Read the full review HERE

A maze begins in childhood & never ends.

The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer (2014)
Dir. Randall Okita

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of Canada's national filmmaking treasures, Randall Okita (Portrait as a Random Act of Violence), takes the very simple story of two brothers and charts how a tragic event in childhood placed them on very different, yet equally haunted (and haunting) paths.

Fusing live action that ranges from noir-like, shadowy, rain-splattered locales to the strange, colourful (yet antiseptically so) world of busy, high-tech, yet empty reportage, mixing it up with reversal-stock-like home movie footage, binding it altogether in a kind of cinematic mixmaster with eye popping animation and we're offered-up a simple tale that provides a myriad of levels to tantalize, intrigue and finally, catch us totally off-guard and wind us on a staggering emotional level.

Winner of the Toronto International Film Festival's 2014 Grand Prize for Best Canadian Short Film.
THE FILM CORNER RATING:
**** 4-Stars
Read the full review HERE

For further information visit the FNC - Festival international du nouveau cinéma de Montréal website HERE

MYNARSKI DEATH PLUMMET, THE WEATHERMAN AND THE SHADOWBOXER, THE UNDERGROUND: 3 SHORT CANADIAN FILMS at TIFF 2014 (TIFF Short Cuts Canada) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Canada's Great War Hero,
Andrew Mynarski VC,
Shooting Star of
Selfless Sacrifice,
a man of Bronze.

Mynarski Death Plummet aka Mynarski chute mortelle (2014)
Dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Alek Rzeszowski, Annie St-Pierre, Robert Vilar, Louis Negin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The true promise, the very future of the great Dominion of Canada and La Belle Province lies beneath the soil of France and Belgium. Between World Wars I and II, Canada lost close to 2% of its population, the vast majority of whom were the country's youngest and brightest from the ages of 16 to 30. Canadian lads bravely served on the front lines, well ahead of the glory-grabbing Americans, the Yankee Doodle mop-up crew that dandily sauntered overseas after all the hard work was paid for by the blood spilled upon European soil by the very heart and soul of Canada's future and that of so many other countries not bearing the Red, White and Blue emblem of puffery. As a matter of fact, any of the best and bravest in Canada came from Winnipeg and if you had to pick only one hero of the Great Wars from anywhere in the country, Andrew Mynarski, a gunner in the famed Moose Squadron, would be the one, the only. He is the subject of Matthew Rankin's perfect gem of a film, the one, the only genuine cinematic work of art to detail the valiant sacrifice, the one, the only, the unforgettable Mynarski Death Plummet.

Played dashingly in Rankin's film by a real, live, honest-to-goodness, in-the-flesh, Goralska-Sausage-Slurping Polish-Canadian actor, Alek Rzeszowski, Mynarski himself was a fearless Polish-Canadian kid born and raised in the the North End, the only neighbourhood in Winnipeg (alongside St. Boniface, 'natch) that bears any real historical significance in Canada's keystone to the west, the former "Little Chicago" perched majestically on the forks of the mighty Red and Assiniboine Rivers. In 1944, Mynarski flew an Avro Lancaster bomber into the heavy action of northern France. After taking out his fair share of Nazi Pigs, the plane was aflame. He ordered the other lads aboard to drop the Polski Ogórki from his Mom, grab their chutes and bail. They did so with pride in a job well done.

Mynarski was last to leave. Or so he thought until he realized that Officer Pat Brophy (Robert Vilar) was trapped in the tail gun compartment. Our North End Hero did everything possible to save his friend until Brophy demanded Mynarski save himself. The lads exchanged salutes and the Polish Prince of King Edward and Isaac Newton schools, his chute now sadly in flames, took a fateful plunge from the plummeting Avro. His fire-engulfed body shot itself over the fields of France, mistaken as a bomb by some, including a rural mayor (Louis Negin, Canada's greatest actor - like, ever), but was correctly identified by a ravishing, babe-o-licious, though simple country girl of France as 100% REAL MAN, his body melted to bronze as the woman shot beams of love and gratitude from her heart into the spirit of the eventual posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross and honoured by Winnipeg's citizenry with a legendary North End Junior High School in his name.

This is such a great film. I could have watched all seven minutes of it if they'd somehow been elongated to a Dreyer-like pace and spread out over 90 minutes. That said, it's perfect as it is. The fact that you don't want it to end is a testament to director Matthew Rankin one of the young torchbearers (along with Astron-6) of the prairie post-modernist movement which hatched out of Winnipeg via the brilliantly demented minds of John Paizs and Guy Maddin. Blending gorgeously arcane techniques from old Hollywood, ancient government propaganda films with dollops of staggeringly, heart-achingly beautiful animation - bursting with colour and blended with superbly art-directed and costumed live action - Mynarski Death Plummet takes its rightful place alongside such classic Canadian short films as John Martins-Manteiga's The Mario Lanza Story, John Paizs's Springtime in Greenland, Guy Maddin's The Dead Father and Deco Dawson's Ne Crâne pas sois modeste / Keep a Modest Head.

In many ways, Rankin's film is history in the making of history. Most Canadians of my generation know Andrew Mynarski's story by heart, but even still, Rankin's film is so compelling, I kept hoping it wouldn't end as tragically as it did. Thankfully, Rankin infuses his tale with the sumptuous, wildly romantic image of the French babe looking longingly into the night sky and her magical explosion of squid-like polyps from within her big heart, allowing them to sail into the black Gallic atmosphere and plunge into Mynarski's very soul before he transforms into the likeness of the bronze memorial statue erected in Ottawa, the capital of our fair Dominion.

The other part of the story that all Canadians of my generation know is that Officer Brophy actually survived the crash. He was not only able to recount Mynarski's bravery and sacrifice, but he was kept alive by the strength and just-plain brick shithouse qualities of the Canadian-invented-and-manufactured Avro Bomber - an incredibly moving moment Rankin recreates in his film. (And sadly, the AVRO corp and its eventual superior aircraft, including "The Arrow", were decimated by the Americans into smithereens when Uncle Sam couldn't hack the fact that Canada had actually created something, uh, better than they could.)

A final important thought about Rankin's astonishing film. There is so much ludicrous, politically correct lip service paid to the new "face" of Canada and the need to represent the histories and stories of the said "new face". I'm all for that, but the problem is that Canadian Cinema has not even properly addressed its own history prior to the "new face of Canada". Until that happens, I think it might not be a bad idea to begin recounting and mythologizing Canada's true heroes as Rankin has done with Mynarski Death Plummet.

I hope this film is shown everywhere - especially in schools, especially to our "new" faces. It's bad enough Canadian History is so poorly taught in our schools, but maybe, just maybe, a super-cool new masterpiece of cinema is a good first-step to begin writing wrongs that the past century has wrought upon our great Dominion. When I say our future was decimated in the World Wars, I'm not exaggerating, but there's more to it than that. Our country has long been besieged by a cultural colonialism that has stifled genuine creativity and placed far too much emphasis on staid approaches to the cultural industries decided mostly by unimaginative bureaucrats who seek either the Status Quo of dull-edged blades or worse, hang pathetically onto their jobs by promoting "diversity" rather than genuinely looking to find ways of dramatically and artistically render a history and stories that have sadly been neglected.

Mynarski Death Plummet is a mere seven minutes long, but its impact and lasting value can be multiplied to the power of the infinite - a fine equation, if you ask me.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Mynarski Death Plummet is part of TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.

A maze that begins
in childhood
and never ends.

The Weatherman
and the Shadowboxer (2014)
Dir. Randall Okita

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of Canada's national filmmaking treasures, Randall Okita (Portrait as a Random Act of Violence), takes the very simple story of two brothers and charts how a tragic event in childhood placed them on very different, yet equally haunted (and haunting) paths.

Mixing live action that ranges from noir-like, shadowy, rain-splattered locales to the strange, colourful (yet antiseptically so) world of busy, high-tech, yet empty reportage, mixing it up with reversal-stock-like home movie footage, blending it altogether in a kind of cinematic mixmaster with eye popping animation and we're offered-up a simple tale that provides a myriad of levels to tantalize, intrigue and finally, catch us totally off-guard and wind us on a staggering emotional level.

Okita's cinematographer Samy Inayeh is more than up to the challenge of attacking a variety of visual styles with superb compositions and gorgeous lighting. Editor Mike Reisacher knocks us on our proverbial love-buns with his thrilling slicing and dicing.

As per Okita's mise-en-scene, Reisacher's challenge is to maintain the film's avant-garde nature with its equally profound narrative and thematic elements. He's more than up to the challenge and cuts a picture that we're unable to ever look away from and follow a trajectory that wends its way like a complex maze between two different characters and lands us to a spot that kicks us in the solar plexus and wrenches our hearts.

Unbelievably for some, this was produced by the National Film Board of Canada, but it appears to have been seeded and birthed out of the Montreal offices which still manages to consistently escape the often dour safety-zone prevalent in much of the Board's English Canadian output.

As for Okita, he's delivered yet another roundhouse for the ages. This is what cinema should be. Screw ephemeral needs. Immortality is, uh, like, better, eh.

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

The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer is in TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.

We're all cockroaches.
Don't forget it.

The Underground (2014)
Dir. Michelle Latimer
Starring: Omar Hady

Review By Greg Klymkiw

What's especially fine in this slice-of-life/slice-of-consciousness dramatic cinematic tone poem is how it presents a contemporary political and social reality that's seemingly the exclusive domain of a very specific segment of our population. Through its careful mise-en-scene, that comes close to overplaying its metaphorical hand, but pulls back in time to maintain the necessary poker face (as it were), The Underground deftly creates feelings that can, indeed, be universal.

Inspired by Rawi Hage's novel "Cockroach", the film feels all of a piece rather than some horrendous calling card for an eventual feature length adaptation. If, God forbid, it's supposed to serve this purpose, it would be a tad disappointing to know, but at least it has a singular integrity that allows it to work as a piece of film art unto itself. Cleverly rooted in simplicity to yield complexity, we follow a young refugee from some Middle Eastern hell hole as he lives out his lonely life in Canada within the isolation of a filthy, cockroach-infested slum apartment.

Part of the reason for the cockroaches could be his fascination with these seemingly vile creatures and his penchant for capturing them and setting up strange domiciles in glass jars. He spends much of his time on the floor of his filthy suite intently examining his "pets", but also experiencing flashbacks to the horror of what must have been his incarceration and torture. When a notice is slipped under his door to prepare for a visit from a pest control company, the film truly takes on the feeling of a living nightmare.

We become immersed in paranoia through a cockroach-eye-view and indeed, the images of hooded pest-control guys take on the same kind of creepy horror so prevalent in David Cronenberg's very early genre features that featured similarly-masked and/or accoutred killers/exterminators. There's a truly sickening and recognizable sense of fear, paranoia and loneliness so acute one wants the protagonist to scream. He won't, though. His is a silent scream.

And though we might all not be or can even fully comprehend what it's like to be a political refugee in a strange land, the film does make us feel and believe that at some point in our lives, if not for always and for ever, we are all little more than cockroaches in a world hell-bent upon weighing us down. We cower, hugging our floors as if we were a fetus in a blood-lined belly of viscous fluids and we wait for the secret police to drag us out of our home, or our cell, to be ripped from the safety of a womb we've made for ourselves.

And then, and only then, are we plunged into sheer horror.

The Film Corner Rating: ***½ Three-and-a-half Stars

The Underground is in TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.

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A similar scene to the one experienced by Jim Jarmusch and others in New York during the 70s and 80s and captured in the documentary BLANK CITY as well as many other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" series was happening in Winnipeg. A very cool explosion in indie underground cinema that I and many colleagues and friends were involved with was spawned during these halcyon days. This period, coined by film critic Geoff Pevere as Prairie Post-Modernism included the works of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Greg Hanec and many others.

A great selection of early Guy Maddin, many of which that I produced and were written by George Toles, can be secured directly through the following links:



Another great film from Winnipeg during this period is Greg Hanec's extraordinary DOWNTIME which has the distinction of being a parallel cinematic universe to Jim Jarmusch's "STRANGER THAN PARADISE". Both films were made at the same time in two completely different cities and scenes and both Hanec and Jarmusch premiered their films at the same time at the Berlin Film Festival. One's famous, the other isn't - but now that the "lost" and "found" DOWNTIME has been remastered from original elements to DVD, it can now be purchased directly online.

Order DOWNTIME directly
from the film's new website
by clicking HERE

Perhaps the greatest Canadian independent underground filmmaker of all-time is Winnipeg's John Paizs. It's virtually impossible to secure copies of his astounding work which, frankly, is responsible for influencing the work of Guy Maddin, David Lynch, Bruce McDonald and an endless number of great indie filmmakers the world over. Paizs' great short film SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND is available for purchase in a beautiful remastered edition from a fan website, the inimitable Frank Norman. Norman has Paizs' blessing to provide copies of the film, so feel free to directly make your request to Mr. Norman by clicking HERE.

Visit Frank Norman's CRIME WAVE
fan site by clicking HERE

Alas, it's super-impossible to get a copy of Paizs' masterpiece CRIME WAVE (not to be confused with the super-awful Coen Bros/Sam Raimi film of the same name that was released the same year Paizs' film was NOT released properly by its scumbag Canadian distributor Norstar Releasing, which eventually became Alliance Films (where the boneheads sat on the film and turned down several excellent offers from small indie companies to release the film properly on DVD in super-deluxe special editions because they lazily purported to be negotiating a massive package deal on its catalogue titles with some tiny scumbag public domain company that, as far as I can tell, has neither purchased nor released the film). This truly great and highly influential film is, no doubt, languishing in some boneheaded distribution purgatory within the deep anal cavities of the new owner of Alliance Films, a humungous mega-corporation called E-One. Feel free to repeatedly bug their stinking asses and demand a proper release. In the meantime, VHS copies of CRIME WAVE can still be found with the ludicrous title THE BIG CRIME WAVE. Here's a copy available on Amazon:

BLANK CITY and other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" Series can be accessed here:

SNAPSHOTS The Epic Story of My Life. Appendix C - Review By Greg Klymkiw - a new short film classic by one of Canada's best filmmakers unveils @ CanadianFilmFest2014 in glorious Royal Cinema of Toronto's Little Italy.

SNAPSHOTS The Epic Story of My Life. Appendix C (2013) Dir. Brian Stockton *****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In 1982, Regina-born-and-bred filmmaker (of the National Treasure variety), got his first camera and it became his primary eye to capture, in still frame, the world around him. For 25 years this camera took hundreds of photographs until it was laid to rest in 2007. Most of the pictures were looked at only once before being filed away in a box.

Growing up in a prairie town
Learning to drive in the snow - Randy Bachmann, Prairie Town

In 1984, Stockton found himself driving very safely at the modest speed of 100 kilometres per hour during a standard 780 kilometre sojourn from Regina, Saskatchewan to Edmonton, Alberta. On a lonely single lane highway at night he did, like so many of us did, fearlessly and confidently continue forward through a massive snowstorm - at night, 'natch. The less-than-zero visibility was enough for any skilled prairie boy to ascertain that huge drifts were forming on the sides of the road, so he made sure not to go any faster, even though the chances of hitting an R.C.M.P. speed trap was unlikely in such weather since the scarlet lawmen would be sitting in donut shops with their radios off as they'd be in no mood to attend any violent, booze-fuelled domestic disputes which might force them to brave windchill temperatures where exposed flesh would freeze in under thirty seconds.

Alas, even for a prairie boy, there's little one can do when a huge drift appears suddenly, a veritable wall of snow from one end of the highway to another. You don't slam on your brakes. That would be suicide. You drive through the motherfucker and pray as your life flashes before your eyes.

Now, as a prairie boy myself, I can assure you that fishtailing in the middle of the night is a whole lot of fun, especially when accompanied by jars of open liquor, but only in empty mall parking lots or the frozen Red River near the asylum in Selkirk, Manitoba - you know the one, the loony bin that still has a huge water tower from which several inmates each year take deadly dives from. But no, you really don't want to go into a fishtail on a prairie highway at 100 kilometres an hour on a lonely prairie highway during a snowstorm in the middle of the fucking night. And make no mistake, young Mr. Stockton was sober and an event of this kind spells the sort of split-second calamity that can take your life.

Luckily, on the prairies, ditches are designed properly, unlike most places in Canada - especially the idiot province of Ontario. On the prairies, whilst fishtailing on almost any icy highway at night, at 100 KMH, in a storm, after you've ploughed through a massive fucking drift spanning the entire road, sitting there like some misplaced coastal breakwater, chances are good - if you don't flip - that you'll happily skid into a gentle pocket of fluffy snow filling the aforementioned properly designed ditch. (On the prairies, where drinking and driving is illegal, but socially acceptable, a party host will always fill you up with a beaker of booze just as you're leaving and offer you the neighbourly salutation, "Here you go, bud. Have one more for the ditch.")

Well, to make a long story short, one which is already much shorter as related within Mr. Stockton's, uh, short film, the filmmaker's car did indeed gently whoosh into the comfy blanket of snow in the prairie ditch where he could sit safely with candles from his survival pack, nibbling on tasty semi-sweet chocolate (from said survival pack) and keeping himself all toasty whilst tuning in some crackling radio station and listening to scratchy music for old invalids drifting over the air waves and then, wait patiently for an R.C.M.P. car to eventually come by so the officers, not leaving the comfort of their vehicle, as they clutch their warm travel mugs of Tim Horton's coffee, bravely call dispatch for a tow truck to come and pull you out so you can continue your journey.

Yes, this is one of two stories Stockton relates in his moving, funny, haunting and important short film. Both stories entail near brushes with death - the kind that cause images of your life to flash before your eyes. As Stockton relates the tales in a delightful deadpan, the aforementioned 25-years worth of photographs from that box, so long-ago shelved and only recently opened, flash profoundly before our eyes.

The first story had particular resonance for me. In the halcyon days of my youth, I ploughed through many a prairie winter storm in my car and gently drifted - usually after hitting an icy patch or snowdrift in around the Trans-Canada Highway near the Elie-Portage La Prairie Township Line and/or up-a-ways in the fine Rural Municipality of Gimli, Manitoba - cascading with the telltale whoosh-whoosh as my car nestled into one of our beautifully designed rural ditches.

The flashing images Stockton assembles from that seldom-touched box of photos also have resonance. I am a prairie boy, too, you see. They're pictures of Stockton, his friends and family over a 25-year period - on the prairies and beyond. There are few shots that don't resemble those sitting forlornly in my own boxes. It's a piece of time, place and history that Stockton encapsulates - one that paints a glorious, nostalgic and elegiac portrait of Canada.

Filmmaker Matthew Rankin is also a prairie boy. His brilliant short film Negativipeg tells a story similar to the second story Stockton relates in Snapshots. Both stories involve blood spilling, violence and a near-death experience in an all-night prairie convenience store. I too, have had a few of those exact experiences. Prairie boys like to spend inordinate amounts of time in all-night convenience stores. The only difference between Stockton's tale and Rankin's is that the former is Stockton's own personal tale, whilst Rankin's is a strange documentary reconstruction of a similar event in the North End of Winnipeg which involved the famed Guess Who lead singer Burton Cummings. Cummings, of course, is a prairie boy too.

Aside from the clear overall artistic merits of Stockton's short film, it is a work of great cultural significance with respect to the Canadian experience. His film was funded, as are so many Canadian films through the generosity and importance of a Canadian government agency called the Canada Council for the Arts. Sadly this organization has been slashed and burned by Canada's Conservative Party. While most countries around the world value the reflection of their unique cultures and provide adequate public assistance - even in these tough times - Canada, especially English Canada, could seem to care less. It's not like important works which are funded by entities like the Canada Council can be financed in the free market. This is not corporate welfare because it's not industry-driven. Ironically, Stockton's film would probably resonate in its own way with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper, you see, is a prairie boy too.

This is a film that speaks to thousands, if not millions of Canadians from this region and probably elsewhere in the country too. Its value is not ephemeral, either. Its cultural significance to living generations of Canadians, future generations of Canadians and the world as a whole should not have a price-tag affixed to it. Even more ironically is that, at least from my experience, cultural support of Canadian artists' endeavours was never stronger than under the most hated administration in the country's history - the Progressive Conservatives under former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The new conservatives, like Harper and his cronies (and yes, even factions within the Liberal Party) have less interest in cultural preservation than a conservative who was (and still is) reviled. Funny, that.

Even more ludicrous are the lack of venues to publicly screen such films. Thanks to the Conservative funding cuts to the National Film Board of Canada, local cinemas housed under the umbrellas of the NFB have been shuttered (and in fairness to those who orchestrated said funding cuts, the NFB ultimately fucked-up the true potential of this cross-country circuit of screening venues). Thankfully, organizations like the Canadian Film Fest exist to provide public vehicles to present Canadian work to Canadians. Even more importantly is that this is a venue with few ties to the kind of Status Quo programming in other venues that repress so many works of Canadian film art by kowtowing to the narrow needs of God-Knows-Who-Anymore.

I wonder if Prairie Boy P.M. Stephen Harper is familiar with the work of another Prairie Boy, Randy Bachmann, lead guitarist of The Guess Who and leader of B.T.O.? I leave him and you one important line from Bachmann's song "Prairie Town". It reflects, so simply, why Canada and its artists and the country's indelible regional cultural history are preserved by our art, just as in Brian Stockton's superb Snapshots.

. . . the prairies made me what I am today. - Randy Bachmann, Prairie Town

You can find out more about filmmaker Brian Stockton and even buy his movies by accessing his website HERE.

A similar scene to the one experienced by Jim Jarmusch and others in New York during the 70s and 80s and captured in the documentary BLANK CITY as well as many other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" series was happening in Winnipeg. A very cool explosion in indie underground cinema that I and many colleagues and friends were involved with was spawned during these halcyon days. This period, coined by film critic Geoff Pevere as Prairie Post-Modernism included the works of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Greg Hanec and many others.

A great selection of early Guy Maddin, many of which that I produced and were written by George Toles, can be secured directly through the following links:



Another great film from Winnipeg during this period is Greg Hanec's extraordinary DOWNTIME which has the distinction of being a parallel cinematic universe to Jim Jarmusch's "STRANGER THAN PARADISE". Both films were made at the same time in two completely different cities and scenes and both Hanec and Jarmusch premiered their films at the same time at the Berlin Film Festival. One's famous, the other isn't - but now that the "lost" and "found" DOWNTIME has been remastered from original elements to DVD, it can now be purchased directly online.

Order DOWNTIME directly from the film's new website by clicking HERE

Perhaps the greatest Canadian independent underground filmmaker of all-time is Winnipeg's John Paizs. It's virtually impossible to secure copies of his astounding work which, frankly, is responsible for influencing the work of Guy Maddin, David Lynch, Bruce McDonald and an endless number of great indie filmmakers the world over. Paizs' great short film SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND is available for purchase in a beautiful remastered edition from a fan website, the inimitable Frank Norman. Norman has Paizs' blessing to provide copies of the film, so feel free to directly make your request to Mr. Norman by clicking HERE.

Visit Frank Norman's CRIME WAVE
fan site by clicking HERE

Alas, it's super-impossible to get a copy of Paizs' masterpiece CRIME WAVE (not to be confused with the super-awful Coen Bros/Sam Raimi film of the same name that was released the same year Paizs' film was NOT released properly by its scumbag Canadian distributor Norstar Releasing, which eventually became Alliance Films (where the boneheads sat on the film and turned down several excellent offers from small indie companies to release the film properly on DVD in super-deluxe special editions because they lazily purported to be negotiating a massive package deal on its catalogue titles with some tiny scumbag public domain company that, as far as I can tell, has neither purchased nor released the film). This truly great and highly influential film is, no doubt, languishing in some boneheaded distribution purgatory within the deep anal cavities of the new owner of Alliance Films, a humungous mega-corporation called E-One. Feel free to repeatedly bug their stinking asses and demand a proper release. In the meantime, VHS copies of CRIME WAVE can still be found with the ludicrous title THE BIG CRIME WAVE. Here's a copy available on Amazon:

BLANK CITY and other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" Series can be accessed here:

NEGATIVIPEG - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Forgotten Winnipeg Film Series presented by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival, SPUR and the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque presents a powerful portrait of racism, media backlash and forgiveness.

Negativipeg (2010) *****
dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Rory Lepine, Burton Cummings

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is, without a doubt, one of the greatest short films I have ever seen. Given that I've seen a lot of them (thousands upon thousands), I'm happy to proclaim that this is one of the greatest short films ever made - in the world, ever! As directed by Matthew Rankin, it's a mere 15 minutes in length, but its impact upon those who see it will last a lifetime, if not several lifetimes.

On the surface, the film is a short documentary look at the events of one fateful night in the north end of Winnipeg in 1985 when a young man, one Rory Lepine, wandered into the now-gone Salter Street 7-11 to buy a Pizza Pop and was confronted by a racist employee who mistook him for someone else (all North End Native people look alike, you see) and demanded he leave as he'd been banned from the store.

An argument ensued.

As sparks flew, a tall, hulking gentleman with long locks of messy hair, a bushy cop moustache and a black leather jacket, strode into the store. Assuming the worst, he attacked Mr. Lepine. Mr. Lepine did what any north end Winnipeg lad (including me) might do in such a situation. He pulled a full bottle of Labatt's Blue beer and chucked it at the biker-like do-gooder. The bottle connected with the man's head, smashed and sent him to the ground, blood gushing from his dome. Mr. Lepine, fearing the worst would follow, began to mercilessly hoof the man repeatedly.

For his attempts to defend his honour against a racist knob and to defend himself physically against a tough, old biker, Lepine was arrested, tried and as a kid barely out of his teens, incarcerated in the notorious Headingly Jail wherein he suffered beatings and shiv attacks for several months.

His victim, you see, was no biker. It was songwriter-singer Burton Cummings, the front man for The Guess Who - the Winnipeg rock band that soared to the worldwide music charts with the likes of "American Woman", "Clap For The Wolfman", "No Sugar Tonight" and . . . the list goes on and on. Cummings went on to enjoy a stellar solo career and even flirted with motion picture immortality as the romantic lead of the 20th Century Fox feature film Melanie.

Cummings's reaction to this attack included a barrage of insults against the city of Winnipeg. Though he was the injured party and was viciously, physically assaulted, the media backlash against his anti-'Peg tirades was even MORE vicious.

As for poor, young Mr. Lepine, we heard very little. This was Winnipeg, after all. He was just another North End "Injun'" thrown into stir.

Rankin's film brilliantly and deftly allows Lepine to finally have a voice in the whole affair. Intercut with archival footage of Burton Cummings slowly coming to terms with the fact that Winnipeg was indeed his home, interviews with the local - ahem - journalists who trashed Cummings and haunting montages of derelict homes in the core area and north end of Winnipeg, Negativipeg is an important document of the disenfranchised in a neighbourhood where violence is a way of life - especially in response to racism of the most insidious kind.

It is also a film of redemption and healing. Twenty five years later, Cummings continues to remain silent on this event. At the time, Rory Lepine, didn't, for even a second, recognize Cummings. All he saw was a burly, leather-jacketed WHITE thug trying to take him down. That said, in one of the most devastatingly heartbreaking moments in this film (and, in fact, film history), Lepine admits that if he ever saw Cummings again, he'd ask him to sing a song.

For my money, I'd hope Cummings would sing a rhapsody from his classic solo album "Dream of a Child":

For I.... Will play a rhapsody
Cleverly disguise it, so it's not been heard before
And I.... Will sing a lullaby
Let you know I'm near you through the night to keep you warm.

I.... Will play a rhapsody

"Negativipeg" plays with the classic "Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets" (***½) and an alternate take on the aforementioned tale of Cummings/Lepine, "Farenheit 7-11" (***) during the Forgotten Winnipeg Film Series presented by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival, SPUR and the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque on January 30, 2014. For info and tickets, visit the Film Group website http://www.winnipegfilmgroup.com/cinematheque/forgotten_winnipeg_death_by_popcorn.aspx.

A similar scene to the one experienced by Jim Jarmusch and others in New York during the 70s and 80s and captured in the documentary BLANK CITY as well as many other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" series was happening in Winnipeg wherein a very cool explosion in indie underground cinema that I and many colleagues and friends were involved with was spawned. This period, coined by film critic Geoff Pevere as Prairie Post-Modernism included the works of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Greg Hanec and many others.

A great selection of early Guy Maddin, many of which that I produced and were written by George Toles, can be secured directly through the following links:



Another great film from Winnipeg during this period is Greg Hanec's extraordinary DOWNTIME which has the distinction of being a parallel cinematic universe to Jim Jarmusch's "STRANGER THAN PARADISE". Both films were made at the same time in two completely different cities and scenes and both Hanec and Jarmusch premiered their films at the same time at the Berlin Film Festival. One's famous, the other isn't - but now that the "lost" and "found" DOWNTIME has been remastered from original elements to DVD, it can now be purchased directly online.

Order DOWNTIME directly from the film's new website by clicking HERE

Perhaps the greatest Canadian independent underground filmmaker of all-time is Winnipeg's John Paizs. It's virtually impossible to secure copies of his astounding work which, frankly, is responsible for influencing the work of Guy Maddin, David Lynch, Bruce McDonald and an endless number of great indie filmmakers the world over. Paizs' great short film SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND is available for purchase in a beautiful remastered edition from a fan website, the inimitable Frank Norman. Norman has Paizs' blessing to provide copies of the film, so feel free to directly make your request to Mr. Norman by clicking HERE.

Visit Frank Norman's CRIME WAVE
fan site by clicking HERE

Alas, it's super-impossible to get a copy of Paizs' masterpiece CRIME WAVE (not to be confused with the super-awful Coen Bros/Sam Raimi film of the same name that was released the same year Paizs' film was NOT released properly by its scumbag Canadian distributor Norstar Releasing, which eventually became Alliance Films (where the boneheads sat on the film and turned down several excellent offers from small indie companies to release the film properly on DVD in super-deluxe special editions because they lazily purported to be negotiating a massive package deal on its catalogue titles with some tiny scumbag public domain company that, as far as I can tell, has neither purchased nor released the film). This truly great and highly influential film is, no doubt, languishing in some boneheaded distribution purgatory within the deep anal cavities of the new owner of Alliance Films, a humungous mega-corporation called E-One. Feel free to repeatedly bug their stinking asses and demand a proper release. In the meantime, VHS copies of CRIME WAVE can still be found with the ludicrous title THE BIG CRIME WAVE. Here's a copy available on Amazon:

BLANK CITY and other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" Series can be accessed here: