MR. NOBODY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Something execrable to blame the French for

Mr. Nobody (2010)
dir. Jaco Van Dormael
Starring: Jared Leto, Diane Kruger, Linh Dan Pham and Sarah Polley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Oh joy! Just what the world needed! More whimsy in the cinema!

For this, I blame the French.

Though the director of this godawful pastiche of science fiction, magic realism and whimsy Jaco Van Dormael is a Belgian filmmaker, let us not forget that Belgium itself borders on France and half its population, the Walloons, speak French.

As much as I'd prefer to blame the movie on the Walloons, the fact remains that this Belgian-French-German-Canadian patchwork quilt co-production has a much greater French pedigree than mere Walloonery will allow. So again, let's do the math by examining the French content of the co-production entities: half of Belgium speaks French, Belgium borders France, Germany was obsessed with occupying France and one of Canada's official languages is French.

The sum of the above is clear. We can blame the French with no guilt whatsoever.

In fact, by the end of Mr. Nobody, I was reminded of the lyrics penned by Mel Brooks and sung by the inimitable Dom De Luise in Blazing Saddles:

Throw out your hands/Stick out your tush/Hands on your hips/Give 'em a push/You'll be surprised/You're doing the French Mistake/Voila!

Yes, Voila! A French Mistake, indeed!

When this film was first released theatrically, we were inflicted, around the same time with the release of Jeunet's execrable (and French, 'natch) vat of whimsy Micmacs. Mr. Nobody, a dreadfully pretentious movie that purports to be about something, is finally so confusing and tedious, that it's ultimately not about much of anything at all. And unlike Micmacs, which at least tried (pathetically) to be funny, Mr. Nobody is mind-numbingly humourless.

That said, what might have perked things up in Mr. Nobody could have been a few digitally-rendered appearances from the late, great Chief Dan George as Old Lodge Skins from Arthur Penn's film adaptation of Little Big Man. Given the film's reliance on endless, trippy digital effects, this is not such an odd expectation, especially since our title character Mr. Nobody appears in the opening with Jared Leto (the go-to guy when Jake Gyllenhaal isn't available and, of course in Jake's case, vice-versa) in full old-man makeup, not unlike Dustin Hoffman's Jack Crabb. Being interviewed by a dweeby journalist, not unlike the one played by William Hickey in Penn's seminal 70s western, Mr. Nobody, it seems, is the oldest man alive in a dystopian future.

And boy, does he have a whopper to tell, not unlike Jack Crabb in Little Big Man.

Hell, why didn't Jaco Van Dormael go for a digital merging of Chief Dan George, Dustin Hoffman and Jared Leto in these sequences? It might have made the whole affair palatable. (Well, not really, but it would have been good for a few laughs.)

In reality, it seems Mr. Nobody is a man living in a world where everyone has become immortal except for him and he's part of some odd reality-TV death-watch because he has not succumbed to the stem-cell thing-a-muh-bobby that keeps everyone else in the film alive. He eventually begins to tell his story to the reporter and what we get is a story that gives us several versions of his life, most notably three different relationships with three women he loved, or could have loved, or should have loved (Kruger, Pham and Polley).

Or, uh, something like that. Who the fuck knows?

In his dotage and on the verge of death, he contemplates whether he made the right decisions in his life. The tale is told in triplicate and appears to be rooted in two significant moments from his childhood. This is, however, one of the film's many problems. We're shown how his life could have been when he's forced to choose between living with his mother and father when they decide to separate. We see his life with Mom and then with Dad. But as well, the other significant fork-in-the-road moment occurs when he spies three different little girls - all of whom become his wife in the different imaginings of where his life does indeed go.

Well, which is it? The first or the second? Why both? Well, because the director wanted it this way, that's why. He assumed, no doubt, that it would give him more options to deliver a "mind-blowing" series of stories.

Not content with this incongruity, Van Dormael presents the entire thing in a hodge-podge whilst tossing out teasing references to the "butterfly effect" and "quantum theory". Flash forwards, flash backs - here, there and everywhere - are all presented to be significant with a capital "S".

I was reminded, somewhat, of Kurt Vonnegut's great book (and George Roy Hill's terrific film adaptation of it) "Slaughterhouse Five" where we bounce between past, present and future. It made sense there because the central character Vonnegut creates is "unstuck in time" - a joyous and painful predicament since the character must, for an eternity, experience his birth, life and death. This fractured, intricately-etched approach to presenting the narrative was rooted strongly in the science-fiction "logic" of the piece, whereas a similar approach in Mr. Nobody is there, simply because Van Dormael wants it to be there. Even worse is that the fragmented nature of the movie seems to pull a Christopher ("One Idea") Nolan Memento reverse order to the events.

I think.

Whatever, this movie is dreadful enough without conjuring up memories of Nolan's pretentious 2000 pretence-o-rama neo-noir twaddle.

One of the more idiotic touches in Mr. Nobody is the name chosen for Mr. Nobody in his younger years which is... okay, now wait for it...Nemo.

I mean, Good God! NEMO!!!??? Is writer-director Jaco Van Dormael on crack? Does he really expect us all to "ooohhh" and "aaaahhh" over the apparent genius and GREAT SIGNIFICANCE of naming the younger version of Mr. Nobody with a word meaning "no man" or, if you will, "no one" in Latin. This reference also conjures up that of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", but I suspect Von Dormael was more inspired by the dark fairytale qualities of the brilliant turn of the century comic strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland". If only Mr. Nobody proved to be as significant and original as that work.

It's not.

Mr. Nobody is one of those boneheaded exercises that pretends to be more intelligent than it is. Von Dormael, no doubt, believes in his "genius" and so do the audiences that smugly believe they're watching great art. They can be dazzled by the striking visuals and non-linear quality in order to feel good that what they're indulging in is not a machine-tooled Hollywood blockbuster from Michael Bay.

Van Dormael has created the greatest aesthetic crime - far greater than anything Michael Bay has foisted upon us - he's machine-tooled an art film for dummies.

There's not much to recommend here. However, poor Leto does what he can with the ludicrous role foisted upon him and the movie does feature a great performance from Sarah Polley as one of Nemo's wives. Playing a bi-polar housewife, Polley takes the kind of chances and delivers the kind of performance that proves once again why she's one of the world's great actresses. She's raw and real, unlike the rest of Van Dormael's candy-floss "complexity". But seeing as Polley also appears in Vincenzo Natali's terrific 2009 Splice, you're better off seeing that. You get a great Sarah Polley performance in a movie that respects its audience and manages to serve up something that's as entertaining as it is intelligent.

All that Mr. Nobody serves up, is the pathetic work of one pretentious, overrated, talentless hack:

Jaco Van Dormael.

He's the real Mr. Nobody.

THE FILM CORNER'S LOWEST RATING:
THE TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S
CHAR-BROIL & DINING LOUNGE
Click HERE for a full explanation of this woeful rating.

Mr. Nobody is available on Magnolia Home Entertainment Blu-Ray and DVD. And get this, it's available separately as an EXTENDED director's cut for all those who might enjoy some cinematic self-flagellation.

PASSCHENDAELE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cineplex Entertainment's - ahem - Continuing Commitment to Canadian Cinema: Cheap Cineplex Store Rentals on one of the WORST Canadian movies ever made! (Actually one of the worst movies - EVER!)

Cineplex Entertainment, the "proudly" Canadian movie theatre chain has always displayed a solid commitment to Canadian Cinema by not playing most Canadian Films, by providing no information on the few independent Canadian films they've pathetically played (referring to directors on their app as "Names Not Available"), charging small distributors exorbitant "virtual print fees" to play Canadian films in their theatres and, of course, playing Canadian films by the most acclaimed and beloved auteurs like Paul Gross. Now, in honour of Canada Day, Cineplex Entertainment's Cineplex Store is offering Canadian movies (they especially like) for rent in digital formats at cut-rate prices. Let us review one of these Canadian films which broke box-office records in Cineplex Entertainment cinemas with bought and paid-for grosses thanks to marketing assistance from the Canadian Government's Telefilm Canada.

NOTE: "PASSCHENDAELE" is pronounced as "pashin-dale". In honour of this fine film, herewith is a lovely witticism: A cabbie picked up a drunk lassie and she told him she needed to get to the Beer Vendor, but she didn't have enough money to take the cab there, so she would, in fact, provide him with a blow-job if he'd waive the fees. He happily agreed. As he drove to the Beer Vendor and the lassie worked upon his member prodigiously, the cabbie began to moan aloud. The young lassie looked up at him and said, "Oh, hey buddy, yer passionate." He replied, "Why thank you, indeed I am." She responded in her drunken slurring twixt slurps: "No buddy! Yer pashin it. Yer pashin the fuckin Beer Vendor."

Passchendaele (2008)
dir. Paul Gross
Starring: Paul Gross, Caroline Dhaverna

Review By Greg Klymkiw

How anyone could suggest with a straight face that Passchendaele is any good at all, renders me agog. I originally had no right to even comment on the movie a few years ago when I staggered out after the first miserable hour at its World Premiere in 2008 at the Toronto International Film Festival, but rest assured, I eventually suffered through the entire sewage bath when it opened theatrically to confirm my initial feelings.

The full dosage of Paul Gross's directorial followup to his risible curling (Yes, Curling!) "comedy" Men With Brooms (and preceding his monumentally sickening Western "comedy" Gunless) forced me to nail my feet to the floor. I have the scars to prove it.

This $20,000,000.00 war film (a bit of an oxymoron in this day and age, anyway - even before going in you know you're in for some bargain basement carnage) is one of the most embarrassing, poorly written, miserably directed excuses for something purporting to be a motion picture that I have ever had the utter displeasure to waste precious hours of my life on. The first few minutes of this Dollar-rama Saving Private Ryan had a few visceral shocks to be sure (thanks, no doubt to a decent second unit team), but once the stiff-jawed leading man (Gross, 'natch) settled his sorry shell-shocked ass back on the homefront, I pretty much had to nail my kneecaps to the seat to stay for entirety of this jaw-droppingly wretched picture.

The paper thin characters/caricatures all deliver mind-numbingly awful dialogue as the contrived story plods interminably along its dreary way - treading heavily into the territory of melodrama of the worst sort. Don't get me wrong - I love war pictures and I especially love war pictures that have both melodrama and sentimentality. That said, there is good melodrama and bad melodrama and there is sentimentality that resonates with the emotional heartache that someone like John Ford was able to master with his eyes sewn shut.

Alas, Paul Gross is most certainly not John Ford - Garry Marshall with a severe migraine, perhaps, but not much more than that. Gross directs with the grace of a faulty jackhammer that keeps missing its mark. Perhaps he might have made a good picture if he'd produced and starred in it and let a real writer and director do their respective jobs.

Gross is definitely a good actor and the camera loves him, but in this movie he lopes about like some pretty boy Gary Cooper over-dosed on Maple Syrup, uttering dialogue that not even Ed Wood would have been capable of writing. In fact, let it be said now that as a writer, Ed Wood was pretty much Clifford Odets compared to Gross.

The movie, for all its utter stupidity, reached some kind of nadir when Gross chose to crosscut between graphic descriptions of what shrapnel can do to the human body whilst a loving couple bang each other with youthful abandon. Spielberg did a similar thing in Munich. I applauded Spielberg for the audacity, but couldn't really forgive the stupidity - especially since he had his lead character boinking wifey whilst having flashbacks to violent killings he was not even present to have experienced. I was even convinced nobody could have topped such idiocy, but Paul Gross managed to do it. Alas, bereft of Spielberg's panache, which made Munich barely watchable, Gross has little to offer as a director save for complete incompetence.

If only Gross had been able to rise to the level of M.O.W. competence, I might have been able to avoid putting holes in my feet and kneecaps (in addition to not having the taste of bile in my mouth, which comes up on me even when I think about the picture). Alas, my desires fell upon deaf ears. Between those deaf ears, however, I can only assume plenty of air resides happily and fetidly within.

Happy Fucking Canada Day!

THE FILM CORNER RATING:
TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHARBROIL & DINING LOUNGE

This is a rating The Film Corner delivers to films too bad to garner one-star (*). Said films would normally then receive the "One Pubic Hair" rating, however, not to besmirch the fine pubic hair recipient Sharknado by lumping it in (so to speak) with genuine turds, I was forced to create a critical rating even lower.

The Rating is, quite simply and evocatively:

"TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHARBROIL & DINING LOUNGE".

As pictured, this an actual turd found by myself and Project Grizzly filmmaker Peter Lynch in the illustrious Parkdale parking lot behind Harry's wherein the two of us had just dined with writer Geoff Pevere.

Now, please feel free to acknowledge, as I do, pictures displaying the most appalling ineptitude, exceeding that of even Sharknado. It is a critical rating which will, one hopes, seal the selected work's fate in some manner of infamy.

FILMS WHICH HAVE RECEIVED THIS RATING

CLICK ON TITLE FOR REVIEW

THE VATICAN EXORCISMS

MUCK

CORNER GAS - THE MOVIE

OCTOBER GALE

DEAD BEFORE DAWN 3-D

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

GODZILLA 2014

VERONICA MARS

ENDLESS LOVE 2014

SEX AND THE CITY 2

THE COUNSELLOR

THE VATICAN EXORCISMS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - MockDoc a Smelly Crock o' Poo

The Vatican Exorcisms (2013)
Dir. Joe Marino
Starring: Joe Marino, Piero Maggio

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is a mock-doc that really wants us to think it's a doc and not a mock-doc, but as either, it's so unmitigatedly awful, that it really doesn't matter what the purported filmmakers want us to believe because the only thing that keeps us watching is to see just how awful a movie can get.

I'll admit the title hooked me. Hell, I'm always happy to watch anything involving exorcism at least once and the notion of Vatican exorcisms had me chomping at the bit. I'll also admit I never judge a DVD by its cover, but when I got the screening copy, my eyes bugged out with anticipation when I saw the deliciously disgusting image of an albino-like demon with shrivelled skin, sores and other viscous details.

Anchor Bay will, no doubt, sell a crapload of DVDs at Wal-Mart based on the cover alone. I'm hoping that "People of Walmart.com" will have some choice shots of some real toothless doozies showing too much ass-crack from their pants falling down as they gaze intently at the cover artwork. Kudos to the Anchor Bay marketing team, but Jesus, this movie stinks.

Joe, a "filmmaker" informs us he's making a documentary about exorcism. In fact, he informs us about everything. He tells us he's going to meet his crew. A few seconds later, he does. Standing in front of a church, he informs us he will be going inside and, guess what? He does. He tells us he's going to be interviewing a real live exorcist from the Vatican. Wouldn't you know it, he does.

At one point during the aforementioned interview, the priest asks Joe what he wants of him. (It appears the priest isn't too smart.) Joe replies that he wants to meet the Devil.

"And so you shall," answers the priest.

If I'd been in a charitable mood, that moment would at least have elicited a few unintentional guffaws on my part, but by then, the picture had been so rank, I was compelled to do little but stare slack-jawed at my TV set. (Apologies for not thinking to take a selfie of that moment for your edification.)

The rest of the film includes endless scenes of Joe talking to the camera in his hotel room, always telling us what we just saw, in case, uh, I guess, we didn't see it, in spite of the fact that we did. (Sometimes, when he's in his hotel room, he makes a point of telling us that's precisely where he is.)

He also talks into the camera about what he's going to do the next day or in the next shot. Lo and behold, it happens and then he can talk to the camera again to describe what we just saw.

And what do we see? Not much - just several tediously lame exorcisms which supposedly increase in intensity (but don't) and, no surprise, Joe gets possessed by Satan. And yes, he tells us all about it.

Then he disappears.

His wife helpfully tells us he has, in fact, disappeared, though we already know this. Then the movie ends and we wonder who actually finished the film. His wife? Or Satan?

I'd normally put my money on Satan, but chances are, he's a pretty sharp dude and would never make a movie so utterly godawful. If you've already bought the movie, you will, at least, have a nice coaster to place drink-poos upon. If you haven't made the purchase, don't bother, unless you're desperate for a new coaster.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE - For a full explanation and history of this rating, click HERE.

The Vatican Exorcisms is available on Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada DVD. The film is so poorly shot, the transfer can't help. The only extras are a trailer and a laughable Photo Gallery which appears to be comprised of 4 screen captures from the digital tape source.

MUCK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Hot Babes in peril, in swamps, inundies. Albinos too!

Muck (2015)
Dir. Steve Wolsh
Starring: Kane Hodder, Lachlan Buchanan,
Jaclyn Swedberg, Stephanie Danielson, Lauren Francesca

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Muck is bursting at the seams with a whole whack of mega-babes running through swamps and deep woods in their underwear, admiring their lithe bodies in mirrors whilst undressing, taking showers ('natch) and being terrorized and butchered by drooling, psychotic, inbred albinos. All of this has been extremely well shot on a 4K RED Digital Cinema Camera to capture every jiggle of exposed flesh as well as the old-school-style SFX sans digital manipulations.

There is, one supposes, some merit in this.

If, however, you were in the market for a good movie, you might need to move on, unless the aforementioned salacious details might allow certain viewers to kick back and perform some of their own digital manipulations twixt their thighs as they partake in the otherwise dubious pleasures inherent in this massive tank of untreated sewage.

Here's the plot, if you can call it that.

A babe in her undies runs endlessly through the forest. Eventually she hooks up with more babes and their stupid boyfriends. One of them is badly injured. They make their way to an isolated house in the woods and break in. There is no phone, nor is there any cel coverage. Clearly some horrific stuff has happened and their pal is in mega-pain. They do what anyone would do in such a situation.

They talk endlessly.

Here, you will bear witness to the film's pathetically written dialogue, much of which is spotted with enough sexist, misogynistic and bubble-brained yammering that even I was vaguely offended. It takes a lot to inspire moral outrage within me, so if something like this is causing magma to roil up in the KlymNoggin, then most audiences are not going to be impressed.

Eventually, one of the guys decides to go to a roadside bar to use the phone. Everyone stays behind. Some of the babes fondle themselves and take nice hot showers.

Albinos encircle the house.

When rescue boy gets to the bar, he seems to forget why he's there, orders a drink and chats up some babes. The dialogue, naturally, is awful. When he finally decides to use the telephone, he doesn't call 911, he calls his moronic buddy who's a couple of hours away to come and pick him up. Eventually, buddy boy shows up (with babes, 'natch) and they all head to the isolated house.

Carnage, dreadful dialogue and flesh-jiggling continue.

None of this is remotely suspenseful nor especially entertaining. The ending is inconclusive, presumably because this is the first of a trilogy. That there will be more inept forays into the world of this execrable movie is absurd beyond all belief. In fact, this notion might prove to be more harebrained than Muck actually is.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE. For a full explanation and history of this rating, click HERE.

Muck is available on Blu-Ray and DVD via Anchor Bay Entertainment (Canada)

CORNER GAS THE MOVIE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canuck TV show on big screen, eh

Here be a real knee-slapper from CORNER GAS THE MOVIE
Nyuck. Nyuck. Nyuck. Are you be laughing yet?
It be real funny, eh? It be Canadian, eh.
Come on! Laugh, goddamn ye! LAUGH!
Ah, fuck you, gimme a beer, eh.

Corner Gas The Movie (2014)
Dir. David Storey
Scr. Brent Butt,
Andrew Carr, Andrew Wreggitt
Starring: Brent Butt, Gabrielle Miller, Fred Ewanuick, Eric Peterson, Janet Wright, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Lorne Cardinal, Nancy Robertson, Don Lake, Reagan Pasternak, Karen Holness, Cavan Cunningham, Graham Greene

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Canadian TV series Corner Gas was an undeniable smash. For six seasons, its ratings kicked everything off the charts, including big American programs. Its worldwide sales have also been through the roof. The show could probably have gone on for a few more seasons, but its creator Brent Butt bravely decided to pull the plug on a high note. The final episode drew a staggering three-million-plus Canadian viewers.


The ubiquitous billboards, ads, the content of said promotional materials and the general water cooler babble about the show amongst the Great Unwashed was enough to convey to even a gibbering gibbon that the show was a sitcom about inbreds living in some godforsaken small town in the middle of the Canadian Prairies. Happily, that's all I really knew about the show since I don't watch much television save for TV Ontario, a few select British and American items I'd catch up with on DVD, Judge Judy, Divorce Court and the Maury Povich Show. (I used to also watch the former CBC before it was ruined by an oinker with - ahem - "vision".)

Bottom line: I had not laid a single eyeball upon even one frame of the hit series when I finally watched the recent feature-length big-screen version entitled Corner Gas The Movie. I'm glad, though, because I really only care to assess feature films on their merits (or lack thereof) as feature films. Given the pedigree of the series, plus the fact that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool prairie lad who despises Toronto with a passion and has rued every day I've had to live in the godforsaken Town o' Hogs for 20 of my 50 or so years on this Earth, I was open-mindedly thrilled to see this movie.

Besides, seeing feature length versions of shows one loves, especially those made years or even decades after the original idiot box versions, carries way too much baggage for me and more often than not, I'm supremely disappointed. However, in recent years, I had the good fortune to see some family-oriented movies based on hit television shows aimed at pre-teen and tweener girls and enjoyed them so much, I ended up watching the programs on DVD quite happily with my daughter.

I was primed to love this movie, or at least, like it.

It didn't happen. I felt I was watching television of the worst order - a half-hour episode dragged out for over 90 minutes. Even worse, I did not laugh once. Not even a smile managed to crack my steely visage. At times, the movie was so painfully unfunny, I tried to imagine it within the context of being a Carl Dreyer masterpiece, but written and directed by Jethro Beaudine. THAT made me laugh, but alas, the fantasy did not transfer to the misery of having to watch Corner Gas The Movie.

75% of this movie's $8.5 million
budget came from public funds.
Money well spent! Good Job!

The tired narrative trudges along interminably and involves the denizens of Dog River, a town on the verge of utter bankruptcy. Water and power are in scarce supply and business is so bad that Brent (Brent Butt), the proprietor of the gas station, attempts to inject some life into the town by purchasing the local bar. Lacey (Gabrielle Miller) runs the town diner and has her own ideas on how to turn things around. She enters Dog River into a national contest to find the most quaint city in Canada. The prize is $75K, which, could go a long way to cover the town's debts and then some.

The problem, though, is that Dog River needs a whack of elbow grease to get it closer to "quaint". Lacey enlists Brent's Mom, the crusty Emma (Janet Wright) and a handful of others who appear to comprise the entire population of the town. Local layabout Hank Yarbo (Fred Ewanuick) is full of ideas. They're all stupid, but it doesn't stop him from trying. His stupidest idea is attempting to open a coffee-donut chain franchise which, if it worked, would put Lacey out of business.

The town's sole law enforcement is comprised of the pregnant Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn) and the dopey, friendly big-galoot Davis (Lorne Cardinal). The town's shifty, boneheaded Mayor Fitzy (Cavan Cunnigham), has not only drained the town dry by investing the coffers in, uh, Detroit, but also dupes David into taking an early retirement to save the town some dough. No matter. Davis decides he's going to become a private investigator (not unlike Jethro Beaudine deciding to be a brain surgeon in The Beverly Hillbillies) whilst Karen goes on a mad spree to issue municipal citations to get her "quotas" up in case she needs to get a new law enforcement gig somewhere else.

Nutty Wanda (Nancy Robertson) appears to have the most moxie and entrepreneurial spirit of the lot when she opens up a booze can and casino in Davis's man-cave. It becomes so popular, it's driving Brent's bar into the poorhouse. The biggest threats of all come from the nearby town of prairie fundamentalists who wish to annex Dog River and a coffee and donut chain that wants to buy up all of Dog River's property cheap and turn the whole shooting match into a massive industrial warehouse. Adding insult to injury, a massive lawsuit rears its ugly head and Brent is about to lose everything.

While all this is going down, Brent's father Oscar (Eric Peterson), a dad-nabbit old curmudgeon is so obsessed with survivalism, he trades in his car for a horse and proves, as both a man and human being (and frankly, as a survivalist) to be about as useless as tits on a bull.

By the way, have I yet mentioned that the evil chain trying to swallow Dog River whole is called "Coff-Nuts"?

Are we laughing yet?

The pain involved in suffering through this convoluted maw of rancid folksiness and whimsy is enough to inspire suicide or, at least, a trip to Holland for a bit of the old euthanasia. The acting is either prime-time-competent or full of egregious mugging and there isn't one single funny, original line of dialogue, pratfall or story beat anywhere to be found in the whole dreary enterprise. About all I can say in favour of the movie, and I suppose this is something, is that I did not need prior exposure to the series to figure out who was who and what was what. This was all plainly obvious.

Frankly, though, if the TV series is anything like this movie, I'm not making any time to watch it on DVD and ultimately, I can only conclude how truly bereft of taste and/or brain our kinder, gentler, simpler Canadians are blessed with to have turned it into such a huge hit. It kind of makes sense, though. Corner Gas was probably a big hit amongst all those who elected our current Chancellor/Prime Minister. It's the only explanation.

As for Corner Gas The Movie, it's not a movie. It certainly doesn't have the scope of a movie and feels little more than going to the movies to watch television. Yup, the movie stinks, alright, but I will say it sure does have some pretty prairie sunsets.

Oh, and speaking of purty prairie sunsets, the thick-heads running the government of Saskatchewan (where much of this movie was shot) flushed a terrific tax credit down the toilet, effectively destroyed the local film industry, tossed out all the economic spin-off benefits of film production in the province and forced locals to move away (kind of like what was in the works for the Dog River denizens). I suppose one could consider the Saskatchewan Legislature to be little more than, uh, Coff-Nuts.

In spite of this lack of vision, the province of Saskatchewan opened their purse strings to the tune of $2 Million smackeroonies to help finance this muddy slough of a movie. As reported by CBC News in Saskatchewan, the inbreds running the province cobbled together a funding agreement that "includes a clause that the producers are expected to include 'positive visual aspects' that promote the province as a tourism destination in the story line of the movie. The agreement suggests 'sunrises/sunsets, unique vistas or locations'". Saskatchewan? A Tourism Destination? For what? To see the RCMP horse brigade parade in Regina?

What a bunch of yokels.

They've gotten exactly what they deserve.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: THE TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHARBROIL & DINING LOUNGE For a full explanation of this rating click HERE.

If you're interested in reading about HOW to make a genuinely successful big-screen version of a small-screen success, you can read my review from yesterday by clicking HERE.

Corner Gas The Movie is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from VSC. The transfer highlights the gorgeous picture postcard cinematography of Saskatchewan very nicely and it includes a bevy of extra features like gag reels (about as funny as the movie), a clutch of EPK-like making-of items and a thoroughly useless commentary track which is filled wall-to-wall with folksy shout-outs. Nothing I say here will stop the multitude of inbreds in this country from parting with their dollars to buy it, so they might as well order it right from here so they can support the ongoing maintenance of the website which, like the Prime Minister they voted for, has little but disdain for them.

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THE FILM CORNER presents THE 10 WORST MOVIES of 2014 as selected by Greg Klymkiw.

The Film Corner's
10 WORST MOVIES OF 2014
as selected by
Greg Klymkiw

2014 had its fair share of dreadful movies. A whopping four titles received my lowest rating: THE TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE. Below you'll get a link to my original review (by clicking on the title of the movie) and a brief italicized quotation from said review.

In alphabetical order, The 10 Worst Movies of 2014:

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2
Andrew Garfield is a woeful Peter Parker. Upchuck at this, web-slingers: An annoying hedgehog tuft of hair upon his oversized gourd-like cranium, a thin, misshapen long face that's seemingly being winched from his jaw to ground level, weasel-like eyes, crooked smirk and shrivelled proboscis with its perpetually upturned tip and an irremovable sneer. I won't even get started on his spindly Ichabod-Crane-like body. Oh, and it's 142 minutes long.

THE BABADOOK
The whole affair is utterly humourless and annoyingly adorned with the kind of preciousness that gets festival programmers, film critics and pseuds of all persuasions, hot and bothered that they're seeing something resembling an art film dabbling in off-the-well-worn-genre-pathworks.

THE CONNECTION
It's been over forty years since The French Connection and a new motion picture has come along to prove that there were indeed law enforcement officials on the French side who did a little something to break the case. Alas, the movie is French and might as well be about eating cheese and drinking wine. At 135 plodding minutes, this is one of the most dull crime pictures made in, well, let's say over forty years.

CORNER GAS THE MOVIE
This is not a movie. It certainly doesn't have the scope of a movie and feels little more than going to the movies to watch television. Yup, the movie stinks, alright, but I will say it sure does have some pretty prairie sunsets.

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
What's next? "Afternoon of the Planet of the Apes"? "Tea-Time of the Planet of the Apes"? "Night of the Living Dead Planet of the Apes"? About the best that can be said in favour of this dour, serious and irredeemably humourless cash-grab reboot is that it's not as dreadful as its predecessor. Of course, it doesn't hold a candle to the Original Five from the 60s and 70s.

ENDLESS LOVE
The 1981 Endless Love, a sludge-heap of Everest-sized proportions, must now surely be considered one of the greatest movies ever made compared to this 2014 bowl of Charles Manson's anal drippings. If Zeffirelli created a cinematic equivalent to an aborted foetus served up on a dollar-store paper plate, then it's clear the idiot-sans-savante who purportedly directed this version, must surely have outdistanced the cinematic abortionist styling of Zeffirelli and bloody well ripped a foetus from a womb with a rusty coat hanger, then stomped upon the gelatinous blob with the abandon of a lead performer in a crack-fuelled performance of "Lord of the Dance", then took a huge, rancid crap upon it and finally, with a hearty "Voila!", called it a movie.

THE INTERVIEW
This non-entity "comedy" just isn't very funny and spins its wheels most of the time in a sort of schizophrenic manner, never reaching the level of bonafide satire, nor lowering itself to the depths of just plain outrageous humour. Some might suggest I doth pretest too much - that The Interviewis just meant to be a silly, good-natured comedy. Stupid, however, is not silly and assassination is not good-natured. Worst of all, the movie isn't even supremely godawful, it's just crashingly mediocre.

OCTOBER GALE
If you fit the demographic of this loathsome, incompetent Harlequin Romance-like "thriller", knock yourself out. Steno-girls, retail clerks, middle-aged empty-nest housewives and 70-year-old ladies deserve movies too.

UNDER THE SKIN
This revoltingly cerebral science fiction oddity stars the intolerably ubiquitous Scarlett Johansson as an alien Woman Who Fell To Earth or rather, in this case, Scotland. Her mission is to seduce a variety of Glaswegian men, take them back to her squalid digs and tempt them with her puffy white flesh. As Scarlett doffs pieces of clothing, the seemingly endless parade of gents who follow her, their eyes transfixed by Little Miss Bum-Chunks, gradually find themselves sinking feet-first into a murky, purulent, gelatinous goo that swallows them up.

VERONICA MARS
The movie plods mercilessly through one of the most uninteresting murder mysteries ever committed to film and we're forced to tolerate a hit parade of mostly no-name actors who look like they're delivering lines by rote in an overlong failed television pilot. As for direction - what direction? The coverage is so pathetically generated I'd hazard a guess that the director is none other than Mr. Magoo.

So there you have, the Top Ten WORST Movies of 2014. There were plenty of dreadful movies this year, but suffice it to say that the following titles are bad enough to be listed as runners-up. Feel free to mush together the aforementioned with the below-mentioned and you'll have yourself a lovely list of the 27 Worst Films of 2014. In alphabetical order, the also-ran losers are:

ANNIE
BIRDMAN
CAPTAIN AMERICA THE WINTER SOLDIER
THE DROWNSMAN
GODZILLA
GONE GIRL
THE HUNGER GAMES MOCKINGJAY PART I
INTO THE WOODS
THE JUDGE
NOAH
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY THE MARKED ONES
PREDESTINATION
QUEEN OF BLOOD
SON OF GOD
STILL ALICE
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
WOLVES

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OCTOBER GALE - TIFF 2014 (Special Presentation) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - A great movie for steno-girls, retail clerks and 70-year-old grandmothers looking for cheap thrills on cable TV.

A great movie for
steno-girls,
retail clerks
and 70-year-old
grandmothers
looking for
cheap thrills
on cable TV

October Gale (2014)
Dir. Rubba Nadda
Starring: Patricia Clarkson, Scott Speedman, Tim Roth, Aidan Devine, Callum Keith Rennie

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I went to see this knowing only the title and that its start time was when I had nothing else to see. Usually, this is perfect. Knowing nothing about what you're going to see at a film festival can yield great treats. However, I knew I was in for trouble when the picture started in black with one sole, sombre note plunked on a piano.

Ugh!

When this happens, I usually think, "Oh fuck, another Canadian movie with a crappy piano score." No sooner did the next keyboard plop resonate in my auricular cavities when the soul-sucking credit "Produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada" did spew, like a spray of chunky regurgitate on-screen. Though the opening score continued with a bit more variety of piano plunking, it sounded like something rendered by a Ferrante and Teicher tribute artist on a HiFi LP in the $1 bin at a used record store.

Luckily, things began looking a bit better when the gorgeous and great Patricia Clarkson appeared as a recently widowed doctor heading up to her Northern Ontario island cottage on majestic Georgian Bay to open it up for the spring. Alas, the first 15 minutes is devoted to more Ferrante & Teicher homages as she cleans the cottage, puts dead hubby's clothing into storage, takes a boat ride and - ugh - launches into sickening flashback mode wherein we learn how much she loved now-dead hubby (Callum Keith Rennie).

I thought to myself, "Oh Jesus! Is this going to be some Harlequin Romance where she meets a hunky rural guy and falls in love with him?" Luckily, her boat goes all sputter-sputter and she calls in a distress signal to the local boat repair guy. He retrieves her boat, tells her it's going to take a few days to fix and dumps her back at the isolated island. Alone, 'natch!

Briefly I'm thinking, "Hmmmm, a hot babe alone on an island. Maybe we're going to get a throwback to 70s Canadian tax shelter thrillers and she'll be assailed by some country cousin psychopaths and have to kill them all as revenge for being gang-raped." Though there's been nothing to suggest we're going into thriller territory I'm momentarily fooled that this might be a fairly clever script that's setting us up for one thing (potential Harlequin Romance) and delivering another (the great Canadian tax shelter rape revenge thriller Death Weekend).

Soon after these delights danced across my cerebellum, Patricia Clarkson's lovely breasts are revealed in a bathtub scene.

I'm stoked.

Fooled me, again. The movie is essentially a Harlequin Romance cross-pollinated with an extremely lame, poorly executed thriller. Hunky Scott Speedman shows up on her dock, bleeding and near death from a gunshot wound. As Clarkson is a doctor she patches him up really well. At one point he gets up from bed and his pants are so low-riding that we get a nice glimpse of Speedman's upper butt cheeks and ass crack.

Can romance be far behind?

Aidan Devine, one of Canada's greatest character actors is wasted when he shows up as a friendly local. When he buggers off, Speedman is terrified. He informs Clarkson that when Devine comes back, he's going to be joined by a super-bad dude and they're both going to be dead. Good gracious!

When Devine does pop back, a semi-smarmy Tim Roth is in tow. He's hell-bent on killing Speedman for one of the stupidest reasons imaginable (I won't ruin it for you). Roth works hard enough that we can ascertain he's been paid upfront to sleepwalk through his dull role and the film delivers a few minutes of incompetently helmed suspense that might have my mother (and other 70-year-old suburban women looking for a thrill on cable) on the edge of her seat. That said, I'm sure it will also appeal to more than a few steno-girls, retail clerks and middle-aged empty-nest housewives.

How and why (aside from marginal marquee value) the filmmakers bothered to waste money on Tim Roth when the great Aidan Devine could have outacted the shit out of him is something that briefly haunted me. Even more pressing a question is this: How in God's name this movie ever landed a Special Presentation berth at one of the world's most prestigious film festivals is almost beyond me. I say "almost" because it does have Patricia Clarkson, Scott Speedman and Tim Roth in it and its picture postcard cinematography delivers enough production value to look professional on a big screen, but other than that, it's a nothing movie aimed at an under-served demographic. I've personally seen several fine low budget Canadian thrillers and horror films made this year - any of which display more thrills and virtuosity in one frame than October Gale possesses throughout its short, but still lugubriously interminable running time.

Ah well, if you fit the aforementioned demographic, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Steno-girls, retail clerks, middle-aged empty-nest housewives and 70-year-old ladies deserve movies too.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: LOWEST FILM CORNER RATING:

Delivered to films too bad to garner one-star (*). Said films would normally then receive the "One Pubic Hair" rating, however, not to besmirch the fine pubic hair recipient Sharknado by lumping it in (so to speak) with genuine turds, I was forced to create a critical rating even lower for Ridley Scott's abominable The Counsellor.

The Rating is, quite simply and evocatively:

"TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND
HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE".

As pictured to the left, this an actual turd found by myself and Project Grizzly filmmaker Peter Lynch in the illustrious Parkdale parking lot behind Harry's wherein the two of us had just dined with writer Geoff Pevere. Recipients of this hallowed rating since Scott's atrocity have been the wretched 2014 remake of Endless Love, the putrid Veronica Mars movie, the stinking Dead Before Dawn 3D and the horrendous 2014 Godzilla.

Now, please feel free to add: October Gale to the aforementioned list of recipients of this most appalling critical rating which will, one hopes, seal the work's fate in some manner of infamy.

October Gale is playing at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014 as a Special Presentation. For tix, dates and showtimes, visit the TIFF website by clicking HERE. It will be distributed in Canada via Pacific Northwest Pictures.

DEAD BEFORE DAWN 3D - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Dreadful Canadian Horror-Comedy Besmirches Maple Leaf. This Niagara Integrated Film Festival (NIFF 2014) offering is best reserved for undiscriminating audiences.

LOWEST FILM CORNER RATING:

Delivered to films too bad to garner one-star (*).

Said films would normally then receive the "One Pubic Hair" rating, however, not to besmirch the fine pubic hair recipient Sharknado by lumping it in (so to speak) with genuine turds, I was forced to create a critical rating even lower for Ridley Scott's abominable The Counsellor.

The Rating is, quite simply and evocatively:

"TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND
HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE".

As pictured to the left, this an actual turd found by myself and Project Grizzly filmmaker Peter Lynch in the illustrious Parkdale parking lot behind Harry's wherein the two of us had just dined with writer Geoff Pevere.

Recipients of this hallowed rating since Scott's atrocity have been the wretched 2014 remake of Endless Love, the putrid Veronica Mars movie and the horrendous 2014 Godzilla.

Now, please feel free to add:

Dead Before Dawn 3D to the aforementioned list of recipients of this most appalling critical rating which will, one hopes, seal the work's fate in some manner of infamy.

How did I get into this movie?
Oh yeah, some Canadian paid me.
Gimme a Blue, eh?

Dead Before Dawn 3D (2013) Dir. April Mullen
"TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHAR BROIL & DINING LOUNGE"
Starring: Devon Bostick, Christopher Lloyd
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Some movies are so pathetic it feels like shooting dead fish in a barrel to bother reviewing them. Normally, Dead Before Dawn 3D would be such a picture as it's certainly a dead enough fish and the barrel it floats in reeks of rotting malodorous offals, but its filmmakers have ambitiously tricked the normally appealing Devon Bostick into taking the lead role, plopped the bankable genre icon Christopher Lloyd into a decent-sized cameo and bothered to shoot the film in stereoscopic 3-D. Chances are good that plenty of folks will be conned into laying out cold, hard cash to see this fetid tin o' tuna. This, then, requires further investigation.

The horrendously stupid and juvenile screenplay by Tim Doiron makes the fatal error of dialling the tone of humour down to the level of some half-witted inbred or worse, most suburban tweener-teener mall rats of, shall we say dubious breeding and/or rearing and in so doing, serves up some of the dumbest dialogue and hopelessly unfunny gags imaginable.

The plot, such as it is, involves teenager Bostick as a geeky lad living amongst the leafy greens of Niagara wine country who agrees to help out goofy grandpa Christopher Lloyd by holding down the fort at the wild-eyed old coot's occult shop. (Isn't that convenient?) Upon departing, Lloyd, on his way to pick up an award from an Occult Society, warns Bostick to never touch a mysterious urn.

Well, obviously he does.

Bostick, you see, is hung up on a teen babe played by Martha McIsaac who turns out to be an occult buff (conveniently) and when she and a bunch of other teens enter the store, the urn is retrieved for the babe's edification and breaks. Not only does the urn break, but the other kids begin joking about its occult properties and inadvertently conjure up one mega-curse wherein townspeople begin turning into combo-zombies-demons. As hell breaks loose, it's up to Bostick to break the curse.

Director April Mullen camera-jockeys the proceedings with near-borderline competence, but the movie is jam-packed with dreadful digital effects and sub-par makeup design work and the whole mess is finally so low-budget that the setting itself seems ludicrously under-populated. Not that the godawful script helps matters, but Mullens's directorial "touch" is to play everything for overwrought hilarity and/or horror - so much so, that the movie begins to plod with the kind of dullness one gets when a picture's frantic qualities just plain wear you down.

Apparently, Dead Before Dawn is the first stereoscopic 3-D film shot in its entirety by a female director and also purports to be the first-ever stereoscopic 3-D film made as a full-fledged all-Canadian feature in Canuckland. Both attributes mean little since the overall compositions of the shots are so dull that the depth of 3-D means zilch and the few comin-at-ya' f/X stink to high heaven. Also, Canada has actually generated a genuinely fine all-Canuck 3-D feature film. It might not be full-on back-to-back 3-D, but it was actually shot ON FILM as opposed to the much inferior red-cam digital. Oh, and it was made over 50-years-ago in Toronto. Directed by Julian Roffman (I'll grant you, he's not a female), his 1961 3=D effort The Mask is a genuinely cool movie and a far more historic contribution to both the history of genre films and, of course, Canadian film history.

Dead Before Dawn 3-D is one of those horrid Canadian films that wants us to applaud it because the movie was simply made and because its filmmaker chose to attack it - seemingly - to get into the record books, rather than to generate a good movie. Granted the picture was cobbled together to make money, but that's hardly an achievement when there are a lot of dreadful movies that make far more money than this will ever make and frankly, aren't quite as mind-numbingly mediocre.

Worse yet, is that the film seems genuinely aimed at a youth audience, but it dumbs itself down, treating them like morons. My own 13-year-old daughter Julia caught on to this while watching it with me. She occasionally reviews films at the Film Corner as my junior cub reporter (you can read some of Julia's reviews by clicking HERE), but after seeing Dead Before Dawn 3-D she yawned, then remarked, "I'm going to pass on writing about this, Dad. Life's too short."

Indeed it is.

Dead Before Dawn 3D plays at the Niagara Integrated Film Festival (NIFF 2014). For ticket info, click HERE.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES - Review By Greg Klymkiw

In preparation for the July 11, 2014 release of
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES,
let us remind ourselves how dreadful
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is and hope the new film has
a script not comprised solely of putrid faecal matter on toilet paper.
At least RISE has a real director unlike the 2011 debacle.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) dir. Rupert Wyatt
TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE
Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine, David Hewlett

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I have absolutely no knee-jerk prejudice against remakes, reboots, sequels or prequels as the number of good and/or even great ones is impressive. I do, however, have a problem with bad and/or mediocre and/or (worst of all) unnecessary movies - whatever they may be. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, save for the millions of dollars it bamboozled out of moviegoers, has no real reason to exist, at least not in the pathetic form offered up like so much slop in a soup kitchen..

The movie is about NOTHING and rife with long, dull scenes that go nowhere. The screenplay, such as it is, has not (I suspect) actually been written, but assembled with alphabet blocks by chimpanzees - not very bright ones at that. The chimps deserving the blame for their less than stellar work are Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver whose credits include - ahem - The Relic (a watchable monster movie), An Eye for An Eye (a watchable vigilante movie) and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (a watchable thriller). The accent here is clearly on "watchable" - an achievement not attained by Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Not only have these two simian scribes delivered an inconsequential plot that's about nothing, but they've populated the landscape with the dullest roles imaginable. Oh, and if anyone thinks I'm merely picking on the writers - I am. They're also the producers of this thing.

Bottom line: This movie is not worthy of the Original Five (kind of like the National Hockey League's Original Six), a tough act to follow as far as movies go (and clearly never attained by members of the NHL post-Original-Six either). In contrast to the work generated by the writers (and I reiterate, producers) of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the collective writing talents behind the five original Planet of the Apes movies wrote screenplays for the likes of Frank Capra, George Stevens, David Lean, Martin Ritt, William Wyler, Sidney Lumet, Franco Zeffirelli, John Frankenheimer, Roger Corman and Martin Scorsese.

This alone should be enough to rest my case.

In addition to the abominable screenplay, the writers (with their producer caps on) assembled a cast worthy of the monkey house of purported characters they created. Leading man James (Spring Breakers) Franco is one of my favourite actors, but here he sleepwalks through his part as a chemical manufacturing scientist who creates a drug meant to cure Alzheimer's that instead kills humans whilst creating a new super species of apes. John Lithgow goes through the motions of delivering a professional by-the numbers performance as Franco's addled Dad who is briefly revived by Sonny-Jim's chemical discovery before plunging into further madness and finally death. Frieda Pinto parades her vacuous beauty about whilst exuding intellect as blank as an unformatted floppy disk in the role of Franco's zoo veterinarian girlfriend; a real stretch unless one believes veterinary colleges are in the business of graduating animal doctors with less intelligence than their patients. Last, but certainly not least on this ship of fools is the non-entity that is David Oyewolo, who plays the least compelling corporate villain ever committed to celluloid. His performance is so bland that not even good writing would have saved him in the thankless role of the pharmaceutical company baddie who - wait for it - is more interested in profits than science.

Delivering exceptional work in spite of nothing resembling writing employed in the creation of his role as an animal shelter administrator, Brian Cox, one of the world's greatest living actors, might have actually benefited if something as unimaginative as a recognizable archetype might have been devised to allow for some virtuoso scenery-chewing. Alas, this was not to be. Then there are stellar performances from actors playing the supporting scum-buckets. They acquit themselves so well that one wishes they either had a better movie to be in (like Tom Felton as the vile animal shelter attendant) or David Hewlett as Franco's nasty next door neighbour who hates monkeys and berates old men with Alzheimer's. Hewlett's so good, he should have been cast as the central corporate baddie instead of the aforementioned bland loser they DID cast.

And Lest We Forget - Andy Serkis, the somewhat overrated CGI body double who previously and famously aped (as it were) the character of Gollum in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here he gets to play Franco's pet chimp Caesar who is more intelligent than Albert Einstein and leads a grand monkey revolt. Don't get me wrong, Serkis IS a good actor, but what he delivered for Jackson finally worked as well as it did because the writing was generally good and the CGI was stunning. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the non-writing, ho-hum direction and obvious CGI all conspire to give us so little to root for that the gymnastics of Serkis's apery is all for naught.

While a solid, simple plot can have considerable merit in providing a perfectly manufactured coat hanger to adorn with cool shit, this pathetic new sequel/prequel/remake/reboot or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be is so lacklustre that I struggled in vain whilst waiting for something - ANYTHING - of any consequence to happen. It didn't.

In a nutshell, here's the plot - or rather, grocery list:

Scientist discovers miracle drug to cure Alzheimer's.

Said drug turns chimp into Super Chimp.

Alas, same drug kills scientist's Dad.

Scientist raises chimp as own child.

Girlfriend pops in and out of movie to smile stupidly.

Chimp gets into all manner of shenanigans.

Chimp bites finger off next door neighbour.

Chimp is incarcerated in animal shelter full of apes.

Chimp leads ape revolt on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Chimp leads apes to freedom amongst ancient Redwood trees.

Next door neighbour, afflicted with deadly virus, casually goes to work as airline pilot, finger miraculously intact and spreads virus worldwide.

What again, I ask you, is this movie actually ABOUT?

The original 1968 Arthur P. Jacobs production of Planet of the Apes was dazzlingly directed by the great Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton), superbly adapted by Michael (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia) Wilson and Rod (The Twilight Zone) Serling from Pierre Boulle's brilliant novel "La planète des singes" and featuring a stellar cast that attacked their roles with relish. And what roles they were! The makers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes might have thought to take their cues from the original source for the necessary inspiration. In addition to having a great square-jawed hero in the form of the cynical, no-nonsense astronaut Taylor (Charlton "GOD" Heston) the original movie boasted a terrific array of colourful supporting characters that great actors like Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans played to the hilt. The only thing the Rise team might have been influenced by was the role of Nova in the original, a staggeringly beautiful, but equally blank leading lady. Smartly, this character in the original was mute whereas this awful new reboot chooses to allow Freida Pinto to open her mouth - thus forcing the already leaden lines she's been given to thud to the floor with greater force than a body hitting the pavement from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Planet of the Apes was, still is and always will be a great picture. Let's forget, however, that the moronic Tim Burton remake even exists. Though dreadful as it is, it's fucking Rembrandt compared to Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The first time I saw Schaffner's Planet of the Apes was as a nine-year-old lad, sitting in the front row of Winnipeg's long-shuttered picture palace the Metropolitan Theatre (where Guy Maddin eventually shot Isabella Rossellini in the stunning My Dad is 100 Years Old). It was the first time I got gooseflesh in a movie. So profound was my experience that it was, indeed, the movie that compelled/condemned me to a life of servitude under the pleasurable shackles of motion pictures. I have seen the picture well over 100 times since and made a point of watching it with my then-10-year-old daughter during an Ape marathon prior to seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes when it first opened in 2011. If truth be told, I was really excited to see the new picture which I suppose is what added profoundly to my eventual disappointment.

Schaffner's picture is a genuine classic. It holds up as powerfully as any great piece of superbly executed populist cinema should. Mysterious, thrilling, funny, intelligent, propulsive in all the right ways and a movie replete with thought-provoking thematic elements including that of religious fanaticism suppressing both science and new ideas, the topsy-turvy look at humans fulfilling the role of "dumb beast", notions of time and time travel and the devastating effects of war. Neither these themes nor the picture has dated.

I have always maintained that its cinematic storytelling techniques are so classical and finely wrought and its technical virtuosity so ahead of its time that the movie could be released virtually untouched and I suspect it could/would be as big a hit NOW as it once was. Most tellingly to me was just how compelling the original movie was for my little girl. She remained stapled into the chesterfield, her eyes transfixed upon my hi-def monitor and nary one bathroom break. The discussion we had about the movie afterwards centred on the IDEAS as much as it did about the story and how entertaining it was.

No similar discussion occurred after watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes because, frankly, it's really about NOTHING. The stakes for the characters in the original film were always tied to the issues it explored, whereas the stakes for all the characters in Rise are rooted in not much of anything - save for James Franco's selfish, whiny and somewhat unconvincing need to prove that his new drug will work.

As a kid in the years between 1968 and 1970 when the first sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes finally appeared, one of the things that haunted me - nay, OBSESSED me! - was a lingering question I had at the devastating ending to the first film. When Chuck (Jesus H. Christ) Heston rides deeper into the "Forbidden Zone" and discovers (thanks to the writing genius that was Rod Serling for coming up specifically with the ending) that he is NOT on another planet, but a nuclear-war-devastated Earth in the future, I was chomping at the bit to learn what our astronaut would find in the wasteland AFTER he discovered a half-buried Statue of Liberty in the sand.

What Heston finally discovered (along with James Franciscus, a new astronaut who follows a rescue-mission trajectory to the monkey planet) was a crumbling Manhattan beneath the desert populated by Doomsday-Bomb-worshipping mutants with telepathic powers who were about to be attacked by an army of war-thirsty gorillas.

Jesus Christ Almighty, indeed!

Just the plot alone as penned by veteran screenwriter Paul (Goldfinger, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Murder on the Orient Express) Dehn was original enough to keep one riveted. More than the plot, though, was that - AGAIN - the movie was actually ABOUT something.

Even though the picture is a perfunctorily directed by Ted Post (Hang 'em High, Magnum Force and the genuinely wonderful Go Tell The Spartans) Post, Dehn's superb screenplay challenged us with notions of blind militaristic rage (including a peace march as reflective of the Vietnam War, which could have - in parallel contrast - provided a backdrop to the new picture with respect to America's idiotic "War on Terror"), religious fundamentalism justifying war (from both the apes AND the humans) and most terrifyingly, the whole notion of peace through superior firepower.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes has no such ideas. Though it's set in contemporary times and could have explored terrorism, blind militarism, rising fascism/fundamentalism, the financial crisis, the oil crisis - any manner of issues facing the world today, it chooses Instead, to focus upon the corruption inherent in pharmaceutical companies, Alzheimer's disease and cruelty to animals. These issues are not without merit, but they're just there to serve the non-plot, almost as a necessary evil to be touched upon and dropped quickly in favour of dazzling CGI.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes appeared a year after Beneath the Planet of the Apes and even at the tender age of 12 I remember thinking, "What is this shit? A sequel? They blew up the fucking Earth!" (I had a salty tongue even back then.) When I saw the picture - as a kid and even now after umpteen viewings - I was dazzled. The real star is again screenwriter Paul Dehn as opposed to actor-turned-competent director Don Taylor who, in fairness, DID direct a fine’ 70s version of The Island of Dr. Moreau with Burt Lancaster and the cult sci-fi classic The Final Countdown. But what a GREAT script! What first-rate sci-fi!!!

From a plot standpoint, Dehn delivered a perfectly plausible twist via a new character called Dr. Milo who, like Cornelius and Zira, was an ape scientist who defied the "law" of fundamentalism, resurrected and repaired Chuck Heston's spaceship and then all three simians of science followed a backwards trajectory just before the Earth is destroyed and wind up BACK in time. This was also a clearly fascinating way to utilize the notions of time and space and, in its own way, delve into quantum physics and the early postulations of parallel universe theory. This third official Apes sequel delivered up clever satirical goods, explored issues of women's' rights (plus animal rights - far more effectively than Rise), immoral interrogation techniques and most importantly studied the world of fanaticism/militarism within higher levels of government bureaucracy and how THIS is where the true power often lies and where sick, corrupt values run rampant.

What it does here so magnificently is how it offers up a great villain in the form of a German-born scientist/political advisor (a la Henry Kissinger) played by the wonderful actor Eric Braeden (who had a hugely successful career as a soap opera TV star, but most notably appeared in the great ‘70s sci-fi thriller Collosus: The Forbin Project from screenwriter James Bridges and the underrated director Joseph Sargent). Braeden is such a nasty, vicious, homicidal government bureaucrat and his great performance and superb characterization thanks to Dehn's writing puts the lacklustre aforementioned villain in Rise to complete and utter shame.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, is as sharp a sequel as the third instalment - replete with great writing from Paul Dehn and the added bonus of thrilling direction from J. Lee Thompson, the man who gave us the brilliant, original, utterly chilling Cape Fear as well as some of the greatest action epics of all time like North West Frontier, Taras Bulba and The Guns of Navarone. This particular sequel tells us about the rise of Caesar, the ape child of Cornelius and Zira who leads the simians in revolt against their human oppressors.

Conquest is the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes most closely resembles, yet pales most mightily against. Conquest deals head on with the issue that plagued (and continues to plague) America most doggedly - that of slavery and, includes good dashes of America's susceptibility to right wing government rule. A thoroughly effective repellent performance from Don Murray as the fascist California governor racing to eventually become President of the United States (he and his minions always wear black-coloured uniforms hearkening to both Nazism and Italian Fascism) is so politically charged - not just for its time, but like all great classics, resonates in a contemporary context. Rise has no such villain and virtually NO political context. I'll not speak too much about Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the fifth official sequel and perhaps the weakest entry in the series, but even still, in its exploration of the early beginnings of the fundamentalism that eventually grips even the apes, it makes the new film look so puny in comparison.

Rupert Wyatt is a dreadful director. The pace of Rise is herky-jerky and the final action set piece on the Golden Gate Bridge - which should be spectacular - is yet another madly constructed action scene from a director who couldn't helm action to save his life.

The worst element of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is in its over-reliance upon CGI. The effects are relatively effective, but they're not there to serve the story, but to merely serve themselves. The stunning makeup effects for the apes designed by John Chambers in the ‘60s blow ALL the CGI totally away. The makeup allows great actors - throughout the original Apes series to actually deliver real performances and, thanks to terrific writing, inject considerable life into the proceedings.

Rise from the Planet of the Apes is, in contrast, moviemaking at its most dreadful - bereft of ideas, good writing and direction from someone who has a vision and/or the virtuosity to create popular cinema of the highest order. Perhaps the most disgusting thing about the new film is that it fails to acknowledge the author of the original novel and the screenwriters (primarily Paul Dehn and Serling) of the original series in the head credits. This is ultimately a disgrace.

Do yourself a favour and either skip Rise of the Planet of the Apes or, if you feel you must see the picture at all, try to watch the original films first.

You'll see the difference!