SHOOTING THE MUSICAL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Humanity takes centre stage! Absolute Must-See at the 2015 Edition of the Canadian Film Fest in Toronto!

Shooting the Musical (aka After Film School) (2014)
Dir. Joel Ashton McCarthy
Starring: Bruce Novakowski, Chris Walters, Rebecca Strom, Lisa Ovies, Rory W. Tucker, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Casey Margolis

Review By Greg Klymkiw

After film school, the talented young filmmaker Maximus Park managed to generate one highly revered short film after another and became the esteemed, multi-award-winning darling of the avant-garde. Having just completed the writing of his first feature-length screenplay, "Now They Are Nothing", he sits in front of his computer screen, wracked with emotion, trying desperately to hold back tears until he is able to, through pain-wracked gasps, inform us that he's just swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. This one last Maximus Park film, a Photo Booth video selfie, allows him to declare that his script is an elaborate suicide note and that, soon, very, very, very soon, he'll be dead.

Powerful stuff! A powerful opening to a powerful motion picture - so powerful that it delivers a whole new dimension to the word "powerful". I daresay, it might even be on a par with the subject of actor Perry King's immortal line of dialogue in Richard Fleischer's Mandingo when he opines, "But Pappy, that Big Pearl, she be powerful musky."

That's pretty goddamn powerful!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, finally, a picture of importance and delicacy blesses the silver screen. In fact, I'm compelled to state unequivocally that no film in recent memory has come even close to the sensitivity displayed in Shooting The Musical, a stunning tribute to love, friendship and artistry of the highest order.

So please, I respectfully ask - nay, demand - that Yasujiro Ozu, Jean Renoir, Francois Truffaut and all the other purported humanitarians of cinema, to just up and move right the fuck over.

Writer-director-editor Joel Ashton McCarthy is indie cinema's new gunslinger in town and he's locked and loaded his picture to splooge the nutritious buckshot of human kindness and understanding, square in the puffy, oh-so-concerned faces of all movie-goers expecting taste and restraint.

Yes, your glop-greedy faces will be lovingly desecrated with the dripping goo of McCarthy's cinematic ejaculate - especially, when after the on-screen death of young Maximus Park, we're introduced to the stiff's roommate Adam Baxter, who makes a surprise visit, frantically requiring his pal to kindly lend him some weed. He speaks and acts with the kind of delicacy one expects in friendships rooted in deep respect, and upon discovering that Maximus is "passed out", Adam procures a felt pen and lovingly etches a penis, replete with a grotty ball sack and pubes on his pal's face.

Yes, we've all done this at one point or another in our lives, only we probably haven't actually desecrated (wittingly or unwittingly) the face of a recently-deceased corpse.

Adam is also a filmmaker, though less celebrated than Maximus since his post-film-school desires are in the realm of making commercial films which, he suspects he'll probably never get a chance to make since he lives in Canada where more emphasis is placed upon indigenous art film purveyors and where many of the officially government financed non-art-films merely purport to be commercial, but are, more often than not, pathetic, pallid and revoltingly twee versions of what Canadian financing bureaucrats think is commercial. However, being a hustler, liar and opportunist, several key attributes for any filmmaker to have, he hides the contents of the suicide video, rewrites his old pal's script, rallies together a cast, crew and financing based upon exploiting the memory of his deceased roomie, then proceeds to make his own version of the Maximus Park screenplay.

He bravely, callously and delightfully sets out to make a musical about a high school massacre that makes Columbine and all other bloody mass killings in educational institutions look like by-law infractions of the parking ticket order.

Shooting The Musical (formerly known as After Film School) is one of the most outrageous, offensive and laugh-out-loud comedies ever made. Framed within a mockumentary approach (which happily adheres to the genre), McCarthy's picture is a triumph of the kind of fresh, skewed and utterly insane filmmaking that the best Canadian films are known for in the international arena.

The film is never played as a spoof and/or sketch comedy, but successfully adheres to its genuinely satirical and darkly comedic roots. The performances are pitched perfectly with the talented assemblage of bright young actors playing a variety of roles perfectly straight. Leading man Bruce Novakowski as the charmingly sleazy director Adam is a revelation and then some. The camera loves him, he's got an impeccable sense of comic timing and delivery and most of all, he embodies his scumbag character with all the qualities that allow us to root for his otherwise reprehensible behaviour throughout.

The movie is so full of surprises (including a magnificent shocker of a supporting cameo role) that I'm loathe to ruin it for an audience by regurgitating them here. Suffice to say, that Shooting The Musical has its share of familiar and not-so familiar targets of what life is genuinely like for the myriad of unemployed/unemployable graduates of film schools the world over. If the movie has anything in it that irked me at all, it's an opening title card which attaches a quotation from Mark Twain that reads: "The secret source of humour is not joy but sorrow. There is no humour in Heaven."

Arrrggggghhhhh!

This title card is so completely unnecessary that it feels like a cop-out excuse to give audiences permission to laugh. That might not have been the intent, but that's how it comes off. (As well, the production company logos are so funny and offensive, that they too come across in a similar fashion to the Twain quote.) If there's any justice in the world, the filmmakers will relegate the Twain quote and the two production company logos to the end of the film, so an audience can laugh as heartily as their mouths are agape at some of the picture's more delectably offensive elements are.

Yes, this is a genuinely abhorrent, repugnant, reprehensibly repulsive shock-mock-doc that's as surprisingly (occasionally) sweet as it is nauseatingly, screamingly, shockingly, knee-slappingly and hysterically laugh-filled. And guess what, the biggest non-surprise of all is that the picture is happily bereft of the most grotesque credits of all: "Produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada".

The Film Corner Rating: **** 4 Stars

Shooting The Musical screens at the 2015 Canadian Film Fest in Toronto.

MAPS TO THE STARS (TIFF 2014 - TIFF GALA) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

In Hollywood, the eyes of the Dead are always upon you. Only the Dead see the Truth and only in Death can Truth be found.

Mia Wasikowska
handily
brandishes the
Genie Award
Bludgeon
(the Canadian version of an OSCAR)

Maps to the Stars (2014)
Dir. David Cronenberg
Starring: Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, Evan Bird

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize that they've
been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives they read
the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings,
murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles,
revolutions, war. This daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is
a joke. Oranges can't titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be
violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been
cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing."

- Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust

The movie business is creepy.

Its heart and soul resides in the City of Angels and surrounding environs of Hollywood, the Dream Factory. The place hasn't really changed much since 1939 when Nathanael West wrote his seminal novel about the Hollywood underbelly "The Day of the Locust". There's more smog now, but the sun still shines bright and the desperation of its populace, especially those in the movie business, is just as sick, venal and pathetically palpable.

And the business? No changes here, either.

It's mind-numbingly cruel, shallow, exploitative, backstabbing, bereft of truth, lacking in taste and just plain evil. That it's a world full of hustlers, whores, scumbags, flakes and empty-vessel operators is not so much the cherry on the sundae, but rather the undigested peanuts and corn flecking an already-unhealthy-looking loaf of faecal matter. The poor are still poor, and desperate. Even the rich and powerful, are desperate.

This odious backdrop allows Canadian visionary David Cronenberg to take no prisoners and serve up one of his most agreeably sickening films in some time. Maps to the Stars is in deliciously poor taste, nastily funny, blessed with a consistently gnawing malevolence and makes for one hell of a Mr. Toad-like wild-ride through the Indy 500 of broken dreams in contemporary Hollywood, the same living Hell Mr. West wrote about 75 years ago. L.A. still burns.

Cronenberg is, of coursed, blessed with just the right amount of petrol to torch Hollywood. Bruce Wagner's screenplay is imbued with the rather perverse quality of plotting that's often quite compelling, but in its own way, seems intentionally perfunctory. Too often, I found I was pointed precisely where the movie was headed. I don't think, however, that's a flaw in the writing, so much as the point of the film (and screenplay).

First and foremost, the plot is and, in fact, must be secondary to the WORLD of the film and as such, feeds into it. Secondly and perhaps most importantly, the manner in which the plot-points play out are, in a perversely brilliant manner the very thing that contributes to the film's satire. Hollywood, especially now, is built upon is providing plot elements that no longer surprise. Such is the case here, but both Wagner and Cronenberg mask this very well. For half the film's running time you feel like the elements of plot are assembled to obscure the fact that there are only certain directions it can go and by the midpoint, I found it relatively easy to know exactly where the train was headed.

That the film is about the sick vapidity of making movies that are themselves even more vapid and familiar, is the brave sign of a writer fully in command of what makes satire so special. When you experience the real thing, as you do here, it's a wonder to behold.

And can there be anything more delightfully, nastily and appropriately vapid than the central characters in this film? Nope. This, of course, is a testament also to just how brilliant the film's cast is in rendering the emptiness beneath their shells, but doing so with no tongue-in-cheek and always making them real. These are people you'd never want to know (or be), but that's what makes them even more compelling.

Given the utter emptiness of the people in this world, I was delighted that Wagner's screenplay seemed to inspire Cronenberg, his cinematographer and production designer to always hammer home the hollow qualities of the world and characters. Everything takes on a kind of flat smog filtered look. The consistency of the lighting from interior to exterior, from day to night and back again (and then some), all managed to maintain a kind of ugliness that was strangely beautiful and ghastly. The homes most of these people live in are filled with wide, open spaces and yet, they seem empty and bereft of any personal touches on the parts of the characters. The environs appear to have all been art directed, or, if you will, interior designed.

This might be the most hollow film made in the past couple of decades and to that I say: "Huzzah!"

So, speaking of hollow, Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) is a gorgeous, self-absorbed movie star who is desperate to land a role in a remake of her late mother'a big starring role. Essentially, she'll be playing her mother. From any reasonable perspective, she'd be perfect for it, but what in Hollywood is ever reasonable? There are mysterious nagging doubts amongst the suits at the studio, most of whom are seldom seen. They also never return phone calls from either Havana or her agent. Via Wagner's script, Cronenberg deftly manoeuvres through the utterly ludicrous ins and out of Havana pathetically attempting to land the role, which is, in many ways, the vessel of emptiness that carries us into the heart of hollow Hell.

Havana's biggest weapon, it seems, are regular sessions with Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), a new-agey, ubiquitous paid-programming-TV-fixture who provides massage-therapy-self-help to Hollywood royalty and any stupidly rich person who can afford his outrageous fees. Weiss is married to Cristina (Olivia Williams), a doting stage Mom to their horrendously spoiled child star son Benjie (Evan Bird), who must constantly placate the studio suits that he's no longer hooked on drugs. He is, after all, the star of what must be a loathsome, but successful studio franchise entitled "The Bad Babysitter".

Moving down the Hollywood Food Chain, a bit closer to Nathanael West territory, our seemingly satirical journey places a fair bit of emphasis upon Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), a beautiful burn victim with a close Twitter relationship with Carrie Fisher which lands her the coveted job of being a personal assistant to Havana. Agatha is involved in a flirty, but borderline serious relationship with Jerome (Robert Pattinson), a handsome limo driver-actor-screenwriter who's at first repelled by Agatha's burn scars, but gradually comes to accept them. Sadly, whilst relationships in business are everything in Hollywood, relationships on a human level take a back seat. Jerome's limo, of course, has a very big back seat and he's more than willing to use it when aging stars require some backdoor servicing from his trusty sword.

This is probably not what the doctor ordered. Agatha, you see, is completely out of her gourd. Just released from years of incarceration in a Florida loony bin, pumped full of anti-schizo pills and fuelled with a burning (as it were) desire to make amends with those whom she wronged. Many years ago, she set the family home ablaze in a fit of pyromaniacal insanity, attempted to murder her little brother and in the process was horrifically burned herself.

A family reunion is not desired by her Mom, Dad and Brother, but in a town of six degrees of separation, it seems inevitable. Chances are also good, it's not going to be warm and fuzzy.

Have I mentioned the ghosts yet?

No? Ah, good. Well, yes. many of our characters receive regular visits from them and these creepy apparitions are prone to placing horrendously nasty ideas into the heads of those they haunt.

Have I mentioned the incest yet?

No? Ah, excellent. I'll leave it all for you to discover.

Have I mentioned the killings yet?

No? Lovely. You're in for a real treat.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

Maps To The Stars is a Gala Presentation at TIFF 2014.

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INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION - Petri's Classic 70s Thriller - TIFF CINEMATHEQUE SPECIAL SCREENINGS: SPRING 2014 - 1 SHOW ONLY: APRIL 17 @ 9:30pm @ TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX - Review By Greg Klymkiw

THIS MAN IS A SCUMBAG, BUT WHAT A MAN,
WHAT A SCUMBAG!

Here's a treat for Torontonians. See the Oscar-Winning thriller on a big screen from the 4K digital restoration used for the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray. SEE IT ON A BIG SCREEN @TIFF CINEMATHEQUE SPECIAL SCREENINGS SPRING 2014 - 1 SHOW ONLY, APRIL 17, 9:30pm, TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX. THEN BUY THE MOVIE ON BRD WITH ALL THE DELECTABLE CRITERION COLLECTION TRIMMINGS TO ENJOY FOREVER.

Fetishes Galore! Sex, Murder and Vinyl. Always, Vinyl.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) ****
Dir. Elio Petri
Starring: Gian Maria Volonté, Florinda Bolkan

Review By
Greg Klymkiw

A homicide detective on the eve of his promotion to head the department of domestic terrorism plays one final fetishistic sex-and-death-game with the sexy mistress who gets off on the morbid rituals as intensely as he does. Things go according to his perverse plan, but when part of the thrill is to commit a ghastly crime and load up as many clues as possible pointing in his own direction, nobody will presume he's guilty. Class will ALWAYS shield the sinful and he is, after all, a citizen of distinction and hence, above suspicion...so much of what occurs in this film - just a few years shy of being half a century old - has the kind of resonance so many cinematic post-9/11 indictments approach with mere kid gloves in comparison...In any age, this would have proven to be a deeply disturbing film, but now, somehow, it's beyond that which is merely unsettling. We could well be watching a movie set in the here and now and realize that what we're watching is not far at all from the terrible truth of the world we live in.

READ MY FULL REVIEW FROM DECEMBER 8, 2013 HERE.

For further info and tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE.

Here's some info on the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray. You can order it directly from the links below and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

"Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion" is currently available in a first-rate dual format (Blu-Ray and DVD) edition from the Criterion Collection. The film not only looks and sounds great, but the added value extra features are so bountiful and illuminating that this is definitely a must-own title for all true aficionados and collectors of fine cinema. The package is replete with all the bells and whistles including a 4K digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural sound, a revealing archival interview with director Elio Petri, a tremendous feature length documentary entitled "Elio Petri: Notes About a Filmmaker", an interview with scholar Camilla Zamboni, a fifty-minute doc on the star of Petri's film "Investigation of a Citizen Named Volonté" and a superb interview with composer Ennio Morricone. Add to this the requisite trailers, new English subtitle translation, a lovely booklet packed with great written material and one Blu-ray and two DVDs all in attractive packaging.

INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Criterion Unleashes Great Blu-Ray

Fetishes Galore! Sex, Murder and Vinyl. Always, Vinyl.

A homicide detective on the eve of his promotion to head the department of domestic terrorism plays one final fetishistic sex-and-death-game with the sexy mistress who gets off on the morbid rituals as intensely as he does. Things go according to his perverse plan, but when part of the thrill is to commit a ghastly crime and load up as many clues as possible pointing in his own direction, nobody will presume he's guilty. Class will ALWAYS shield the sinful and he is, after all, a citizen of distinction and hence, above suspicion.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) ****
Dir. Elio Petri
Starring: Gian Maria Volonté, Florinda Bolkan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are no greater thrills than timing La petit mort to the precise moment of snuffing out the life of a willing sex partner, mais non? Ah, but how can it be truly, madly and deeply satisfying to a sociopathic killer when all the clues he leaves behind to point the finger in his direction will be wilfully ignored because he is, quite simply, a citizen above suspicion? This is the question facing Il Dottore (Gian Maria Volonté) after strangling Augusta Terzi (Florinda Bolkan), his mistress and game participant in sex play involving reenactments of violent death. You see, she's been unfaithful to him with - gasp! - a hunky, young revolutionary and now, she must pay for her infidelity - albeit in the otherwise pleasurable act of coitus (which, admittedly, will be one mega-interuptus).

This is Italy, a country as brimming with corruption, crime and civil unrest NOW as it was in the late 60s/early 70s when Elio Petri's creepy black comedy thriller was made. In fact, one of the extraordinary things about the movie is that it feels as sophisticated, intelligent and lacking any sense of being dated, as if it were made just yesterday. If Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion feels vaguely antiquated at all, it's probably because genuinely dark, truthful and nastily funny black comedies blending sex and death are pretty much not made anymore. (If anything truly dates it, though, is that it astoundingly and deservedly won the Best Foreign Language Oscar. A film like this would never win an Oscar in this day and age.)

Driven by Ennio Morricone's immortal musical score, featuring a main theme so familiar that those who've never seen this film will remark, "Oh, so this is where that tune comes from." Its disturbing, albeit sprightly rancour captures the perverse flavour of the story, setting and most of all, the character Volonté so brilliantly renders. Morricone feels as playfully malicious a tunesmith as Petri is as a filmmaker.

And yes, this is a movie as mischievous as it is grotesquely malevolent as Petri delivers one sex-drenched flashback after another juxtaposed with Il Dottore's obsessive need to stack guilt in his favour, if only to prove to himself, that he could have been caught redhanded, on film, with several high officials watching from a decent perch and still not be properly investigated - never mind being charged, tried, found guilty and punished.

The game Petri plays is as much a game that we're allowed to participate in and though some might find his political ironies obvious in the same ways so many of Lina Wertmuller's work (Seven Beauties, Swept Away) proved to be (at least to some), there's simply no denying the power of both the creep-factor and the incredulity with which one is forced to guffaw at the proceedings.

Finally, though, so much of what occurs in this film - just a few years shy of being half a century old - has the kind of resonance so many cinematic post-9/11 indictments approach with mere kid gloves in comparison. Petri drags us though the absurdity of blatant human rights violations - including physical torture - all exercised under the pretence of protecting the world from extremist radicalism when in fact, not a thing happens in this film that's ultimately not directly related to the notion of protecting the rights of those granted immunity from suspicion of any kind due to their class, their lofty station in the world.

Again, we have a perfect example of popular cinema from the 70s facing hard truths that our own filmmakers dare not address honestly in contemporary cinema. In any age, this would have proven to be a deeply disturbing film, but now, somehow, it's beyond that which is merely unsettling. We could well be watching a movie set in the here and now and realize that what we're watching is not far at all from the terrible truth of the world we live in.

"Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion" is currently available in a first-rate dual format (Blu-Ray and DVD) edition from the Criterion Collection. The film not only looks and sounds great, but the added value extra features are so bountiful and illuminating that this is definitely a must-own title for all true aficionados and collectors of fine cinema. The package is replete with all the bells and whistles including a 4K digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural sound, a revealing archival interview with director Elio Petri, a tremendous feature length documentary entitled "Elio Petri: Notes About a Filmmaker", an interview with scholar Camilla Zamboni, a fifty-minute doc on the star of Petri's film "Investigation of a Citizen Named Volonté" and a superb interview with composer Ennio Morricone. Add to this the requisite trailers, new English subtitle translation, a lovely booklet packed with great written material and one Blu-ray and two DVDs all in attractive packaging.

SEE IT DURING THE TIFF CINEMATHEQUE SPECIAL SCREENINGS: SPRING 2014 - ONE SHOW ONLY ON APRIL 17 @ 9:30pm @ TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX AND THEN BUY THE MOVIE TO ENJOY FOREVER. For further info and tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE.

SEX, DRUGS & TAXATION (aka SPIES & GLISTRUP) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2013 - Fear & Loathing in Copenhagen

Michael Shannon lookalike Pilou Asbæk as real-life Danish Billionaire playboy Simon Spies

Sex, Drugs & Taxation (2013) *****
Dir. Christoffer Boe
Starring: Nicolas Bro, Pilou Asbæk

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Fear and Loathing in Denmark is certainly one way to pitch Christoffer Boe's perverse, manic, absurdly hilarious and sometimes dangerous (but absolutely gratifying) belly flop into this fact-based tale charting a 20-year-long unlikely friendship that began during Copenhagen's swinging 60s. Generating its own parallel universe to the drug-and-booze-fuelled delirium, which Terry Gilliam accomplished so tremendously in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the 1998 adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 semi-autobiographical novel, director Boe tosses us aboard his very own hallucinogenic roller-coaster ride which comprises the properties of both the English title of his film, Sex, Drugs & Taxation, and the very appropriate Danish title Spies & Glistrup.

Hunter S. Thompson's addled satirical literary meanderings were pointedly subtitled "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" - meanderings rendered even more satirically addled (delightfully so) by Gilliam. First serialized in Rolling Stone magazine, then published a year later in standalone hard copy form, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas celebrated a debauchery that, during the 70s, could be the only possible way to view an America that was well on the trajectory of a slow crash and burn. Boe, however, aims his satirical eye at a very specific dream that initially was not part of any sort of collective nationalistic hopes, wishes or dreams, but instead belonged to two men - their grand, mad dream which eventually became a national dream and like Thompson's American Dream, took its own fork in the road - choosing instead an eventual boulevard of broken dreams.

Just as Thompson's novel and Gilliam's film were rooted in mediated reality, so too is Boe's film - maybe even more so. Ripped from Danish headlines, Sex, Drugs & Taxation turns out to be a worthy fantasia of the strangest corporate dynasty in Denmark's history. In fact, the dreams of two men were really only one man's dream - its mastermind. The other, in retrospect and within the context of Roe's film, is a dim-bulb-ish recipient of perks born from the practical realization of the dream, his hedonistic enlightenment so to speak (and not as big an oxymoron as one might think).

The aforementioned dreamer is corporate tax lawyer Mogens Glistrup (Nicolas Bro), a paunchy, balding, bucktoothed family man with a cockeyed visage who lives vicariously through the antics of his boozing, whore-mongering chief client, best friend and crazed vacation travel magnate Simon Spies (Pilou Asbaek). Glistrup took a back-room position while Spies was the public face to all of his friend's legal chicanery. Glistrup wanted to make his best friend Spies filthy rich, but in so doing, his real desire was to crack intricate Danish tax law and find a legal way to keep Spies at a zero tax base which, he hoped, would extend to all of Denmark.

Glistrup, you see, was both a genius and most probably insane.

He believed that paying taxes was not only wrong, but that for a country to collect taxes was immoral. To be sure, Boe's film is a complete miasma of back-room business world and government bureaucracy back-stabbing and the details of this world of high finances, law and government are never simplified - they're laid out in all their complexity.

None of this, though, is ever dull since every single story beat involving corporate shenanigans and the malleability of jurisprudence is indelibly tied to some of the most outlandishly grotesque and hilarious indulgences in sex and drugs.

There are moments in the film so gloriously absurd, so sex-drenched, booze flooded and drug charged that one can do little more than soar along with a movie that dazzles us with stylistic flourishes, compelling storytelling and characters as engaging as they are reprehensible. Though one can credit director Boe and his co-writer Simon Pasternak for creating a delectably dense and intelligent screenplay, it would be remiss of me not to mention the tremendous efforts of a perfect cast. Its two leads are especially stunning. There is never a false moment rendered by either of them. What's astounding is that they must infuse their roles with bigger-than-life attributes and push certain thespian boundaries to levels that are ever-so dangerously bordering on over-the-top. They simply MUST do this or the film would NEVER work.

Pilou Asbæk as Spies drives his performance with a Mephistophelean charm that is as malevolent as it is strangely sexy and Nicholas Bro must slowly and creepily infuse his role with the mounting fervour of an anarchist crossed with a fundamentalist fascist. That we BELIEVE these men are friends, as we further believe the development of their friendship and its almost inevitable erosion and even deeper yet, that we sense love, sadness and loyalty amidst betrayal, is a testament to the genius of these two actors and to director Boe for creating an atmosphere allowing these men to take the kind of chances which, as actors, could have threatened to plunge either or both of them into an abyss they might otherwise have never fully recovered from. This kind of bravery displayed by a director and his lead actors is so rare in contemporary cinema that to see it here - so raw and dazzling, is not only sheer joy, but feels almost privileged.

Sex, Drugs & Taxation sometimes makes us feel as if it is a film that's not only set during another age, but one that might actually have been made at a time when cinema knew no boundaries and as such, proved both immortal and universal. It's a great picture, and like all great pictures, it's got shelf life branded deep into its cinematic flesh. After a lifetime of almost insanely devoting myself to cinema, I've gotten to a point where "good" is no longer "good enough". Even "excellence" sometimes bores me. I demand greatness and when I find it I feel like I've been given more than ample reason to keep expecting it (as is the case with this film), the vicious circle begins all over again for me. I continue to see one movie after another, looking, ever-searching and hoping, like that junkie who needs bigger and bigger fixes - I keep digging ever deeper, like some palaeontologist or archeologist, hoping to unearth some discovery of cultural and historical importance. I crave for pictures to instil the gooseflesh I first felt over half a century ago and that continued for quite some time then started, in the 80s (when the hapless Glistrup was at the tail end of his incarceration), when cinema felt like it was in the throes of a slow, painful death. What keeps saving me, what keeps giving mne faith are films like Sex, Drugs & Taxation.

This is a movie that'll stay with you, grow with you and be around long after you're gone from this Earth. Now THAT'S entertainment!

"Sex, Drugs & Taxation" is part of the TIFF Vanguard Series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013. Visit the TIFF Website HERE.

COMPUTER CHESS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - A creepy contemporary relic of 80s exploration and paranoia comes to life in a movie that's as funny as it is creepy and unlike most anything you'll have seen (or will see).

Computer Chess (2013) ****
Dir. Andrew Bujalski
Starring: Gerald Peary, Patrick Riester, Gordon Kindlmann, Wiley Wiggins, Myles Page, Jim Lewis, Freddie Martinez, James Curry, Robin Schwartz, Chris Doubek, Cyndi Williams, Tishuan Scott

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Cos you're the joke of the neighbourhood,
why should you care if you're feeling good,
Take the long way home,
take the long way home..."
-Richard Davies, Roger Hodgson (1979)

As written and directed by Andrew Bujalski, Computer Chess is a great, visionary new picture reflecting a strangely familiar world so close we can almost touch it, yet finally feeling so long ago and far away that we have to pinch ourselves on a regular basis to prove any of it might have happened at all. Our breath is constantly snatched from within us as we bear witness to its subjects as they veer wildly between the extremes of both the mundane and the spiritual. Everything in between those two points is never what you expect it to be and the picture chooses directions that are near impossible to predict. The movie is laugh-out-loud hilarious, always compelling and might be the most aggressive expression of stylistically bold choices taken by any American film in recent memory.

It's also really creepy. The creep factor served up by Bujalski's one-of-a-kind experience creeps in (as it were), ever-so surreptitiously from a number of odd vantage points.

Weekend conferences, for example, are plenty creepy. A group of like-minded individuals descend from far-flung locales upon the neutral territory of a cut-rate hotel to share ideas, convey new inroads, engage in discourse or activities with a competitive edge and ultimately, to experience fellowship of an almost unrivalled intensity because the commingling is tightly scheduled and packed into a time frame of two or three days. The official portions of the conference take place under the flickering, pulsating glare of fluorescent lights in nondescript meeting rooms, the walls decorated with pale colours and the floors lined with wall-to-wall carpets notable only for the industrial strength fibres they've been hewn from.

This is where Bujalski's finely etched characters find themselves.

The evenings are spent in casual discourse - usually in one of the conference participant's hotel room and accompanied by copious amounts of booze, drugs and bowls of salted, mixed nuts. Sex is on the mind of some, but the potential of getting any is remote, save perhaps from hookers and/or from such unlikely sources that the mere thought of engaging in any coital gymnastics would be enough to inspire dry heaves.

One of the greatest scenes I've seen in any recent dramatic film is a lively late night discourse during an impromptu get together in a hotel room involving Carbray (James Curry) a young corporate geek feeling forced into justifying his very existence by John, a cynical older "casual" observer (brilliantly, hilariously and malevolently played by Jim Lewis) who baits him with an aggressive line of questioning. The verbal jousting is ultimately rooted in the subject of Chess and how it's being used in both computer science research and the experimental demonstrations on display.

And damned if the game of Chess - at least to me - isn't as creepy an activity as attending weekend conferences. It's a game that can only be played between two people with little to no real interaction save for that which is devoted to the quiet, heightened concentration required to move game pieces upon a board of light and dark squares. Often thought of as a thinking man's recreational activity, it involves such a single minded degree of strategizing on the part of the opponents that there can be no genuine communication, no interruption and certainly no idle chatter. Every ounce of brain matter must be used to move the pieces about in hopes of capturing the pieces of one's rival player - pieces representing Kings, Queens, Bishops, Rooks and Pawns.

The aforementioned cynic suggests that Chess is a game of war - so much so that the very use of the game at this conference might well be of interest to dark agencies like either the CIA, FBI or the Pentagon. John, the testy, curmudgeonly cynic might well be the creepiest character in the entire film. In fact, he may or may not be an operative with one of the shady agencies he brings up. He is one thing for sure - a drug dealer.

The Geek defender Carbray doesn't buy into the belief that he could possibly be engaged in activities that are exploitable as strategies of Totalitarian aggression. That said, he semi-concedes that even if his research leads to others using it to choose a darker and perhaps more militaristic path than he ever intended, his work is far too important to worry about the potentially ill-use of his efforts. Besides, Carbray reasons, if he wasn't doing the work, it might mean the Russians are doing it and might "get there" first. The cynic retorts that this is a poor argument - and one that "justifies any atrocity" - suggesting that Nazi scientists might also have used such arguments in the development of wholesale extermination techniques of "undesirables" during the Holocaust.

It is here where both men are handily shot down by an uncharacteristically and surprising interjection from someone far more stoned than anyone in the room. Freddie (Freddie Martinez), a dusky, long-haired, handsome young stoner, who appears to be the cynic's friend and partner, offers a sage retort to the entire argument. "Chess is black and white," he says emphatically. "It's not war. Chess is not war...War is Death! Hell is Pain! Chess is Victory! I'd rather play Chess than go get killed in war, get a bullet in the eye. I enjoy it. I enjoy playing it."

The cynic hands his handsome, dusky, thoughtful, philosophical and stoned young friend a joint. Time to move on. The conversation morphs into a discourse on artificial intelligence. The cynic pops some pills and heads to bed with the words, "I'm gonna let you guys figure this one out."

This particular centrepiece in the film reminded me of why I found and continue to find the game of Chess rather creepy. I remember an odd fellow from a similar time frame in the 80s. He was probably in his mid-40s at that point and my pals and I knew him to see him. We never spoke to the guy, nor he to us. We referred to him as Shakespeare since he vaguely resembled the stereotypical images of The Bard which adorned the myriad of publications in University book stores as well as various posters dotting the city for Shakespeare in the Park and the like.

By night, Shakespeare worked as a busboy in a little deli-cafe that we - for all intents and purposes - lived in. By day, he hung around the same deli-cafe, silently playing chess with an equally silent opponent. Once the game ended, his silent opponent would silently depart and Shakespeare would sit alone - in silence - reading science fiction novels until his evening bus-boy shift was to begin. Soon after the dinner rush ended, a new opponent entered. He'd sit there the whole evening - silently playing chess with Shakespeare - who'd silently make his moves on the chess board between table-bussing activities.

At one point, not even being aware of how much time my slacker friends and I were planted idly in this same deli-cafe, I detailed the aforementioned routine to one of my more, shall we say, cynical pals. His response was a straight-faced: "It's a quality life!" I guffawed uproariously. When my laughs subsided, I caught my breath and realized that my mirth had mutated into a thorough chilling to the bone.

I began to repeatedly experience this feeling all over again as I watched Computer Chess, this strange, murky and dazzlingly original film. Bujalski allows us to be flies on the wall while several teams of scientists, researchers and academics - computer AND chess geeks all - engage in a collegial cage match to determine which one of them has designed the ultimate computer chess-playing program. The stakes are high. Fuelling the various geeks is a generous cash prize along with a sense of manly (and academic) pride that might eventually translate into added funding for future research and development.

At the same time, my personal queasiness with respect to weekend conferences, chess and the aforementioned tale of Shakespeare the Busboy correspond directly to the deft intelligence of Bujalski's film and most of all, its true power. Much of our experience on this planet is akin to looking in a mirror. Sometimes, we like what we see, but more often than not - no matter what our ultimate worth is in terms of contributions to the world and those around us - we don't care to recognize ourselves in images that bear a clear resemblance on many levels, but at the same time make us wish they were different. The movie is like looking into a mirror - we laugh heartily, not at the characters, but with them. It's the recognition factor that cements Bujalski's film on a fairly lofty pedestal of excellence and potentially, some kind of greatness.

There are surface and stylistic details that add to the recognition factor. First of all, the film is shot in black and white analogue video on an actual camera from the dawn of home movie video in the early 1980s, the time frame in which the film is set. Everything is framed in the standard aspect ratio of 4:3 (or in theatrical terms 1:1:33) which is, essentially a box-like frame. Not that I have a problem with this ratio at all.

In theatrical terms I actually miss the qualities of composition that many filmmakers - William Wyler, George Stevens, John Ford and even Stanley Kubrick, for example, were able to achieve with standard frame. Rather than widescreen rectangular vistas of 1:1:85 or 1:1:35 (the current TV equivalent being 16:9), we'd get a much greater sense - particularly in interiors of things like the height of staircases in relation to the rest of a room (Wyler), the variety of images that could blend into each other in dissolves (Stevens), the painterly quality of human figures against the limitless heavenly skies (Ford) and the sheer height of ceilings in vast spaces (Kubrick).

Bujalski's shots - mostly interiors - are magnificently composed in this aspect ratio. The sheer softness of the image within the box-like frame is like some terrible beauty unfolding before us. At first, we think we're in a documentary, but for many film geeks, the first appearance of the legendary author, film critic, film professor and documentary filmmaker Gerald Peary in the role of a bookish, though delightfully sexy and curmudgeonly appealing academic conference moderator, is both a pleasant surprise, but also a tip-off that we're in mockumentary territory. For those who don't recognize Peary, another tip-off occurs that takes us into territory of another kind altogether. Once Bujalski turns the camera operator into an onscreen character with his camera in hand, the point of view continues in the same vein as before. Someone is not only observing the action, but creepily photographing it, and it's almost always not our onscreen character, the camera guy.

This is not a documentary, nor is it a mockumentary. We're in the territory of a dramatic film and while I hesitate to suggest we're in the horrific "meta" territory, Bujalski boldly tosses some added visual frissons that remind us that we are indeed watching a movie, but does so in ways that are integral to both narrative and thematic aspects of the film. When a truth is being exposed, Bujalski shifts to a negative reversal image, when a conversation framed in a simple medium two shot shifts into seemingly dangerous territory, he slams us into a split screen and among other brave, bold choices, he even allows one scene wherein the black and white drain from the image into full, garish 80s video colour.

The camera or, rather, point of view, becomes as relevant a character as those appearing onscreen. Given the science fiction elements of the story in terms of exploring the potentialities of artificial intelligence, Bujalski manages to inject a state of paranoia into the proceedings. WE are not the camera. That would have been the easy way to proceed and frankly wouldn't have delivered a movie as richly layered as this one. At certain points it becomes very clear that the point of view is being manipulated by someone. Who or what this operator represents instils even more paranoia.

Paranoia, of course, makes perfect sense within the context of the world Bujalski presents. First of all, we're in the 1980s - the North American reality of Reaganonimcs, Rompin' Ronnie's nutty "Star Wars" explorations into new forms of defence and warfare, a resurgence in survivalism, even chillier Cold War relations between East and West and the weight of the previous decades of the strife tearing the world apart (Vietnam, the riots, the assassinations of beloved politicians and public figures, etc.).

In terms of American cinema in relation to the period Bujalski has set his film in, one is reminded of two important works by Philip Kaufman: his end of decade 1978 remake of Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers which replaced 50s hysteria with late 70s paranoia and his monumental 1983 epic of the American space program The Right Stuff which placed emphasis on individuality within the context of larger, perhaps even more insidious New World Order desires. Among a handful of others, Kaufman's two films present as fine a portrait of those times actually made in those times. One can believe that Computer Chess is as much product of the 80s as Kaufman's work was.

The sense of scientific exploration within the digital world of computers is very much tied in with this period of history. The big box-like computers were, at this point in time, early forerunners to the nano-technology that allowed them to be easily transportable. In our current day of powerbooks, notebooks, net books and iPads, these agent behemoths looks cumbersome, but at the time they represented the very exciting portability of new computers. And each night, while a clutch of participants find themselves in Bacchanalian revelry (which, for computer and chess geeks amounts to sitting around in hotel rooms), an equal number are exploring their programs to implement the results and discoveries of the day into perfecting their work.

One such young man is Peter (Patrick Riester), a teaching assistant to Dr. Schoesser (Gordon Kindlmann) an esteemed academic and a junior programming partner to Beuscher (Wiley Wiggins) a senior project leader who is, in actuality, a Psychology professor. Their program during the competition is fraught with glitches and seems to almost be giving up. The T.A. is chastised and scrutinized by his highly regarded overseer, yet clearly it's the pupil who's more on the ball than his teacher. Peter is obsessed with finding an answer to the mystery of why the computer is "committing suicide" and Schoesser patronizingly suggests that such an act is impossible in a computer as it's not human and is merely working on the basis of code that's been written.

The divide between "old" and "new" is clear in an earlier scene when Peter is in the professor's hotel room and looks at various articles of domesticity whilst Schoesser's persnickety wife is burping her baby and whispering to her hubby in low tones. Hubby approaches Peter and, obviously on the wife's orders, asks him to please use the bathroom to wash his hands. Later on, as the two men are going over the computer glitches, the professor is agog that Peter is able to withstand all-night hacking sessions. Well of course Peter would be committed to working, if need be, 24/7. Schoesser's priorities are bourgeois to say the least. "Look, I've got to get back to my wife and child," he says - as if Peter (and by extension, the audience) is supposed to applaud the priorities of familial complacency over those of discovery at any and all costs.

With the help of a young female computer geek (Robin Schwartz), the T.A. believes he's made an obvious, but extremely phenomenal discovery - one that ties in with the notion of artificial intelligence. The woman, by the way, is one of the few non-males in the world of the film who isn't a hooker, desk clerk or a horny, dumpy, swinging housewife. Much is made, as per the period, of her being the first woman involved in the conference and computer programming in general. It's a breath of fresh air in a world dominated by pathetic male geeks - who, as it turns out, aren't as pathetic as their stereotype suggests anyway - especially in the case of the younger men.

Peter's discovery, for example, is perfectly in keeping with the youthful ideals of the younger programmers. As such, Schoesser is - to be blunt - an asshole and dumps on the young man for basing his theory on limited data and not properly applying the scientific principles of experimentation. Schoesser terms Peter's theory as "outlandish". Peter, on the other hand prefers using the word "unconventional" to describe it which frankly seems far more appropriate.

People like Schoesser in virtually every power position anywhere in the world during most periods of history are little more than unimaginative pencil pushers. Peter tries to explain his enthusiasm by bringing up the brilliant Nikola Tesla (who, by the time frame in which Bujalski's story takes place had fallen very much out of the establishment scientific community's favour). "I do not think that Tesla is a good role model for your academic career," Schoesser snipes before lowering his voice with straight-faced portent: "That is the path to madness."

One wants to punch this loser in the face at this point of the story. Tesla, of course, almost never slept more than a couple of hours each night - pulling like Peter, endless over-nighters. Schoesser, like most glorified bureaucrats is not the kind of guy who's ever going to invent or discover anything truly great without stealing it from someone more talented than he. He has his priorities - a good night's sleep, a big breakfast and his stupid family.

Later in the film, Beuscher, the senior project leader even confirms to Peter something the good Professor has only the vaguest notion of and it indeed ties in with Peter's theory and worse, Schoesser's working on a nefarious deal to profit from it.

As per usual, nests are feathered by the real losers. In this case, the prospects of the research falling into the wrong hands are absolutely chilling - and yet another reason why Computer Chess springs well beyond its "meta" dabbling and satirical edge. I reiterate - the picture is downright creepy.

Another odd nest-feathering type amongst the motley assortment of programmers is the very funny Mike Papageorge (Myles Paige), a purported independent who eschews all the corporate-and-academic-institute-styled teamwork. He sees himself as a maverick and far above all the others. He's a pushy chauvinist pig who keeps trying to hit on the lone female at the conference - harassing her with no class or subtlety. And of course, he holds himself so far above his colleagues at the conference that he's forgotten to do the most basic thing one needs to do when attending such events. He's not booked a room for himself at the hotel and spends the whole weekend in search of places to crash - stairwells, lobby couches, hallways, other peoples' rooms and finally, under a table in the meeting room where he encounters the other group of geeks in the hotel.

Yes, there are two conferences going on at once. The other involves a group of individuals led by a charismatic Rasputin-like figure (Tishuan Scott). What he's up to with his charges is perhaps best left for an audience to slowly discover and get to know on their own, save for the following details - the other conference begins with everyone feeling up loaves of bread like doughy vulvas. There will, however, potentially be some offerings of solace, salvation and sex from the members of this swingin' cult concurrently doin' their 'thang in the hotel.

Doin' one's 'thang is ultimately what life's all about, but in the world of Bujalski's brilliantly subversive Computer Chess, the real question is this: Are we prepared for a time when a computer will be able to do its own 'thang?

In life and great art, there are never easy answers.

"Computer Chess" is in theatrical release via FilmsWeLike and currently playing in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. To experience the exquisite beauty of analogue ugliness, one must TRULY see the film on a big screen.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY SELLING DRUGS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Satire used as both Advocacy and History.

How To Make Money Selling Drugs (2013) ***
Dir. Matthew Cooke
Starring: Barry Cooper, Freeway Rick Ross, Brian O’Dea, Bobby Carlton, David Simon, 50 Cent, Eminem, Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A day doesn't go by when I can't help but shake my head over how utterly moronic America seems. Its founding principles seem to be diametrically opposed to the actual manner in which the country is continually driven by the not-so-secret needs of its wealthiest few and how easily the vast majority of its populace accepts the country's endless human rights violations, lack of freedoms and the exploitation of the basic tenets of democracy.

It is a country that's essentially on the verge of being little more than a Third World Nation run by puppets and populated with a majority of boobs exploited for their willing acceptance of a system that continues to dumb them ever-downwards by any means necessary. The country's seemingly endless war-mongering - most notably its idiotic War on Terror - is matched by its War On Drugs.

Matthew Cooke's clever, funny and mildly subversive documentary How To Make Money Selling Drugs delivers a step-by-step, blow-by-blow how-to guide on the ins and outs of hawking marijuana and cocaine (and by extension, pretty much any illicit drug). Replete with all manner of flashy TV-styled cutting, sound effects and on-screen title cards, it is - on its surface - a fascinating look at how some of the best in the "business" ply (or have plied) their illicit trade and yielded oodles of cash. These individuals run the gamut of street dealers all the way up to cartel-leaders and through their experiences we learn the perils and pitfalls as much as we learn the ways to achieve success.

Some of the more seemingly successful practitioners of the trade, Barry Cooper, Freeway Rick Ross and Brian O’Dea are all incredibly open and informative as they detail their how-to approaches. These guys are on-camera, but off camera (with disguised voices) or in front of the camera (in disguise and/or with pseudonyms) we get additional tips. If we were to follow their advice, the movie suggests that we too can make ourselves a decent living.

Luckily, the film also presents these same subjects' downfalls (occasional or permanent) and some of it seems so convincing that we feel like IF we could avoid some of the mistakes made that led to incarceration, we could hit dizzying heights of financial success without penalty. This, of course, is tempered by reality and it's eventually obvious that selling drugs IS indeed a losing game - not because it's wrong, immoral or criminal (which to varying degrees it is and/or can be), but because the Status Quo has stacked the deck to allow it AND then deny/destroy it - all for personal gain at the political level.

In addition to focusing upon several real-life dealers, the picture also presents numerous law enforcement officials - cops, DEA agents, lawyers and judiciary. Their presence confirms and presents the ease with which one can make money selling drugs, but also how those on the other side of the coin make their "collars" - none of them, not surprisingly, all that imaginative. The law uses a variety of snitches, but also employs threats, intimidation, entrapment and even just plain planting drugs on suspected dealers.

One of the more interesting subjects is Bobby Carlton an ex-cop who details every single manner in which he willingly and even gleefully entrapped people. Astoundingly, the film follows his story to a point where he joins the "other side" and becomes an activist and advocate for the rights of dealers to the point where he is now forced to live in self-imposed exile to escape persecution by American law enforcement officials who frown up his change of heart and activities associated with it.

The filmmakers also present a wide variety of celebrity interviews - those who have dealt and/or used drugs to those who are fighting against the archaic and immoral anti-drug laws and campaigns. Interviews with the "real thing" former dealers and/or users include the stellar likes of 50-cent and Eminem. Celebrity activists include Little Mrs. Commitment herself Susan Sarandon and everyone's favourite wacko advocate Woody Harrelson.

Right from the start of the film, there's a subtle and eventually, not-so-subtle subtext which provides both a history of America's War On Drugs and exposes the utter hypocrisy of it. In so doing, the movie cleverly uses its how-to guide as a plea for saner American approaches to the "Drug Problem" - a problem that seems manufactured by the government with its Draconian approaches to the War On Drugs - so much so that David Simon, the creator of hit series The Wire, points out the irony that law enforcement agents and agencies (including straight-up cops themselves) place so much emphasis on how to entrap dealers that good, old-fashioned police work goes the way of the Dodo (to the detriment of many other serious crimes never being properly solved).

The movie cleverly manipulates itself to deliver one poignant and often heartbreaking sequence after another that details the fall of the aforementioned "criminals" in addition to those who are not dealers at all, but are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The dealers all seem to be at peace with the risks of the profession, but those caught up in the trade innocently and inadvertently suffer from wrongful arrest, incarceration and what often seem like utterly unconstitutional, if not illegal (and certainly immoral) raids, arrests and incarcerations.

At the end of the day, we have a film which uses a satirical approach to its subject to act as a plea for a saner approach to drugs and both the use and sales of said hallucinogens. Some of the satire is of the Lite persuasion and while at times, I might have preferred an even more subversive approach to the subject, it doesn't take away from the fact that this is yet another convincing and important expose of America's hypocrisy - not just in terms of drugs, but by extension, everything.

"How To Make Money Selling Drugs" is currently in theatrical release via Berkshire Axis Media.

PAIN AND GAIN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Can you believe it? A genuinely terrific movie from Michael Bay.

BUFF HUNKY BOYS, HOT BABES,
KIDNAPPING, TORTURE, MURDER,
LAUGHS O' PLENTY &
THE AMERICAN DREAM
a la MICHAEL BAY.
WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?

Pain and Gain (2013) ****
Dir: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shaloub, Ed Harris, Bar Paly, Rebel Wilson, Ken Jeong, Peter Stormare

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Who'd a even thunk it, eh? Sumtin' good from Michael Bay.
He be da' man da' critics hate, not me no mo', his flick be great.
Yew cain't go wrong wit' a solid scrip', dem mighty words, be mighty hip.
Yew gots yer nice pumped-up buff boys an' plenny o' babes to be their toys,
an' when doze dawgs do super-bad shit, dey not think at all cuz dey be doin' they's bit.
Dey kill an' torture an' gits poontang dat be fly, but if'n dey don't watch it, dey's gunna hang sky high.
I gots no idee why I'se tellin' yew dis' way, I guess I jess be tokin' dat crack o' Michael Bay.
-- Dat Hip Michael Bay Hop by G-man Klym-Q

Okay, so let me put this out there and up front. I loved Michael Bay's Armageddon. This is no guilty pleasure. I think it's a genuinely entertaining kick-ass action-disaster epic and though I wasn't a fan of either Bad Boys or The Rock, I certainly didn't mind them. Armageddon's something else, though. Until now, it was his best directed movie. It had me on the edge of my seat and it even had a lot more heart than one would expect from a testosterone-infused movie like that.

Because of Armageddon, I suffered through Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II, then managed to get through with neither hating nor liking The Island and even enjoying the first Transformers movie on its own geek-boy terms. The subsequent sequels, however, exhausted me to the point where I planned to throw the towel in on Bay. Pain and Gain was so low on my radar, I was planning to skip it altogether.

Then I saw Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby and this boy needed something, anything to cleanse his oh-so delicate palate after witnessing the coat-hanger abortion wrought upon the memory of poor F. Scott Fitzgerald. Seeing that Pain and Gain was the only recent movie I hadn't seen, I figured I'd give it a whirl. Even if it turned out to be awful, it would have gunfire, explosions and car chases to make me feel alive again.

I got one hell of a lot more than that.

Mark Wahlberg & Dwayne Johnson are BUFF BOYS.

The thing is, I so seldom see contemporary American movies that give me a total rush of goose flesh, so when it happens, I have no choice but to embrace the movie with the fervour of a cum-deprived closet case working a glory hole in Boys Town. And, as a sidenote, there's plenty here for closet cases and even those not so inclined. The buff bodies in this picture are mouth watering. So are the babes.

I digress.

Pain and Gain comes from a terrific screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The talented duo penned a decent script for the Captain America movie that, for my money, had all the life sucked out of it by a super-dull director. Well, no worries here. Even at his most bombastic, Bay is seldom dull (save for the exhausting Transformers II & III). Bay has somehow, at this mid-stage of his career, hit a genuine artistic home run. Rooted in the true crime story about a group of bumbling body builders in Miami who engaged in one of the most sickening crimes imaginable during the 90s, Bay takes the thrilling script and infuses it with all the finer attributes he possesses as a director.

The movie is compelling from its opening frames and as the story proceeds, we sit there agog as the tale keeps taking completely unimaginable turns that are so horrific, hilarious and downright nasty that this might well be one of the year's best American films. Lord knows it's got some of the punchiest, meanest dialogue I've experienced in awhile,

HE LOVES JESUS!

The script includes a series of clever POVs from the story's major players and presents what could have been totally convoluted. Most directors would get lost in the delectable mire of low order crime and sleaze. Not Bay, though. He juggles the balls of perspective with the skill and artistry of a true Master. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of William Friedkin's astounding Killer Joe from last year - mainly because both pictures allow us to follow the stories of such completely reprehensible characters with no real moral fibre and yet, in spite of this, both films eke out a sense of humanity from the lowest order of our species.

Pain and Gain has so many moments when your jaw will be hitting the floor with disbelief that I refuse to reveal any more of the story than I do in the following imagining of a pitch to studio executives.

"So guys, we've got these three loser body builders seeking a better life, so they do what anyone would - they kidnap and torture people to suck them dry of all their finances and worldly goods. Oh yeah, and the main character, the leader of the gang, is a former scumbag who ripped a whole bunch of seniors off for their life savings."

Who in hell would have Green-lit this movie?

HE LOVES MONEY

Well, sometimes it must really help to be Michael Bay and my hat is off to him for making what is one of the best acted and directed crime pictures in years. This movie is so far away from the sort of thing a successful populist like Michael Bay would choose to do and then, do it so well. It's a crazy, risky and unbelievably sleazy movie.

And I loved it - to death.

Have I mentioned that yet?

"Pain and Gain" is in wide theatrical release via Paramount Pictures.