TEN FROM YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TJFF 2014 - Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2014

Ten From Your Show of Shows (1973) *****
Dir. Max Liebman, Prod. Pat Weaver, Writers: Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Carl Reiner
Starring: Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris

Review By Greg Klymkiw

To coin a phrase from the title of Alan Zweig's recent documentary masterpiece, be prepared to experience - beyond all your wildest hopes and dreams - a time when Jews were funny. I mean funny!!! Really, really funny.

If there is anything on television today that's even a pubic hair as brilliant as Your Show of Shows, I'd like to know what it is. Watching this 1973 feature length compilation of ten classic sketches from the immortal variety series that aired on NBC from 1950-1954, I was delightfully transported to a time and place when comedians could have you in stitches just by appearing on-screen - completely in character and bearing the gait and posture that offered a mere taste of the hilarity to come. Each sketch is a perfectly crafted gem with a solid narrative coat hanger by which to display gags of the highest order and performed with the kind of chemistry and zeal that seems so lacking in contemporary comedy. These were giants, kings and gods of the universe of laughter.

Astonishingly, the show was performed in a real theatre, with a real audience and broadcast LIVE to the world and even more amazing is that the company of actors NEVER ad-libbed - they stuck completely to the brilliant scripts and meticulous choreography of both the basic blocking and the kind of slapstick that modern comedians can only dream of being able to pull off.

Much of this is attributable to the direction of Max Liebman, a pioneer of live television comedy who knew that the very best way to capture the material was to use the camera like a closeup proscenium and most of all, to place a great deal of emphasis on rehearsal to nail every dramatic and comic beat with perfection and to ensure that the performers hit their marks perfectly - after all, when the show is going out live to millions, there are NO second chances. Liebman is, in some ways, the real unsung genius of contemporary screen comedy. He not only directed the precursor to "Your Show of Shows" (a ninety-minute two part live broadcast with Jack Carter in Chicago and Caesar, Coca and Reiner in New York), but he spent eons producing live comedy and variety reviews in the Poconos where he cut his teeth on sketch comedy that demanded perfection.

Though the cast features an excellent array of many regular performers and guest stars, the quartet who led the Show of Shows charge were Sid Caesar, always taking the skewed leading man role, the leggy plasticine-faced Imogene Coca in the equally skewed leading lady roles, the deadpan, pole-up-the-butt Carl Reiner always an authority figure and last, but not least, the genius that was Howard Morris who could do just about anything (and did).

The collection of sketches provided here is no mixed bag of nuts in terms of quality - each and every one is a scrumptious morsel and these rich comic comestibles are beautifully assembled to provide a perfect arc of laughs from beginning to end, but also offer-up the sort of amazing scope of material that this team of artisans attacked.

I'll describe three sketches to give you a sense of what you're in for.

The first sketch in the compilation is a lovely sampling of a simple two-hander where we learn that wifey Coca has ploughed the family car through the front window of a liquor store. When hubby Caesar gets home from a hard day on Madison Avenue, Coca needs to do everything in her power to keep hubby from driving the car, but to also test the waters as to just how furious he's going to be when he hears the news. At one point, she goes so far as to recount the accident in a third person narrative to see how hubby reacts. Caesar hilariously laughs off the tale of woe, commiserating with the poor schmuck who is, no doubt, smarting over the knowledge that he let his dumb wife actually drive the car.

Uh-oh.

Hilarity ensues even more at this point, though the tale offers up an extremely satisfying and touching conclusion.

The centrepiece sketch is one of the earliest examples of a movie parody, a brilliant spoof of Fred Zinneman's adaptation of James Jones's From Here To Eternity with Carl Reiner hilariously pinning a row of medals into Sid Caesar's flesh, a magnificent USO dance-club scene that offers-up Caesar and Reiner's rivalry over dime-a-dance gal Coca and during the rendition of the famous beach scene, Caesar shows up in a rubber ducky tube around his waist and once he and Coca settle in for some amore, they're repeatedly interrupted by bucket loads of water splashed in their faces. (Oh, and I'm just guessing here, but chances are good that most of this sketch was written by head writer Mel Brooks, cinema's king of movie parodies like Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein.)

The concluding sketch is pure slapstick genius. It's a parody of the Ralph Edwards program "This is Your Life" which gives us a healthy glimpse at the huge theatre and audience assembled for the live broadcast by including a big scene offstage and on the orchestra floor, but also provides a marvellous all-you-can-eat offering of the magnificent Howard Morris and his unbelievably insane ability to render physical comedy. In this case, he's so monkey-like that he gives the overrated Planet of the Apes reboot star Andy Serkis a major run for his money. Morris doesn't need CGI - the guy simply transforms into a variety of simian poses in the unlikeliest of settings.

These then are but three of ten great sketches and I can't think of a single one that doesn't offer up huge laughs. One sketch is presented in silent movie pantomime style, another offers the quartet as clock pieces on a German clock that's just not working, another is a two hander with Caesar and Morris as the most rigid, pole-up-the-butt Germans imaginable, another involving Morris wagging a huge dill pickle in front of a very hungry Sid Caesar's face - the list goes on. Laughs galore.

I remember first seeing this compilation when it played first-run at a movie theatre in Winnipeg. I was maybe 13 or 14 years old and I still remember the great feeling of being in a cinema in the North End seeing this work for the first time, rolling on the floor with laughter and surrounded by mostly older people who seemed to be laughing so loud that in retrospect, (this was long before the advent of "Depends") I now wonder just how many of them were able to control their bladders. My recent helping of Ten From Your Show Of Shows certainly provided my own bladder with challenges, so anyone planning to catch the TJFF screening of this great 90 minutes of pure hilarity would be best advised to, shall we say, come prepared for any expulsions triggered by laughter.

As live television during the Golden Age proved time and time again, anything was possible.

Ten From Your Show Of Shows plays the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF) 2014. For fix and info visit their website HERE.

THE GERMAN DOCTOR (aka WAKOLDA) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TJFF 2014 - Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2014

Just looking at the brilliant Alex Brendemuhl as Josef Mengele
makes you feel mired in filth and in need of a good scrub.

Astonishing newcomer
Florencia Bado delivers
a knockout performance
as the very unfortunate apple
of Dr. Josef Mengele's eye.

The German Doctor Dir. Lucia Puenzo (2013) ***
Starring: Alex Brendemuhl, Florencia Bado, Natalia Oreiro,
Diego Peretti, Elena Roger
Review By Greg Klymkiw

From the very first moment we see Dr. Gregor (Alex Brendemuhl) eyeballing the fetching little girl Lilith (Florencia Bado), it's a fait accompli that this film is heading for dangerous territory. Based on director Lucia Penzo's novel, in turn a fiction rooted in fact, it's even more obvious that a living Hell awaits us when the good doctor takes a room in the family-owned Patagonia hotel of Lilith's Mom and Dad (Natalia Oreiro, Diego Peretti) and even worse, that his obsessions with: (a) assisting Dad in perfecting the design of toy dolls, (b) offering to fix Lilith's recessive genes to cure her stunted growth and (c) taking special interest in Mom's pregnancy with twins, suggest he's not all he seems to be. That Dr. Gregor is spending far too much time in this beautiful out of the way Argentinian town with other German gentlemen bandying about the word Führer and that a concerned photographer (Elena Roger) is making secret telephone calls to Israel whilst being suspiciously looked-upon by the town's upstanding Aryans, we're even more convinced that the well-dressed, soft-spoken Dr. Gregor is none other than the epitome of Nazi evil, crazed geneticist Dr. Joseph Mengele.

The German Doctor makes for compelling viewing on two counts. First of all, there is a definite grace and intelligence with which Puenzo unfolds this chilling tale and secondly, and perhaps most of all, the performances on every level are charged with the stuff of supremely bravura work. Brendemuhl as Mengele is chillingly muted, but at the same time, he occasionally lets the ooze of evil creep out so subtly that we almost feel tainted by having to lay eyes on him -- even to the point where we feel like we need to scrub away the filth he sullies us with, by his mere presence. This is certainly a brilliant and brave piece of work.

The newcomer Florencia Bado has a magnificent screen presence. The camera clearly loves her and she tackles her role as the diminutive Lilith with natural ability and surprising maturity. The scenes where Brendemuhl and Bado share screen time are especially creepy and much of this comes from the chemistry between both actors.

Director Puenzo does not ever really create the mise-en-scène of a thriller, but rather allows the material to move at the pace of a straight-up drama (albeit one infused with sheer evil and darkness). We are, for example, never in the territory of Franklin J. Schaffner's nerve-jangling, bigger-than-life film adaptation of Ira Levin's The Boys From Brazil, but are sucked into a whirlpool on a much smaller scale so that Puenzo can concentrate on the subtleties of character.

Alex Brendemuhl and Florencia Bado: Creepy Chemistry

Since she does not want to be in thriller territory, part of me feels bad saying that her approach seems far too muted given the intensity of the material. Yes, this is her intent, but there is the old saying that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" and if we apply the interpretation of said meaning that the intent yields the kind of cinematic inaction that feels far too precious, then I do think it's worth mentioning that the film's whole is, indeed less than the sum of its parts.

The problem for me is that when we edge closer to the utter horror of the tale, there's an inevitability to it that detracts from the picture's overall ability to deliver a genuine knockout punch. I appreciate Puenzo's desire to handle her material with both taste and detachment, but there are times, when good, old fashioned Hollywood "vulgarity" can yield far more satisfying experiences and still manage to do so with taste, style and a good dose of slam-bang. It is, however, a worthy effort even as is.

The German Doctor makes its Toronto premiere at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF 2014). For tickets and showtimes, contact the festival website HERE. It opens theatrically in Toronto via A-Z Films on May 9, 2014.

RAQUEL: A MARKED WOMAN & FROM HOLLYWOOD TO NUREMBERG: JOHN FORD, SAMUEL FULLER, GEORGE STEVENS Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2014 (TJFF 2014) - Two Docs, Great Material, Mediocre Execution

Raquel Liberman
Forced Into Sex Slavery

Raquel: A Marked Woman (2013) **1/2
Dir. Gabriela Böhm

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's a great story here. At the turn of the 20th Century, a wave of Jewish immigrants settled in Argentina to begin a new life. Alas, the Old World has a way of following everybody. When Raquel Liberman and her two sons came to join her husband in the South American country, unexpected hard times weakened her husband to a point wherein he fell ill and eventually died of tuberculosis. Duped into accepting a seamstress job, she's coerced into prostitution by the powerful criminal organization Zvi Magdal.

She services so many clients that eventually she can buy her freedom and sets herself up as a successful business woman. The gangsters feel this will send a wrong signal, so they assign one of their own to seduce Raquel then marry her. The wooing is successful and under Argentinian law at the time, all her money and property is transferred to her husband who squanders it and sends her back to work in the brothels. Unwilling to accept that this will be her fate, Raquel does the unthinkable and takes on the mighty Jewish Mafia of Argentina. Her brave efforts smashed the criminal organization and she was single-handedly responsible for saving thousands of women from sexual slavery.

Is this not a great story? Of course it is, and it's a true story as well. Unfortunately, the film leaves a fair bit to be desired. It's a very conventional television-style documentary with a competent assemblage of archival footage and interviews. Dragging things down to even more conventional levels, the filmmaker foists a whack of cheesy dramatic recreations upon us that are also reminiscent of television doc tropes of the most egregious kind.

Perhaps someday, this will be made into a great feature length dramatic film by a director with some style and panache like Steven Spielberg or Darren Aronofsky and then Raquel's haunting, strangely uplifting story will get the royal treatment. In the meantime, we will have to make do with this by-the-numbers work that at least presents the material to make us aware of this tragic tale in the lives of Jewish women in South America and the bravery of one of them to not take it anymore.

Kudos are in order for bringing the tale to light, but that's about all one can recommend here.

Harrowing Footage from WWII

From Hollywood To Nuremberg: John Ford, Samuel Fuller, George Stevens (2012) **1/2
Dir: Christian Delage
Review By Greg Klymkiw

This should have been a great film, but it's far too compact to do little more than skim the surface. The film focuses upon the film unit of the American Armed Forces during World War II and their mission to capture footage of America's war effort. This resulted in several powerful Academy Award winning documentaries and important propaganda films in favour of America's war efforts. We get glimpses into the official work of directors John Ford and George Stevens and the unofficial work of infantryman Samuel Fuller who shot footage with a small movie camera as his unit, The Big Red One (also the title of his 1980 autobiographical war film), made their way from D-Day to the liberation of Nazi concentration camps.

There is an attempt to look at the filmmakers' output before and after the war to display how the carnage they shot changed the way they made movies in later years. This is, sadly, the least successful portion of the movie. A project of this scope and complexity deserved an exhaustive Ken Burns-styled documentary epic crossed with Scorsese's monumental filmmaking documentaries. The approach here, though, is cursory at best and goes so far as to virtually ignore the efforts of Frank Capra during this period when so many filmmakers turned their attention away from what they were doing in order to do this duty for their country.

Still, the film is worth seeing for explaining how and why this motion picture unit existed and most importantly, the haunting footage provided of battle, camp liberation and the aftermath of the war. Until such a time as someone does tackle this important story in a proper manner, this middle of the road effort will have to do.

Raquel: A Marked Woman and From Hollywood To Nuremberg: John Ford, Samuel Fuller, George Stevens are both playing at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF 2014). For tickets, visit the festival website HERE.

The 10 BEST FEATURES @ Hot Docs 2014 as proclaimed by The Film Corner's Paragon of Taste: Greg Klymkiw

The Film Corner's 10 Best Feature Films at Hot Docs 2014 (in alphabetical order)

By Greg Klymkiw

ART AND CRAFT: The stuff movies (and by extension, dreams) are made of. This is an engaging portrait of an artist as an old man, but not just any garden variety artist, but a sweet, committed, meticulous and gentle craftsman of forgeries.

THE BOY FROM GEITA: The legendary cinematographer and filmmaker Vic Sarin explores the dark side of the human spirit (the murder of albinos in Tanzania) which ultimately yields a tale of profound and deep compassion.

THE CONDEMNED: There have been many documentaries about prison life, but almost none of them are produced with the kind of eye for cinematic artistry this portrait of incarceration in Russia's Taiga is imbued with.

THE ENGINEER: A forensic criminologist tracks down and exhumes bodies of the disappeared in El Salvador's gang wars. The bravery and fortitude of its filmmakers yield a superbly wrought picture focusing on America's heinous legacy.

GIUSEPPE MAKES A MOVIE: Ed Wood + John Waters = Giuseppe Andrews. Detroit Rock City director Adam Rifkin captures the workings of a genuine underground filmmaker.

LOVE ME: The world of mail-order brides in Ukraine is the focus of Jonathon Narducci's thorough and affecting film that focuses on a group of Western men looking for love. Narducci does so with impeccable skill and movie-making savvy.

PINE RIDGE: The Hearts and Minds that soar above Wounded Knee are the focus of this expert blend of Direct Cinema with poetic dollops of Cinéma vérité which explores daily life of the youth of the Oglala Lakota Nation.

THE SECRET TRIAL 5: The legacy of Canada's thinly-veiled fascists is revealed in this chilling, important documentary detailing the unconstitutional incarceration of men because of the colour of their skin.

UKRAINE IS NOT A BROTHEL: Kitty Green's brave, inspiring and often disturbing look at the patriarchy of Ukraine and a group of young women who comprise "Femen", a group of feminist activists with an unorthodox approach to protest.

WHITEY: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V. JAMES J. BULGER: One of the most harrowing crime docs ever made: a compulsive, expertly unfurled narrative of brutal Boston gangster Whitey Bulger.

LOVE AND ENGINEERING - Review By Greg Klymkiw - HOT DOCS 2014 - If Science be the food of love, play on.

Love and Engineering (2014) ***1/2
Dir. Tonislav Hristov
Writ.Prod. Kaarle Aho

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Todor, Tuomas, Joost and Andon are four men at the top of their game. They have devoted virtually every waking hour over many years to be the best that they can be. Their hard work, strength and dedication has placed each one of them on the path to success in their field.

They are, what is commonly and often appropriately referred to as, Masters of the Universe. Alas, it's their own universe they're the masters of. Their single, solitary worlds of study and research will pay off for them professionally and in turn, pay off for the wider world in terms of what strengths and innovation they will bring to it.

They lack nothing.

Save for love.

They are all brilliant young engineers, computer geeks of the highest order, but their passions have all been singularly plugged into their natural abilities, talents and gifts to the science of engineering and, by extension, the wider world. On one hand, they've sacrificed their ability to find love and in so doing, have never quite developed the personalities and basic social skills to relate to the world outside the parameters of their deep and true calling.

How are these guys even going to get a date, let alone find love and a partnership of passion for life?

Their mentor is the brilliant Bulgarian 3-D engineer Atanas and he believes he can help. He is a Geek-o Supreme-o or, if you will, Super Geek. If one didn't know better, one might assume him to be a complete and total schlub. Hell, the man even suffers from a speech disorder. But guess what? He's married, with a family and his wife's a babe. He's also someone who spent years of shoving his face into a computer, but in Mark Twain parlance, all that "book larnin'" paid off handsomely because now, Atanas is convinced that love is a matter of science, of simple mathematics and damned if he doesn't have some "notions" on how to get his geek peeps hooked up.

Love and Engineering is a very sweet, strange and lovely movie that weaves its way expertly through the experiment Atanas places his love-starved charges through so that they too will learn the skills necessary to make love in their lives a reality. Director Tonislav Hristov and writer-producer Kaarle Aho have more than a few balls to juggle in this narrative. They present Atanas' theories, explain the science behind said theories, take us through several experiments in the lab with the four young men, then move all four into the "field" (as it were) to apply several basic scientific and mathematical principals in their quest for love. The cherry on the sundae is when we get to follow each of the lads on actual dates. At times these sequences have us squirming with embarrassment while at other points, we experience a buoyancy that borders on the magical.

Atanas himself, proves to be a most formidable mentor to these lads and the manner in which he throws himself into the passionate pursuit of love seems to border on obsessive fervour. In spite of this ardent pursuit, one wonders what might have occurred if Atanas had instead applied the fanciful rather than the practical. After all, let us never forget the famed German scientist who became enamoured with the teachings of Cornelius Agrippa, not realizing that:

". . . the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical."

That the aforementioned words came from a fictional "famed German scientist" by the name of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, one might perhaps think it folly to follow in the particular footsteps which spewed from the imagination of Mary Shelley. However, I couldn't help but think that a bit of the chimerical might have been a worthwhile pursuit, especially since there's already something vaguely Frankenstein-like in the way Atanas pursues his theories. Sometimes, blending the poetic with the scientific can indeed be the very thing that's needed when applying the practical to the emotional.

The tale told in Love and Engineering is replete with varying degrees of failure and success amongst Atanas' guinea pigs, but it's never less than fascinating as we do indeed see science applied to emotion. But science or no science, logic or no logic, sometimes the basic core of human emotion is beyond the reach of science, for as the Bard of Avon proclaimed in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" over 400 years ago:

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

And so shall it be for the protagonists' journey in Love and Engineering. We, the audience, are the biggest winners of all. We can be the flies on the wall and see for ourselves what love is and that science doesn't always have answers to the very basic reality of love, nor can it ever describe definitively what love is. In the words of the Bard:

"What is it? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet."

Our scientist might have done well to apply a bit of Shakespeare to his equations, though given that the aforementioned quotation comes from "Romeo and Juliet", maybe it wouldn't have been the best idea after all, since I'm sure we're quite familiar with where love leads the doomed lovers of that immortal tale of mad, passionate and ultimately tragic love.

In theory, the notion of these Romeos of the Engineering world being cut out "in little stars" in order to "make the face of heaven so fine" seems rather quaint, but something tells me, they themselves might mind being sacrificed so that "all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun."

Love and Engineering is playing at Hot Docs 2014. Visit the festival website for ticket, playmate and venue info HERE.

CONTROVERSIES & WILL THE REAL DAVE BARBER PLEASE STAND UP - Review By Greg Klymkiw - MUST-SEE FILMS@ HOT DOCS 2014 & DOXA 2014: Warren Gets Right Down To Business With The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal

C.J.O.B. ('OB 68) The Station of Choice
for Winnipeg's Prairie Post-Modernist Filmmakers

"Red, I've got a BIG BEEF this
morning for Mayor Bill Norrie!"

Controversies (2014) Dir. Ryan McKenna ****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Preamble #1: CJOB and Prairie Post-Modern Cinema
From the 60s to the early 90s, Winnipeg's C.J.O.B. (CJOB) was the greatest radio station in the world. In the Great White North, only dirty commies listened to the publicly-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). No other entity in Winnipeg, Manitoba (except perhaps for Bill Sciak, the legendary barber in the 'Peg's Chinatown) had as profound an influence upon the city's artists and, in particular, most of its filmmakers.

The driving force of this legendary radio station, founded by the inimitable J. O. Blick, were its on-air personalities. At the grand, old 'OB 68 they, and they alone, best reflected the style of programming and content which shaped an entire generation and its subsequent artistic output.

For this select group of young 'uns growing up in the 'Peg, CJOB most definitely WAS the station to listen to. Part of the reason for this is that our Moms and Dads, Aunts and Uncles, Grannies and Grandads and pretty much anyone, uh, like, OLD, would allow only one station to play at home and in the car radio:

CJOB, 68 on the dial.

Sports, Tunes, Home-making Tips

The personalities were larger than life: Red Alix in the mornings with his famous call-in segment "Beefs and Bouquets" was the dulcet-toned redhead who woke up Winnipeg. I'd often call Red using a very thick and convincing Ukrainian accent and offer up a Beef, usually to Winnipeg's Mayor, Bill Norrie and I'd temper the bile with a lovely Bouquet to Red Alix himself, occasionally requesting that Red play "Good Morning" from his hit album. Yes, Red Alix was not only a radio personality, but a major recording star,

Sports was a major draw on 'OB. The legendary scribe Jack Matheson's scathing commentaries occurred every morning when 'OB sponsor "Furnace Man" fired him up and the brilliant Kenny "The Friar" Nicholson did all the play-by-play action of the beloved Winnipeg Jets in their World Hockey Association (WHA) glory days. I even have personal memories of my old man, Julian, ex-hockey player, ex-cop and eventual Marketing honcho at Carling O'Keefe Breweries (or as Jack Matheson would say, "that great Oriental Brewery, Car Ling") when he'd ply the boys in the press box during Jets games with coolers full of Old Vienna beer and then do post-game analyses on-air with "The Friar".

And who in their right mind could ever forget the following:

- Hedi Lewis and her astounding homemaking tips in the afternoons. Hedi's brilliant concoctions for removing stains of any kind from any thing were the stuff of Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus.

J.O.Blick's LEGACY

-The "Homeward Hustle" of Allen Willoughby wherein he'd rattle off corny jokes and slightly modern tunes like the Percy Faith Singers doing "Up, Up in the Air, in my beautiful ballon".

- George McCloy with the CJOB "Shut-Ins" programs which spun the most depressing old time music for people who were, uh, dying. Recall, if you will, Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors. There's a scene which adequately typifies McCloy's immortal CJOB show wherein Seymour Krelborn comes to visit his Mom as she's swigging cheap booze in her bed whilst listening to a program on the radio called "Music For Old Invalids".

These on-air giants of the industry were but the tip of 'OB's iceberg. So magnificent were these personalities that one often forgets the array of tunes spun out to the citizens of Winnipeg. Ah, the music: O! The Music! One dialled in to CJOB to hear the likes of 101 Strings, Percy Faith, Bert Kaempfert, selections from the Phase IV canon, Lawrence Welk, Ken Griffin and pretty much any music stylist who generated tunes of the elevator music variety. And though these musicians were extremely moderne, CJOB would also spin tunes by older artists like Harry James, Guy Lombardo, Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby, Edith Day, Al Bowlly, Richard Crooks and Winnipeg's Own Deanna Durbin.

CJOB Loyal Lady Listeners

Rock n' Roll was verboten on CJOB - so much so, that I remember when Winnipeggers hung their heads low when 'OB's transmitters blared out the heavy metal styling of The Beatles and the thrashing sounds of their hit song "Yesterday". Now, the absolute truth of the matter is that MOST kids in Winnipeg HATED this radio station. It was the epitome of UN-COOL. However, I can vouch for myself, Guy Maddin, John Paizs and most anyone associated with the Prairie Post-Modernist film movement in Winnipeg when I declare: We embraced CJOB with the fervour of a weeping cripple collapsing before Jimmy Swaggart during a laying-of-the-hands-in-the-name-of-Jesus-Christ revival meeting. Exceptions to 'OB devotion in this group of eventual filmmakers of the internationally acclaimed variety were a few of the aforementioned progeny of card-carrying members of the Communist party. They know who they are. I'm not going to rat them out. I'm no Edward Dmytryk, for Christ's sake.

"It's time to make the beds, M'am."

Preamble #2: Peter Warren - Investigative Reporter
The man who ruled the 'OB roost, the man who towered above ALL, was none other than investigative reporter Peter Warren and his insanely compulsive call-in program, "The Action Line". Peter began every morning with the words, "Let's get right down to business" and then he'd begin to spit his Holy Bile whilst launching into whatever the "controversy" of the day was. Warren ALWAYS pronounced "controversy" with one major accent which he placed upon the "rov" portion of the word.

Satisfied Peter Warren Listeners

Go ahead. Try it yourself. "Cont-ROV-ersy". It sounds good, doesn't it? It should, it's Peter Warren-approved. When the loyal 'OB listeners called in to speak their mind on whatever controversy Peter wanted to discuss, he had an extra-special phrase for women who went on too long and whom he disagreed with: "Time to make the beds, M'am," he'd bark, then hang up. There were regular callers as well. The best was Winnipeg's crazy cat lady, Bertha Rand. She'd shriek into the phone and seldom made any sense at all. And, of course, there were all the thick-accented immigrants. One of them, who went by the name of Joe, was an old Ukrainian who always had intelligent comments for Peter. One controversy involved a company in Winnipeg called Western Glove Works and Warren was quite upset that they were getting subsidies from the government to provide jobs for recent landed immigrants who weren't even citizens of Canada yet. Joe called up, with the thickest, stupidest Ukrainian accent imaginable and announced: "I agree'it veeth you, Peetor Voron. Ease nawt wary goote debt gorman gee'wit tex-payor mawney to eema-grunt, Peetor Voron." Translation: "I agree it with you, Peter Warren. Is not very good that government give it money to immigrants, Peter Warren." Another controversy I remember with considerable fondness was when Winnipeg's cutting edge alternative Plug-In Gallery, featured a performance artist who stood naked in the middle of the space with 100 toy soldiers attached by string to his penis. Warren, got right on this and complained how government money was used to subsidize this public display of pornography. Warren went on to say he had more respect for strippers because they, at least, did not survive on government handouts. Joe the Ukrainian, had a few words to say on this matter. He called in and opined: "Peetor Voron, I need'it complain bout gorman gee'wit mawney to theese peegs. Streeper ease vooman, yes? Vooman wase normal, yes? Man veeth penis, nawt normal." Translation: "Peter Warren, I need to complain about the government giving money to these pigs. A stripper is a woman. A woman is normal. A man with a penis is not normal." Joe, of course, was me.

BERTHA RAND
THE UTTERLY INSANE
CAT LADY OF WINNIPEG
& LUDICROUSLY FREQUENT
PETER WARREN CALLER
Immortalized in the play by
Maureen Hunter

I would spend many mornings at the Winnipeg Film Group offices, hanging with other filmmakers as we all listened to Peter Warren. When the right "cont-ROV-ersy" reared it's head, I dialled the telephone number still emblazoned upon my memory, 780-6868, launched into my "Joe" impersonation and let rip. Occasionally, Warren would try to engage "Joe" in a conversation, though more often than not, he politely barked, "Thank you so much for your comment, sir." This, I have to admit, was a bit more polite than, "Time to go make the beds."

The Film - CONTROVERSIES
Ryan McKenna has crafted an exquisite 17-minute short film which captures the halcyon days of Peter Warren's reign as the true heart and soul of Winnipeg's immortal radio station CJOB. Bookended by Warren's signature sign-on and sign off, McKenna edits together a series of haunting archival audio clips of actual Winnipeggers calling into Warren's "Action Line" with their comments. McKenna illustrates this poetic evocation of the strangest city in North America with a series of monochromatic images of not-very-happy Winnipeggers sitting like vegetables as they listen to the longest running talk show in the city. These are punctuated every so often with shots of Winnipeg's unique, stylishly bleak architecture and terrain. The film is a window into the soul of a city in a state of slow death and decay. It works perfectly on its own, but if you watch it within the context of any films made in Winnipeg from the same period by Guy Maddin, John Paizs, Greg Hanec, Lorne Bailey, Barry Gibson, Allen Schinkel, John Kozak and so many others, you'll see how a city is captured by an iconic radio station and how this, in turn, has influenced an important generation of filmmakers whose work has embedded itself into the psyches of cinema lovers all over the world. Now, a new generation of filmmakers like McKenna are picking up that torch and facing the ghoulish nightmare that is Winnipeg straight in the eye. They are, as it were, getting right down to business.

Will The Real Dave Barber Please Stand Up (2014) Dir. Dave Barber ***1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Dave Barber is the one, only and longest-serving Senior Programmer of Film at the Winnipeg Film Group cooperative of independent cinema. Since 1982, Barber has shaped and moulded and influenced the minds of Winnipeg filmmakers and movie-goers with some of the most daring, alternative works from all periods of film history and countries all over the world including a firm commitment to the public screening of Canadian movies. He is a legend in the city of Winnipeg. Thankfully these days, as the Senior Programmer, he no longer has to do everything he's always done, PLUS manage the cinema, clean the popcorn machine and deal with the organization's increasingly useless bureaucracy. With Jaimz Asmundson, the trusty Programming Director at his side, Barber does what he does best and the city and its film culture are all the better off for it.

In 2013, Barber was awarded with a prestigious prize at the Manitoba Legislature for his longtime and ongoing service - the coveted Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal.

With Will The Real Dave Barber Please Stand Up, Barber can now add the word "filmmaker" to his list of accomplishments. He has crafted this delightful 4-minute gem of a film that stands as a clever, inspiring, hilarious and self-deprecating documentary about his Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal. What's especially cool about it, is that he's fashioned it in homage to the Prairie Post-Modernist Tradition of all those brilliant filmmakers he has nurtured and nourished with over 30 years of presenting cinema to inspire all of them. Using the tell-tale touches of deadpan delivery, fixed camera, voice-over narration and droll humour, it's a film that uses homage as a springboard and serves up a work that moves into its own delectably subversive realm of insanity.

Controversies and Will The Real Dave Barber Please Stand Up can be seen at the Hot Docs 2014 and the 2014 DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver. For Hot Docs info, click HERE. For DOXA info, click HERE.

These two films will be part of an exciting DOXA program called "Weird Old Winnipeg" which will feature a selection of the latest and brightest and newest filmmakers to carry the Maddin-Paizs, etc. torch of Prairie Post-Modernist Cinema into the New Millennium. Here is the full program:

Jaimz Asmundson and Karen Asmundson
with: Citizens Against Basswood

Dave Barber
with: Will The Real Dave Barber Please Stand Up

Walter Forsberg
with: Fahrenheit 7-Eleven

Ryan McKenna
with: Controversies

Matthew Rankin
with: I Dream of Driftwood

Leslie Supnet
with: Animated Heavy Metal Parking Lot and Spectroscopy

Rhayne Vermette
with: J. Werier

Aaron Zeghers and Nigel Webber
with: 11 Parking Lots and One Gradual Sunset

GIUSEPPE MAKES A MOVIE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - HOT DOCS 2014 - Ed Wood + John Waters = Giuseppe "Detroit Rock City" director Adam Rifkin captures the workings of a genuine underground filmmaker. This surefire Film Corner HOT DOCS 2014 MUST-SEE is replete with infectious joy, sadness, hope and desperation.

When Giuseppe makes a movie, he prides himself on doing it all. This includes wiping the bum of his elderly incontinent leading man, "Grandpa" Tyree.

The simple math of Garbanzo Gas
COWS EXPLOITED = COW VIGILANTE

Giuseppe Makes A Movie (2014)
Dir. Adam Rifkin *****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Preamble -
Discovering the Mad Genius
of Ed Wood and John Waters.

When I was about eight or nine-years-old, I first saw Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space and not long after, Bride of the Monster. Keep in mind that this was the late 60s and even though I was a super precocious know-it-all movie nut, it took a second viewing of Plan 9 to identify that Ed Wood was not only the same guy who did Bride of the Monster, but that he was someone with the kind of distinct approach to movies that I was already starting to develop for much more stellar filmmakers as John Ford, Frank Capra and Alfred Hitchcock. I knew he wasn't in their league, but I distinctly remember thinking Wood's films were cool anyway, for one simple reason. I could tell there was something not quite right about them, but whatever that thing was, it didn't necessarily seem wrong either.

Whenever either film popped up on television, I'd watch them and in my mid-teens I finally saw Jail Bait. Its discovery thrilled me at the time because I had been wondering if Wood ever made more than the two aforementioned horror pictures and now I knew about three of them. Keep in mind, there was no such thing as the internet in the 60s and 70s, hence no imdb or wikipedia to look that sort of thing up. Even the original Forrest J. Ackerman "Famous Monsters of Filmland" only ever referred to Plan 9 and Bride of the Monster and, to my recollection, never with derision.

In 1975, I discovered John Waters via his cult masterpiece Pink Flamingos which not only shocked me with its utterly delicious depravity, but at the time, I recall thinking it too, had the same kind of "homemade" quality as Ed Wood's films and, in its very own way, it also didn't seem quite right, but that this was what made it so great. Though it's hard to argue Wood was an "underground" filmmaker like Waters would have been considered at the time, he was enough on the extremities of Hollywood that he sure felt like it. When I caught up with Waters' Female Trouble that same year, I recall noting how both Wood and Waters used a regular company of actors.

By the time Michael and Harry Medved released their famous 1980 book "The Golden Turkey Awards", I was shocked to learn that, by ballot no less, readers of their previous book "The Fifty Worst Film of All Time" voted Plan 9 From Outer Space as the "worst film of all time" and that the Medved boys personally chose Ed Wood as the "worst director of all time." To this day, I vociferously disagree. Once I caught up with other Wood pictures (especially Glen Or Glenda), I was convinced he was, in his own way, as mad a genius as John Waters. It was way back then that I started developing a severe distaste for the expression "guilty pleasure". I've never felt guilty taking pleasure in any of Wood's films nor, for that matter, in any number of titles cited as being "so bad they're good". I also appreciated Tim Burton's loving biopic tribute Ed Wood, a movie that still rates higher in my books than any others as a picture that perfectly captures the sheer infectious joy and obsession with movie-making.

An independent auteur like
no other before him. Iconoclasm Rules.

The Film - Giuseppe Makes A Movie
Giuseppe Andrews makes Ed Wood and early John Waters look completely mainstream, but like them, he's a true original. Nobody, but nobody will ever make films like his. Closer, perhaps, to the spirit of Ed Wood, albeit with a great deal more artistic aplomb, he makes movies with his own brand of joy and obsession. To say it's infectious is an understatement. A doff of my hat in Adam Rifkin's direction is in order for taking time away from his prolific family-movie screenwriting career (Small Soldiers, Underdog) to craft this wild, wooly and supremely entertaining documentary on Andrews. The sometime actor who appeared as a kld in Rifkin's own Detroit Rock City as well as bits in Independence Day, Pleasantville, American History X, Never Been Kissed and the first two Cabin Fever movies, eventually opened to a new chapter in his book of life as steady acting gigs got fewer and far-betweener.

Giuseppe's real claim to fame is having directed over 30 micro-budgeted underground films. Andrews is a fringe-player of the highest order. Out of his fevered imagination, he crafts work that captures a very desperate, real and sad truth about America's fringes that are, frankly, not so outside the Status Quo as the country descends even deeper into a kind of Third World divide twixt rich and poor. Through Rifkin's lens we see America according to Andrews, a country rife with abject poverty, alcoholism, exploitation, cruelty and violence. Trailer parks and cheap motels provide the visual backdrop by which Andrews etches his original portraits of depravity (but always tinged with humanity).

Giuseppe Makes a Movie focuses on the making of his 1K-budgeted 2007 film Garbanzo Gas, the tender tale of a cow sent on an all-expenses-paid trip by a slaughterhouse to a sleazy motel in order to have one last fling at life before being dragged back to be butchered. Rifkin's doc gives us a full picture of Andrews' creative process from script writing to production and it's a joy to behold.

He writes some of the richest dialogue I've ever heard. It's the grittiest, most musical gutter poetry imaginable and it's all about sex (often inextricably linked to violence). He casts his films with a regular company of actors who are, for all intents and purposes, homeless men of varying ages and all suffering from a variety of booze and drug addictions. Some of them want cash, but most of them are happy to work for beer and/or rotgut. On occasion he'll literally drag people off the street.

The Bottom line? His actors all seem like they're having one hell of a good time. Aside from the booze perks, acting in Giuseppe's movies offers them an alternative outlet to express themselves, but also, given the ferocity of the dialogue, one senses they also get a charge out of venting whatever they must vent via the florid vulgarity of his words.

Andrews' excitement is infectious.

He gets his cast to reel off these cool lines of dialogue by first barking the lines out himself as the gentlemen (and one lady) repeat them again and again until they nail what the mad auteur is looking for. This is electric stuff and the movie is often charged with its own kinetic energy, fuelled by Andrews' own implosions and explosions.

At times, these drunk, stoned and/or incontinent actors spout the tough-minded, richly purple and often hilarious monologues that reminded me, and indeed rival some of the best dialogue from Russ Meyer's equally purple-prose-worthy bag of tricks. Meyer, like Wood, early Waters and, of course, Giuseppe Andrews, all exemplify pure independence.

Giuseppe has help to do all this. His Dad, whom he lives with in a trailer park, is a part-time session musician who worked for years as the lead guitarist for The Bee Gees. He's the money-bags and all-round producer. They make a great team and it's especially touching to see their clear love and respect for each other even when they have disagreements. The two men are separated by generations, but linked by blood and creativity. They also know, after 30 films together, how to make movies for virtually nothing - it's complete and total DIY. No job is too small or dirty for these guys, though Giuseppe appears to have the regular honour of cleaning the soiled ass of his favourite actor, an incontinent old drunk named Tyree.

Rifkin wisely doesn't go out of his way to editorialize. He pretty much shoots what he sees and assembles it into its own unique fever dream of Andrews' life. For his part, Giuseppe is clearly a committed artist. He loves certain filmmakers like Pasolini, Fassbinder and Godard, then mercilessly craps on "fake" indie filmmakers. He displays disdain for cinematic storytelling convention (though he clearly seems to understand it) and most fascinating of all, he works completely on impulse but at the same time remains true to his language, themes and initial goals.

He admits to going through a patch of depression when it looked like his acting career was going nowhere, but no further probing on that front seems necessary. Giuseppe is clearly ill, but he's equipped with the ultimate anti-depressant, filmmaking. And look, I'm no psychiatrist, but I have a funny feeling that he clearly exhibits signs of mood states not unlike hypomania which include huge highs and lows plus a heightened sense of disinhibition. Many artists experience this and if, indeed, Giuseppe is going through a series of hypo-manic episodes (or something close to it) throughout the making of Garbanzo Gas, we get a rare, unbridled glimpse into that inner spirit, that flame burning within his synapses and how it yields creativity unbound.

Rifkin remain respectfully detached - as he should be. Too many filmmakers would be tempted to do one of those offensive, condescending and easy "Oh, let's make fun of this nutcase" style of film. Obviously there are plenty of talentless Status Quo hacks out there who could and would do that, but it would be a loss to the rest of us and Giuseppe. Frankly, to toss off someone like Giuseppe Andrews as an oddball, an eccentric or a quirky goof would display a complete lack of understanding, imagination, feeling and appreciation for what makes a true artist.

Yes, he might be quite insane, but he is an artist, for Christ's Sake and a damn fine one at that. Our world would be a much better place with more people like Giuseppe Andrews. Maybe someday we'll see a movie from him that nails all the boring buggers to the crucifix they deserve to be affixed to. If he does it, you can bet it will be rife with the humanity that pulsates through his work and courses through his veins until it spurts like geysers of gorgeously glistening viscous fluids upon the boundless tapestry that IS cinema.

Giuseppe Makes a Movie is playing at Hot Docs 2014 in Toronto. Get further info HERE.