THE HUNGER GAMES (now on Blu-Ray and DVD from Alliance Films) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Yes, this is now out on Blu-Ray and guess what? It still stinks!

The Hunger Games
(2012) dir. Gary Ross
*1/2
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Willow Shields, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Wes Bentley, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland

Review By
Greg Klymkiw

"What the fuck!" bellowed an angry sweet-faced teen as she and her girlfriends stood outside of the theatre playing The Hunger Games. "That was such a piece of shit. I didn't wanna see some bullshit PG-13 version. I wanted to see way more killing." Other than her proclivity for sadistic violence and the litany of sailor-worthy epithets barfing out of her gullet, you'd think, just looking at her, that she was a simple girl next door in Bible Belt Country. In most respects, she was, no doubt a genteel young miss. And importantly, she was right about two things. The movie was indeed a "piece of shit" and the violence - given the subject matter, proved to be all sizzle and no steak.

That this extra-long episode of Hannah Montana with killing is now out on Blu-Ray, I did so choose, like Our Lord, to sacrifice myself for the sins incurred by those who love the movie. I nailed my feet to the floor and watched it again.

I am now happy to report that The Hunger Games is no worse than it was on the big screen.

Based on the first of a trilogy of bestsellers by Suzanne Collins (I skimmed the first novel, but never bothered with the others), this might well have made for a decent picture if it had veered towards Norman Jewison's Rollerball and mated with Kinji Fukasaku's aforementioned Battle Royale - the cool dystopian future vision of the former and the utterly insane ultra violence of the latter.

Alas, even with the dreadful Hunger Games script (co-written by its original author Collins), a watchable movie would have required something resembling a director which, helmer Gary Ross clearly is not.

There is not, of course, a soul on the planet who is unaware what The Hunger Games is about. This teen-friendly miasma of fetid science fiction cliches is set after an apocalypse wherein the world has been rebuilt as The Capitol, a right-wing city state with a bunch of satellite districts representing the working class. Two kids from every district are selected by lottery to engage in too-the-death combat games which are broadcast live to all.

Clumsily, we are forced to follow the idiotically named couple Katniss (Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) from the mining district as they wend their way through the proceedings, presumably fall in love and leave an open door for the sequel since they have displeased the government and Katniss has betrayed Gale (Hemsworth), her love interest from before the games began. Great! We'll enjoy a Twilight-like love triangle for two more miserable movies.

Gary Ross really can't direct.

He's written a few decent screenplays in his time - notably Big, Dave and The Tales of Despereaux - but his directorial output to date includes the lame attempt at quirky mainstream psuedo-post-modernism Pleasantville and the horrendous biopic of the famous racehorse Seabiscuit (which made me long for the 1949 Shirley Temple and Barry Fitzgerald weepie The Story of Seabiscuit).

With The Hunger Games, Ross reaches his filmmaking nadir. He's yet another director who has absolutely no idea how to direct suspense and action. Full of annoying shaky-cam and endless, cheap-jack quick cuts, he's all bluster. He has no idea of spatial geography, the camera placements are, dramatically, a mess and there is nary a genuinely thrilling moment in the entire movie.

For screen violence to really work - for it to have the power to alternately tantalize and sicken, a director needs to have a combination of craft and style. Ross has neither. Sam Peckinpah, for example, often shot his violence with a myriad of shots and numerous quick cuts, but the shots were exquisitely lit and/or composed and every single cut was like a dramatic beat - moving the film forward in terms of pace, but also conveying vital visual story information. The Hunger Games is edited in today's typical Attention Deficit Disorder style with a cornucopia of ugly shots.

Adding to the film's ineptitude is a lumbering 142-minute running time which inspired me to yearn, in vain, for the 80-90 minute length of Roger Corman New World pictures that were oft-blessed with crisp, stylish, humour-infused direction.

Neither Ross nor author Collins have anything resembling a sense of humour, but luckily, a couple of great supporting actors livened things up just in the nick of time. Stanley Tucci as the host of the broadcast and Woody Harrelson as a hunger game mentor, both serve up more than a few laughs (plus really bad haircuts) whilst Donald Sutherland in a small role as the Capitol's head-honcho is deliciously chilling and as such, comes closest to capturing what the movie might have been if the rest of it had actually been directed.

Our two leads have both acquitted themselves superbly in other movies - Lawrence in Winter's Bone and Hutcherson in Journey to the Centre of the Earth and its sequel Journey 2 The Mysterious Island. While they're both attractive here, our ability to feel anything at all for either character has more to do with their commanding screen presence as opposed to any of the lame dialogue forced into their memory banks and out of their mouths and the garbled action gymnastics they're put through by the woefully incompetent camera jockey Ross.

Nothing one says or does will stop the Hunger Games juggernaut. It's going to make a few thousand times as much as the GNP of all the Third World nations put together. This, sadly, has a lot to do with the genuinely brilliant marketing coupled with the increasingly susceptibility of younger audiences to outright crap.

Like the moronic Twilight films (save for the first half of the decently directed first instalment), Hunger Games is another example of how young audiences, so desperate to follow the Pied Piper of the current cultural dystopia plaguing our world, will happily, greedily, moronically and voraciously scarf down whatever buckets of excrement are placed before them.

They don't even need a spoon to scoop the fecal matter into their mouths. They bury their faces deep into the waste matter. Like pigs at a trough - bulking up for slaughter

"Hunger Games" is now on Blu-Ray and DVD via Alliance Films.

If you really feel you must own this abomination, feel free to order from the Amazon links below and support the maintenance of this site.



There's really no reason to present a Hunger Games clip here, so instead I'm presenting clips from much better movies with a similar theme.

Norman Jewison's Rollerball trailer:



Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale trailer:

THE RAID: REDEMPTION (now on Blu-Ray and DVD from Alliance Films) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Gareth Huw Evans is the real thing. Christopher Nolan and all the other ham-fisted directors could learn more than a few tricks from this mad, meticulous filmmaker.

The Raid: Redemption (2011) dir: Gareth Huw Evans

Starring: Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donny Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno, Ray Sahetapy

***1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I've got a great idea! Surprisingly (or not-so surprisingly), Christopher Nolan was the chief inspiration for the proverbial lightbulb blinking above my noggin. Here's my revelation:

Deep six everybody who can't direct action and/or suspense and replace them with Gareth Huw Evans. In fact, I'd go so far as suggesting that every action movie ever made from here on in needs to be directed by Gareth Huw Evans. Well, actually, we'll leave John Woo, Sam Raimi and a handful of others alone, but the rest can don netted wife-beater shirts, spandex shorts and a fashionable (but equally practical) pair of shoes to beat the pavement in a suitable neighbourhood to turn tricks for in-the-closet married johns.

After a promising feature debut with the sicko thriller Footsteps in 2006 and the kick-ass sophomore effort Merantau in 2009, Gareth Huw Evans, the plucky Welsh director has "Top of the world, Ma!" written all over him. This guy's going to keep delivering the goods until he goes out in a blaze of glory.

Clearly indebted to the influence of John Woo, Sam Peckinpah and some of the great Shaw Brothers martial arts classics, but with his own additional flavour of relentless style, Gareth Huw Evans is, no doubt, one of the most astonishing talents to break into the motion picture temple of those men who hold forth the torches of genre genius.

Every neck snap, bone cruch, gunshot, machete hack and explosion in The Raid: Redemption is imbued with narrative propulsion, mind-blowing bravura and often, suspense strung so tight one is waiting for something within one's own viscera to snap. After three viewings (at TIFF 2011's Midnight Madness, theatrically and now on Blu-Ray), my delight and excitement has not diminished.

The screenplay by Evans is deceptively simple - a Jakarta SWAT team invades a huge, blasted-out apartment building to make their way, floor by floor, to get to the very top in order to take out a powerful dirtbag crime lord. Along the way, they meet any number of lowlife scum buckets and eradicate them with zeal.

Eventually, even the SWAT team is no match for the army of trained killers that besiege them from every nook, cranny and apartment. A handful of the cops remain and must decide whether to continue ever-upwards to finish the mission or make their way down to get out. Either way, death seems inevitable for some, if not all of the boys in special-ops black.

That's pretty much it, but Evans injects a few welcome narrative touches that add an element of humanity to the otherwise savage proceedings. Firstly, the hero of the picture Rama (Iko Uwais) is given just enough flesh for us to desperately root for him. We pretty much hope this rookie will survive in order to see his loving wife give birth to their first child, to fulfill a pact he's made with his father, to save as many of his colleagues as humanly possible and, of course, take out the head honcho.

Evans also delivers a simple, but effective element of duality to the good and evil sides of the equation so we get a nice Woo/Peckinpah-like dose of sentimental male bonding.

Iko Uwais is not only a terrific actor (whom the camera loves big time) but he's one of the world's leading practitioners of the ever-so heart-stopping form of Indonesian martial arts, silat. Yup, it involves all the great hand and foot action you'd expect from a martial art, but also blends the sickening, stomach churning and dazzling use of blades - blades of all sorts: knives, swords, machetes - some of which are equipped with the most carnage-inflicting serrated edges imaginable.

Uwais also choreographs the action - all of which is performed by a seemingly endless number of expert practitioners of silat. Needless to say, there is plenty of blood.

Happily, Evans captures every single action set piece with both the approach and precision of a true Master. He hangs the camera back and lets the choreography dictate the pace. He uses closeups, dollies and cuts judiciously. Nothing is sloppy, jagged or out of place in the horrible herky-jerky fashion employed by virtually every mainstream director who indulges in action scenes. His sense of geography is impeccable and there's no annoying Christopher Nolan-styled bombast-over-DNA-hardwired-directorial-virtuosity.

The story, though simple - perhaps because of its wise simplicity - always moves forward and most importantly, the action is not only there for suspense and thrills, but to hammer us ever-closer to the inevitable ultimate showdown.

There are times when the movie is so sickeningly violent, you'll feel like averting your eyes. You won't though. You might be missing something you've never seen before.

"The Raid: Redemption" is available on a great Bluray transfer replete with a bevy of excellent extra featues from Alliance Films. It's also available on DVD, but why bother?"

Action fans will definitely want to own "The Raid: Redemption" and perhaps some of Evans's other films "Merantau" and "Footsteps". Feel free to order from the Amazon links below and you'll be assisting with the maintenance of this site.





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THE DARK KNIGHT RISES - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Christopher Nolan has a very distinctive style. It doesn't mean he can direct.

The Dark Knight Rises

(2012) dir. Christopher Nolan

Starring: Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Matthew Modine

*1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I call him Christopher "One Idea" Nolan. His first film, Following, has one idea. Hint: You'll find it in the title. Memento has one idea. Hey, the lead character can only remember the past 20 minutes. Let's tell the story backwards. Hmmm. Is that two ideas?

Batman Begins starts off with one good idea. When little Bruce Wayne tumbles down the well and the bats attack him, his point of view is a flurry of cuts. Fair enough, makes sense to me. However, this one idea - symbolic of his childhood trauma - causes him to have a similar point of view during each and every action scene. Not a single action set piece has any excitement or dramatic and/or emotional resonance because they're all shot and cut so ham-fistedly with no sense of geography and finally, the cuts (on both a sound and picture level) create a visceral dynamism, but none of it is properly rooted in the notion that every cut, every blow, every kick should be an action that moves the story and/or character forward. Worst of all, this continued flurry of sloppy shots and cuts resemble the bat attack, but seldom are they truly representative of Mr. Nolan's one salient idea as they're Mr. Nolan's point of view, not Batman/Bruce Wayne's.

And please, don't get me started on Inception. The less said about that dull mess, the better.

The Prestige is the odd man out in Nolan's canon. It's a surprisingly watchable picture. His trademark use of dark themes and visual aplomb (when he's not pathetically directing action scenes), in addition to a solid enough script and a great cast - all made for an entertainingly satisfying experience. Best of all, it's not rooted in the unimaginative one-trick-pony nonsense that drives the rest of his movies.

Here's the problem. He's got a clearly distinctive style, but it's not enough. I was willing to forgive Following as being the sort of pretentious nonsense a young filmmaker might vomit out on his first feature go-round. Memento, though, drove me right up the wall. It's exactly the sort of fake neo-noir I detest. It's so dour, so utterly humorous and bereft of the crackling, nasty verve of the the best of its ilk. It's just not a lot of fun. It's a major drag and EVERYTHING hinges on its one-trick-pony: telling the story backwards. Tell the damn thing forward and there is NO story. "Oooooohhhhhh", say all the groovies, "but that's the point."

Tell me another one.

Of course it's impossible to completely dismiss The Dark Knight. In fact, I came close to actually thinking it might be - well, not good, exactly, but certainly hovering in the realm of "okay". First and foremost, it's impossible to deny the inspired (and grimly hilarious) malevolence of the late Heath Ledger as The Joker. If anything, he's so great that the movie suffers when he's not on screen. And for once, the action set pieces - the handful shot in the IMAX process - are stunning.

It's interesting to note that IMAX is such an expensive and cumbersome process that it's impossible to shoot (and subsequently cut) in Nolan's usual Attention Deficit Disordered style. It forces you to consider every shot as opposed to going for the kitchen-sink grab-bag Nolan normally resorts to. And while I'm sure Nolan approved all the storyboards, a little part of me thinks most of the work during these action set pieces, and in fact, the best work, was achieved by the old hands from IMAX - an army of old pros who actually know how to make movies.

It's a bit like The Prestige. The material itself forced Nolan to reign in his usual mishmash of sloppiness and pretence.

And so that brings us to the boring, bloated and oh-so dour The Dark Knight Rises. Well, as everyone knows, Batman needed to take the rap for Harvey Dent's wrongdoings and now it's a few years later and Gotham is relatively crime free. Harvey Dent has become Jesus Christ and Commissioner Gordon is feeling guilty about suppressing the real truth for the "good" of the city. Batman is off the radar whilst Bruce Wayne mopes about in seclusion with his loyal butler Alfred.

A plucky cat burglar who looks like Anne Hathaway with body paint for clothes, takes a shine to Bruce as does a wealthy socialite who looks an awful lot like the French woman who played Edith Piaf (only without the "ugly" makeup).

Out of nowhere comes an incredibly bland villain called Bane with a bunch of tubes and steel pipes in his face. It's impossible to understand half his dialogue, but no matter, he's there to do evil, not to be understood.

Bane's a terrorist bent on giving the city back to criminals. This will never do, of course, so Batman comes to the rescue, but not before an endlessly drawn out sequence in some weird-ass pit in the middle of nowhere as Bruce needs to climb out of the hole to triumphantly beat the bad guy.

Oh yeah, there's a nice young cop who believes in Batman and lends a hand. His name is - WAIT FOR IT - Robin.

Alas, no homoerotic subtext here.

Nolan leaves that bit o' business twixt Bruce Wayne and Alfred.

There's a lot more IMAX footage in this movie, but this time, it doesn't come to the rescue as it did in The Dark Knight. Here, it's surprisingly bland. The action scenes have even less resonance than usual in a Nolan film, but there's some nice bits involving a variety of Bat Cycles and the like.

Oh, be forewarned. The movie is long, but not just to indulge the woefully under-talented and wildly over-appreciated Christopher Nolan, but no doubt, so those who pay the usurious IMAX surcharges feel like they're getting their money's worth.

Watching this really was like having dental surgery and if I ever have to see another comic book movie ever again, please let it be directed with someone who has genuine filmmaking genius in his DNA. And a sense of humour. Someone like Sam Raimi.

Hell, I'd even settle for James Cameron.

And that, my friends, is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

FORTUNATE SON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - This new Personal Documentary by independent Greek-Canadian filmmaker Tony Asimakopoulos is an important work that tells a brave and identifiable story about love, loyalty and family that will mirror the lives of those who watch it - touching their hearts and minds on a number of diverse and emotional levels.

"Fortunate Son" HAS BEEN HELD OVER FOR A SECOND BLISTERING WEEK at Toronto's Carlton Cinema (20 Carlton Street at Yonge, College subway) 4:25pm & 9:30pm, everyday until Thursday August 30. ADVANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLY AT THE CARLTON CINEMA. Theatre and production company website links at bottom of review.

SPECIAL NOTE TO TORONTO'S GREEK-CANADIANS - CONSIDER BUYING YOUR TICKETS IN ADVANCE OR SHOWING UP EARLY. WHEN THE FILM PLAYED IN MONTREAL, HUNDREDS OF GREEKS SHOWED UP TO SELL-OUT HOUSES.

Fortunate Son (2011) dir. Tony Asimakopoulos

****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

“You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.” ― Saul Bellow, Seize the Day

I'm truly blessed to have seen an exciting new film that not only moved me - at first, beyond words - but also inspired a flood of thoughts and memories, which all in some fashion are related to the picture itself, but like any great movie, reached out and touched me in ways that forced me to examine so many elements of my own life. I suspect it will do the same for many, many others who are lucky enough to see it.

When an artist delivers nuggets from their own experience, chances are good they will resonate with most of us. When the work is thematically tied to that of family, it's especially hard-hitting. The best of these works will hit us with a roundhouse blow to the gut. For me, a documentary with a personal approach - where a filmmaker presents a story close to them, perhaps even about themselves, is filmmaking of both a brave and extremely identifiable order. Their stories often mirror our own - the details might be different, but below the surface, they hit us on emotional and intellectual levels.

One recent film that demands an audience is a personal documentary by Montreal filmmaker Tony Asimakopoulos. Along with another recent film I've seen, Sarah Polley's exquisite Stories We Tell (premiering this year at Venice and TIFF), Fortunate Son is a movie that, for me, resonated on so many levels that I suspect I won't be the only one who is deeply moved by it. While watching, re-watching and thinking about it, I was reminded of so much that was close to me when I saw Asimakopoulos's film.

One thing his movie inspired, not just because of the backdrop of Greek culture, but because of the movie's focus upon the theme of family, is something I hadn't though about for a decade or two.

Specifically, it was this:

I wish I could remember the precise date I saw Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis in concert when he visited Winnipeg in the 1970s, but I think it was sometime between 1972 and 1973 because I went to see him conduct and perform live soon after seeing the 1972 Constantin Costa-Gavras film State of Siege (a movie I loved, with a score by Theodorakis that I loved even more). I also know it was before seeing Sidney Lumet's 1973 Serpico (a movie I loved that hasn't quite stood the test of time, though the Theodorakis score most certainly has).

I remember asking my parents to buy me a ticket to see Theodorakis at the Centennial Concert Hall - mostly because I owned the original vinyl soundtrack recordings to Zorba the Greek, Z and State of Siege. After all, what self-respecting 13-year-old movie geek living in the provincial backwater of Winnipeg would not want to see someone he considered a star. Yes, I had the movie bug so bad, that even as a kid, "stars" to me were not just those in front of the camera, but those behind it.

For some reason I clearly remember it being a Sunday afternoon when I saw Mikis Theodorakis. Live. In-the-flesh. The concert hall was packed to the rafters with Greek-Canadians. There were, however, two Ukrainians in the audience - me and, as I eventually noticed sitting a few rows down, my late Uncle Walter Klymkiw - a great choir master and scholar of Ukrainian Folk Music.

Uncle Walter was kind of a cultural touchstone for me within my ridiculously large extended family of Ukrainians. As a kid, I was always enamoured with his great love and knowledge of literature, theatre and yes, music. Whenever he took the time to engage me in some conversation about something I loved (usually Chekhov, Dickens and Mahler), I'd feel a strange warmth, probably because he was someone who didn't - at least during my childhood - think I was out of my mind for being passionate about something other than the commonplace.

The afternoon I spent at the Centennial Concert Hall was gob-smackingly exhilarating. Theodorakis was not, as it turned out, presenting any of his film scores, but music I'd never heard before - music that chilled me to the bone and perhaps even more so because the audience leapt to their feet after every piece. Electric. That's the only way I can describe it.

I flagged my Uncle down during the intermission. He asked me why I was there. I told him about my love of the Theodorakis movie music and then I asked why he was there. He explained that Theodorakis was a refugee, living in exile away from his beloved Greece where he fought strenuously against a repressive regime. He explained that, like our family - Ukrainians - Theodorakis was fighting for the freedom and culture of his people outside of his own country - Greece.

This definitely struck a chord with me. My own family had numerous founding members of a federation in Canada that was devoted to preserving Ukrainian culture outside of Ukraine as it was being repressed by the Russians after the revolution until the early 90s. (One might say, the repression from Russia is continuing in Ukraine due to the gangsterism of Putin, but that's another story.) In any event, Uncle Walter's revelation to me cast a new light on my appreciation of the second half of the concert and explained the audience reaction in the first half of the concert.

Beyond a new aesthetic appreciation for Theodorakis, I was, even at the time, reminded of the importance of family. A common bond of blood opened my eyes to something new.

Love is a powerful eye-opener and this is what's at the root of Fortunate Son. The above personal memory - a mere shard of my life - came flooding back to me after seeing Asimakopoulos's film, but most importantly, the notion that love and family are why we're all here on this Earth.

Another great thing Fortunate Son reminded me of was Elia Kazan's America America, his great dramatic rendering of his own Greek family's escape from repression in Turkey. This was a movie I'd seen on TV as a kid and I remember what a huge impression it made on me - so much so, that even when I see it now I'm easily able to repress the picture's occasional flaws.

The opening shot of Mount Ararat in Kazan's film seems almost identical to the opening shot in Fortunate Son of a mountain overlooking Azimakopoulos's own parents' Greek village.

In both films, this is an extremely powerful image. It represents an almost pastoral beauty - one that seems to exist in another time and place, but also conjures up thoughts about how far away and seemingly unattainable it is - unless, of course, one chooses the arduous task of climbing it.

For Asimakopoulos and Kazan, their films and the personal tales they tell are not unlike a mountain that must be climbed - to conquer that which seems too formidable, a dragon that must be slain, but requiring obsessive bravery and fortitude to deliver the ultimate blow.

From this opening shot, Asimakopoulos provides a haunting montage of immigrants on a boat, long-ago memories of happy couples celebrating life and love and then juxtaposed with a series of odd, evocative black and white images of a swarthy young goodfella - adorned in a sport coat and staring at himself in the mirror (not unlike that of Jake LaMotta near the end of Raging Bull). The soundtrack to this point has been dappled with its own montage of hollow, barley audible sounds of boats, water, clinking glasses, Greek folk music, laughter and then we get the first words of narration that spell out the journey we're about to take with Asimakopoulos in Fortunate Son.

"Am I a good son?" asks the haunted voice.

"Am I a bad son?"

And then, in an almost stylized goodfella-from-the-hood fashion:
"I dunno."

This is the peak the filmmaker must ascend. We want to immediately to climb it with him. We want to know if he is a good or bad son. We want him to know if he is a good or bad son. And perhaps most indelibly, we're reminded of how all of us wonder the same thing. Are we good kids or bad kids? Are we good parents or bad parents? Are we good husbands and wives or bad husbands and wives?

Or is there no such thing?

Or more truthfully, is goodness found somewhere in the middle - in shades of grey?

The journey Asimakopoulos takes us on makes for a compulsive, sad, funny and profoundly moving experience. We hear about his parents' life in Greece, their immigration to Canada, their life in the New World. We become privy to the story of their roller coaster ride marriage, Tony's childhood, his troubled adolescence and eventual struggle with heroin addiction. We experience his current relationship with his Mom and Dad while also exploring life with his beloved fiance Natalie. We hear and see his parents' patterns of behaviour, both past and present - the laughter, love, tears and conflict. So too do we experience Tony's own love story - fraught with the same emotional challenges that his parents faced and his fear that he is merely repeating the patterns of his life before heroin addiction or worse, the sins (as it were) of his Mother and Father.

Asimakopoulos renders this tale with a skilfully edited blend of archival footage, old home movies, scenes from his student films, experimental work and his first feature film. We get up close and personal shots of his life and that of his parents - deftly interwoven with head-on interviews.

We see the hopes, dreams and lives of a family which, finally, remind us of our own experiences.

At one point Natalie talks about her own parents splitting up and asks Tony about his Mom and Dad. "Do you ever wonder why they stayed together?" she asks.

Without hesitation, Tony responds: "No. Not really."

And for some of us, his response makes perfect sense. Old World families and, to a large extent, previous generations with Old World values might have considered splitting up, but they almost never did. In a sense they're imbued with what I like to think of as the maturity of fortitude.

Yeah, yeah - so life doesn't always deal you the cards you want, but you keep playing the game because whatever losses you might suffer, the elation of the occasional win is too great to give up based upon the whims that so many with New World values and recent generations have inspired.

It's easy to give up, but as Asimakopoulos's film demonstrates, it takes courage, REAL courage to keep going, to keep fighting the good fight, to never say never. (Kind of like the aforementioned film industry decision makers - it's easier to say "No" than have the courage to say "Yes" when something seems difficult.)

This might be the genuine importance of Fortunate Son - it demonstrates the inescapable truth that love is not easy. For love to BE love, for love to really count, it takes work, courage and fortitude. It means giving up ephemeral happiness for that which really counts - the happiness of endurance, of perseverance, of never giving up.

This is ultimately, the importance of family. (Or, in the words of a character in Peckinpah's Ride The High Country: "I want to enter my house justified.")

And sure, Asimakopoulos details what many of us, and even in his own words, describe as "dysfunctional" families. Yeah? So what? All families are dysfunctional to one degree or another.

Again, all that matters is love and family.

Is Tony's Mom seen as over-protective, over-bearing and even judgemental?

Hell, yes.

Who isn't?

At one point, his Mom talks about Tony's fiance and declares: "I prayed you would find a nice girl and we found her, didn't we?"

Some might see the use of "we" as taking a degree of empowerment away from her own son, but does, in fact, present the fact that "we" are all in this together and that for all the trials and tribulations, family reigns supreme.

When Tony talks about kicking his heroin habit, we hear his addiction counsellor well-meaningly talk about Tony's need to get away from the shackles of the family unit. "You needed to get unhooked," he says of Tony leaving his family and while this was a good band-aid solution, we see repeatedly how it's love and family that truly saves the day.

When Tony accompanies his parents to their hometown in Greece, we get glimpses of what life and family was like back in their early years. Family and just how needy family can be is a truth that's both funny and moving.

Tony's Dad (who left Greece in 1967 during the beginning of the junta that Theodorakis fought against) jokes about how every time he went back to Greece to visit his mother, she'd cry and declare how old she was getting and how this would be the "last time" he'd ever see her again. He and Tony laugh good-naturedly when he reveals she said the same thing repeatedly over numerous trips back to see her.

Tony's Mom, on the other hand, paints an entirely different portrait of her connection to Greece and family. At one point, she finds a stone on the ground and thinks it might be nice to take this piece of Greece back with her to Canada. She thinks on it, then places the stone back, saying: "The rock will cry if I take it away from its home."

She sounds like my grandmother.

When she visits her Mother's spartan bedroom - preserved almost like a shrine, she finds some sacred religious artifacts that belonged to her Mother. She firmly declares that she will not leave them behind. "It would be a sin to do so," she says.

Later on, Tony's Mom reveals that she wanted to go back home, but that it was marriage to Tony's Dad in Canada that dashed those dreams. She does not say this with bitterness or regret, but with the aforementioned maturity of fortitude. When she discusses her Mother in Saint-like terms - a single mother who worked herself to the bone to feed her family - she begins to tear-up. Thinking about how much her mother sacrificed for her and how she eventually got sick and died alone is almost too much for her to bear.

As it would be for anyone.

And often, as personal films can do, Fortunate Son takes a turn in the story of this family when his Dad is diagnosed with stomach cancer and we witness the family's terrible and brave struggle to deal with this. Even here, however, there's a mixture of sadness and humour (as typified by the title of Armenian-American William Saroyan's great book and film, "The Human Comedy"). Here's Dad - seriously ill with stomach cancer - and Mom is piling heaps of artery-clogging food on his plate (something Ukrainians understand all too well). Mom even complains she's screwed the food up and heaps salty slabs of cheese on it.

"Put on some Feta to make it taste better," she offers.

And yes, food is very important to this family. We see one scene after another round dinner tables - piled high with culinary delights that watered this Ukrainian's mouth like a geyser. Early in the movie, Tony's Dad is leaving to play cards at the local Greek community bar. Tony's Mom gives him the most delectable list of food to bring home from the grocery store. Towards the end of the film, fearing her husband might die, she reveals to Tony that "I want to die before your Father does. It's better that way." Then she adds: "Because he can take care of himself."

At this point (along with many others in the movie), tears erupted from my eyes.

All I could think about was this: "Who would bring groceries home for her if her husband died first?"

It's a question all of us would ask in similar situations. The details might be different, but the sentiment is the same.

Tony Asimakopoulos is one of Canadian cinema's great unsung talents. His early student films and experimental works and first feature are brimming with a voice that needs to be heard. His work has been charged with a unique underground flavour - a kind of Greek Scorsese boys in the hood quality of obsession with dapplings of George Kuchar melodrama and lurid high contrast visuals. He's taken this style and while not completely abandoning it, he has developed and matured into a fine cinematic storyteller.

Fortunate Son is, quite simply, a genuinely great film.

It's a movie that everyone must see.

And yeah, I can think of a few Greeks who might love it too.

"Fortunate Son" is playing theatrically for a 2nd BLISTERING week at Toronto's Carlton Cinema (20 Carlton Street at Yonge, College subway) 4:25pm & 9:30pm, everyday. ADVANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE CARLTON CINEMA. SPECIAL NOTE TO TORONTO'S GREEK-CANADIANS - BUY YOUR TICKETS IN ADVANCE OR SHOW UP EARLY. WHEN THE FILM PLAYED IN MONTREAL, HUNDREDS OF GREEKS SHOWED UP TO SELL-OUT HOUSES. For further information check the Carlton website for screening times HERE. Additional playdates in Canada throughout the next few months can be accessed by visiting the EYESTEELFILM website HERE.

INSTITUTE BENJAMENTA or THIS DREAM PEOPLE CALL HUMAN LIFE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 17 years after first seeing the Quay Brothers' film adaptation of Robert Walser's novel "Jakob von Gunten", I'm happy to report that yes, the movie is a masterpiece.

Institute
Benjamenta
or
This Dream
People Call
Human Life

dir. Brothers Quay
(1995)

*****

Starring:
Alice Krige
Mark Rylance
Gottfried John

Review By
Greg Klymkiw

A BEDTIME STORY FROM MAGMA HEAD

Magma Head entered Mieuxberry's boxcar in Loni Beach Forest, a mere pubic hair's north of Gimli and like every evening, he proceeded to silently and gently tuck all the Drones in. Upon completion of his nightly duties, he took his place upon the tree stump in the centre of the boxcar, moved the oil lamp closer to his proximity and removed a slender volume from his pocket. The twinkle in his eye and an ever-so slight pursing of the lips was enough to instil curiosity amongst the Drones as to what manner of tale would be read aloud to complete a most perfect day of worshipping the newly crowned Fjallkona and greedily dining on Hardfiskur, Skyr and Vinatarta.

“Will it be the Huysmans?” The Love Doctor ejaculated.

“Bruno Schulz would do me very nicely,” cooed Little Julie.

“You know what I want,” growled The Claw, “Ruskin's my man.”

“Oh thtuff it, Claw!” Mieuxberry volleyed with the pronounced lisp that consumed his palate whenever Claw haughtily implied that he’d never hear “Ethics of the Dust”, his bedtime words of choice.

“I’m good with whatever,” Squid opined cheerfully.

“Will it be the Huysmans?” The Love Doctor ejaculated once again.

“Thtuff it, L.D. We had the bloody Huythmanth all fucking week becauthe of you.”

“I’d settle for some Bataille,” The Love Doctor offered meekly.

Magma Head chuckled, shaking his elephantine skull to and fro.

“Tonight,” he said, “I have something very new, very special and very appropriate for you lads – especially in light of the magnificence of this year’s Fjallkona. So rest thine weary heads fellows, put aside thine petty squabbles and allow me to purvey the greatest words I have yet to lay my eyes upon.”

“Greater than Hamsun?” Little Julie queried.

"Greater than Calvino?" Squid implored.

"Greater than Ruskin?" growled the Claw.

“Greater than all,” beamed Magma Head and in dulcet tones, he bowed his head over the Holy Book and he did read:

“One learns very little here, there is a shortage of teachers, and none of us boys of the Benjamenta Institute will come to anything, that is to say, we shall all be something very small and subordinate later in life . . .”

In 1995, the identical twin Quay Brothers, Stephen and Timothy, unleashed their stunning feature length adaptation of Robert Walser’s novel “Jakob von Gunten” and a lifelong dream for the ages began. Upon first seeing Institute Benjamenta or This Dream People Call Human Life, I was infused with the same excitement as when I first encountered the novel many years earlier. Being a devoted servant to Mr. Walser, I could think of no other filmmaker better poised to deliver a great film version of his work.

The Twins did not disappoint.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, the identical twins eventually crossed the pond and left America nipping at their heels before they settled in London. With their old college chum Keith Griffiths, they formed Koninck Studios and generated over 20 landmark short films before embarking on this, their first feature.

And WHAT a first feature!

Both works, Walser's novel and the Twins' movie, exist separately from each other in completely different mediums, but as such, are of lasting value - insofar as I believe it is possible for anybody to experience one without the other. Ah, but what joy to know Walser when diving headlong into the Quays’ magnificent motion picture. Then again, what joy it is to know the Quays’ movie, then dive with the same headlong abandon into Walser.

The tale, in both book and film, is much the same. One Jakob von Gunten (Mark Rylance) enters into the study of servitude at the Benjamenta Institute, a school devoted to turning out the very best butlers and servants to ply their trade throughout Europe.

Alas, the Institute has seen better days – at least it surely must have – for when Jakob flings himself into its womb of servile academe, he is perplexed by its dank decrepitude. A former perfume factory (a Quay touch Walser would have no doubt approved), the musk of deer wafts thickly through the dark, cluttered interiors, still adorned with its previous tenant's accoutrements - antlers aplenty, dusty stuffed deer heads and even the leg of a deer, handily utilized used as a pointer in the classroom devoted to servility.

The school's money-grubbing principal Herr Benjamenta (Gottfried John) is an ogre-like cripple who flings himself about with a clanking, clumping pair of canes - bellowing, demanding and veering (when need be) twixt authoritarian, gentle caring and a curious form of lust. The school's chief lecturer is Lisa (Alice Krige), Herr Benjamenta's sister - a rigid dominatrix with a face that swings between the angelic and demonic.

Needless to say, Jakob is quite enamoured with his sexy Frau Teacher.

Eventually, endless days and weeks pass. The students, a motley Seven-Dwarf-like clutch of submissive acolytes to Frau Lisa's demands, engage in rigorous exercises devoted to solely to subservience. Jakob occasionally attempts to subvert this, just to mix things up a bit. He is a sly devil, that one. But as he is drawn deeper into Lisa's formidable spell, Herr Benjamenta draws himself ever closer to Jakob (in a manner very unbecoming of a gentleman).

Death, it seems is just around the corner, for the Institute and its spirit. The very soul of the Institute is ultimately personified in the one person who desperately seeks escape from its darkness. Light is salvation. Alas, it makes only fleeting appearances.

Life in the Institute, such as it is, is not unlike a dream.

Like all dreams, however, it must fade.

Some will fade with it.

Others will move on.

I first saw Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life at the Locarno Film Festival in the summer of 1995. The experience was one I shall never forget. So emotional was my response to the film that I finally gave way to a physical need to respond to the beauty and brilliance of what the Twins had wrought from Walser.

At a certain point, my elation caused me to emit tears of joy over the film's supreme artistry which astonishingly converged with tears wrought from the profoundly moving sequence towards the film’s end when Lisa, surrounded by the mournful humming of her pupils, fights to stave off the inevitable whilst betraying the deep knowledge that resistance is indeed futile.

This is something that has seldom happened to me while watching a movie – an almost spiritual coming together of being deeply moved by the filmmaking and its sheer genius just at that salient point when the film’s narrative and themes are equally moving. It was at that point I was quite convinced I was watching a film destined for masterpiece status.

Visually, Institute Benjamenta is a feast of epic proportions with both production design and cinematography that have seldom been rivalled in terms of originality and dazzlingly sumptuous beauty.

Another element of perfection is the screenplay that not only captures the spirit and key touchstones of Walser’s book, but does so with grace, humour and emotion. The tone and pace are precisely as I imagined a film version of the book to have, but most delightfully, the Twins and their co-writer Alain Passes retain and gorgeously capture the novel's voice - that being Jakob himself. The Twins are never shy about using the voiceover. It's a perfect compliment to the visuals.

Astoundingly, many of the visuals sans narration evoke (for those who know and love the novel) Walser's distinctive literary voice. Few directors have been blessed with this ability. For my money the only equally successful example of this is John Huston's movie of James Joyce's The Dead. (Granted, others come close, but on this front, my money goes to the seemingly odd bedfellows of the Twins and the late Mr. Huston.)

Another element in the equation that is the perfection of Institute Benjamenta comes in the form of Lech Jankowski's haunting score which works on two levels - one, in perfect tandem with the film and two, as gorgeous, soaring music all on its own.

Add to this:

- a perfect cast (especially the luscious Borg Queen herself, Miss Krige);

- a spirit of cinematic invention that place the Twins in a most lofty pantheon;

- and last, but not least, the simple, unavoidable fact that Institute Benjaments is quite unlike anything you will ever see.

It has been 17 years since I first saw the film. In that time, I have seen it more times than I can remember. My most recent helping was a new re-mastering of the film by the British Film Institute and imported into an exquisite new DVD from the legendary Zeitgeist Films of New York for consumption here in the colonies.

Years ago I was convinced the Quay Twins had, with Institute Benjamenta, fashioned what would, no doubt, attain masterpiece status. I can only reiterate that it is now 17 years later. The film is just as great and gets richer with every viewing.

If that’s not a masterpiece, I don’t know what is.

"Institute Benjamenta" is now available on DVD from Zeitgeist Films. Featuring the exquisite aforementioned transfer from the British Film Institute (personally supervised by the Twins and their brilliant cinematographer Nic Knowland). Thankfully, the picture is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:1:66 (maybe, aside from standard frame, my favourite aspect ratio of all) and the sound - exquisitely designed and mixed is in Dolby MONO. Yes, MONO! Put aside all your technophile prejudices - there is nothing greater on God's Green Earth than a stunning Mono mix. My only regret here is the "Dolby" part which mutes my favourite part of any mono mix - the gentle, dreamy, hypnotic qualities that only optical sound will impart.

The DVD is accompanied by a number of special features - the best of which are a short, but extremely illuminating "On the Set" item and most thrillingly, the Twins' new short "Eurydice She, So Beloved". I know this is a trifle cheeky of me, but it's so goddamned great I refuse to discuss it here save for urging you to just bloody well buy the disc and discover it for yourself.

Finally, I should mention that not only has it been 17 years since I saw "Institute Benjamenta", but it's also been 17 years since I have had a chance to talk with the Twins. I remember my last conversation with them as if it were only yesterday - wherein we examined a map of Ukraine to see if the Oblast of my people was near the Oblast of Bruno Schulz.

In any event, 17 years is a long time to NOT converse with artists whose work has infused me with such joy, so in honour of the North American release of "Institute Benjamenta" via the Zeitgeist Films label as well as two major programs at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) – one being a film retrospective entitled "Lip-Reading Puppets: The Curators’ Prescription for Deciphering the Quay Brothers" and the other being a historic exhibit entitled "Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist's Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets" – please do look forward to my conversation with the Quay Brothers on "Institute Benjamenta" which will soon be appearing in the tres cool movie mag "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema". I'll post a link to it on this site once it is available for online reading.

IF YOU'VE A HANKERING TO PURCHASE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS, PLEASE DO SO MY ORDERING FROM THE LINKS BELOW AND YOU WILL HAPPILY BE CONTRIBUTING TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THIS SITE:

WHAT'S UP DOC? - Review By Greg Klymkiw - This terrific Peter Bogdanovich screwball comedy in the grand tradition of Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey and George Cukor was made and set in the 70s with sensibilities reminiscent of the 30s and 40s, and happily, it's as fresh, funny and vital today. Do not miss it on the big screen this summer FOR FREE at TIFF before you buy the sparkling Warner Home Entertainment BRD/DVD.

TIFF in the Park 2012: Screwball Comedies - Every Wednesday at sunset and running through to August 29, TIFF and the Toronto Entertainment District BIA present FREE outdoor screenings of classic screwball comedies at David Pecaut Square, directly west of Roy Thomson Hall. On Wednesday, August 19, don't miss Peter Bogdanovich's WHAT'S UP DOC?

What's Up Doc? (1972) dir. Peter Bogdanovich

Starring: Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Madeline Kahn, Austin Pendleton, Kenneth Mars, Michael Murphy, Sorrell Booke, Stefan Gierasch, John Hillerman, Randy Quaid, M. Emmet Walsh and Liam Dunn

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

If anyone on a silver screen was virtually indistinguishable from a whirling dervish, that ancient and most holy of all spiritual dancers, there's no doubt that few will ever come close to Barbra Streisand in Peter Bogdanovich's classic screwball comedy What's Up Doc? - a terrific picture that is as much an homage to a bygone genre as it is the thing itself - so gloriously re-invented for a contemporary audience (in the 70s), yet as fresh today as it was then.

Playing the irrepressible poor little rich girl who makes life so beautifully miserable for Ryan O'Neal's befuddled musicology professor Howard Bannister, Babs explodes on screen like Fanny Brice channeled through the splicing together of genes from Carole Lombard and Jean Arthur.

With her floppy, oversized checkered Armand of Beverly Hills newsboy cap resting comfortably over her gorgeous strawberry blonde tresses, her moist full lips at their most luscious, her exquisite profile at its most stunningly aquiline, her winning smile never more sparkling, her kookiness never more insanely, deliciously skewed and her dancing eyes drawing you in with some kind of berserk "fuck me immediately" magnetism, La Streisand commands our attention from entrance to exit.

And like the aforementioned whirling dervish, she exists on a plane somewhere between Heaven and Earth, spinning full tilt to a precise rhythm that places both herelf and the viewer in a trance.

This is what makes a star! Pure and simple. She's Streisand all the way! But like all true stars, she outshines her persona to deliver the ultimate dramatic/comedic roundhouse smack - and then some!

With a terrific screenplay from David Newman, Robert Benton and Buck Henry (based upon a story by helmer Bogdanovich), she melds her stunning personality, almost superhuman photogenic qualities and seldom-parallelled thespian talents to bring to life one of the great female roles in the movies. As Judy Maxwell, perennial ivy league student and con artist extraordinaire, she's on the run from responsibility and Daddy and immediately sets her sights on winning the heart of one bespectacled Bannister, a cutie-pie geek academic in a perpetual fog who is attending a convention of fellow musicology eggheads at a gathering that could surely only exist in the movies.

On the surface, Judy seeks escape, but deep down, all she wants is the love of a man who needs her more desperately than he can bear to admit. And Bannister has a lot of things he can bear admitting. His number one problem is securing foundation financing to continue his studies of the prehistoric rocks that he believes are the first musical instruments. (In fact, he pathologically carries his rocks in a red plaid satchel and can hardly bear the thought of parting with them.) These, however, are rocks he's happy to be saddled with.

Bannister's equally serious problem is the dead weight clutching grotesquely at his side, a burdensome rock, a ball and chain, if you will - or less charitably an oversized Cronenbergian pus-sack-like appendage with a mouth and voice-box. The aberration with which I speak of is his fiance Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn in her outrageous movie debut), and boy does Eunice burn - not unlike the hellfire spawn of Satan. She is a harridan of the most loathsome kind - needy, grasping, domineering - the penultimate teratism of womanhood, a screeching monstrosity who's going to bring her man so far down the career ladder, that he'll be lucky to teach accordion in a strip mall or better, to take an eventual hot bath with a Schick razor to plunge in his veins.

Judy will have none of it, but she will have ALL of Bannister. Streisand's performance is so riveting that it's impossible to avert one's eyes from her hawk-like gaze. She targets her wants and needs with diamond-sharp precision. Again, this is what makes a star. Streisand's actions speak louder than words - she's a huntress with a mission straight from her heart and she pulls out all the stops - no matter what obstacles are flung in her direction, she charges over them with verve, courage and smarts. And let it be said that part of her actions ARE her words. Never have such zingers torn out of a contemporary character's voicebox. It's astounding to watch Streisand, to study her every move - eyes first, brain next, then action! Babs has rendered a lot of great work, but I daresay none of it (and it's all mostly wonderful) holds a candle to her work here.

Judy harries and harasses poor Bannister until he's putty in her hands, but instead of arsenic, she traps her quarry with honey. She brilliantly and deftly takes Eunice's place at the convention and dazzles the powers-that-be until they're on the verge of signing Bannister a blank cheque for his rock studies. There are, however, even more complications to contend with - Judy wins many battles, but she has her work cut out for her in order to successfully win the war. And let it be said now, Streisand commands this picture like General George S. Patton.

In addition to the laugh-out-loud-funny script, director Peter Bogdanovich masterfully captures this screwball comedy with the skill and artistry of a Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey and George Cukor rolled into one. Though some of the pratfalling and mistaken baggage handling verge on distraction, Bogdanovich handles the romance and banter like an old pro.

A great star needs a great director and Streisand couldn't have hoped for someone better than Bogdanovich. As mentioned earlier, this is no mere homage to screwball comedies - it is, pure and simple, a great screwball comedy in its own right. Bogdanovich not only has filmmaking in his very DNA, his encyclopaedic knowledge of American cinema lets him deliver his own series of roundhouse punches, drawing from the masters he clearly loves, while putting his own stamp on the picture. It's no surprise he was one of the great directors of his generation - from his staggering debut with the clever and chilling Targets, to the nostalgia of The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, the freewheeling and sadly maligned Nickelodeon and, lest we forget, his romance of all things sleazy in Saint Jack, Bogdanovich kept serving up one great picture after another.

What's Up Doc? is no exception! It's one knee-slapping, roll in the aisles rollercoaster ride!

The movie is replete with numerous joyful on-screen attributes including the delightfully befuddled Ryan O'Neal and an unforgettable collection of terrific character performances - from Austin Pendleton's dweeby, lascivious foundation director to Kenneth Mars as the snooty Croatian academic.

Simply put, Bogdanovich assembled a dream cast.

And yes, there's Streisand!

She's a peach, but someone had to cast her!

"What's Up Doc?" is part of the series TIFF in the Park 2012: Screwball Comedies FREE outdoor screenings at David Pecaut Square, directly west of Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday, August 19 at 9pm. For further information on the screening the the balance of this great series, visit the TIFF website HERE. And after you see it on a big screen, you can watch it over and over again on the luscious Blu-Ray from Warner Home Entertainment that highlights Laszlo Kovacs's cinematography beautifully and comes replete with a nice selection of bonus features including a fine Bogdanovich commentary and even some scene specific words from Babs herself.

If you wish to support the maintenance of this site, please feel free to order a copy of "What's Up Doc?" by clicking directly on the Amazon links below.

View the theatrical trailer HERE10/27/10

KILLER JOE (KILLER BILL) --- An appreciation of one of the greatest living American directors: WILLIAM FRIEDKIN - By Greg Klymkiw

KILLER JOE (KILLER BILL)
In Praise of William Friedkin
An Appreciation of a Great American Director

By Greg Klymkiw

A few days ago, I had the pleasure and honour to speak over the telephone with one of the world's greatest living filmmakers William Friedkin. Before diving into a delightful conversation about his new film and previous hits, I had to don my Geek FanBoy Hat and express my complete and utter love for Killer Joe.

So, somewhat nervously and haltingly I said:

"Now perhaps, Mr. Friedkin, even you will think I'm out of my mind - and I say this, only because whenever I tell many others my feelings about Killer Joe, they look at me as if I'm Norman Bates. But bear with me, here. The God's honest truth is this: When I first saw your film last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival, I felt as if your movie was shooting thousands of volts of electricity through me. From beginning to end, my delight was so palpable that aside from constant shocks, surprises, jolts, gooseflesh and yes, laughs - many, many laughs of the most raucous variety - the joy your film brought me was physical, visceral and so insanely mind-numbing and mind-expanding all at once, that upon leaving the theatre after the lights came up, I can only describe how I felt in one word. Mr. Friedkin, your film put such a spring in my step that I felt utterly and positively . . . BUOYANT!"

Mr. Friedkin let out a huge laugh.

He repeated the word: "Buoyant!" and he continued laughing.

I suspect, given the fact that Killer Joe is one of the most violent and delectably nasty black-comedy-crime-thrillers in years that "buoyant" is the last word Mr. Friedkin would ever associate with someone's response to the picture.

To say this pleased me would be an understatement.

I love Friedkin, have always loved Friedkin and will, no doubt, continue to love Friedkin. In these dark days with American cinema plunging into the same (if not -gulp- worse) hollow pit it wallowed in during the period Pauline Kael more than adequately summed up as the "state of the art" 1980s, I am so grateful that a few filmmakers, like Friedkin, are left with the chutzpah to deliver movies that are as uncompromising as they are wildly entertaining.

For me, William Friedkin makes "feel good" movies.

Movies like The King's Speech to single out one especially execrable example of my worst celluloid nightmare, doesn't make me feel good at all. In fact, it gave me piles. If anything, when I see a movie that scares the shit out of me or drags me through mud AND is brilliantly and stylishly rendered, I feel mighty fine, indeed!

In addition to Friedkin and a few others, I often use Ulrich Seidl's Dogdays as an example of my idea of a "feel good" movie - one which wallows in the most grotesque human depravities, cruelties and all manner of nastiness and, in fact, has far more HUMANITY than a million King's Speech-type movies.

Is Friedkin, then, a humanist? Well, perhaps not in the Jean Renoir sense - though give me some time, and I could potentially argue that - but as horrific, harrowing or violent his work is, he does, much like the aforementioned Austrian madman Seidl find humanity in all manner of extreme human behaviour.

And in the case of Killer Joe, Friedkin also makes us laugh, which is the cherry on that particular sundae, gloopy-glopped ever-so generously with the syrup of White Trash depravity.

Besides, there are genuine "feel-good" pictures in the traditional sense that don't serve the empty calories offered-up by crap like The King's Speech. Frank Capra, for example, has often been wrongly chastised (mostly by assholes trying to be clever) as doling out sentimental globs of "Capra-corn". Nothing could be further from the truth within the context of his best movies.

Yes, It's a Wonderful Life, Meet John Doe, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Lady For a Day and Mr. Deeds Goes To Town to name just a few of Capra's "feel-good" efforts, are all infused with traditional elements of "feel good", but his characters and the audience are dragged through so many beds of hot coals to get there that we earn the right to feel good.

Even more interesting to me, though, is that I often feel Capra delivers a dual-edged sword on this front. Yes, WE usually feel good, but part of me wonders how his protagonists have truly been affected by the suffering they've gone through and the seemingly insurmountable hurdles they've had to mount - which they sometimes slam upon legs wide open, their scrotums and pudenda rendered to so much bruised pulp as they scramble to get back in the race of survival and eventual triumph.

Last month I had the pleasure of reading a fine piece on Friedkin by Olivier Père in "Cinema Scope" magazine. During the interview, Mr. Friedkin and Père had the pleasure, if you will, of being interrupted by two female diners. The two bovine gorgers had been eavesdropping on the conversation and for reasons known only to these busybodies, they jumped into the fray and chimed in on what movies are truly the best. "Movies that make people feel good, like The King's Speech," said one of the taste-deprived cud-chewers.

Once the ladies vacated the immediate vicinity, Friedkin made the following remarks to Mr. Père:

"These perfectly normal American women probably have an education, and are gainfully employed, but I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. The movies they liked, 'feel-good movies,' are fucking awful, beyond stupid, like Sex and the City. I don’t want to make films for these stupid women; I don’t care what they like or don’t like. I don’t respect their opinion; that is not an audience that wants to be challenged; they just want to 'feel good.'

Thank Christ Friedkin still makes movies. The brilliant Killer Joe features, among many audacious humanist activities, a femme fatale type forced at gunpoint to perform fellatio upon a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

That's pretty goddamned feel-good if you ask me.

Besides, who in their right mind wouldn't prefer forced chicken leg fellatio over a stuttering King taking forever to do his fucking job and deliver his goddamned speech or crass pre-menopausal consumption from a bunch of really grotesque actresses wearing expensive clothes?

Part of me wishes I could take those two aforementioned diners who interrupted Friedkin's interview with their bovine cud spewing and strap them into chairs, their eyes forced open with A Clockwork Orange-styled clips on their eyelids and enema hoses shoved deep up their butts while they're forced repeatedly to watch Cruising.

There's some mighty fine feel-good in that!

The bottom line remains the same.

Friedkin's output right from the beginning of his feature film career to the present day is proof positive of his greatness.

His early work is, to say the least, diverse. The Sonny and Cher movie Good Times is a bit of a mess, but it's amiable and entertaining in that lovely 60s/70s "head film" way. The Night They Raided Minsky's might, for some, be a bit overwrought, but it's got plenty in the way of good laughs.The Caretaker is still the best Pinter on film - bar none and continuing his streak of stage to screen adaptations, The Boys in the Band feels dated to some, but only because contemporary audiences usually have a hard time swallowing the painful in-the-closet self-loathing not uncommon for that era. Here as well, Friedkin's direction is dazzling. It's a marvellous pre-cursor to his canon of films involving claustrophobic spaces.

The French Connection is one of the greatest cop thrillers of all time. With a cinema verite style it jangles the nerves in ways similar films can only dream of.

Still the scariest film ever made, The Exorcist balances shocks with quiet Val Lewton inspired creepy crawly terror. The French Connection and The Exorcist are bonafide masterpieces of cinema and it sure doesn't get more feel-good than chasing down heroin dealers and doing battle with Satan.

Sorcerer is a passionate, audacious and thrilling remake of Clouzot's Wages of Fear. It's so intense and dangerous one suspects it represents the work of a certifiable madman.

Are there, perhaps, a few movies in the Friedkin canon that don't quite cut the mustard? Of course. The Brink's Job feels like it was destroyed by the studio, but has so many individual moments of greatness, especially from it's top-flight cast, that it might be due for some reassessment as a flawed masterwork. And yes, I'll say it - Deal of the Century, The Guardian and Jade all stink. Big deal. Capra, Ford, Cukor - the list goes on - all made a few stinkers. Besides, making a few stinkers can be bracing.

Cruising is a bonafide masterpiece. This absolutely terrifying and vicious thriller about a serial killer targeting gay men amongst a small NYC subculture was vilified at the time of its release by gay rights organizations. It's hardly homophobic, though I'd say the movie is definitely audacious and incendiary on a number of levels which place it well at the top of the heap of 70s policiers. Oh, and it really does scare the shit out of you.

To Live and Die in L.A. is a cop-crime picture that kicks mega-ass, comes close to the perfection of The French Connection and has a sympathetic psychopathic villain who makes the corrupt, nasty psychopathic cops far more insidiously evil. Along with Michael Mann's Manhunter, it's also a perfect rendering of the creepy emptiness of the loathsome 1980s.

Rampage still has one of the most powerful courtroom sequences in movie history when the prosecutor forces everyone to pay attention to the ticking clock for the amount of time a victim of torture takes to eventually die - no overt violence in the film (save for some horrendous stuff early on), but the whole picture is creepy, scary and sickening all the same. This overlooked and underrated movie is damn close to being a masterpiece. Oh, and it's unapologetically a pro-capital-punishment film. How more feel-good can a picture get?

Rules of Engagement and The Hunted are both solidly directed action pictures and Blue Chips is a terrific sports picture - one of the best, in fact. These all feel slightly like gun-for-hire efforts, save for clear dollops of Friedkin's distinctive voice as well as levels of proficiency that most directors will never rise to.

The first two-thirds of Bug are perfect and even the final third which, for me, is a bit of a wheel-spinner, is still damned entertaining. Friedkin's first collaboration with writer Tracy Letts is a tour-de-force two hander with Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd and more paranoia in 90 minutes than all the years put together of Art Bell on the radio waves.

And what, pray tell, of Killer Joe?

Every fucking frame of Killer Joe made me feel good to be alive.

"Buoyant", I believe, is the word I used.

Killer Joe (2011)
dir. William Friedkin
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Gina Gershon, Thomas Haden Church, Juno Temple

****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"I don't think I'll have to kill her. Just slap that pretty face into hamburger meat."
- Jim Thompson dialogue from Stanley Kubrick's The Killing

At one point during William Friedkin's Killer Joe, an unexpected roundhouse to the face renders its recipient’s visage to a pulpy, swollen, glistening, blood-caked skillet of corned beef hash. Said recipient is then forced at gunpoint to fellate a grease-drenched KFC drumstick and moan in ecstasy while family-members have little choice but to witness this horrendous act of violence and humiliation.

William Friedkin, it seems, has his mojo back. (Not that he ever really lost it, but this movie is so tremendous, it just feels that way.)

He’s found his muse in Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts. The two collaborated in 2007 on the nerve-wracking film adaptation of Bug, a paranoia-laden thriller with Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd. Set mostly within the dank, smoky confines of a sleazy motel room, both dialogue and character was scrumptiously gothic. The narrative was full of unexpected beats, driving the action forward with so much mystery that we could never see what was coming. Bug was one of the most compelling and original works of its year.

Killer Joe is a total whack job of a movie, and delightfully so. I'd also suggest that like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom, Killer Joe is an ideal date movie. If your date isn't into any of these movies, you know he/she is not the guy/gal for you.

Set against the backdrop of Texas white trash, the picture opens with a torrential downpour that turns the mud-lot of a trailer park into the country-cousin of war-torn Beirut. Amidst tire tracks turning into small lakes, apocalyptic squalor and lightning flashes revealing a nasty barking mastiff, a scruffy Chris (Emile Hirsch), drenched from head to toe, bangs on the door of a trailer. When it creaks open, a muff-dive-view of the pubic thatch belonging to his ne'er do well Dad's girlfriend Sharla (Gina Gershon) leads Chris to the bleary-eyed Ansel (Thomas Haden Church).

Chris desperately needs to clear up a gambling debt and suggests they order a hit to knock off his Mom, Ansel’s ex-wife. She has a whopping life insurance policy and its sole recipient is Dottie (Juno Temple), the nubile, mentally unstable sister and daughter of Chris and Ansel respectively. Once they collect, Chris proposes they split the dough.

To secure the services of the charming Killer Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) they need to pay his fee upfront. Father and son propose Joe take a commission on the insurance money once it pays out. This is initially not an acceptable proposal until Joe catches sight of the comely Dottie. He agrees to take the job in exchange for a “retainer” – sexual ownership of Dottie.

Father and brother of said sexy teen agree to these terms, though Chris betrays some apprehension as he appears to bear an incestuous interest in his dear sister.

From here, we’re handed plenty of lascivious sexuality, double-crosses, triple-crosses and eventually, violence so horrendous, so sickening that even those with strong stomachs might need to reach for the Pepto Bismol.

Basically, we’re in territory that shares some might lofty space with the grand master of sleazy, white trash pulp fiction Jim Thompson. Killer Joe is nasty, sleazy and insanely, darkly hilarious. This celluloid bucket of glorious untreated sewage is directed with Friedkin’s indelible command of the medium and shot with a terrible beauty by ace cinematographer Caleb Deschanel.

Friedkin, the legendary director of The French Connection, The Exorcist and Cruising, dives face first into the slop with the exuberance of a starving hog at the trough and his cast delivers the goods with all the relish needed to guarantee a heapin’ helpin’ of Southern inbred Gothic.

This, my friends, is the kind of movie they don’t make anymore.

Trust William Friedkin to bring us back so profoundly and entertainingly to those halcyon days.

Oh, and if you’ve ever desired to see a drumstick adorned with Colonel Sanders’ batter, fellated with Linda Lovelace gusto, allow me to reiterate that you’ll see it here.

It is, I believe, a first.