SOLO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - Competence is always a dirty word.

Solo (2013) **
Dir. Isaac Cravit
Starring: Annie Clark, Daniel Kash, Richard Clarkin,
Stephen Love, Alyssa Capriotti

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A teen babe with "issues" takes a job as a summer camp counsellor. Part of the required initiation is for new employees to spend two nights alone on a remote island. The island in question was the site of a tragedy many years ago. It is purportedly haunted. Weird shit happens. Those whom you think are psychotic are not. Those whom you think are nice are psychotic. Confrontations occur. Good people die. Some good people are rescued. The evil entity is killed. The teen babe is safe. Movie Finished. 83 precious minutes of your life that you'll never get back.

There you have it. Solo in a nutshell. There's no real reason to see it now. Just go home and watch John Carpenter's Halloween for the umpteenth billionth time. It's so good you'll think you've never seen it before.

You see, debut feature films like Solo put me in a really foul mood. Some of these first long form efforts are blessed with an immediate, explosive announcement to the universe that we are dealing with a filmmaker who is endowed with the greatest gift a director can bestow upon the world of cinema - a voice, a distinctive style, an unmistakeable point of view, a sense that this is who the filmmaker really is. Then there's a second category - debut features so awful you might as well have shoved a gun into your mouth and pulled the trigger instead of watching it.

Solo, the debut feature film written and directed by Isaac Cravit is in neither of those categories. It holds a very special place in the pantheon of celluloid dreams - it's bereft of dreams. It has neither an original voice nor one of mind numbing ineptitude. Both have their virtues since both make an audience feel something. Not so for Solo (and so many, many others of its ilk). These are movies which allow you to leave their meagre clasp feeling absolutely nothing. It is the third and perhaps most horrendous category of all debut features. Solo, joins this unenviable pinnacle of competence with all the eagerness of a dog about to get a Milk Bone.

When filmmakers enter the fray with a first feature that actually excites you - not only because of the film itself, but what you sense this director will deliver in the future. Their declarations feel like the following:

The Soska Sisters (Dead Hooker in a Trunk):
"We're going to fuck your ass with a red-hot poker, but you'll enjoy it. We promise."

John Paizs (Crime Wave):
"Laughs derived from silence are golden."

David Lynch (Eraserhead):
"In Heaven, everything is fine..."

John Carpenter (Dark Star):
"I love movies more than life itself - have a fuckin' beer."

Guy Maddin: (Tales From The Gimli Hospital):
"I'm a dreamer, aren't we all?"

Kevin Smith: (Clerks):
"Fuck."

All are unique declarations (mediated through my own interpretive imagination, of course) and I could spend a few hundred more words doing the same for a myriad of debut features that declare themselves with complete originality on the part of the filmmaker.

There is, however, one declaration that depresses me even more than whatever the aforementioned incompetents of the second category of debut works might declare via their sheer inability to make movies. It is a declaration I see and hear far too often these days - especially since filmmaking has been embraced by so many marginally talented, though competent, by-the-numbers types as an - ugh! - career choice (as opposed to a genuine calling). Every single one of these filmmakers in the dreaded third category announces the same thing. They never waiver from it. They are presenting to the world their - double ugh! - calling card.

With Solo, Canadian director Isaac Cravit joins the club of voice-free directors when he declare (by virtue of his debut film):

"Look. I can use a dolly. Look. I can shoot coverage. Look. I am ready to direct series television drama and straight to V.O.D. and home video product for indiscriminating audiences looking to fill their worthless lives with content as opposed to something exceptional."

There's absolutely nothing new, surprising or exciting about this pallid genre effort save for its competence. Solo is blessed with some superb production value, to be sure. The locations are perfect, they're nicely shot by Stephen Chung and the combination of on-location sound and overall mixing and design seems much more exquisite and artful than the movie deserves. The cutting by Adam Locke-Norton, given the dullness of the coverage, manages to keep the proceedings moving at a nice clip. The score by Todor Kobakov is especially superb - rich, dense and one that enhances the film - again - much further beyond the movie's narrow scope. (There's one four note riff in the score that should have been excised by the filmmakers at a very early juncture, but save for that, it's a winner in all respects.)

The small cast is also superb. Thank God they're in the film since they're really one of the few things that do make the otherwise forgettable affair worth seeing.

The camera loves leading lady Annie Clark and she's clearly a fine actress - she makes the most of a hackneyed been-there-done-that babe-in-peril role. Two of Canada's finest character actors - Daniel Kash and Richard Clarkin are always worth looking at. They've got expressive, malleable mugs and like the best of the best, they rise well above the dull competence of the movie.

I especially enjoyed Stephen Love's performance and hope to see more of him - he's got very nice offbeat good looks, a sense of humour, a touch of malevolence and he frankly looks and feels like a young Canuck James Franco.

Is the movie well made? Hell yes! Is it anything special? Will you leave the theatre soaring? Will you even remember it two minutes after you see it? The answer to all those questions is a resounding "No." Sadly, most audiences these days are perfectly happy with competence. To them, I say, knock yourself out, losers.

The rest of us can cherish the memories of great work and look forward to the next film endowed with both a voice and more delectable frissons than you can shake a stick at.

"Solo" is playing at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013. Visit the website HERE. It's inexplicably distributed by Indie-Can Entertainment, a visionary young company with some very powerful and important works on its slate. Ah well, even visionaries need to score some quick easy dough. If anything, "Solo" has that written all over it and I'm sure we'll see more of the same from its - ahem - auteur.

SEPTIC MAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - IF YOU DARE MISS JESSE THOMAS COOK'S CINEMATIC POO-PUS-PISS-VOMIT-WALLOWING MASTERPIECE OF TERROR, I'M GOING TO MAKE LIKE LIAM NEESON AND I PROMISE THAT I WILL FIND YOU AND I WILL KILL YOU!!!

Septic Man (2013) ***1/2
Dir. Jesse Thomas Cook
Starring: Jason David Brown, Molly Dunsworth, Robert Maillet, Julian Richings, Stephen McHattie, Tim Burd, Nicole G. Leier
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Any movie that opens with a weepy babe (Nicole G. Leier) taking a severely punishing crap replete with dulcet echoes of spurting, plopping and gaseous expulsions whilst said babe alternates twixt the release of putrid faecal matter with cum-shot-like geysers of stringy rancid vomit launching from within her maw, splattering triumphantly upon the grotesque tiles of a dimly lit toilet adorned top to bottom in slime, sludge, blown chunks and excrement, should be enough to alert viewers they're in for one mother-pounder of a wild ride into the deepest pits of scatological horror hell.

Septic Man, a new movie from the talented young Canadian horror auteur Jesse Thomas Cook (Monster Brawl) and the visionary independent production company Foresight Features takes the cake (of the urinal variety) for serving up one heaping, horrific platter o' genre representation of the real-life deadly water contamination that occurred several years ago in the bustling Southern Ontario burgh of Walkerton - known around the world for its inbreeding and, of course, the famous E-coli contamination of its drinking water.

READ THE FULL REVIEW OF "SEPTIC MAN" HERE!

VISIT THE TADFF 2013 WEBSITE HERE!

THE BATTERY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - Slackers Vs. Zombies

The Battery (2013) **1/2
Dir. Jeremy Gardner
Starring: Jeremy Gardner, Adam Cronheim, Niels Bolle, Alana O'Brien

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Before the New England zombie apocalypse, Ben (Jeremy Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim) were pro baseball players, but these days they're moving surreptitiously through the woods and backroads, their only contact with anything resembling a human being, is the occasional zombie which, of course, will need to be dispatched. Predictably, the guys are polar opposites. Ben's no-nonsense "keep-moving-like-a-shark" attitude is what keeps them alive and his insistence they always make time for games of pitch and catch is what keeps them human. For Ben, baseball, or at least the vestiges of the once great unifying force of America is the only thing as important as staying alive - the sheer relaxing physicality of it offers a kind of Zen to their seemingly pointless lives.

Ben is also a killer - of zombies, that is. This contrasts wildly with Mickey. He can't bring himself to kill and constantly dons headphones to pipe dreadful angst-ridden contemporary indie rock into his oh-so sensitive consciousness. If Ben's goal is to keep moving to stay alive, Mickey's involves searching for all the things that once made life worth living - home, family, a woman - or, quite simply, stability. The two men are at odds (surprise, surprise), yet they develop a special bond (surprise, surprise) as they move ever-closer to each other (surprise, surprise) and, as they are slackers in a post apocalyptic world, they head ever-closer to nowhere.

Upon hearing a woman's voice over a walkie talkie, Mickey is determined to find her. Ben insists they heed the woman's dire warning about staying away - no use going where they're not wanted. Besides, Ben is concerned that if they were ever separated or if he needed Mickey's help, that his tender-footed companion will be too inexperienced and/or weak-willed to do what needs to be done. Like baseball, practise makes perfect, especially when one must kill or be killed.

There's much to admire in the picture - in theory, anyway. To my mind, artistic ambition is always to be welcomed and certainly The Battery has ambition to burn. Alas, it's just not always an engaging movie. For one, we know it's yet another no-budget horror movie - a zombie movie to boot - and that for damn sure we're going to spend plenty of time in the middle of nowhere having to listen to these guys arguing until they inevitably find their common ground. The movie veers far too dangerously into the dreaded mumblecore territory that far too many untalented indie directors use as an excuse (consciously or unconsciously) to mask their inherent ineptitude as filmmakers. Gardner is not in this category. Though I think the jury is still out, one feels he's going to eventually emerge supreme.

However, he needs to do more than tried and true variations of genre. For example, we are well aware that the woman's voice over the two-way signal is coming from a survivalist compound, but because the picture is so obviously made on the cheap, we know we're never going to get there because that's going to cost money that this movie simply doesn't have. I hate to say it, but when I think about the myriad of truly great no-to-low-budget cult films over the decades, the recent preponderance of shooting in one room or the middle of nowhere with story choices that are obviously rooted to budget issues is becoming increasingly and frustratingly boring and/or annoying.

The only thing that can battle this are elements this movie flirts with, but never goes the distance with. For example, the overall atmosphere of the picture is so bleak - capturing zombies to practice killing them, jerking off to hot zombie chicks in wet t-shirts, plenty of staring into space and the aforementioned indie soundtrack that drips ever-so horrifically with ennui - we know we're in for the de rigueur bleak ending. It's inevitable, really, and given that it is, there's so much arty wheel-spinning going on, that I wished the filmmaker might have found other instances to match the killing practice sessions and the masturbation scene. (I can imagine it now - a tagline that reads: "I pull my schwance to dead people." Where that movie?) The potential for Gardner's picture to have moved even deeper into a chasm of sickness and despair is the very thing that could have put it over the top and would have had audiences so charged they'd be clamouring for more. The movie could well have upped the ante on this front without losing its compellingly slow pace.

The predictable element that really disappoints in all this is that one of the two is going to get bitten by a zombie and will need to be dispatched before he "turns". Chances are that it's going to be the soulful young man who survives as he appears to have the surface elements of humanity. Or would that be too obvious and lazy? This is, after all, a movie with ambition, or, to put it another way, a whole lotta pretentiousness goin' on.

The screenplay by director and star Gardner isn't especially egregious - the familiar tale takes a few interesting turns, much of the dialogue has a feeling of authenticity and the occasionally perverse frissons add a bit of cache to the now-cliched tropes of the zero budgeted zombie movie. The real question, though, is - do we really need another one of these things?

Frankly, I think not - unless, like first-time filmmakers before them - burgeoning directors like Gardner tear a page from the likes of Maestro Roger Corman, Peter Bogdanovich, David Lynch, George Romero (of course), John Waters, Sam Raimi, Kevin Smith, Darren Aronofsky - the list goes on: Debut and/or follow-up features that truly push envelopes. The Battery, merely nudges said envelopes. Movies, especially those with no money, need a lot more than mere nudging.

And now, allow me to veer into broken record territory - I've said this before and I'm going to say it again. I'm especially getting sick and bloody tired of no-budget zombie movies (and other no-budget genre pictures) that force us to watch 90 minutes of hairy, smelly guys. Even Lynch's Eraserhead gave us the hot hooker babe living across from Henry, Mary and their deformed baby and, lest we forget, the super-cute Lady in the Radiator with testicle cheeks and a winning smile as she squashed the huge, milky-pus-filled spermatozoa dropping from the ceiling. Have any of these filmmakers ever heard of writing roles to populate with babes?

Women are finally so much more interesting and challenging to write for - especially considering that nobody is much interested in more movies solely about slacker guys. Yes, The Battery delivers the previously mentioned sexy zombie chick in a wet T-shirt pressing her shapely boobies against the car window and I give Gardner mega-salutes for that, but the only living babe we get is over a walkie-talkie and when we finally do meet her, she becomes the very thing we suspect she'll become - not to mention that her presence is ultimately too little, too late.

Gardner clearly has talent, though, and I'm really looking forward to what he can do with either more money and/or if he really lets himself cut loose. He needs a good dose of creative Ex-Lax, because The Battery, for all it has going for it, has way too much material that's bunging him up.

Let 'er rip, dear boy, let 'er rip

"The Battery" screens at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013. Visit the TADFF2013 website HERE.

STALLED - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - Awful zombie comedy from Blighty not scary or funny.

Stalled (2013) *
Dir. Christian James
Starring: Dan Palmer, Antonia Bernath

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Three things are getting mighty lame, mighty fast. First of all, zombie comedies. Secondly, zilch-budgeted genre films set in one room. Thirdly, one-joke, one-note, one-trick-pony zilch-to-low budgeted movies that rely too heavily upon a gimmick or, God Help Us All, an ironic and/or stupid punchline.

To the first, there is, in my humble estimation, no such thing anymore as horror comedies - period - at least none that are any good. The last truly great horror comedy was Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948 and a handful of good ones sprinkled throughout the late 50s and early 60s (1955's Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy and Roger Corman's 1963 Poe-inspired knee-slapper The Raven). I don't consider Mel Brooks's 1974 Young Frankenstein as a horror comedy, per se. For me, it's a comedy that happens to have selected the genre of horror to spoof and pay homage to (particularly the James Whale Universal Frankenstein pictures from the 30s). There are good horror movies with humour in them - especially when the humour comes naturally out of the drama and, more often than not, intrinsically linked to a filmmaker's directorial style wherein he is blessed with a great sense of humour. I consider Shaun of the Dead to emanate from this category and most notably, almost everything by the likes of Sam Raimi, Brian DePalma and Dan O'Bannon's Return of the Living Dead. These are movies (and/or directors) that scare the shit out of you and make you laugh. As for my second and third gripes, the writing and/or filmmaking need to be exceptional. If not, the experience can be both interminable and annoying. The new no-budget British film, Stalled, is pretty dreadful. Ten minutes into the picture (after very little of interest has actually transpired), we get some decent lesbo action. Though this perks things up a tad and suggests we might be in for a treat after all, our hopes are dashed as the rest of the picture becomes as dull and incompetent as the pre-sapphic shenanigans.

What you're in for, should you dare see this movie, is a nebbish maintenance slob credited as only W.C. ("screenwriter" and "star" Dan Palmer) who retires to a ladies room to collect himself after robbing a whack of dough from an office Christmas Party raging on the floor above. Two hot babes enter. Our hero hides in a stall. He watches them make out until one of them turns into a zombie and attacks the other one. He eventually has to dispatch the zombie babe and does so by smashing her head open with a toilet bowl seat. More zombies wander in and more and even more and he's stuck in the stall (Stalled, get it?) with no way out. It turns out that a young woman (Antonia Bernath) had earlier hidden in the toilet prior to his arrival and she's locked in a couple of cubicles down from him. While zombies mill about, W.C. and the woman talk. And talk, and talk and talk. Two lonely people who can't even see each other make a strong emotional connection.

Can things possibly get anymore sickening than this?

Indeed.

It turns out, the woman is a porker who is always made fun of by her co-workers. W.C. could care less if she's a sow because she "sounds" really cool. Given that the woman is voiced by Antonia Bernath, a genuine babe (she's played Priscilla Presley in a TV movie, after all), it's a bit hard to swallow. Even harder to swallow is when the bovine miss sacrifices herself so our loser hero can escape.

This ia a good thing too, since the script has one ironic twist up its sleeve that will induce groans - especially since we've already been served up plenty of mawkish touches with Miss Piggy and we get one whopper of a sickeningly sentimental wrap-up as our hero makes a call to his Mommy on a pay phone whilst he's surrounded by hundreds of zombies before the final cut to black signifies the movie is over (and we've happily been put out of our misery).

I feel like I'm picking on a cripple here since these filmmakers had so little in the way of dollars to make the picture, but I ultimately can't feel too bad, because it was made and has been put out in the world for people to pay hard-earned dough to see it. The movie is sloppily directed - with no sense of comic timing (for the purported laughs) and absolutely no talent is on display in terms of generating suspense.

The movie is paced like a State Funeral, the writing is severely lacking humour or invention, the screenwriter is also the lead actor and as such he's bereft of anything resembling screen presence, nor is he even capable of rendering a comic performance. The entire affair is badly shot to boot with ugly lighting and uninspired compositions. The soundscape is especially egregious since there's no consistency to capturing the sounds beyond W.C.'s stall - it's hollow and full of echoes. The zombie makeup and gore is serviceable, but hardly makes up for how otherwise loathsome the movie is.

This picture stinks (I'll refrain from making any toilet jokes here), however it avoids my infamous pubic hair rating because of the lesbo action - a tender mercy if there ever was one. By the way, if you ever want to see a GREAT horror movie with offscreen zombies (or, if you will, infected and deadly mutants), take a look at Bruce McDonald's brilliant Pontypool, written superbly by Tony Burgess - a craggy old D.J. and a babe are locked in a remote radio station as hell breaks loose outdoors.

Now that's how you do it, kids.

"Stalled" is playing at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013. Visit the website HERE.

ODD THOMAS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - QUIRKY rank incompetence!

The Most Obnoxious Romantic Duo EVER!!!
Chekhov from the awful STAR TREK reboot
and director Stephen Sommers's daughter!
Guaranteed to sicken you!

Odd Thomas (2013) *
Dir. Stephen Sommers
Starring: Anton Yelchin,
Ashley Sommers, Willem Dafoe
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Imagine a brain-bereft Joss (Buffy) Whedon, dollops of Stephanie (Twilight) Meyer-like pustules, a few worthless truckloads of Suzanne (Hunger Games) Collins progenitorial chaff, plus pretty much every other safe, tween-teen-oriented, potential-franchise genre-turds served up with globs of Rushmore and additional excretions of Wes Anderson's whimsical ilk, tossed into a blender with a hack director, a dull, derivative screenplay adaptation of a ho-hum Dean R. Koontz book, a less-than-compelling cast and lickety-split, you've got all the fixins' for a fantastical quirk-fest to ensure a rank, bilious expulsion.

Worst of all, the occasional hack competence of Stephen (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns) Sommers is woefully gone the way of the Dodo Bird here and we get something closer to the mess that was Van Helsing (or, God Help Us, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra). This might be the worst piece of direction Sommers has ever displayed. The movie's absurd rat-a-tat-tat pace pathetically attempts to render Howard Hawks-like ping-ponging line readings amidst a willy-nilly, scattershot approach to tossing out more scenes and turgid twists than one might find in the absolute rock-bottom Bollywood melodramas.

The whole affair feels as if it's been directed by someone who's ingested a few fields-full of the Khat plant - a sort-of Somali pirate school of helmsmanship.

Anton Yelchin (Chekhov from J.J. Abrams's awful Star Trek reboots) plays a small-town loser soda-counter server with the most obnoxious girlfriend ever conceived (a performance belched up by director Stephen Sommers's daughter Ashley). Not that Yelchin's character is much of a prize himself. He's a smugly one-note clairvoyant who assists a local police detective (played by a sleepy-eyed Willem Dafoe cashing a paycheque). Yelchin sees dead people and they, in turn, point the way to their killers. Yelchin and Sommers make such a disgustingly twee couple, you just feel like punching them in the face - repeatedly - with vigour and a kind of evil glee.

Oh, and "Odd Thomas" is not his nickname, it's his name - period - Odd being his first name and Thomas being his surname. Yup, the title character no less. I bet you're laughing already. Isn't that so, uh quirky?

When our hero begins seeing more than the dearly departed, it turns out there's a whole supernatural species of creature that's going to be wreaking far more havoc than anyone could imagine and he needs to gird his loins to face a most formidable foe - especially since he'll need to accomplish this at break-neck speeds rivalling that of the speed of light itself.

Everything in this movie is pitched to such extremes, that there's no scares, suspense and certainly, no laughs. The picture would have you believe it's got plenty of those elements, but the screenplay is such a mess of annoyingly endless subplots, overwrought dialogue (and narration) and all of it is manically juggled by Sommers's direction - puked up, it seems, from some hack directors' purgatory.

Finally, the only thing truly odd about Odd Thomas is how and why it was made at all and even more egregious than the dreadful script and direction is an overall feeling of cheapness - none of it endearing in a fun, no-to-low-budget manner, but rather it's a movie that's just plain ugly to look at. There's no "good" or intentional ugly here. It's just plain incompetence from its miserable beginning to woeful end.

"Odd Thomas" is one of the few truly rank pictures you're going to see at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013. If you must, you can get more ticket info at the TADFF website HERE.

EEGA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - A Joyous Warning About EEGA

GREG KLYMKIW'S EEGA MANIFESTO (and review)

SAMANTHA PRABHU - EEGA BABE

EEGA (2012/2013) ***** Dir. S. S. Rajamouli
Starring: Sudeep, Samantha Prabhu, Nani

Review By Greg Klymkiw

EEGA is such a fresh, original and wonderful movie entertainment, I issue the following WARNINGS to all who know NOTHING about it. BEFORE SEEING EEGA:

1. DO NOT READ ANYTHING ABOUT IT EXCEPT THIS REVIEW - AVOID ARTICLES, REVIEWS, THE PROGRAM NOTES AT ANY FILM FESTIVAL, THE MAGNIFICENT WEBSITE, THE IMDB, ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET (INCLUDING FACEBOOK, TWITTER, GOOGLE +, PINTEREST ETC. NOTHING! READ THEM ONLY AFTER YOU SEE EEGA!

2. DO NOT LOOK AT ANY STILLS (SAVE FOR THOSE INCLUDED HERE) OR POSTERS OR ADS OR BILLBOARDS OR ANYTHING FROM EEGA. AGAIN, YOU CAN AND WILL WANT TO DO SO AFTER YOU SEE EEGA!

3. DO NOT WATCH ANY TRAILERS FOR EEGA. IF A TRAILER PLAYS ANYWHERE, CLOSE YOUR EYES, PLUG YOUR EARS AND SING "WE WILL ROCK YOU" AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

NANI & SAMANTHA PRABHU
EEGA HUNK and EEGA BABE

4. IF ANYONE DARES TALK TO YOU ABOUT EEGA PLUG YOUR EARS AND SING "WE WILL ROCK YOU" AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

5. IF YOU'RE AT A FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING (SAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL 2013) AND, GOD FORBID, ONE OF THE FINE REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE FESTIVAL (SAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE DELIGHTFUL ADAM LOPEZ OR A TADFF COLLEAGUE) DARES SAY TOO MUCH ABOUT EEGA DURING AN ON-STAGE ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE DAYS LEADING UP TO ITS UNVEILING, SIMPLY PLUG YOUR EARS AND SING "WE WILL ROCK YOU" AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

6. IF YOU ARE AT A FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING ON THE DAY AND VERY SHOW EEGA PLAYS (SAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL 2013) AND, GOD FORBID, ONE OF THE FINE REPS FROM THE FESTIVAL (SAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE DELIGHTFUL ADAM LOPEZ OR A TADFF COLLEAGUE) DARES SAY TOO MUCH ABOUT EEGA DURING AN ON-STAGE INTRODUCTION TO THE FILM, SIMPLY PLUG YOUR EARS AND SING "WE WILL ROCK YOU" AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

7. IF YOU UNDERSTAND TELUGU, IGNORE THE TITLE.

I saw EEGA knowing nothing save for its inclusion in the 2013 edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF). This afforded me the luxury of experiencing one of the most joyful, endearing, romantic, hilarious and utterly heart-rending tales of vengeance I have ever experienced in my life. That the film is the ONLY joyful, endearing, romantic, hilarious and utterly heart-rending tale of vengeance I have ever experienced in my life is but the extra infusions of jaggery and ghee in my Poornalu.

The stunningly gorgeous Samantha Prabhu plays the sweet, innocent, intelligent, good-humoured and committed Bindu. By day, she devotes herself to bringing educational supplies to the poor of India and by night, she is a highly skilled micro artist. She has been romantically pursued by the charming, goofy Nani for two whole years and she is on the cusp of finally accepting his professions of love. Sudeep is a powerful corporate chieftain who holds investors by the short and curly hairs with his brilliance and prowess at commercial real estate development. He is also a handsome, sexy Cocksman of the highest order and ALWAYS gets whatever woman he wants. Always.

This trio comprises a love triangle that is about to turn deadly. When the unthinkable happens - all seems lost, but good Karma rears its happy head and soon we become embroiled in one of the most relentless tales of vengeance imaginable. Throughout the proceedings there is much danger, but there is also considerable tears, romance and hilarity.

Oh yes, and there are grand musical numbers.

The number of vengeance-filled activities in this film seems almost incalculable. We experience revenge like it's never been experienced before and a good deal of the film's running time is devoted to every conceivable form of payback extraction. The final third of the film is also unbearably suspenseful - so much so that I was desperate to relieve myself of certain viscous fluids, but clenched myself with a fury I did not realize was even possible. I could not take my eyes off the screen for one moment.

There isn't a single element of the film that isn't absolutely first-rate. The trio of star performances are pitched to utter perfection, Rajamouli's direction is so astoundingly buoyant and skilful he gives Steven Spielberg a good run for his money, the screenplay co-written by Rajamouli and Janardhan Maharshi (with expert script doctoring by S.S. Kanchi) delivers one delicious narrative surprise after another, K.K. Senthil Kumar's exuberant cinematography is always impeccably lit and composed, Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao's cutting delivers superbly on all the visual story beats with aplomb, the special effects by Makuta VFX are always thrilling, imaginative and imbued with a lovely days-gone-by quality rendered in cutting edge style and the musical score by the great M.M.Keeravani renders one magnificent tune after another.

EEGA is a class act all the way. You'll definitely leave the cinema agreeing with me that you'll have NEVER quite seen anything like it - the picture soars with supreme entertainment value and for a movie overflowing with vengeance, I'm happy to report that it's also A-1 entertainment for everyone - yes, the WHOLE FAMILY!!!

Telugu is the second largest language following Hindi in India and its film industry, oft-referred to as Tollywood, might technically be considered second to Bollywood, but if EEGA is any indication of the sheer joy, invention and entertainment value employed in this region of India, I suspect we'll be looking - not to HOLLYWOOD or BOLLYWOOD for tremendous bigger-than-life entertainment, but Tollywood. And leading the charge is a Telugu-speaking director who has all the potential to make Steven Spielberg so much dust in the wind.

Oh, even if you have an inkling what EEGA is about, you'll still love it.

"EEGA" is playing at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013. Visit the TADFF website for more details HERE.

BOUNTY KILLER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark FilmFestival 2013 - Could have used mega lesbo action, but...

Bounty Killer (2013) ***1/2
Dir. Henry Saine
Starring: Matthew Marsden, Christian Pitre,
Barak Hardley, Kristanna Loken, Eve, Gary Busey, Beverly D’Angelo, Alexa Vega

Review By Greg Klymkiw

What's sexier than a post-apocalyptic babe adorned in a painted-on jumpsuit that shows off a pair of succulent bobbling melons with a Grand Canyon cleavage?

The answer is simple, dummy - a post-apocalyptic babe who smokes cigarillos, dispatches her quarry with Olympic-quality ass-kicking and in most scenes, grips a nice variety of deadly, smoking, phallically symbolic armament - whilst adorned in a painted-on jumpsuit that shows off a pair of succulent bobbling melons with a Grand Canyon cleavage.

Okay, this isn't Shakespeare, but we are served up a nicely directed Mad Max rip-off (call it Mad Maxine, if you must) - a movie overflowing with high kicking, boob-a-licious babes (and, for the ladies and loafer-light gents in the audience, hunks) who, at every turn, dispatch their victims with sex-drenched and/or macho aplomb.

The plot, such as it is, takes place in a world gone to utter seed after the "corporate wars" wherein governments have been completely and utterly usurped by corporate rulers (as if they haven't been already, I guess).

With the assistance of a mysterious "Council of Nine", an army of bounty hunters are secured to target corporate pigs for assassination, becoming, of course, the new heroes of the "people".

The screenplay which, inexplicably required THREE writers to adapt a graphic novel by Jason Dodson and helmer/co-writer Saine, focuses upon the laconic, tough-as-nails Drifter (Matthew Marsden) and his ex-squeeze and former pupil Mary Death (Christian Pitre) who band together when our hero finds himself on an extermination list.

So now, in addition to dispatching their bounty, the quipping couple are in non-stop warfare with every Tom, Dick, Harry and, uh, deadly babes to boot in order to get to the bottom of a whole new level of conspiracy.

That's pretty much it, but the "plot" is a fine excuse to cram in as much carnage as possible and believe me when I say that the delectable globs of CGI blood splatter gloriously in one tremendously staged violent set piece after another.

Where Bounty Killer rules - aside from the physical attributes of its stars - is the truly first-rate car chases, fight and gunplay choreography - beautifully staged, nicely shot, replete with careful, old-style adherence to spatial awareness and a goofy, near-Looney-Tunes-nutty sense of anarchic humour.

The colour palate feels decidedly late 70s and early 80s, the sound a weirdly disconnected and hollow entity unto itself and a terrific score by Greg Edmonson that brashly drives the action, but also manages to recall the work of the late, great Aussie composer Brian May (Mad Max, The Road Warrior, Patrick, Road Games) which in and of itself was like some perversely dissonant homage to Bernard Herrmann.

The special effects are delightfully imaginative and frankly, an all-over-the-place grab bag. If anything, they have a consistently low-tech quality that allows for an almost retro feel to the proceedings which, is a superbly imaginative nod to cinema's days-gone-by and reminds us - constantly and marvellously - that we are always indeed watching a movie, plunged happily into a world that we know can ONLY exist on a big screen.

It's too bad that the film seems destined for a life almost solely on home entertainment because in spite of its obvious no-budget, the movie manages to deliver far more joy and genre know-how than most of Hollywood's big budget action fare. Critics and audiences rave about the likes of Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams and Sam Mendes, but seem to ignore the simple fact that they (and so many others of their ilk) CANNOT DIRECT ACTION. They're sloppy dunderheads, but Saine's camera placement, movement and compositions continually puts his mega-budget colleagues (with no genuine visual talent) to shame.

In another world, one I had the pleasure to experience for real, Bounty Killer would have been a huge staple in the halcyon days of drive-ins and grind houses. I miss those days and I especially pity movie lovers who never experienced them in their glory.

The real star here, though, aside from the crazed appearances of Oscar Nominee Gary "I'll Do Anything For A Paycheque" Busey and rap star Eve (not to mention wonderful turns from Bev D’Angelo, Kristanna Loken and Alexa Vega) is the stunning Christian Pitre. The camera doesn't just love her, it FUCKS her every which way and she fucks the camera back in a dominant, take-charge manner. The woman is not only drop-dead gorgeous, but she commands the screen with the sort of power that suggests she's got "star" written all over her.

Bounty Killer might have very little going on upstairs, but that never gets in the way of its sheer audacious sense of fun. If you love babes, hunks and carnage with dollops of humour along the way, you'll find plenty to admire here. Not only did I have a terrific time, but my 12-year-old daughter kept squealing with delight all the way through the picture. "I LOVE this movie," she exclaimed over and over again.

There's also a special prop that elicits huge laughs as a Deity. I won't ruin it for most of you, but I'll drop this hint for a few aficionados: the prop is something much preferred by the legendary screen character Frank Booth to the likes of Heineken. Oh and for subsequent instalments of Bounty Killer, I DEMAND mega-lesbo action and way more nudity (female and male), please.

"Bounty Killer" is on display at the wonderful Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 (TADFF). For more info on tickets and showtimes, visit the website HERE.