THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Decimation of Peter Jackson

Do any hobbits wish to clog dance?

The happy folk of the Shire need to kill a dragon, but will they? "By the big toe of Bilbo Baggins," you ask, "Will they?" Well, all I'm willing to say is it's going to take you 281 minutes to find out.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) 1 PUBIC HAIR

Dir. Peter Jackson
Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I don't care how much money this or the other Hobbit movies make - suckers are born every minute - but I used to have something resembling admiration for Peter Jackson as a filmmaker. As if The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey wasn't bad enough, but part two of this dull, convoluted, interminable saga is beyond the pale. While it is thankfully bereft of the endless Hobbit clog dancing, mead guzzling and fiddle playing that permeated the first instalment of this folly, it now, sadly, has nothing going for it at all, save for dull roller coaster rides that we're forced to yawn our way through as there's little else to pay attention to.

Even worse, is that Jackson and his cohorts have gone out of their way to tamper with J.R.R. Tolkien's book in some unbelievably stupid ways. Now, let it be said, I have very little use for Tolkien, but "The Hobbit" was, at the very least, a relatively slender volume with an emphasis upon magic more than mayhem. However, this distended-stomach of a movie goes out of its way to concoct as many opportunities as possible to shoehorn in a ludicrous number of action and chase scenes to showcase the derring-do via the inexplicably ugly accelerated 48-frame-rate digital so that the usually crappy digital 3-D is even crappier.

Characters and events are concocted - not just for the aforementioned reasons - but to idiotically tie-in these new films with the Lord of the Rings trilogy so that watching all six back-to-back will yield a full epic a la the George Lucas Star Wars saga.

It's almost impossible to assess any aspect of this film properly since it, its predecessor and, no doubt, the final instalment have no real reason to exist in this idiotic form. Yes, the entire cast acquits themselves as best as one could hope for and there are design elements - mostly with the various monsters - that are in and of themselves kind of cool, but finally, all I can ask is, "For what?"

On a number of fronts, Jackson had already created a fine legacy for himself with virtually every film he's made, but so far, the woeful trilogy seems at best, little more than a cynically calculated cash grab and at worst, a pompous, misguided attempt to rewrite Tolkien so The Hobbit can flow more naturally into The Lord of the Rings. Chances are pretty good that if Tolkien had wanted to do so, he'd have bloody well done it.

What remains, finally, is little more than the image of a spluttering dunderhead jamming square pegs into round holes and getting millions of likeminded brain-bereft audiences to pay for it and cheer him on in the process.

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is playing everywhere.

EXPEDITION TO THE END OF THE WORLD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Seeing Something Cool With Knobs

Global warming has opened up fjords in Greenland that no human has set foot upon in thousands of years. A group of scientists and artists are the first to traverse this unexplored territory.

Expedition to the End of the World (2013) *1/2 Dir. Daniel Dencik

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Tkke Opmalt Fjords in the northernmost regions of that odd behemoth of nothingness known as Greenland have finally become accessible to human exploration thanks to global warming and the alarming rate of melting that's caused ice, much of it millions of years old, to give way to boat travel. Daniel Dencik had the great idea to accompany a crew of scientists and artists on the maiden research voyage to this vast, untouched land and the pleasure of being able to see it through the lens of a camera that was, via the eyes of the filmmakers. Viewing it for the first time had the potential to be as thrilling as anything one was likely to see on a big screen.

Especially stirring is when the crew make discoveries like new lifeforms and evidence of human existence from thousands of years ago. While it's rare to have such opportunities to experience such miraculous finds, it's impossible to shake the disappointing of feeling that you're on a ship of fools.

As long as the film sticks to just the facts, M'am, it's A-OK, especially when the camera is pointed at the topographical wonders that are truly miraculous. Nine times out of ten, though, we can't escape members of the research crew opening their mouths and spewing projectiles of often boneheaded existentialist nonsense in that serious, humourless way one comes to expect from Euro-types with too much babble-speak cascading about their collective cerebella.

It soon becomes clear that director Dencik, is less interested in the very thing that could have allowed the movie to soar, but is instead content to concern himself with the whack-job thoughts of a whole passel of knobs. This amounts to a frustrating viewing experience. You just want these people to get out of the way and shut their traps so as to blissfully experience the joy of land that human eyes have not seen closeup for a few millennia.

My desire to just punch all of these pseudo-philosophers in the face mounted with every second of the film's running time which, is far from overlong but feels like it anyway. Dencik ultimately proves to be no Werner Herzog. When we travelled to the Antarctic with the curmudgeonly German auteur in Encounters at the End of the World, we were spoiled by having a real filmmaker with a sense of adventure as our guide and a truly mixed bag of individuals who seldom took double-jointed nose-dives into their own rectal cavities only to then jettison up through the viscera to shoot out from within their esophagus to inflict their half-bsked wisdom in our collective faces.

The movie has no tension whatsoever and its pathetic attempts at creating it (save for a real ice flow water level situation) amount to a silly manufactured fear of polar bears and the presence of a big oil exploratory boat. Neither of these bear (as it were) any fruit, as it turns out our hosts on this journey are all insufferably pretentious nimrods. I can think of no worse perspective for a director to take on what should have been an incredible, mind-bending and possibly even moving sojourn.

"Expedition to the End of the World" opens today at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto via Kinosmith.

BABY PEGGY: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Exploitation of silent child star Baby Peggy and her life after fame on this great disc from the visionary Milestone Films on their Milestone Cinematheque Label. Exquisite package includes the doc, plus very cool extras!

Milestone Films Cinematheque presents
one of the year's finest DVD releases

Baby Peggy was 19 months old in 1920 and became one of the world's most beloved movie stars, headlining over 150 shorts. In 1924 she was signed to a $1,000,000 contract for starring in the feature Captain January. She was also huge in vaudeville, performing all day, everyday in continuous live performances. By the late 1930s, her fortune had been squandered by her father and she disappeared for decades. She's still alive. Now in her 90s, Baby Peggy's real name is Diana Serra Cary. She continues to lead a full life as an author and advocate devoted to making the world aware of the exploitation of children in show business. This is her story.

Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room (2013) ****
Dir. Vera Iwerebor
Starring: Baby Peggy (Diana Serra Cary)

RATING FOR ENTIRE DVD PACKAGE: *****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Imagine spending an entire childhood feeling like your career as a movie star (and sole breadwinner) was over before the age of ten. Even worse, though, would be feeling like an elephant in the room, the weight of your "failure" tied to your neck in a family life fraught with strict patriarchal discipline, domestic disputes, itinerancy and poverty.

This was Baby Peggy's story. To watch her in the few films of hers that still exist (3 shorts and her classic feature Captain January, lovingly restored and available on this DVD as - I kid you not - extras) is to see a kid with immense talent whom the camera loved with considerable passion.

It's no wonder she became so huge.

That's why, however, there's a considerable melancholy to this tale, so simply and beautifully told in Iwerebor's documentary. Effectively using film clips, archival materials and, of course, interviews with the still alive-and-kicking 90+ year-old Baby Peggy, we get a wonderful sense of the sweep of her tale, but also the deeply dark aspects of it. She eventually "became" Diana Serra Cary, and it's both fascinating and somewhat astounding that she's in her 90s. She's as fit and fiddle as someone three decades her junior and her recollections of those early days seem picture-perfect vivid. It's no surprise she's a writer - she paints with words.

Most poignant ARE her memories of childhood and tellingly, we get a sense of what a sharp cookie she was as a kid. She always looked upon her Baby Peggy persona as a screen character and played it as such. On her own, she felt like herself and always viewed her roles - which ultimately were not diverse, but basically "her(other)self" in film after film. The most harrowing experiences she recounts were the vaudeville days. Her father sold her on the basis of her stardom, to be sure, but he also sold her to theatre proprietors on the basis of being a child star who could play continuous shows from early in the day to late at night. This was not only abuse, but amounted to child slavery.

At the same time, her Dad was a rodeo cowboy and occasional stuntman and she shared his love of horses. When it looked like she was "washed up" as a child, he bought a ranch and for a time, she was happy.

Until, of course, her father mismanaged the finances (during the Great Depression no less) and she in watched in sorrow as every piece of the ranch was sold in an auction.

The family tried their fortunes in Hollywood again. Alas, Peggy and her Mom, got work as extras, but Peggy herself did not experience the same kind of adolescent/adult revival as some other stars experienced.

Years later, stardom and Hollywood well behind her, Cary/Peggy became an advocate for the rights of child stars, a historian and also wrote a number of books including "Hollywood's Children: An Inside Account of the Child Star Era" and "Jackie Coogan: The World's Boy King: A Biography of Hollywood's Legendary Child Star" about the lives and histories of similarly exploited kids in the business (as well as a memoir of her own experience "Whatever Happened To Baby Peggy").

No doubt, in homage to her own father, she also wrote a superb book that I've personally read and love entitled "The Hollywood Posse: The Story of a Gallant Band of Horsemen Who Made Movie History".

Now she lives quietly in semi-retirement, but as more and more of her films are discovered and restored, she is frequently honoured at screenings and gets scads of personally addressed fan mail from kids of "all ages". And now you can see this great film about her life and a nice sampling of her films. This is really a lovely little documentary and hats off once again to Milestone Films for adding to the history and heritage of cinema by making this whole package available on one of the finest DVD releases of this (or frankly, any recent year).

"Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room" is available on DVD from Milestone Films and distributed by Oscilloscope.

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Baby Peggy The Elephant in the Room - HERE!

In Canada - BUY Baby Peggy The Elephant in the Room HERE, eh!

In UK BUY Baby Peggy The Elephant in the Room HERE

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - It's been 36 Years Since I First Saw.....IT?

Aside from being a great science fiction picture, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is one of the most evocative tales of obsession ever to be etched on celluloid and as such, this is as much a review of the film as it is a reflection on my personal obsession with the picture that has not abated since I first saw it 36 years ago.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) *****
dir. Steven Spielberg
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Roberts Blossom

Review By Greg Klymkiw

On a crisp Winnipeg winter night in December of 1977, I floated in a daze from within the warm confines of an old 2000-seat downtown picture palace and my eyes looked immediately to the Heavens.

IMMEDIATELY.

A typically clear mid-western prairie sky presented a dazzling display of the cosmos – stars danced and twinkled above me and it was near impossible to shift my gaze from the limitless expanse of the universe and beyond. I kept watching the sky for some time in total bliss and ignorance of the sub-zero temperature that, as per usual, threatened to freeze exposed skin in less than a minute or two.

I had, of course, just seen an advance preview screening of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a motion picture of such staggering power that it seemed perfectly fitting that my first helping of its magnificence be within the cavernous expanse of this classic theatre built in 1907, its screen enveloped by a mighty proscenium, sitting in plush seats surrounded by an interior rich in ornate white Italian marble (it not only had a huge balcony, it had fucking LOGES) and bathed in a flickering light of utter magic that was, at this early stage of my life, a picture unlike anything I had ever seen before.

This one screening proved to be so epiphanous that once the picture officially opened two weeks later, I saw it on a big screen – in this same cinema – well over forty times.

I could not get enough of the picture. I needed to see it as one needs nourishment. A week could not go by that I did not feel the mysterious pull of this extraordinary movie. I was a man possessed - barely one, at that, being a mere 18-years-old.

By now, everyone knows that this classic motion picture charts the journey of everyman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) who experiences the unexplained appearance of something other-worldly and abandons his life, his job, his family – everything he holds dear – to obsessively track down the meaning behind this occurrence. In a tale steeped in Judeo-Christian resonance – from Moses to Christ – Roy makes a perilous journey, climbs Devil’s Tower and comes face-to-face with the answer to his visions until he, along with twelve apostolic “pilgrims” ascends to the Heavens, arms outstretched in what is surely the most benign crucifixion-image imaginable.

It’s quite perfect, really. Aside from the obsessive quality of the central character, the picture itself is relentless in its adherence to the basic principles of UFO-ology and a system of extraterrestrial classification as posited by the late astronomer Dr. Josef Allen Hynek – the close encounter. According to Hynek, a close encounter of the first kind is seeing unexplained phenomena, while the second kind involves hard proof of some sort of physical manifestation from what was originally witnessed and, finally, the close encounter of the third kind, contact.

Using this classification system as the basis for his screenplay, Spielberg fills in his story with a sound and compelling three-act structure – one that is so exquisitely classical and presented with such flair, that the experience of seeing the film is not only entertaining, but frankly, borders on the spiritual. This sense of spirituality is almost divine in nature and makes perfect sense considering Hynek’s own belief in the notion that a technology must exist which blends both the physical and psychic. Furthermore, it's important to note that Paul Schrader wrote the first pass of the film and though he didn't take a story credit (something he regretted almost as quickly as he agreed to it and more so in the years to follow), it feels, deep-down like a Schrader narrative - especially the combination of obsession and spirituality.

Spielberg clearly believed in both Hynek and Schrader's concerns, but his approach was, as it always is and always must be, that of a master showman imbued with the innocence and wonder of a child. This, finally, is what makes Close Encounters such a supreme entertainment – we’re engaged and dazzled, finally, by the sheer physical beauty of what Neary sees, but also, we feel and perhaps even understand what this character feels (and by extension, Spielberg).

I really don't think Richard Dreyfuss has ever been better. He's the ultimate man-child here - a kind of hulking working class version of what Kubrick's "Star Child" in 2001 might have become. Teri Garr and Melinda Dillon acquit themselves nicely, but if any performances match Dreyfuss' here, it's legendary French filmmaker Francois Truffaut as the UFO expert who seems as much an obsessive man-child as Dreyfuss and, of course, lest we forget the late, great character actor Roberts Blossom as the crazed old man who opines on the aliens' prowess at manning their spaceships:

"They can fly rings around the moon, but we're years ahead of them on the highway."

The movie contains several great set-pieces of wonder, but nothing in the film, and frankly nothing in MOST films can compare to the pure joy of the final third of the picture - the close encounter of the third kind. For me, perhaps the most moving element is how the universal language that binds mankind with the aliens is light and music. Can their ever be a more universal duo? Thank God for John Williams' score, the simple, melodious, almost-Satie-like dissonance that brilliantly riffs on "When You Wish Upon A Star" from Disney's Pinocchio.

It's pathetic. Just THINKING about moments from the final third of the film in tandem with Williams' score STILL makes me tear up like, in the words of Brando in Apocalypse Now, "some old grandmother".

As for the special effects - they are GORGEOUS OPTICALS courtesy of Douglas Trumbull, an astounding hand-built set in an airplane hangar and animatronics courtesy of Carlo Rambaldi. There isn't a single digital effect that can hold a candle to any of these.

Over the years, Spielberg has tinkered with various cuts of the film. After the initial theatrical release, he issued a “special edition” in 1980, which trimmed a few bits he felt needed trimming, but moronically dumped several key moments that contributed to Neary’s humanity and his relationship with his family - as well as the physical manifestation of Neary's obsession in the form of the most insane act of tossing mud, plants and trees into his family's suburban dream home in order to sculpt the image lodged in his brain, the message that he and a few other special people receive from the aliens.

This was, frankly, a mistake, but an even more egregious error in this decidedly UN-special Edition, was taking us beyond Neary’s walk onto the Mother Ship, but inside as well. This version comes close to destroying what was almost perfect. Years later, Spielberg rectified the situation by restoring the film closer to the original release, dumping most of the new footage (and thankfully, ALL of the interior Mother Ship footage). All three versions are presented on Sony’s exquisite Blu-Ray and watching them back-to-back provides an extremely rewarding look at a great artist’s process at trying to “get it” right.

Whatever you do, though, watch the 1977 version on the disc first. It offers the purest state of grace.

You see, on one level, the third version from 1998, is probably the best version of the film, but for me, it’s hard to separate myself from the slight raggedness of the 1977 version. It’s the version that first obsessed me and I feel that ultimately, even its minor flaws weirdly contribute to the picture’s enduring, obsessive quality.

Steven Spielberg is unquestionably a born filmmaker. He’s delivered some of the finest entertainments we’ll ever see in this bigger-than-life medium, but ultimately, it’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind that will probably resonate with the greatest power and longevity in the decades to follow.

After all, it comes from a special place.

It comes from the heart – that mysterious, delicate muscle that pumps lifeblood and seems, more so than the mind itself, to harbor the soul. It’s what makes great pictures and Close Encounters of the Third Kind is nothing if not great.

“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is currently available on Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. If you are seeing it for the first time in years and/or if you are showing to kids who've never seen it properly on FILM, on a BIG screen before - do this: Turn all phones off, make sure all the curtains are drawn so nothing from the outside seeps in, make sure ALL the lights are off, make sure nobody has anything to eat or drink before or during the film, make sure your kids have unloaded every drop of urine and every ounce of heavier materials, make it clear that there will be no breaks and that nobody will be allowed to leave the room for ANY reason and then, CRANK THE SOUND. It's the only way to fly.

Do You Know what a VPF is? You should - IF YOU CARE ABOUT INDEPENDENT CINEMA. Collusion Between the Big Six Studios and Major Exhibition Chains are Potentially Destroying Independent Theatrical Exhibition & Distribution: -Editorial Commentary By Greg Klymkiw

VPFs: A conspiracy to snuff out independent theatrical distribution, exhibition & production?
AND ON THE HOMEFRONT,
IS INDIGENOUS CINEMATIC CULTURE
BEING PENALIZED FOR BEING CANADIAN?
FOR BEING "SMALLER"?
FOR BEING FIERCELY INDEPENDENT?
ARE SMALL CANADIAN DISTRIBUTORS
BEING SQUASHED BECAUSE THEY DON'T
RELEASE HUNDREDS OF HOLLYWOOD PRINTS IN CANADA?

Editorial Commentary By Greg Klymkiw

Do You Know what a VPF is? You should - IF YOU CARE ABOUT INDEPENDENT CINEMA. Indies charge that "Collusion" Between the Big Six Studios and Major Exhibition Chains are Potentially Destroying Independent Theatrical Exhibition, Distribution and Production.

This is especially troubling in Canada. Our country represents 10% of the North American marketplace and if there is, indeed a War (albeit insidiously silent) upon Independent Cinema (and by extension, Canadian Cinema), then it's high time for those most affected to stand up, speak out and refuse to take this lying down.

Even more egregious is that Canada's largest movie theatre chain has already demonstrated its ho-hum commitment to indigenous motion picture product (and a whole lot of foreign indie product handled by smaller Canadian distributors) whilst they happily continue to get approval from the Federal Government to gobble up so many more screens that the Company's Virtual Monopoly could well become a Genuine Monopoly.

VPFs plus a Monopoly might be the Death Knell for producers, providers and END USERS who prefer to see independent films theatrically. They might even want to see more Canadian product if it had a consistent home in the marketplace, but unless things change, this will never be the case.

Though this piece is Canada-centric (and to an extent, North-America-centric), independents the world over have similar issues facing them. The Seventh Seal, so to speak, is upon us - a calm before the storm. It's time to be informed and to act NOW!!!- GK

"I'm so glad you're talking about VPFs. Nobody in the mainstream media is talking about it. Even the trades haven't dealt with it properly. Nobody in our industry wants to talk about what's happening because of VPFs, probably because the ones who benefit most from them are perfectly happy while the ones who are hurt by it fear reprisals by going public. VPFs and their effect upon independent film is one of the biggest conspiracies happening in the film business." - DEEP ESOPHAGUS (One of many sources for this piece who do not wish to be named.)

VPF, in the parlance of motion picture distributors and exhibitors is the acronym for "Virtual Print Fee", but before explaining what that actually is, even I, at this point, am compelled to first ask, "What in the name of Christ, is a virtual print?" Well, a print is, of course, the physical entity by which the movie you go to see is projected onto the screen, but a virtual print (?) is, uh, what? The Free Dictionary Online defines the word "virtual" thusly:

vir·tu·al (vûrch-l) adj. 1. Existing or resulting in essence or effect though not in actual fact, form, or name: the virtual extinction of the buffalo. 2. Existing in the mind, especially as a product of the imagination. Used in literary criticism of a text. 3. Computer Science Created, simulated, or carried on by means of a computer or computer network: virtual conversations in a chatroom.

Obviously the first definition doesn't necessarily apply, though in this day and age it's probably safe to suggest, as per The Free Dictionary, that film prints as we once knew them are virtually extinct (save for archival prints and those used for special cinematheque/festival showings). Number two definition most definitely doesn't apply, though given that fees are charged for "virtual prints", a little part of me would assert that yes, indeed there are prints that exist in the mind or as an imaginary product. Number three seems the likeliest choice given that films are now projected via digital media. So yes, I will accept that within this context, a "virtual print" can indeed exist, though in all fairness, there are any number of physical mechanisms and media utilized to deliver the 1s and 0s as projected movies to the masses, so I still find the term "virtual print" a tad oxymoronic.

Quite the conundrum, mais non? Baby, you ain't heard nor seen nothin' yet!

So, prior to cinemas converting to digital projection, movies were screened using actual film prints - celluloid mounted on metal reels - of which, each reel would contain approximately 20-30 minutes of the motion picture. A typical 90 minute feature might then be comprised of 3-4 reels shipped in heavy steel cans. Shipping and storage costs were considerable, but even more onerous was the cost of generating prints for distribution - usually $1500 - $2000 per print.

In the "old days", two projectors would deliver the picture, necessitating that a human being would actually need to do the reel change. As well, before the development and use of long-lasting Xenon Bulbs, the projectors were often fired up via carbon rods which needed to be carefully observed and replaced by - you guessed it - a human being. Even once the reels could be mounted on huge platters, thus making reel changes obsolete, a human being still had to "break down and revise" the film print in order for it to be properly projected.

The human beings I refer to are projectionists - UNION projectionists. The IATSE union had one of the most rigorous apprenticeship programs for projectionists and these were no mere button pushers, but highly skilled technicians, craftsmen and yes, artists in their own right with respect to the overall sense of showmanship that used to occur in movie theatres when you went to the pictures. Alas, in Canada, and elsewhere, these highly skilled professionals were replaced with pimply teenage concession attendants. And even here, in the oft-slightly-left-of-centre Land of Maple Sugar, the Projectionist Union was busted by a major cinema chain that still exists, though now in a far different and larger form. And yes, folks, our governments idly sat by and watched as the corporate pigs flushed this great branch of a great union and very integral position down the toilet.

So now, we pretty much don't need human beings to project film, save for the aforementioned acne-magnet button-pushers. The prints are digital. Film, for the most part, is dead. (And frankly, even though the digital resolution is in the 2K to 4K range, I can assure you that the picture projected onto your screens still looks like a pile of shit compared to the resolution, warmth and colour of 35mm FILM prints.) I've also encountered so many problems with DIGITAL screenings - everything from - yes, it happens - corrupted files, awful showmanship (everything from masking issues to lights going on and off when they're not supposed to) and endless sound problems that maintaining REAL projectionists might have been a damn good idea. They were a resilient and adaptable bunch and could well have been an important tie that binds.

That wouldn't happen, though, since so many major exhibition chains and even many major distribution entities have, since the early 1980s been slowly swirling down the toilet because of greed and laziness. More than ever, cinema is being treated as waste product by little more than septic specialists.

Still, something had to be done. The cost of physically getting prints to the venues was astronomical. Do the math on print costs alone via the now de rigueur wide releases of 800 to 2000 (and sometimes higher) screens. Let's modestly use figures thusly: 1500 prints in one territory, multiplied by $1500 = that's an expenditure of 2 and ¼ million smackers. Film prints in a territory like North America - especially considering that so many other costs needed to be factored into the distribution of said film prints - the numbers to achieve this had indeed become stratospheric. Digital technology changed all this. Now, film distributors are looking at hard costs of about $150 per print - a fraction of the earlier celluloid-based print costs.

Ah, but here's the rub. The biggest expense of the switchover from film print to digital print had to be borne by exhibitors with the cost being anywhere in the neighbourhood of at least $100,000 or more. In the long run, this was going to be a good move (not aesthetically, but from a business standpoint) to everyone.

So something had to give - or rather, someone had to give - COLD HARD CASH, and it's the giving part that must now concern us - the VPFs - Virtual Print Fees. The costs associated with conversion had to be covered and the studios decided that Virtual Print Fees would be the way to do it .

Unfortunately, it's turning into a potential Death Knell for the theatrical exhibition of independent cinema as many know it and love it.

"As digital cinema was looking like it would be a reality, the spin they put on it was that audiences were demanding it. This is such total bullshit. The audiences weren't demanding it at all. The initiative was completely studio generated - they bought into the new technology in a big way - especially Sony who literally bought IN to digital technology. It was a money-saver and money maker, but also part of taking anti-piracy measures. There's also the market reality of 3-D which, by virtue of up-selling consumers the ludicrous additional charges, it was much easier and more cost effective to make 3-D prints digitally, but also was another way to make money - LOTS more money." -DEEP ESOPHAGUS

D. Esophagus is right about the spin. Yes, the industry has been experimenting with digital exhibition for twenty or so years, but in such smatterings that the only audiences who would even care or know the difference were movie geeks of the geekiest order and most of them were not clamouring for this change. In fact, most audiences don't know the difference. In fact, it shocks me when I encounter anyone in the movie business who can't tell the difference. In any event, audiences were not demanding it. Greed and laziness on the part of the major providers demanded it.

The Big Six Studios (Columbia/Sony, Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox and Universal) had a series of sit-downs with the major American exhibition chains to discuss a revolutionary idea - initially, and on the surface, a damn good one for those with deep pockets.

The studio set up a third party, (purportedly) arms-length corporate entity, referred to as . . .

"THE INTEGRATOR".

The integrator's role was (and still is) to provide substantial loans to exhibitors to do the film-to-digital conversion. The loan is paid back over ten years, a time period that also contractually insists upon strict maintenance procedures for the equipment which, in turn, is essentially owned by the Integrator until the loan is paid back in full.

To make the loan happen, exhibitors charge the studios (distributors) a Virtual Print Fee (VPF). The VPF is then paid to the Integrator who takes a cut for its third party services and applies the rest to the loan. Both the studios and the major exhibitors are signatories to these agreements with The Integrator.

The VPF itself is, at least in North America close to $1000 - per first-run print, per venue.

In theory, this sounds great - for studios and major exhibition chains - not so much for everyone else. Several "Deep Esophagi" in the independent distribution and exhibition sectors in the USA confirm they were NOT a part of this initial set-up and they had issues much different from the majors that should have been addressed. Many of them have even used words such as "collusion" and "conspiracy" to describe what went down.

The Indies are most affected by the following:

(i) A $1000 hit per print per screen for small distribution companies with specialty pictures is far too steep. Many of my Esophagi have confirmed the majors got and continue to get substantial breaks on the VPFs due to the high volume of screens they command for their product. Essentially, small films from small distribution companies are being penalized and potentially being driven into the ground to pay for film to digital conversion in mostly cash-rich, profit-wallowing exhibition chains.

(ii) In many countries there is now more than one "integrator" to choose from, resulting in rather inconsistent deals that the small distributors must wend their way through.

(iii) In spite of their "third party" status, many integrators are closely connected with the companies that actually provide the digital projection upgrades or worse, huge exhibition chains that are more than happy to have their upgrades paid for by the studios. The problem, however, is that it's not just the Big Six providing the funds to cash-rich chains, it small independent companies. Oh, and here's a good one, for you - many major exhibitors house arms-length integrators within their physical brick and mortar corporate castles. They'll tell us all, however, that they're merely renting space to the arms-length companies.

(iv) Print turnover is a huge issue here. If you're an exhibitor, the more times you turn over the prints, the more VPFs you can collect from the distributors. The more VPFs collected, the more money the Integrator will be able to knock off of the debt for the digital projection changeovers. Huge exhibition chains don't have to worry too much about print turnover as they have more than enough screens to hold onto prints doing business on smaller screens within their complexes.

(v) The VPF hardly is an equivalent to the cost of one 35mm print if you take into account that one print on very limited release could be platformed from one cinema to the next in each major venue and one would certainly not be shelling out $1000 for every playdate in every cinema. Even if you expanded on the number of prints, the overall cost would be considerably less than if you were to pay the VPF.

What happens if you're a single screen art house, or a smaller chain specializing in indie films? Well, according to several of my Deep Esophagi, exhibitors in this position are pressured by the integrators to turn over as much product as possible, as quickly as possible in order for those exhibitors' suppliers (usually art house or indie distributors or companies that also supply art product) to keep paying VPFs that they can't keep affording to pay because:

(a.) The distributors might have specialty product that requires time and word-of-mouth to build an audience or grosses. Most major exhibition chains don't give a shit about this and screw everyone over anyway, including the smaller suppliers, their product, the producers of said product and the end users who might actually want to see the product theatrically. In a sense, they're even forcibly buggering the indie exhibitors by forcing them into a position where they are changing the way they do business. This is clearly a danger to indies on every level.

(b.) Indie product might even be doing business right off the bat, but there's little incentive for exhibitors to hold the product since holding means it's taking longer to pay down the conversion debt. The losers here are the indie distributors, their product, their producers and audiences (and to a certain extent the indie exhibitors themselves).

(v) The major exhibition chains, seemingly in collusion with the Big Six, look upon indie product as a major pain in the ass. Indie product often requires the sort of time and nurturing they're not prepared to give. Even worse, the major exhibitors are placing the most horrific demands upon independent smaller distributors:

(a) Some chains are illegally (or at least, immorally) demanding that the distributors give them exclusive windows on the product and not allowing day-and-date VOD and other home streams. It's very admirable of these exhibitors to preserve the integrity of theatrical exhibition this way, until you realize that many of them are imposing two-to-six-month exclusive windows before the product can be released to other methods of content delivery, but then, treating the product like garbage and not committing to proper runs in the first place.

(b) On certain indie product, the chains demand theatrical exclusivity over smaller exhibitors, play the product and then, even if it's doing business, they blow it off the screens, rendering the product unusable for move-overs to calendar houses. In fact, the major exhibitors should be letting the calendar houses play the product first, then take on the indie product on move-over. This would be, however, an annoyance for them and would gobble up screens for Big Six product.

Here's one added insult to the injury. There are exhibition chains demanding upfront guarantees from smaller distributors. Sometimes what happens is a smaller film might well genuinely flop and after all the math is done, the distributor owes the exhibitor money because the VPF still must be paid.

What everyone seems to ignore is the math on the monies raised by the Integrators. Over the past three to four years, SURELY, most, if not ALL the debts have been paid off - long before they were estimated to have been paid. Still, the cinemas collect VPFs, turn them over to the Integrators (who keep collecting their cut of the action) and one wonders where all this money is going? Who is profiting from it? Why are these fees still be charged? Is this yet another film industry scam to make money on the backs of others? Will it take government intervention to end this ludicrous practise? Or will it simple end once all independent producers, distributors and even exhibitors are VPF's out of business?

Even more ludicrous in Canada is that some of our larger exhibitors refuse to give small distributors a firm playmate for the product. Many times a distributor will find out on a Monday or Tuesday morning that they'll be opening on a Friday.

Great! Lots of time to promote the film.

Is there a positive side to any of this? A small one. Certain exhibitors refuse to be signatories to the agreements with Integrators which makes them attractive venues to smaller distributors. No longer are they shut out of potentially good product because a chain is sewing it up. The problem, though, is that these screens are few and far between. Independent product needs a good mix of venues to be theatrically viable. The major exhibition chains could care less. The Big Six, obviously, could care less also. After all, who needs competition when what they do is relatively easy and lazy?

Canada is in a terrible situation right now for its domestic product. The vast majority of it is being affected by all of the above, and then some. Worst of all, the country's largest chain, Cineplex Entertainment has not stepped up to the plate and exercised its corporate responsibility to ensure enough screens with long-enough playing times for domestic product. They'll deliver the goods on a few generic titles with big stars, but good domestic product getting a fair shot is virtually an anomaly.

Even the federal government through Telefilm Canada, the country's major public investor in Canadian motion picture product is allowing VPFs as legitimate Prints and Ads (P & A) expenses for Canadian distributors seeking market support for Canadian motion picture product. This might actually be the most grotesque example of corporate welfare as public funds are going to distributors to pay to integrators to pay for the loans on film-to-digital conversions that have MOSTLY been incurred by large exhibition chains that, in turn, treat Canadian motion pictures like so many cesspools.

For Canada, there could be a simple solution to all this:

1. Canadian product should be exempt from VPFs.
2. Canadian distributors not aligned in any way, shape or form with the Big Six, should - for all non-Canadian product - be allowed a massive reduction on VPFs.
3. Our country's largest exhibition chains could exercise some corporate responsibility to Canadian film culture and completely revamp the manner in which Canadian cinema is exhibited - even if it's at a loss. Such losses could well take the form of tax credits or some other reasonable incentive to provide consistent homes for Canadian product.

If things don't change, the changes resulting from the current Status Quo could be sheer disaster - perhaps even a major cultural genocide. All independents - distributors, exhibitors, producers and perhaps even end-users need to take a long, hard look at how their business is being manipulated by cash-rich corporations. Independents MUST fight back. Independents must COLLUDE. Collusion in business is given lip service as a dirty word, but as such, it's alive and well in the film industry amongst major exhibitors and distributors. It's hurting everybody and those most affected by it need to be informed, but they also need to fight back collectively with all their might.

And will the major exhibitors and distributors deny all this?

Of course, they will. They'll come up with whatever spin and outright lies they need to come up with to cover their reeking posteriors. It's time for indies to pull out some huge cans of aerosol air freshener, mask the fetid odour, then dive in with gloves on to empty the viscous fluids churning about in the innards of these unrepentant FAT CATS.

Theatres in CANADA that DON'T charge VPFs (& hence, aren't in the business of conspiring to DESTROY independent & Canadian Cinema) include:

BLOOR HOT DOCS

KINGSWAY THEATRE

RAINBOW CINEMAS

REVUE CINEMA

THE ROYAL THEATRE

TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX
WINNIPEG (FILM GROUP) CINEMATHEQUE
RPL (REGINA PUBLIC LIBRARY)
BROADWAY (SASKATOON)
METRO CINEMA (@GARNEAU, EDMONTON)
KINGSTON SCREENING ROOM
PRINCESS (WATERLOO)
BOOKSHELF (GUELPH)
HYLAND (LONDON)
ByTOWNE (OTTAWA) 
CARBON ARC (HALIFAX)
CINEMA DU PARC (MONTREAL)
CINECENTA (VICTORIA)
VIFF VANCITY (VANCOUVER)

and most other independent cinemas.

*NOTE* Any Canadian Cinemas That Wish To Be Added To This List, Just Let Me Know In The Handy-Dandy Comments Box Below

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Coen Brothers paytribute to early 60s NYC folk scene.

*NOTE* Since I first wrote this review of the new masterpiece by the Coen Brothers, I have obsessively watched the movie over & over again. The review stands unexpurgated, My only revisions are the rating, bumped from **** to ***** & at the bottom of the piece I've added more Llewyn Davis paraphernalia.

Desperately hoping to hit it big, a broke, down-on-his-luck, couch-surfing Greenwich Village folk singer during the early 60s embarks upon a very strange and telling odyssey to Chicago. He also loses a cat.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) *****
Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, Adam Driver, Max Casella, F. Murray Abraham

Review By Greg Klymkiw

First of all, let's get the most important thing about Inside Llewyn Davis out of the way. It's so key to genuine film lovers the world over, that it seems ludicrous not to mention it right off the bat.

Albert "Al" Milgrom is the immortal nonagenarian gentleman scholar and godfather of cinema in the Coen Brothers' hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota and they've paid a lovely tribute to one of the most beloved and important champions of film as art in America by having Adam Driver play a folk singer with the surname of Milgrom, though the character has already chosen a far more goyische stage name Al Cody. My jaw dropped when this near-hidden tidbit is revealed. Anyone who knows or loves The Great Man of Minneapolis Movie Mania will, no doubt, be infused with a warmth for the Brothers remembering and honouring a guy whose inspired more cineastes per capita than anyone in the U.S. of A. Milgrom has long been a fixture on the international film festival circuits and in Toronto during TIFF, he can often be seen furiously riding between his preferred digs at the Downtown YMCA and various screening venues on a rented bicycle. Earlier this year, he nearly killed himself whilst taking a horrific tumble during the Berlinale and only this past summer was returned from Germany to his beloved Minneapolis to continue his recovery. Way to go, Al.

So, on to the matter at hand. This new film from Joel and Ethan Coen is one of the more genuinely entertaining movies of the year, in spite of a few oddities that somehow keep it from achieving a kind of greatness one wants it to have. Though the movie as a whole, never quite gets there, it certainly has individual moments of greatness and one extended sequence in the middle of the film that is as great as anything the Brothers have set to celluloid.

Shot in a gorgeous semi-monochrome by Bruno Delbonnel, vaguely inspired by the real-life late folk singer Dave Van Ronk and his posthumous biography "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" and replete with terrific musical numbers (mostly shot "live") created in collaboration with the great T-Bone Burnett, we're plunged into the world of Greenwich Village folksingers in that period just prior to Bob Dylan arriving on the scene and taking the world by storm.

Llewyn Davis (Oscar Davis) is a serious-minded folksinger (and ultimately nothing like the gruff Van Ronk) whose had to go solo since his partner in a performing duo took a dive off the (un-romantic, though oddly apt) George Washington Bridge and ended his already short life far too soon. Llewyn is broke and he hardly makes anything resembling a living as a folksinger. He hails from a working class background and is encouraged by his older sister to go back into the merchant navy. Llewyn will have none of this, though, and he continues to play whatever gigs he gets, surfs from couch to couch and borrows money left, right and centre.

He finds out his old girlfriend Jean (Carey Mulligan) is pregnant. Llewyn dallied with her behind the back of her current paramour Jim (Justin Timberlake) and now she wants an abortion since she's mortified that the baby growing in her belly might belong to the layabout itinerant she's come to despise.

Llewyn also loses a cat belonging to a middle-aged academic Jewish couple who kindly provide him with occasional meals and a couch. The search for this cat becomes easily as obsessive as his search for fame. In fact, Llewyn's tale becomes anchored when he hitches a ride with two musicians (John Goodman and Garrett Hedlund) to Chicago so he can audition with a famed folk impresario (F. Murray Abraham, who proves again what a great actor he is and how utterly misused he's been in so many films unworthy of his talents). It's this odyssey, involving a variety of bizarre conversations, strange goings-on and several sightings of the cat he's lost that, to date, is not only on a par with the very best work created by the Brothers, but serves as the true core of the film and as such, occasionally feels like a film unto itself.

The almost-everything-before-and-after to this sequence are, for me, the problematic aspects of Inside Llewyn Davis. The title character seems like a major league loser. He's an almost offensively self-absorbed asshole who treats women like shit, using them as receptacles for his imperfect spunk, a bitter, bullying dipsomaniac who hurls invectives at those who can't possibly defend themselves against the force of his bile, an egomaniacal asshole who fucks up every opportunity to actually make a living as a musician in pursuit of a fame he might not even deserve and as such, is continually broke and in debt because of his pathetic "I will not sell out, attitude".

Nothing goes right for this loser and it's all his own fault.

God knows, I'm the last person in the world to crap on a film's character for being an asshole. So much of the 70s cinema I love is bulging with such characters, but their stakes seem so much higher than Llewyn's, the darkness they're drawn to so much more flamboyantly seedy (think James Toback's central characters in Fingers and The Gambler), that I find it borderline intolerable that the Coen Boys are rubbing my nose in the shit of someone so dull, pretentious and inconsequential.

A loser folk singer? I'm supposed to not only give a shit, but derive something resembling entertainment value and food for both my heart and mind? Uh, I don't think so.

But here's the rub - I can't get Inside Llewyn Davis out of my head. The odyssey sequence I love would have no resonance without everything I detest about the film. The few moments of humanity in the film that stick out, almost like sore thumbs, wouldn't have the power they do. (A scene between Llewyn and his dementia-riddled father is not only worthy of the Coens' best work, but feels like a scene that could have been directed by John Ford if he'd been from their generation.)

Maybe, just maybe, this is a film that's really about the universal greatness inherent in those who've left their alternately rich and repressive hometowns, not unlike Bob Dylan, the Jew from Dinkytown in the land of Swedish milkmaids and stalwart car salesmen and Holiday Inn buffets, who appears briefly at the end of the movie, signalling the beginning of his fame and the eventual acceptance of folk music in the larger world. Maybe it's about having to know repression, real repression, to create great work that will resonate far beyond an insular community in a big city - one that Llewyn embraces more than he thinks he does. Maybe it's needing to understand - truly understand - what's both insular and heavenly in the same breath, hidden amongst those big open midwestern skies that look down upon the rolling prairies - a land that needed to be tilled by those without imagination, so that those with imagination could take what nurturing they needed before spilling out into the wider world.

Maybe, just maybe, Llewyn's illegitimate child who doesn't even know he exists will have the right stuff. The kid is, after all, being raised in the middle of BuckeyeFuck, Ohio.

Maybe, just maybe, Inside Llewyn Davis is the closest we'll come in this day and age to cinematically capturing the final words of Sherwood Anderson in Winesburg, Ohio wherein he writes:

"The young man’s mind was carried away by his growing passion for dreams. One looking at him would not have thought him particularly sharp. With the recollection of little things occupying his mind he closed his eyes and leaned back in the car seat. He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out of the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood."

I suspect this is a great film and for all my aforementioned kvetching I can hardly wait to see it again.

And again. And yet, again.

"Inside Llewyn Davis" is currently in theatrical release via Mongrel Media.

RIO LOBO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Ho-Hum Howard Hawks is better than no Howard Hawks at all as this amiable, watchable John Wayne western vehicle proves.

Rio Lobo (1970) **1/2
dir. Howard Hawks
Starring John Wayne, Jorge Rivero, Christopher Mitchum, Jennifer O’Neill, Sherry Lansing and Jack Elam

Review By Greg Klymkiw

While I have fond memories of Rio Lobo from when I first saw it on the big screen as a kid with Dad, I should have guessed something was wrong when my memories were little more than assuming I’d enjoyed the picture. No other details were seared into my brain save for the opening train robbery sequence. After seeing this movie 41 years later on Blu-ray release, I can definitely vouch for the train robbery – it’s a genuinely kick-ass set piece.

Having the distinction of being the last movie directed by the great Howard Hawks, this might perhaps be the only reason not to completely dismiss it. That said, Rio Lobo is a reasonably pleasant 114-minute duster. In spite of the familiar territory of the plot, the screenplay, co-written by Leigh Brackett, is a loose re-telling of Hawks’s classic Rio Bravo and the entertaining but not-so-classic El Dorado (both of which were also written by Brackett). And gosh-darn-it, the picture is not without merit.

Beginning during the civil war, the story involves a Union Colonel (played by John Wayne) whose pay train is robbed by a couple of Confederates (played by Jorge Rivero and Christopher Mitchum). Wayne realizes they’re the two responsible for the hard, dirty work, but the robbery itself has been ordered by someone inside the Union army. When the war is over, Wayne becomes pals with Mitchum and Rivero (he views their pre-war actions as just that – an “act of war”) and the three of them team up to track down the Union traitor (whose actions Wayne views as an “act of treason”). This all converges when the trio helps out the settlers in and around the nearby Rio Lobo, who are beleaguered and bullied by a corrupt land baron. (I’ll let you guess whom the Union Army traitor turns out to be.) At one point, like the aforementioned Hawks westerns, a motley assortment of good guys hole up in a jail whilst the bad guys lay siege.

So in terms of plot, it’s mostly a case of been there done that, but there are worse crimes a western can commit. It’s all in the delivery.

On the plus side, the action set pieces are extremely thrilling. Hawks was wise to hire ace action and stunt genius Yakima Canutt (the man solely responsible for the legendary chariot race in Wyler’s Ben-Hur, among other great cinematic rollercoaster rides), and his second unit direction includes some truly masterful carnage and derring-do.

Another good move on Hawks’s part was re-enlisting screenwriter Brackett to his cause. Not only is the plotting reasonably solid, the movie is peppered with some really crisp dialogue. The problem is that so many of the actors in the film are completely at a loss as to how to deliver their lines.

John Wayne seems up to the challenge, but having to play opposite the sad likes of Jennifer O’Neill (her line-thudding monotone is especially egregious) and the handsome but stilted Jorge Rivero appears to visibly drive the Duke to distraction onscreen. On the other hand, Wayne is such a great actor and true star that one is still glued to him throughout and happy enough to amble along the familiar trail his character is on. Our first introduction to Wayne is especially terrific and sets the tone of his character perfectly. When a young officer approaches Wayne and apologizes for disturbing him, Wayne responds in his deadpan drawl, “You were told to disturb me. You’d have been a lot sorrier if you hadn’t.” Gotta love the Duke!

One also assumes Brackett had a hand in the many funny jokes involving Wayne’s paunchy physique. As the story goes, when Hawks was running into trouble with William Faulkner on the screenplay for The Big Sleep he demanded the immediate assistance of “that guy Brackett” to punch things up. Having written primarily science fiction to that point, Brackett also wrote an amazing hard-boiled detective novel, “No Good for a Corpse,” and the writing endeared itself to Hawks as just what he needed. Throughout many pictures, including those of Hawks, “that guy Brackett” handled HERSELF with the craft and aplomb of an old pro – that she most definitely was. My favourite John-Wayne-directed joke in Rio Lobo is when some strapping young men lift his dead weight after knocking him out cold and one of them quips, “He’s heavier than a baby whale”.

The banter delivered via the screenplay to O’Neill and Rivero is exceptionally well written, but neither actor can attack it with the ping-pong ferocity that was such a hallmark of Hawks’s great comedies and most certainly not to the level displayed by Bogie and Bacall in Hawks’s first teaming with Brackett in The Big Sleep. As the film proceeds, one can almost feel the frustration Hawks must have been fraught with as scene after scene involving these two drags the movie down to some considerable depths.

Much better in the supporting cast is future producer and studio head Sherry Lansing who proves to be a gorgeous and terrific actress. If only she’d had O’Neill’s role. There’s also able support from Robert Mitchum’s son Christopher, who is a lightweight compared to Dad but attractive and affable enough. He’d have been great in Rivero’s role. Thankfully, there are some wonderful old hands like Jack Elam (chewing the scenery like only he could) and a nice bit from Hank (Ole Mose) Worden.

If you’re a fan of Hawks, westerns, good writing (albeit butchered by some awful actors) and The Duke, Rio Lobo will prove to be worth seeing. How memorable it will be is another question, but I can assure you that my second helping after four decades was not without merit.

"Rio Lobo" is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Home Video. It has no extra features, but the movie looks just fine in high-definition, and thankfully some over-zealous flunky in the transfer suite hasn’t seen fit to remove the grain and given the film some quality colour balance. Should you buy it? I would. But that’s me.