PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Important Documentary details protests against Russia and Vladimir Putin's blending of patriarchal Eastern Rite religious Dogma with the heinous strategies of Joseph Stalin.

The Threat to Putin

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (2013) ****
Dir: Mike Lerner, Maxim Pozdorovkin
Starring:
Nadezhda (Nadia) Tolokonnikova
Yekaterina (Katia) Samutsevich
Maria (Masha) Alyokhina

Review By Greg Klymkiw

On the day Vladimir Putin, the most vile Russian totalitarian leader since Joseph Stalin was allowed to control the country by "appointment", not election, a clutch of intelligent young women immediately formed the Pussy Riot protest movement.

Not unlike the Stalinist show trials of 1937, Nadezhda (Nadia) Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina (Katia) Samutsevich and Maria (Masha) Alyokhina, three members of the Pussy Riot collective were charged with the criminal act of hooliganism, forced to endure months of incarceration between public legal proceedings, tried in what amounted to little more than a kangaroo court and sentenced to hard labour in Siberia. As the world is well aware, their "crime" involved storming the historic Christ the Saviour Cathedral, taking to the altar (where women are not allowed to go, apparently on God's orders) and singing a few bars of their anti-Putin song for about 30 seconds before being dragged away by burly security goons into the shackles of the Moscow police.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Modern Russia!

Unlike Stalin's show trials, Putin's war against women and free speech, completely backfired. Like all sexist, misogynistic Russian patriarchs, Putin and his thugs assumed these young ladies would fold under pressure and display simpering, submissive remorse for their "crimes" and beg for the court's mercy. Instead, the members of Pussy Riot remained defiant, committed and intelligent beyond their years and certainly far more progressive than their brain-dead captors.

Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin's fine documentary feature film Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer wastes no time in presenting a stirring portrait of the trial that captured the world's imagination. The picture lays out the political context, the act of defiance itself and the ludicrous legal proceedings wherein the three young women so passionately and intelligently condemn the Totalitarian regime that, in the name of God (and Putin), seeks to keep its populace under the thumb of subjugation by blending the Czarist-style coalition between Church and State with the Terror Tactics of Joseph Stalin's Communist Dictatorship. Utilizing actual trial footage, news reports, archival materials and new interviews, the filmmakers give us a stirring and expertly edited portrait of these women as individuals and though their journey is harrowing, it equally inspirational in spite of the film ending with their final conviction and sentencing.

Though Putin attempted to save face in December by releasing the women from prison, it was clearly a cynical move meant to deflect attention away from his horrendous new laws that seek to discriminate and criminalize homosexuality - this on the eve of the Sochi Olympics. The frustration one feels watching the film is palpable. Putin and his lawmakers are clearly condemning the Stalinist destruction of religion, yet equating the attempts at free speech employed by Pussy Riot with the heinous actions of a Totalitarian Butcher. Anyone familiar with Orthodox Eastern Rite traditions (which - full disclosure - I was brought up with) realizes how backwards and patriarchal the religion actually is. The very nature of organized religions is to subjugate and the Slavic Orthodox traditions are there as a control mechanism. That Putin, a former Communist KGB thug is all of a sudden so concerned with religious freedoms he once repressed seems just so obvious and disingenuous.

To vilify and criminalize the actions of these young women is appalling and there's no doubt the film, though slanted in their favour, is choosing the proper high ground in this controversy. That Putin is using religion to further the subjugation of the Slavic people - not only in Russia, but in Ukraine and other countries - makes perfect sense, but it doesn't make it right. The film might well be detailing the plight of artists and free-thinkers in Russia under this dictatorship, but the film stands as an important testament to how this tactic is being employed right across the board - not just in the East, but the West as well.

The women of Pussy Riot are, frankly, heroes. My own daughter - NOT in Russia, but in a publicly funded school in Canada - was subjected to the most horrendous patriarchal abuse at the hands of Eastern Rite religion. Singled out by a teacher as a sinner, this sweet, bright (then ten-year-old) girl who "dared" to ask questions in an educational institution was ordered to kneel in the centre of the classroom while the rest of the students encircled her and prayed for her soul - to keep her from going to Hell.

(Note: Another example of this idiocy perpetrated against her in a Toronto school is detailed in Alan Zweig's brilliant documentary 15 Reasons To Live, released by Kinosmith.)

What's happening in Russia can and does happen everywhere. Religion is an opiate, but it's becoming, more and more, a weapon. Pussy Riot is a symbol of all women - and men - who refuse to kowtow to the Status Quo, especially in the spurious name of God. Pozdorovkin and Lerner's film is just the sort of weapon free-thinkers will need to battle the scourge attempting to drown all of us.

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer should be required viewing in ALL schools for all young people - as both inspiration and a springboard for greater dialogue as to fighting the forces that want us all to be cogs in a machine - slaves to the power brokers who seek ever more wealth and power.


"Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer" is currently in theatrical release via Kinosmith. It's begun its run at the Bloor Hot Docs Theatre in Toronto and will roll out across the rest of Canada.

ENDLESS LOVE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Masterpiece of American Lit destroyed a 2nd time in 33 years.

The TURD

Endless Love (2014) Dir. Shana Feste
LOWEST RATING: "The Turd discovered behind Harry's Charbroil and Dining Lounge"
Starring: Gabriella Wilde, Alex Pettyfer, Bruce Greenwood, Joely Richardson, Robert Patrick

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Each time a song was insultingly coughed up into my face like some lump of technicolor phlegm by one of the infinite number of contemporary performers on the soundtrack of this horrendous 2014 film adaptation of Scott Spencer's magnificent novel, all I kept thinking was how much these gibbering gibbons had less collective talent than an infected cyst lodged deep inside Lionel Richie's ass-crack and a snot-tangled nostril hair poking out of the proboscis of Diana Ross. They were, of course, the duo du jour who crooned a number-one-with-a-bullet duet of the execrable (Oscar-nominated!!!) theme song "Endless Love" from Franco Zeffirelli's abominable 1981 picture which, like this 2014 version, also butchered the same great book. The intrusive pop tunes become so annoying - wedged, as they are into scenes like unwelcome music videos or worse, cascading noisily over dialogue - that they make Christophe's Beck's whiny instrumental score seem just this side of a lobotomized Bernard Herrmann as rendered by the 101 Strings Orchestra.

However, let it be said now, that the 1981 Endless Love which, was a sludge heap of immense proportions, must now surely be considered one of the greatest movies ever made compared to this 2014 bowl of Charles Manson's anal drippings. If Zeffirelli created a cinematic equivalent to an aborted foetus served up on a dollar-store paper plate, then it's clear the idiot-sans-savante, Shana Feste (she of the abysmal Country Strong) and who purportedly directed this version, must surely have outdistanced the cinematic abortionist styling of Zeffirelli and bloody well ripped a foetus from a womb with a rusty coat hanger, then stomped upon the gelatinous blob with the abandon of a lead performer in a crack-fuelled performance of "Lord of the Dance", then took a huge, rancid crap upon it and finally, with a hearty "Voila!", called it a movie.

I really have to ask: Why bother making this movie if the goal was not to improve upon Zeffirelli's? If the goal was to improve upon it, the manner in which its makers went about doing so suggests they must surely be afflicted with (what Borat might call) "the retardation". And, of course, the more pressing question is this: Why even bother to adapt a great book that, given its vivid characters, political subtext, emotional landscape, rich setting and superb story structure - all of it sitting there for even the most unimaginative filmmakers to take advantage of - why, oh why, oh why, butcher and/or patchwork quilt everything that makes the story great in the first place? If any book seemed movie-ready, it was this one and yet, it took not one, but two sets of brick-heads to screw it up within the course of Christ's rather short lifespan, 33 years.

At least Zeffirelli, in his addled fashion, attempted (albeit badly) to inject the movie with something resembling genuine passion and even vaguely acknowledged elements of Spencer's book that anyone with half-a-brain would have to do. Such is not the case here. The gaggle of morons leading the 2014 charge upon Spencer's fine prose appear to have been interested in crafting little more than an innocuous machine-tooled teen romance aimed at a Valentine's Day opening to sucker in as many undiscriminating female viewers as possible. I have no doubt the brain dead little ladies will get exactly what they paid for.

While it is true that every single person involved in the writing, direction and production of Endless Love 2014 is clearly a moron, even they must be bloody Rhodes Scholars compared to the brain-bereft slugs at Universal Pictures who hold all the remake rights to Spencer's book and chose to green light this utterly detestable piece of work in just the manner in which it's been wrought.

Endless Love tells the tale of teen lovers David (Alex Pettyfer) and Jade (Gabriella Wilde). He's poor. She's privileged. He's unsure about his plans after high school graduation. She's headed for university. She's going to be an eminent doctor just like her Dad, Hugh (Bruce Greenwood). Pater is, to make things interesting, protective and controlling to almost psychopathic extremes (with more than a few Oedipal peccadilloes). He clearly disapproves of Jade's boyfriend. Eventually, he places a restraining order against David. Jade moves on, unhappily. Their love, however, is endless. David comes to Hugh's manse to claim the woman he loves. Dad knocks a candle over. The house is soon ablaze. David saves Hugh's life. Hugh comes to accept David. Jade is happy. David is happy. Their love, you see, is endless.

Ugh.

None of this has anything to do with Scott Spencer's novel - a book so romantic, it hurts, literally. The book slashes, scourges, stabs, cuts, saws away at the bone and greedily sucks out the marrow. There isn't a wildly romantic beat that doesn't alternately soar AND emit pain. The novel brilliantly fucks with everyone's notions of romantic love, but does so in a way that we begin to question if its portrait of aching love is really as aberrant as we've been told to believe. Instead we accept, nay - we EMBRACE - that THIS is what love, in fact, MUST be.

Romantic love in its purest state MUST be a sickness. If it doesn't hurt, and hurt BAD, how can there be joy?

Spencer's tale of obsession, familial dysfunction and love is so excruciating, so aching, so debilitating that we, as readers, are plunged into an emotional landscape that's scary beyond belief - mostly because it's so true, so familiar, so real and finally one of the few literary depictions of love to have the courage to proclaim that the purest, most intense form of love borders on the aberrant, the antisocial and yes, even (at least in the eyes of society), the criminal. Spencer's story begins with pain and destruction, with fire - one that rages literally so that we never forget what burns beneath the flesh.

The movie that resides in Spencer's book continues to remain untapped - dormant. Zeffirelli missed the boat, but Feste jumps aboard and just sinks it without even trying. Casting Gabriella Wilde and Alex Pettyfer is the height of stupidity. Both actors are so insipid that neither of them feels like they're in a movie based upon one of the greatest works of literary art in the history of American letters. Instead, they both come across as if they're hitting their marks on some TV soap opera. They're as bland as Wonder Bread and on that basis alone, there's very little reason to care a whit about these people as characters. There is one fine performance in the film and one only wishes that the stunning malevolence, yet odd humanity displayed by Bruce Greenwood could have saved itself for another and better screen adaptation. Alas, he's wasted here.

The best thing about Endless Love, the movie, is the freedom to just skip it.

Just skip it and read Spencer's book. It's so great you won't be able to put it down and after you've read it once, you'll want to go back to it again and again. God knows, I have. For 35 years it's been a book that I am always happy to revisit and experience at various junctures of my life and, most importantly, at ever shifting stages of my life experience. It grows with you and constantly offers its own form of endless love - the ability of art to reflect life and, in turn, give you the sort of nourishment you need to survive - to fill your head and heart with truth and beauty - neither of which are EVER on display in this utterly abhorrent, despicably repugnant and contemptible pile of trash.

See Endless Love at your peril. I can pretty much guarantee the screen will be full of buzzing flies, all seeking resting points to devour the stools deposited by its filmmakers.

"Endless Love" is playing theatrically via Universal Pictures.

HERE COMES THE DEVIL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Creepy Mexican Horror Shocker the whole family will love.

Note to low-budget indie filmmakers:
You can never go wrong with some gratuitous lesbo action.

DILF ALERT! DILF ALERT! DILF ALERT!

Here Comes the Devil (2013) ***1/2
Dir. Adrián García Bogliano
Starring: Francisco Barreiro, Laura Caro, Alan Martinez, Michele Garcia

Review By Greg Klymkiw

All those who object to gratuitous lesbo action during the first five minutes of a horror movie, please raise your hands. Nobody? Good. As a respected Canadian film producer born in Eastern Europe (whom I shall allow to remain nameless) once said to an incredulous young indie filmmaker, "The man - he likes to see the woman with the woman, and the woman - she likes to see the woman with the woman, too."

Now, all those who object to some utterly wicked (and gratuitous) bloodshed following said lesbo action in the aforementioned horror movie, please raise your hands. Nobody? Even better. You're now ready to see Adrián García Bogliano's super-creepy Mexican shocker Here Comes the Devil.

Après the aforementioned gratuitous lesbo action and bloodshed (gorgeously photographed, I might add), you're sitting in the cinema wondering - okay, are the filmmakers ever going to be able to top this one? Well, yes and no, but good goddamn they've sure grabbed you by the short and curlies and now you can't get your eyes off the screen even if you tried. (Though, I suppose you could poke your eyes out, but that would kinda be stupid, eh?)

Where the film takes us from here is mega-Creepville, for director Bogliano slows down the pace in all the right ways and before we know it, we're plunged into the lives of a family driving through the hills near Tijuana. Mom and Dad (Francisco Barreiro, Laura Caro) pull over to a roadside stop and agree to let their kids (Alan Martinez, Michele Garcia) explore the nearby caves. This allows the happy couple an opportunity to get in a little backseat bouncing like in their youth and the kiddies get to experience both nature and the local colour. (Thankfully, the family is not passing through Ensenada - the wildlife in some of the more dubious nightspots involves donkeys. 'Nuff said.)

It might have been handy, however, had everyone known about the local legends surrounding the caves. Mom and Dad end up falling into a comfy post-coital snooze while their kids fall into some mighty mysterious goings-on. Thankfully, after some harrowing worries regarding the disappearance of their children, the kids reappear - safe and sound.

Or so everyone thinks.

What follows is utterly horrendous - in more ways than one, and if things don't quite plunge into gratuitous territory, we're not at all disappointed because the movie is genuinely compelling and scary in ways reminiscent of the very best horror films that employ atmosphere and psychological terror. This is not, however, to say that things don't spiral into total sickness. They do. There's no need to spoil this for anyone, save to say that we're served up a number of tasty morsels guaranteed to invoke both gooseflesh and possibly even regurgitation. A check-list of sickness includes some barf-inspirational boffins, some superbly sickening blood letting and a very nice shower scene. 'Nuff said.

(Years ago when I ran my own art cinema in the 'Peg, I used to hand out air sickness bags for certain movies and encourage patrons to vomit. Alas, far too many of them didn't use the air sickness bags and this poor kid who worked for me, one very hard-working, sweet-faced Paulo Rodriguez, was sadly forced to clean up the spillage. Still, it was a great promotion which I tied-in to a heavy metal radio station. I urge Colin Geddes at the Royal Theatre where Here Comes the Devil opens theatrically in Toronto to consider a similar stunt. I can give him Paulo's phone number, or he can just hire my cousin Peter's fine cleaning company Bee-Clean to do the job.)

It's great to see a movie like this is playing theatrically. Far too many terrific genre films these days go straight to home entertainment formats and while this is fine for second helpings, collectors and lazy assholes who don't want to leave home, the rest of us prefer our shocks on the big screen. Here Comes the Devil, though not quite in the same classic territory of the great Val Lewton RKO thrillers, takes a similar cue and keeps us rooted in the more human elements of the story - here, it's family dynamics. Where it deviates, of course, is that we get to have our cake and it too - lots of creepy atmospheric chills, garnished with a few delightful dollops of sex and violence.

An unbeatable combination, to be sure, but it helps that Bogliano helms the proceedings with a sure hand and elicits a clutch of fine performances - especially from the gorgeous Laura Caro as the decidedly concerned (and mouth-wateringly sexy) Mom.

MILF ALERT! MILF ALERT! MILF ALERT! MILF ALERT! MILF ALERT!

"Here Comes the Devil" is a Magnet picture distributed in Canada via the visionary VSC and making its theatrical debut at the wonderful Royal Theatre in Toronto's Little Italy. Hopefully Johnny Lombardi's ghost will be present.

GLORIA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - An innocuous, watchable, well-acted Valentine treat for the blu-rinse set.

"Mmmm. He looks yummy to me."

Gloria (2013) **1/2
Dir. Sebastián Lelio
Starring: Paulina Garcia, Sergio Hernández

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Gloria (Paulina Garcia) is a late-50s divorcee. She's not really looking for long-term romance, but loving to dance and getting some occasional bone is what leads her to trawl singles clubs to fulfill both natural yearnings.

The clubs are full, but the pickings are slim.

"I like doggy, baby! Keeps us from looking at each other."

One night, our decently-presevered Chilean GMILF catches the roving eye of the old coot Rodolfo (Sergio Hernández). He's a charmer though and before you can say "sopaipilla", his saggy buttocks are thrusting his knotted chorizo into her warm coliza (doggy-style, 'natch) and love, O! Sweet love, love, love begins a-wafting though the air.

"Hello Gloria! I am Rodolfo!
As you can plainly see,
I am quite the catch!
So let's do some coochy-coochy, baby!"

Of course, happiness will need to be fleeting in order for the movie to even remotely serve up some conflict and sure enough, the happily boinking oldsters face the sort of challenges that will keep us on the edges of our seats wondering if a happily-ever-after is in the cards. As well, let's not forget that this is no mere romance, but is, first and foremost, a celebration of long-in-tooth female empowerment. The result? Plenty o' soul searching, hard choices and freedom-infused abandon.

Okay, the movie isn't quite as sickening as I've no doubt made it out to be. It's well made, watchable and Garcia, who won the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival, is a fetching leading lady. The script gives her plenty of story twists and character details to allow for a performance that's as occasionally delightful as it's nuanced. As well, in a day and age when so many movies are little more than overblown video games aimed at brain-dead youth, I have to admit that it sure's nice to see movies about, uh, adults.

In spite of this, though, so many of these movies appear to be aimed at those who are a mere few steps away from their graves. In this sense, Gloria offers up few surprises and seems machine-tooled to appeal to old people who don't much go to the movies anymore. In this regard, the movie lacks bite. It has a few gentle nibbles, but it's mostly toothless. Seriously, are blue-rinse types and their squires so in need of innocuous stuff like this to get them out to the movies? Well, most of them don't seem to be interested much in Nebraska, so chances are, movies like Gloria are exactly what they're looking for.

Gloria is in theatrical release for Valentine's Day via Mongrel Media.

THE BIG GUNDOWN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Great "Lost" Italian Western now available on absolutely stellar 4-disc set of Blu-Ray, DVD, CD and CD-Rom from Grindhouse Releasing and available in Canada via the visionary VSC (Video Service Corp.) This undiscovered classic of Italian westerns is strangely and downright contemporary in its exploration of those who have (the Texicans) and those who do not (the Mexicans) and the huge gap between justice for the rich and justice (or lack thereof) for the poor.

The Big Gundown (1966) *****
Dir. Sergio Sollima
Scr. Sergio Donati and Sollima
Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Walter Barnes

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Does it get more basic than the hunter and the hunted in Sergio Sollima's rediscovered classic of Italian western cinema The Big Gundown? Well, on the surface, no, but this is a movie that works tremendously on several layers thanks to a character-driven screenplay by trusted Sergio Leone writer Sergio Donati, Sollima's stalwart, subtle direction with just the right flourishes the tale needs and a superb central performance by the Lee Strasberg-trained Cuban actor Tomas Milian as Cuchillo, a Mexican wanted for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl.

The Hunter is one Jonathan Corbett, played by Lee Van Cleef, the steely-eyed "Bad" of Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. (The moronic ads for the truncated, dubbed American version of The Big Gundown referred to Van Cleef as "The Ugly", the role played in Leone's film by Eli Wallach.) Here, Van Cleef plays a bounty hunter with a difference. He's a man of business who's supplemented his obsession with tracking down and cleaning up the scum of Texas with the proceeds of a saloon he owns. Corbett has NEVER accepted bounties for his quarry and the tale begins when Brokston (Walter Barnes), a powerful land baron, offers Corbett a political career as a Senator on a platter. The prospect of continuing to do the very best for Texas in his august years, without roaming the plains in search of bad guys, is extremely appealing - especially since Corbett recently lost his business holdings in a poker game gone awry.

Brokston, of course, needs one thing from Corbett - a promise that he'll go to Washington and smooth over the magnate's designs upon building a railroad from the U.S. of A. to Mexico. This will make Brokston rich beyond his wildest dreams and though Corbett makes it clear, he's not in the business of making anyone rich, he believes this railroad will be good for Texas, so he agrees to the generous offer. There is, however, one more job Corbett needs to do. A savage sex killer has taken the life of a little girl and there is, to Brokston's mind, only one person who can bring the filth to justice.

With thoughts of a Senate position dancing across his cerebellum, Corbett sets out in search of the aforementioned Cuchillo. Where the narrative deviates from the usual cat and mouse of such a mission, is the political context with which the story is layered. The film is strangely universal and downright contemporary in its exploration of those who have and those who do not and the huge gap between justice for the rich and justice (or lack thereof) for the poor.

Cuchillo turns out to be far more than the garden variety bounty and Corbett is faced with an adversary who manages to outwit him at every turn. Most importantly, Corbett becomes oddly enamoured with the wily sex maniac outlaw - not just because of the bad guy's prowess at getting away, but the lengths to which Cuchillo goes to stay several steps ahead of the law. Most of the hardened criminals Corbett has dealt with are either too stupid and/or tired enough to know when they're beaten and eventually succumb to capture or death, whichever comes first.

Not so, here. Cuchillo is a formidable quarry and damn likeable. He also could have well dispatched Corbett quite handily on several occasions if he so chose to, but he doesn't. Something's definitely rotten in the State of Texas and as the hunter and hunted proceed with the cat and mouse game, Corbett realizes there's more here than what appears to meet his steely eyes.

Though the movie never goes out of its way to hammer home the tale's political implications in a didactic manner, the delineations between rich and poor definitely give the movie the sort of weight truly great westerns are imbued with. As a director, Sollima never gets caught up in his own style and/or cleverness. He tackles the proceedings with yeoman attention to spinning a good yarn first and only indulging in flourishes that are as breathtaking as they are absolutely necessary to advancing the narrative and/or expressing important elements of character.

There are, for example, any number of reveals, pull-backs, cutaways and smash cuts that do knock us on our ass, but nothing ever feels like the sort of style over substance frissons that, say, Leone indulges in with completely over-the-top frequency (albeit stunningly and operatically).

The Big Gundown is also blessed with an Ennio Morricone musical score that might well be one of his very best. There are any number of stirring moments when image, narrative and music combine expertly to create moments of nail-biting suspense as well as gonad-gooseflesh-stirring drive and emotion. The ballad and central theme by Morricone are, frankly, as hummable and unforgettable as anything the great composer ever wrought.

The Big Gundown is finally, without a doubt, one of the greatest westerns ever made in Italy and an extremely worthwhile picture for both film and genre aficionados.

What's truly wonderful here, is that Grindhouse Releasing's complete package (in Canada via VSC) is as first-rate as the very best home entertainment releases from, say, the Criterion Collection label. The wealth of interview material is staggering and deeply enriching, the international marketing media galleries are thoroughly overwhelming and what you get with this package is more than worth its price tag.

There are four - count 'em - FOUR great discs: a gorgeous Blu-Ray of the original director's cut in Italian, the English language and runcated American release version on Blu-Ray, a DVD version of the film which includes a superb CD-Rom supplement that painstakingly takes you through the very interesting differences of the European and American versions and, for lovers of great music, a gorgeous CD of Morricone's soundtrack.

Seeing Sollima's unexpurgated original film would have been quite enough for me, but I have to admit that I was so blown away by the movie that the supplements more than provided the kind of added value material that not so much enhances the experience of seeing the film, as it expertly provides a magnificent combination of scholarly and practical materials that allow you to marvel at the film's artistry and importance.

A gorgeous and nicely written glossy booklet, a nicely designed jacket and slipcase, an attractive and nicely navigable menu plus a delicious bonus of numerous 60s/70s Euro-Grind trailers all contributes to making Grindhouse Releasing/VSC's disc one of the best home entertainment packages of this year.

A STAR IS BORN (1954) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

JUDY GARLAND
Mrs. Norman Maine

A Star Is Born (1954) dir. George Cukor *****
Starring: Judy Garland, James Mason, Charles Bickford, Jack Carson, Tommy Noonan, Amanda Blake

Review By By Greg Klymkiw

The devastating effects of alcoholism have seldom been captured with the kind of force that permeates director George Cukor's 1954 rendering of this classic tale of a star rising, another star burning out and the bond of love between them.

A Star is Born as a much-beloved screen entity began with David O. Selznick's early attempt at R.K.O. Pictures to tell a true-to-life story about Hollywood. Securing Adela Rogers St. Johns to write the story and subsequently employing a myriad of screenwriters, Selznick teamed up with his good friend George Cukor to bring the world What Price Hollywood? in 1932. It's a solid film with an especially great performance from Lowell Sherman as the alcoholic who feels he is holding back the genius of the woman he loves and subsequently commits suicide to "free" her. Constance Bennett in the female role was good, but not great. In 1937, Selznick returned to the material and delivered what would be the first picture officially bearing the title A Star is Born. This fine version, sans Cukor and helmed by the stalwart William Wellman, starred Fredric March as the drunken star and also featured exquisite production value. Alas, Janet Gaynor as its leading lady was simply no match for Mr. March. The film, whilst good, fell short of the greatness it was clearly striving for.

The cinematic marriage made in Heaven for this material occurred when Judy Garland's husband, Sidney Luft, seeking a comeback project for his troubled wife, convinced Warner Brothers to bankroll a musical version of the tale with George Cukor directing and the inimitable Moss Hart writing the screenplay adaptation of Dorothy Parker's 1937 screenplay. The casting of James Mason as Judy Garland's husband was a stroke of genius and for once, the material had two great stars - evenly matched in talent and screen presence.

The simple, well-told tale involves singer Esther Blodgett (Garland) who meets-cute with Hollywood star Norman Maine (Mason) at a ritzy film business fundraiser wherein the completely sloshed actor ends up on stage with a chorus line of performers, one of whom is our heroine. Esther knows who Norman is, and also realizes how drunk he is, but she's both star-struck and charmed and engages him in a fun, silly dance that entertains the audience and, in so doing, allows Norman to retain the dignity of a stalwart performer letting loose (as opposed to being seen as a buffoon).

Eventually, the two becomes friends and lovers and most importantly, Norman becomes Esther's benign Svengali and he uses all his powers to turn her into a huge star. The paternal studio head Oliver Niles (Charles Bickford) gets Esther to change her name to Vicki Lester and further builds her into the studio's most valuable asset.

Alas, Norman's continued drunken antics have made him a huge liability to the studio and his contract is not renewed. People he thought were his friends ignore him, and the slimy studio publicity chief played by the inimitable Jack Carson, tell hims to his face how much he's always hated him and pretended to be his friend because it was his job. This latter blow comes after Norman is off the wagon and leads to him hitting the bottle even harder.

Esther/Vicki rises to the top, and Norman falls further than anyone could have imagined. Loving his wife desperately, but feeling he is holding her back, Norman makes what he thinks is the ultimate sacrifice so she can truly shine.

While there are plenty of musical numbers in the picture - including Garland's knockout rendition of Arlen and Gershwin's great song "The Man That Got Away" - the movie is at its absolute best when Garland and Mason share the screen together. Cukor and his two great actors brilliantly capture the initial attraction, their growing love, the mutual dependency upon each other (positive and negative) - all the ups and downs one expects from characters that are deeply wrought and ultimately, sympathetic because of the simple, delicate humanity with which they're handled.

An extremely interesting aspect to this story is that so many pictures from the Golden Age of Cinema were weepers of the highest order and often used female characters in the position of feeling like a millstone around either their lovers' or children's necks and making huge sacrifices to free those they love from their burdensome presence. "A Star is Born" - especially in this version - is a powerful reversal of this storytelling tradition.

One of the more astounding sequences in the movie is when Esther/Vicky is at the Academy Awards, desperately awaiting to see if she wins, but even more desperate as she wonders and waits where an absent Norman is. Garland's performance here is heartbreaking, but when Norman finally appears at the awards ceremony - completely plastered, Garland's performance reaches stratospheric heights when she deals with how Norman humiliates her.

Mason captures his character's pathetic inner helplessness while Garland displays pure love - not a stalwart attempt at maintaining dignity, but love! A love that means helping her husband at all costs and no matter how much he's made a fool of himself - Garland conveys that it is her love that is stronger than his illness and that sacrifice is perhaps the greatest force of love. In fact, her kind, resolute handling of the embarrassing situation plays as a sacrifice and yet, below the surface, there is the subtext - delivered mostly through Garland's performance - suggesting that for Esther/Vicki, helping someone you love maintain THEIR dignity might be SEEN as a sacrifice, but that she doesn't view it that way. It's what one does when one is in love.

One of the reasons Garland's Blodgett/Lester seems so evenly matched is the juxtaposition between one character's discovery and the other's loss - the latter clearly being the loss of one's way in the world to the point where the only way to move forward is to seek death. Garland discovers, not only her talent, but that she has the capacity for undying love and sensuality while Mason can only empower himself in making a star out of someone even as he has lost all of his lustre.

While there is a certain surface bravery to Mason's sacrifice, there is a cowardice to it as well - a cowardice that is only too human, and in so being, FEELS heroic. His sacrifice, however, pales in comparison to the endless sacrifices Garland makes.

It was my most recent viewing of this film, on the Warner Home Entertainment Blu-Ray Special Edition release where my eyes were drawn almost inextricably to the eyes of both performers. It was, perhaps the clarity of the format itself that allowed me access to the souls of the characters through these two pairs of eyes. Both Garland and Mason express a myriad of emotions and there's never a false note from either of them. And as truly great as Garland is in the film, we once again have a film version of the story where the actor playing Norman - in this case, Mason - is such a compelling tragic figure that it's impossible not to be deeply moved by him to the point where our heroine becomes somewhat muted in comparison.

Thankfully, though, Garland is only occasionally overshadowed by Mr. Mason and is certainly a match for him. At the conclusion of the film, when she proclaims that her name is "Mrs. Norman Maine" - suggesting, of course, how their souls are inextricably connected for an eternity - we realize just how utterly perfect Cukor's handling of this vital love is.

That said, Mason's last scenes in the magic hour of his final day on Earth, come close to ripping one's heart out of one's chest. The little looks and smiles of love and determination he delivers, wrench such pure emotion from an audience, that it's easy to see how Mason comes close to walking away with the picture. As well, anyone who has suffered from alcoholism either directly or indirectly will realize just how great Mason is in the picture.

It's truly a testament to Mason, Garland and Cukor that alcoholism is treated with all the sad truth the subject requires and most of all, that its viewed as it should be - a disease that can rip the lifeblood out of everyone, not just the individual afflicted with the disease.

A Star Is Born is a classic - end of story.

It might well be over fifty years old, but it feels as fresh and vital as if it had been made just yesterday.

"A Star Is Born" is available on Warner Home Entertainement on DVD and Blu-Ray with a restoration that brings the recut 177 minute version - as close to Cukor's original cut (over 180 mins.) before the studio truncated it to 154 minutes soon after its initial theatrical release. You'll also note I have made absolutely no mention of the execrable 1970s film version of the story. The less said about it, the better.

TOKYO DRIFTER and BRANDED TO KILL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Seijun Suzuki X 2 Seijun Suzuki for you Seijun Suzuki for one, for all, Hip Hip Hooray on Criterion Blu-Ray

Is the director of these movies
CLINICALLY INSANE?
You be the judge, jury and executioner!

Tokyo Drifter (1966) dir. Seijun Suzuki ***1/2
Starring: Tetsuya Watari, Chieko Matsubara, Hideaki Nitani

Branded To Kill (1967) dir. Seijun Suzuki ****
Starring: Jô Shishido, Kôji Nanbara, Isao

Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw

Nobody. Seriously. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody - and I'm dead serious - NOBODY ever or will ever make crime pictures like the supremely stylish and (quite possibly) clinically insane Japanese maestro of strange gangster shoot-em-ups - Seijun Suzuki. In the span of a decade, Suzuki directed 40 - count 'em - 40 B-movies for Japan's Nikkatsu studios.

Suzuki's favourite setting was against the backdrop of the Yakuza and his pictures just got increasingly delirious as he continued to grind out one after another. He hit his peak with Nikkatsu in 1966 and 1967 with, respectively, Tokyo Drifter and Branded To Kill. The latter picture was so confounding, so over-the-top, so disinterested in narrative logic, that the studio fired him - even though he delivered consistent product that made money for Nikkatsu. He successfully sued the company for wrongful dismissal, but his high ideals and legal victory effectively blacklisted him from making a movie for over ten years.

Tokyo Drifter, shot in lurid technicolor and scope, is a pure visceral rollercoaster ride of violence and - I kid you not - includes musical numbers. Even John Woo in his Hong Kong prime NEVER delivered such inspired nuttiness and nastiness in one fell swoop of a cinematic bushido blade.

The plot, such as it is, involves a loyal hit man, Phoenix Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari) who respects and acquiesces to his mob boss' desire to go straight. However, Tetsu is one bundle of trouble and every rival gang is drawn to creating a nightmare for his boss. Tetsu does the only thing honour will allow - he imposes a strange self-exile and becomes a drifter; a man without a country, so to speak. Loyalty, only goes so far, however, and when he realizes he's been set-up as a fall-guy, there is hell to pay.

One action scene after another is shot in near-fluorescent colour with lurid, yet stunning backdrops. The guns blaze and the blood flows freely. I'm also happy to declare that the climactic shootout ranks way up there with all the greats.

Oh, have I mentioned yet that there are musical numbers?

Tokyo Drifter made absolutely no sense to the top brass at Nikkatsu and they demanded that Suzuki tone it down for his next movie. He agreed.

Then, like all great filmmakers, he lied.

The next picture was the hypnotically demented Branded to Kill. Shot in glorious widescreen black and white with wall-to-wall sex, violence and tons of delectable nudity, it told the tale of hit man Goro Hanada (Jô Shishido) who is currently rated as Killer #3. When he screws up a job, his status in the Yakuza is threatened and soon, he finds himself the target of several hit men and hit ladies (including his mistress and wife). And soon, he is embroiled in a cat and mouse dance of death with the almost-ghost-like Killer #1.

Like Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill has absolutely no need or respect for issues like continuity and narrative clarity. Suzuki can barely acknowledge the plot and in its stead, stages one brilliantly shot and choreographed action set-piece after another. If Luis Bunuel had been Japanese, not even he would have approached the surrealistic heights that Suzuki ascends to so dazzlingly.

Branded to Kill is populated with some utterly delicious babes - all of whom sport guns and remove their clothing a lot. Our hero Goro, is played by the suave, ultra-cool Jô Shishido. With his odd puffy cheekbones and wry expression, Shisedo invests his role with steely intensity. The movie oozes with style like lava chugging out of a roiling volcano. The stunning black and white photography is worthy of John Alton's great noir work and the movie is driven by a terrific score that blends ultra-cool jazz styling with Ennio Morricone-influence spaghetti-riffs with crazed orchestral action genre music as if performed by the Kronos Quartet on crack cocaine.

If the picture has one crowning glory (and frankly, it has many) it surely must be Goro's fetish for the smell of boiling rice. Any excuse Suzuki can give his hero to demand it and then sniff away with abandon he manages to find it. Sometimes, there isn't even a good reason for it. Sometimes, it's just the thing to do. Sometimes, a man's just got to sniff boiling rice.

This, I understand. I hope you do, too.

If not, go to Hell.

"Tokyo Drifter" and "Branded To Kill" have been released with mind-bogglingly stunning Blu-Ray transfers on the Criterion Collection label. Both films are replete with fine added content, but ultimately, it's the movies that count. These are keepers and belong in any self-respecting cineaste's collection.