Cowboys and Aliens (2011) dir. Jon Favreau
Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, with Paul Dano and Sam Rockwell wandering around looking kind of lost.

*

By Blair Stewart

To be honest with you good readers I have a soft-spot for westerns and sci-fi, snooty cinemaphile pretentiousness be damned. I know every note of Morricone's 'Ecstacy of Gold' score like it's a childhood pet, and there's isn't another film release I anticipated in adolescence more than "Alien 3" (I learned the disappointments of youthful hope on that Friday in '92, and a few years later with Eyes Wide Shut after I got into Kubrick in order to pick up arty broads, so lesson learned on 'anticipating' I suppose). Anyways, there are many ways one could make an enjoyable film concerning Cowboys and Aliens, certainly when you have $160 million to toss around like a big shot, but one method you shouldn't use is half-assed.

How I hate this film, oh lordy lordy let me count the ways.

Emerging from the chintzy-hole of other hacky cash-grabs executive producer Steven Spielberg with his fellow hydra heads of Brian Glazer and Ron Howard join forces with masters of episodic boilerplate prose Lindelof, Kurtzman and Orci to bring a forgettable graphic novel to the screen because, dammit, it was easy to sell to Universal. No doubt the post-pitch words ringing through the hallways of movie-studio purse strings were "You know, for kids!?" Most likely empty terms like 'dynamic storytelling' and 'emotional resonance' were used in the early press releases before cameras rolled. Jon Favreau then wandered in bewildered and feverish from being lost in the Alkali salt wastes and was coerced into signing on in return for some refreshing Evian, so here we are.

A Man with No Name named Jake (Daniel Craig, stage name Sir Pouty Lips McGillicutty) wakes up in the Arizona badlands of 1800-something-or-other with an iWatch from Centaurus welded to his wrist. He shoots some blaggards with fireballs he nicked from Street Fighter II's Ryu-'Hadouken!'-and is eventually dragged to jail in a one-horse town to face the wrath of cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford with sly comic timing for a dude who is always really high on-set, but otherwise lazy) for crossing paths with his weasel of a son Percy (Paul Dano, paying bills). Meanwhile, strange local woman Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde, who on her Wikipedia page states about herself being "really critical and analytical" hahahahahawhataboutthisfilmladyhahahaha?) appears when the story needs her to fill in exposition and cover plot potholes. Aliens show up, Indians show up, Daniel Craig does mescaline and nearly relives the utterly terrifying abduction sequence of D.B. Sweeney from 1993's "Fire in the Sky", shit done gets blown up good yessir, FIN, $160 million poorly spent.

Now how could I hate a film like this? It's supposed to fun and lightweight and all homagey to the John Fords and Ridley Scotts of their genres? Because it's average. It's average in scope, in imagination, in intention, its dialogue and mood and filming and pacing and entertainment and acting-average, average, average. The aliens themselves? Totally forgettable, and probably their concept was a rush-job like the rest of this film. The only thing that isn't average in "Cowboys and Aliens" is Craig and Wilde's performances, both of which are terrible, like most of their work. Let us just listen to the title alone: "Cowboys and Aliens". Couldn't even bother to come up with a nifty title like "Strange Rider" or "Deadcreek" or "Showdown at the E.T. Corral". Nope, "Cowboys and Aliens", from the studio that brought you 'Explosions and Tits', cue the lousy guitar solo, now stuff your face with some popcorn.

Riding home from the theater after watching this I discovered I had left my phone somewhere in Leicester Square and never found it. I blame this shitty film, which is now yours to own on BluRay, DVD and online from Netflix.

Straw Dogs (2011) dir. Rod Lurie
Starring: James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgard, James Woods

*

By Greg Klymkiw

God knows I love a good remake. When a great story can be repositioned to present the same tale in a completely different time and place and is rendered by a director with vision, it can generate really fine work. Genre pictures are especially ideal for remakes - horror, sci-fi, suspense, mysteries and on occasion even musicals. The first three film adaptations of Jack Finney's cold war sci-fi novel "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" rendered three excellent and thoroughly distinctive films in the '50s, '70s and '90s - directed respectively by such diverse talents as Don Siegel, Philip Kaufmann and Abel Ferrara. Howard Hawks' classic '50s production of The Thing eventually yielded John Carpenter's bone chilling 1982 remake. And frankly, if it weren't for remakes, John Huston's 1941 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart (the THIRD film version of Dashiell Hammett's novel) wouldn't exist, nor would George Cukor's exquisite Judy Garland-James Mason version of A Star is Born (also the the third screen telling of the classic tale that began with the film What Price Hollywood?)

Some movies aren't so perfect for remakes because they are so tied to a specific time and place. The filmmaking techniques aren't necessarily dated, but the inherent values infusing the era are so inextricably linked to the story that applying contemporary mores half-cocks them. A good example of this is the great J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear with Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck where the clear divisions between good and evil are what contribute to the horror and suspense. When Martin Scorsese updated the film for his remake, he tried to be clever and blur those lines. That's why his remake doesn't work. Sure, it has his astounding direction and a few visceral moments that pack a punch, but ultimately, by creating moral ambiguities in the character of the lawyer, you actually end up muddying something that was, in its very simplicity, far more complex and, frankly, a lot more terrifying.

Some movies, however, are so perfect, so universal, so AHEAD of their time, that the necessity of a remake is simply uncalled for. In fact, the very notion of remaking them can only be pure commerce, pure greed and worst of all - pure and utter stupidity.

Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs is such a picture.

Based on the terrific pulp novel by Gordon Williams, the original 1971 shocker has, in my estimation, not dated one bit. It's as powerful and universal in its disturbing ambiguities as it ever was. (Unlike the original Cape Fear, for example, it is ambiguity that DRIVES Peckinpah's engine.)

The story of both the original and remake are simple enough, and on the surface, are identical. An intellectual and his sexpot wife move to a house in the country where the woman grew up. The husband is a dyed-in-the-wool city boy, but looks towards the solace of country living to complete his work. The wife's self-perceived inadequacies fall from her shoulders once she's back in her old stomping grounds - she's on familiar turf, hubby is not.

The local rednecks, one of whom had a passionate affair with wifey before she left for greener pastures in the big city, chide the city slicker hubby and drool over wifey. What wifey wants more than anything is her hubby to stand up and be a man - to rise (or in his mind, lower) to the level of the inbred ruffians. Eventually, the couple's pet kitty is strung up in the bedroom closet, wifey is raped and in a final showdown, the rednecks lay siege to the couple's farmhouse where hubby proves his manhood and defends his home with a brute force resulting in the savage deaths of the crazed marauders.

Peckinpah's film worked on two basic levels. Number one, it was a slowly stomach churning thriller that exploded into an orgy of bloody violence. Number two, it worked as an intense study of a marriage on the brink of extinction. Rod Lurie's remake works on neither level, though it pathetically attempts to deliver the goods with the former.

Lurie's film is shot and lit with all the artistry of a television drama. The genuinely suspenseful situation is never tense. The explosion of violence is on the level of a lower-drawer low-budget action picture. Worst of all, the acting is borderline incompetent - Marsden and Bosworth in the roles originally and so brilliantly played by Dustin Hoffman and Susan George prove to be such non-entities that they don't even appear to belong in this movie at all. And what can one say when even the king of supreme cinematic scumbaggery, James Woods, looks severely bored and in need of a paycheque as the drunken, psychotic redneck villain.

One of the remake's many boneheaded decisions is to set the film in America. Peckinpah's version works so well BECAUSE it is about an American and his British sex pot wife moving to a tiny village in England. Though Hoffman's character is, on the surface an educated, Liberal pacifist, he is American - he's left the New World behind and brought his trophy wife to the Old World - her home turf. It's the journey across the Atlantic that helps create the divide necessary for the film to work. Lurie, on the other hand, has no great cultural and geographical chasm to deal with. Granted, Los Angeles and rural Mississippi are regionally distinctive locales, but this is never explored in any intelligent, tangible way.

As a Canadian who has visited many corners of America, one of the most indelible impressions left emblazoned on my psyche was the genuinely alien feeling I had in Mississippi. No matter where I went I was greeted (as it were) with a malevolent sounding “Y’all nawt frum ‘round heah!” That, of course, was what I only vaguely understood when I could ascertain what belched from within the mush-mouthed chewing-tobacco-plugged maw of the speaker – lazily muttering words that appeared to be in the English language. The greeting (as it, uh, were) was never a question, but a statement of fact – one hurled with as much bile as possible. One of my visits occured soon after the free trade agreement between Canada and the USA had been signed, sealed and delivered. A common refrain from Mississippians was: "Whut's with yew'all Kun-ay-dee-yuns? Yew all wants to trade witch us fo' free?"

God bless Mississippi!!!

Racism, in addition to general ignorance and brain deficiency in Mississippi also ran shockingly and openly rampant. I could, for example, walk into a restaurant and the greeter would manage expel the aforementioned salutation with a somewhat more modest degree of literacy than gas station attendants and convenience store clerks and proceed, once confirming that I indeed was “not from around here” lead me into a section of the restaurant where I was surrounded by African-Americans. The other side of the restaurant was where Americans of the NON-African-American persuasion were sitting. A dark-skinned family seated in the next table made a point of offering words of welcome. One of them leaned over in my direction, smiled, and said in a FRIENDLY way, “I see, Sir, that you are not, in fact, from around here.” I confirmed this fact to him. He laughed and said, “That’s good. You’re in good company on this side of the restaurant.” I could only concur heartily.

The bottom line is this: Tied with the equally horrendous state of Alabama, Mississippi was one of the most dementedly scary places I'd ever been.

Not surprisingly, the woefully untalented Lurie captures none of this in any REAL way. His movie TELLS us that “White Trash” Mississippians are ignorant rednecks, but if it didn't, they'd all look like affluent city slickers playing dress-up.

One of the things that MIGHT have allowed a Straw Dogs remake to soar is the very idea that in one's own country one can feel like a foreigner. This is, in America, not at all difficult to swallow. Lurie, however, glances upon this potential with a vague, "Oh-must-I?" nod and moves on to "better" things. What those things are I can only guess at because whatever they might be they're invisible to me.

The other boneheaded decision is to turn hubby into a screenwriter instead of Dustin Hoffman's egg-headed mathematician in the Peckinpah film. Making the character a city slicker academic in the original made far more sense in terms of how he'd be viewed with disdain by the locals. In Lurie's version - especially in the context of contemporary society - I doubt a screenwriter for Hollywood movies would be viewed with so much contempt. I'd suspect the opposite. He'd be welcomed with pretty open arms. Everyone loves the movies - even inbred rednecks.

Where Lurie completely drops the ball here, though, is in making use of hubby's screenwriting prowess during the final showdown - or rather, NOT using it. Peckinpah made brilliant use of Dustin Hoffman being a mathematician - numbers, formulas, patterns: all the stuff that go into assisting his character in crossing over from benign academic into blood-lusting killer.

So why, oh why, oh why, does Lurie turn the character into a screenwriter, then have the knot-head express a prissy, "Oh, I don't do action or horror movies." Uh, why the fuck not? What a lost opportunity. It might have been very cool to have hubby utilize his "screenplay" to carry out his carnage. As it is, Lurie does have his screenwriting character working on a war picture set in Stalingrad.

Uh, Rod! Hello? Stalingrad? One of the bloodiest battles in history?

Uh, screenwriting 101 opportunity for cool shit here, Rod.

It's not surprising he doesn't exploit this. Lurie pretty much screws everything up. He drops the ball on all the brilliant religious allegory; he makes the evocative title literal and can't direct action to save his life. Where he really blows it is with the rape scene. In Peckinpah's original, it's shocking to see how Susan George expresses conflicting feelings of revulsion and lust when her ex-boyfriend rapes her.

This, Mr. Lurie, is called complex characterization. You, on the other hand have the somewhat moronic-looking Miss Bosworth ONLY reflecting revulsion when her ex forces himself upon her. I'd suggest, however, that the conflicting feelings Peckinpah displayed in the face of Susan George during the rape scene are precisely what plunged her into the sort of horror that would reside deep within for the rest of her life - especially when the culmination of succumbing to her ex-boyfriend results in being violated by his friend. Having all those feelings of anger at her husband, deep-seeded remembrances of the ex-boyfriend she once loved, having someone take charge in the lovemaking department are the things seared on her brain in Peckinpah's rendering and this is why audiences have never been able to forget the scene.

In comparison, Lurie's rape scene IS exploitative in the worst possible way. It’s lurid and nasty and in fact, simplifies everything so that her husband’s explosion at the end could be seen as inadvertent vengeance for the rape when, in fact, it is asserting his right as a man to defend his home, his family and his ideals. None of this comes through in Lurie’s version. Lurie has essentially transmogrified the tale into pornography – pure and simple. Anything resembling the deeper mechanics of story telling are ignored – as if they would sully the porn.

As well, Peckinpah's film is at its most bloodcurdling when it's quiet. Lurie replaces that with dull, meandering, misguided filler. This is no surprise. It’s exactly what happens when a hack is unleashed on remaking a classic that had no reason to be remade in the first place.

We've got enough hacks making movies and unlike Lurie and his particular ilk, at least many of those hacks have something resembling craft under their belts. Lurie has none. Under Lurie's belt lurks whatever's filling his lower intestines and waiting to be expunged into a toilet bowl.

I say: Loosen thine belt, Mr. Lurie.

Let it flow, brother.

Only next time, please try not taking a crap on someone like Sam Peckinpah.

Killer Elite (2011) dir. Gary McKendry
Starring: Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert DeNiro

*

By Greg Klymkiw

What this lame duck action thriller is doing in a major international film festival like TIFF is beyond me. This is the sort of movie that gives one the impression that the festival is little more than a junket opportunity for bad movies that need all the help they can get or just an excuse to parade a bunch of stars into town.

Though it is inspired by a not-so-manly-titled book called "The Feather Men", it has chosen to rip-off its title (sans the word "The") from a solid Sam Peckinpah action picture from the 70s starring James Caan and Robert Duvall. The Killer Elite is far from Peckinpah's best work, but I'd argue one frame of it beats this noisy, jack hammering and ultimately leaden, meandering macho-man movie.

What will keep Bloody Sam from rolling in his grave is that this is, at least, not a remake of his movie.

Apparently, Killer Elite is a true story.

That hardly makes up for how terrible it is.

Basically what you've got here are two old buddies - Jason Statham and Robert DeNiro - who work as soldier-for-hire assassins. After we get to see a dull, contrived opening action set-piece with them, Statham's character decides it's time to retire. DeNiro doesn't. He's kidnapped and used as ransom for Statham to take another job. His target is ultimately Clive Owen (sporting a really stupid looking moustache), a retired rogue British operative.

Cat and mouse mayhem ensues.

The idea of an action movie starring these three guys thrills me to bits.

Unfortunately they're wasted in an action movie directed by someone who clearly has no idea how to direct action. It's yet another contemporary genre picture with lots of bluster, but far too many closeups and bone headed herky-jerky camera moves and attention-span-challenged editing.

It has none of the style of Guy Ritchie, none of the panache of Neveldine/Taylor and not even the sheer craft of all the Luc Besson hacks.

And it is most certainly not Peckinpah.

McKendry directed an Academy Award nominated short I've never seen, but the shorts I have seen in that arena are usually nothing to write home about. He's also directed commercials. He might be good at that, but he's useless with action. Well, maybe not as incompetent as J.J. Abrams was with action in Mission Impossible III, but that's hardly a glowing recommendation.

I'd take Michael Bay over this guy - hands down.

The trio of stars acquit themselves with their usual professionalism, but it's such a waste seeing them in one of the more unremarkable action pictures made in recent years. Any of the picture's pretensions and/or aspirations to be a "serious" look at the private, illegal wars being fought the world over are just so much lip service. The movie is an excuse for one action set piece after another. There's nothing wrong with that when it's executed properly, but this is strictly by the numbers and worse, it's poorly directed and I reiterate, very noisy.

It also has the dubious distinction of including one of the most pointless car chases I've seen recently. For a car chase to be good, it needs to be well directed. That's a no brainer. For it to truly rise above the rest, it needs to be driven by character.

Seeing as the movie barely has anything resembling characters, it stands to reason that most of the motivating forces behind the action are those of the director - who's not good at executing it anyway.

Enjoy!

Killer Elite is being unveiled, rather head-scratchingly, to the world at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2011) and will be released theatrically by e-one Entertainment.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) dir. Rupert Wyatt
Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine and David Hewlett

*

By Greg Klymkiw

I have absolutely no knee-jerk prejudice against remakes, reboots, sequels or prequels as the number of good and/or even great ones is impressive. I do, however, have a problem with bad and/or mediocre and/or (worst of all) unnecessary movies - whatever they may be.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - save for the millions of dollars it will bamboozle out of moviegoers in its first week - has no real reason to exist.

The movie is about NOTHING.

It is rife with long, dull scenes that go nowhere.

The screenplay, such as it is, has not (I suspect) actually been written, but assembled with alphabet blocks by chimpanzees - not very bright ones at that. The chimps deserving the blame for their less than stellar work are Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver whose credits include - ahem - The Relic (a watchable monster movie), An Eye for An Eye (a watchable vigilante movie) and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (a watchable thriller). The accent here is clearly on "watchable" - an achievement not quite attained by Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Not only have these two simians delivered an inconsequential plot that's about nothing, but they've populated the landscape with the dullest roles imaginable. Oh, and if anyone thinks I'm merely picking on the writers - I am. They're also the producers of this thing.

Bottom line: This movie is not worthy of the Original Five. It'd be a tough act to follow. In contrast to the work generated by the writers (and I reiterate - producers) of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the collective writing talents behind the five original Planet of the Apes movies wrote screenplays for the likes of Frank Capra, George Stevens, David Lean, Martin Ritt, William Wyler, Sidney Lumet, Franco Zeffirelli, John Frankenheimer, Roger Corman and Martin Scorsese.

This alone should be enough to rest my case.

But I won't. Let the flagellation of Rise of the Planet of the Apes continue.

What a cast has been assembled to render this monkey house of purported characters.

Leading man James (127 Days) Franco sleepwalks through his part as a chemical manufacturing scientist who creates a drug meant to cure Alzheimer's that instead kills humans whilst creating a new super species of ape.

John Lithgow goes through the motions of delivering a professional by-the numbers performance as Franco's addled Dad who is briefly revived by Sonny-Jim's chemical discovery before he plunges into further madness and finally death.

Frieda Pinto parades her vacuous beauty about whilst exuding intellect as blank as an unformatted floppy disk in the role of Franco's zoo veterinarian girlfriend - a real stretch unless one believes veterinary colleges are in the business of graduating animal doctors with less intelligence than their patients.

Delivering exceptional work in spite of nothing resembling writing employed in the creation of his role as an animal shelter administrator, Brian Cox, one of the world's greatest living actors, might have actually benefited if something as unimaginative as a recognizable archetype might have been devised to allow for some virtuoso scenery-chewing.

Playing the least compelling corporate villain ever committed to celluloid, the non-entity that is David Oyewolo is so bland that not even good writing would have saved him as a pharmaceutical company baddie who - wait for it - is more interested in profits than science.

Then there are stellar supporting performances from actors playing scum-buckets so well that one wishes they either had a better movie to be in (like Tom Felton as the vile animal shelter attendant) or David Hewlett as Franco's nasty next door neighbour who hates monkeys and berates old men with Alzheimer's. He really should have been cast as the central corporate baddie instead of the aforementioned bland loser they DID cast.

And Lest We Forget - Andy Serkis, the somewhat overrated CGI body double who previously and famously aped (as it were) the character of Gollum in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here he gets to play Franco's pet chimp Caesar who is more intelligent than Albert Einstein and leads a grand monkey revolt. Don't get me wrong, Serkis IS a good actor, but what he delivered for Jackson finally works as well as it does because the writing is great and the CGI is stunning. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the non-writing, ho-hum direction and obvious CGI gives us so little to root for that the gymnastics of Serkis's apery is all for naught.

While a solid, simple plot can have considerable merit in providing a perfectly manufactured coat hanger to adorn with cool shit, this pathetic new sequel/prequel/remake/reboot or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be is so lacklustre that I struggled in vain whilst waiting for something - ANYTHING - of any consequence to happen.

It didn't.

In a nutshell, here's the plot - or rather, grocery list:

Scientist discovers miracle drug to cure Alzheimer's.

Said drug turns chimp into Super Chimp.

Alas, same drug kills scientist's Dad.

Scientist raises chimp as own child.

Girlfriend pops in and out of movie to smile stupidly.

Chimp gets into all manner of shenanigans.

Chimp bites finger off next door neighbour.

Chimp is incarcerated in animal shelter full of apes.

Chimp leads ape revolt on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Chimp leads apes to freedom amongst ancient Redwood trees.

Next door neighbour - afflicted with deadly virus - casually goes to work as airline pilot, finger miraculously intact.

Spreads virus worldwide.

What, I ask you, is this movie actually ABOUT?

The original 1968 Arthur P. Jacobs production of Planet of the Apes was dazzlingly directed by the great Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton), superbly adapted by Michael (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia) Wilson and Rod (The Twilight Zone) Serling from Pierre Boulle's brilliant novel "La planète des singes" and featuring a stellar cast that attacked their roles with relish.

And what roles they were! The makers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes might have thought to take their cues from the original source for the necessary inspiration. In addition to having a great square-jawed hero in the form of the cynical, no-nonsense astronaut Taylor (Charlton "GOD" Heston) the original movie boasted a terrific array of colourful supporting characters that great actors like Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans played to the hilt. The only thing the Rise team might have been influenced by was the role of Nova in the original, a staggeringly beautiful, but equally blank leading lady. Smartly, this character in the original was mute whereas this awful new reboot chooses to allow Freida Pinto to open her mouth - thus forcing the already leaden lines she's been given to thud to the floor with greater force than a body hitting the pavement from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Planet of the Apes was, still is and always will be a great picture. (Let's forget, however, that the moronic Tim Burton remake even exists. Though dreadful as it is, it's fucking Rembrandt compared to Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The first time I saw Schaffner's Planet of the Apes was as a nine-year-old lad, sitting in the front row of Winnipeg's long-shuttered picture palace the Metropolitan Theatre (where Guy Maddin eventually shot Isabella Rossellini in the stunning My Dad is 100 Years Old). It was the first time I got gooseflesh in a movie. So profound was my experience that it was, indeed, the movie that compelled/condemned me to a life of servitude under the pleasurable shackles of motion pictures.

I have seen the picture well over 100 times since and most recently, watched it with my 10-year-old daughter during an Ape marathon prior to seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I was, in fact, really excited to see the new picture which, I suppose adds profoundly to my disappointment.

Schaffner's picture is a genuine classic. It holds up as powerfully as any great piece of superbly executed populist cinema should. Mysterious, thrilling, funny, intelligent, propulsive in all the right ways and a movie replete with thought-provoking thematic elements about religious fanaticism suppressing science and new ideas, the topsy-turvy look at humans fulfilling the role of "dumb beast", notions of time and time travel and the devastating effects of war, it's a picture that has not dated.

I always have maintained that its cinematic storytelling techniques are so classical and finely wrought and its technical virtuosity so ahead of its time that the movie could be released virtually untouched and I suspect it could/would be as big a hit NOW as it once was. Most tellingly to me was just how compelling the movie was for my little girl. She remained stapled into the chesterfield, her eyes transfixed upon my hi-def monitor and nary one bathroom break. The discussion we had about the movie afterwards centred on the IDEAS as much as it did about the story and how entertaining it was.

No similar discussion occurred after watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Because, frankly, it's really about NOTHING. The stakes for the characters in the original film were always tied to the issues it explored, whereas the stakes for all the characters in Rise are rooted in not much of anything - save for James Franco's selfish, whiny and somewhat unconvincing need to prove that his new drug will work.

As a kid in the years between 1968 and 1970 when the first sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes finally appeared, one of the things that haunted me - nay, OBSESSED me! - was a lingering question I had at the devastating ending to the first film. When Chuck Jesus H. Christ Heston rides deeper into the "Forbidden Zone" and discovers (thanks to the writing genius that was Rod Serling for coming up specifically with the ending) that he is NOT on another planet, but a nuclear-war-devastated Earth in the future, I was chomping at the bit to learn what our astronaut would find in the wasteland AFTER he discovers a half-buried Statue of Liberty in the sand.

What Heston finally discovered (along with James Franciscus, a new astronaut who follows a rescue-mission trajectory to the monkey planet) was a crumbling Manhattan beneath the desert populated by Doomsday-Bomb-worshipping mutants with telepathic powers who were about to be attacked by an army of war-thirsty gorillas.

Jesus Christ Almighty, indeed!

Just the plot alone as penned by veteran screenwriter Paul (Goldfinger, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Murder on the Orient Express) Dehn was original enough to keep one riveted. More than the plot, though, was that - AGAIN - the movie was actually ABOUT something.

Even though the picture is a tad perfunctorily directed by stalwart hack Ted (Hang 'em High, Magnum Force and the genuinely wonderful Go Tell The Spartans) Post, Dehn's superb screenplay challenged us with notions of blind militaristic rage (including a peace march as reflective of the Vietnam War, which could have - in parallel contrast - provided a backdrop to the new picture with respect to America's idiotic "War on Terror"), religious fundamentalism justifying war (from both the apes AND the humans) and most terrifyingly, the whole notion of peace through superior firepower.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes has no such ideas. Though it's set in contemporary times and could have explored terrorism, blind militarism, rising fascism/fundamentalism, the financial crisis, the oil crisis - any manner of issues facing the world today, it chooses Instead, to focus upon the corruption inherent in pharmaceutical companies, Alzheimer's disease and cruelty to animals. These issues are not without merit, but they're just there to serve the non-plot, almost as a necessary evil to be touched upon and dropped quickly in favour of dazzling CGI.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes appeared a year after Beneath the Planet of the Apes and even at the tender age of 12 I remember thinking, "What is this shit? A sequel? They blew up the fucking Earth!" (I had a salty tongue even back then.) When I saw the picture - as a kid and even now after umpteen viewings - I was dazzled.

The real star is again screenwriter Paul Dehn as opposed to actor-turned-competent director Don Taylor who, in fairness, DID direct a fine’ 70s version of The Island of Dr. Moreau with Burt Lancaster and the cult sci-fi classic The Final Countdown. But what a GREAT script! What first-rate sci-fi!!!

From a plot standpoint, Dehn delivered a perfectly plausible twist via a new character called Dr. Milo who, like Cornelius and Zira, was an ape scientist who defied the "law" of fundamentalism, resurrected and repaired Chuck Heston's spaceship and then all three simians of science followed a backwards trajectory just before the Earth is destroyed and wind up BACK in time. This was also a clearly fascinating way to utilize the notions of time and space and, in its own way, delve into quantum physics and the early postulations of parallel universe theory.

This third official Apes sequel delivered up clever satirical goods, explored issues of women's' rights (plus animal rights - far more effectively than Rise), immoral interrogation techniques and most importantly studied the world of fanaticism/militarism within higher levels of government bureaucracy and how THIS is where the true power often lies and where sick, corrupt values run rampant.

What it does here so magnificently is how it offers up a great villain in the form of a German-born scientist/political advisor (a la Henry Kissinger) played by the wonderful actor Eric Braeden (who had a hugely successful career as a soap opera TV star, but most notably appeared in the great ‘70s sci-fi thriller Collosus: The Forbin Project from screenwriter James Bridges and the underrated director Joseph Sargent). Braeden is such a nasty, vicious, homicidal government bureaucrat and his great performance and superb characterization thanks to Dehn's writing puts the lacklustre aforementioned villain in Rise to complete and utter shame.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, is as sharp a sequel as the third instalment - replete with great writing from Paul Dehn and the added bonus of thrilling direction from J. Lee Thompson, the man who gave us the brilliant, original, utterly chilling Cape Fear as well as some of the greatest action epics of all time like North West Frontier, Taras Bulba and The Guns of Navarone. This particular sequel tells us about the rise of Caesar, the ape child of Cornelius and Zira who leads the simians in revolt against their human oppressors.

Conquest is the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes most closely resembles, yet pales most mightily against. Conquest deals head on with the issue that plagued (and continues to plague) America most doggedly - that of slavery and, includes good dashes of America's susceptibility to right wing government rule. A thoroughly effective repellent performance from Don Murray as the fascist California governor racing to eventually become President of the United States (he and his minions always wear black-coloured uniforms hearkening to both Nazism and Italian Fascism) is so politically charged - not just for its time, but like all great classics, resonates in a contemporary context.

Rise has no such villain and virtually NO political context. I'll not speak too much about Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the fifth official sequel and perhaps the weakest entry in the series, but even still, in its exploration of the early beginnings of the fundamentalism that eventually grips even the apes, it makes the new film look so puny in comparison.

Rupert Wyatt is a dreadful director. The pace of Rise is herky-jerky and the final action set piece on the Golden Gate Bridge - which should be spectacular - is yet another madly constructed action scene from a director who couldn't helm action to save his life.

The worst element of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is in its over-reliance upon CGI. The effects are relatively effective, but they're not there to serve the story, but to merely serve themselves. The stunning makeup effects for the apes designed by John Chambers in the ‘60s blow ALL the CGI totally away. The makeup allows great actors - throughout the original Apes series to actually deliver real performances and, thanks to terrific writing, inject considerable life into the proceedings.

Rise from the Planet of the Apes is, in contrast, moviemaking at its most dreadful - bereft of ideas, good writing and direction from someone who has a vision and/or the virtuosity to create popular cinema of the highest order.

Perhaps the most disgusting thing about the new film is that it fails to acknowledge the author of the original novel and the screenwriters (primarily Paul Dehn and Serling) of the original series in the head credits.

This is ultimately a disgrace.

Do yourself a favour and either skip Rise of the Planet of the Apes or, if you feel you must see the picture at all, try to watch the original films first.

You'll see the difference!

The Hangover Part II (2011) dir. Todd Phillips
Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianikis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Paul Giamatti, Nick Cassavetes and convicted rapist Mike Tyson

*

By Greg Klymkiw

The boys are back in town. This time it’s not Vegas, but Bangkok.

Surprise. Surprise.

The unexpected comedy hit of 2009 has a sequel.

The Hangover was a fuel-injected, insanely hilarious and almost perfect combination of fish out of water humour, gross-out laugh-grabbers and irresistible bro-mantic styling that took the world by storm and never looked back.

Alas, it looked ahead – to more through-the-roof box office grosses – and frankly, in spite of the earning potential, there really was no other reason to resurrect these characters in the same formula in another city. None whatsoever! Especially since its makers already created a movie that was so original - a tired retread is the last thing one would expect.

Since the first picture delivered endearing characters, it's no stretch to believe that audiences would want to see them again. In The Hangover, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) are a wolf pack of mismatched buddies who end up in Las Vegas to have one last blowout before one of them gets married. Under the influence of copious amounts of booze and drugs, the groom-to-be mysteriously disappears and the other pals, all suffering from hazy hangovers, try to piece together their “lost weekend” and find their missing friend. As the film proceeds, more and more of their adventures come back to them and oh, what a night it was!

The comedy writing was so sharp, funny and unabashedly crude that one assumed the filmmakers would find an entirely new adventure for these guys. These characters deserved better than what this sequel gives them.

In the first film, Phil had a clearly defined character and one that all in the audience (not just "bros'") could relate to - that of the handsome young man who feels caught in what has become the "trap" of comfort and complacency. In the second film, he seems less a character, lost - not because of any clever writing that explores a sense of wayward loss, but because the filmmakers have lazily deciding to let the affable charm of leading man Bradley Cooper carry the picture.

Stu was a great character in the first film - a complacent dentist, a nebbish in a relationship with a gorgeous, but nasty harridan-in-the-making. He eventually discovers a repressed side of his personality that gives him considerable strength. Here, he's a nebbish once more, only now he has found love and faces the conflict of winning over his tight-assed father-in-law. While one could argue that this is a slightly new direction - especially since his adventures here lead to the discovery of a "dark side", his journey is far less interesting as the hurdle seems relatively low-stakes. Sure, there are high stakes involved in the wedding itself being scuttled, but this seems like a convenient extension of his character's "need".

Alan in the first Hangover picture was the archetypal "wild man" - alternately naive and knowing. The character also signaled the big-screen arrival of a comic force to truly be reckoned with in the form of the brilliant and funny Zach Galfianakis. He's certainly the getter of the bigger laughs in this chapter of the tale, but he now seems like an archetype that's had a mix of character traits assigned to him that are supposed to flesh him out. They only seek to confuse the issue and the audience is forced to fall back on the pure archetype and Galfiankis's comic gifts.

In the original picture, Doug was the missing groom and now he has been relegated to the role of the guy who stays behind and acts as a buffer zone between the guys and the gals as they communicate their predicament via cel phone. He seemed barely a character the first time around, but now is reduced to a mere device.

The "missing man" turns out to be the younger brother of Stu's gorgeous Asian fiancee. He's the apple of the family's eye and his disappearance definitely adds much needed repercussions to the narrative. That said, the narrative is essentially rooted in the exact same formula of the first movie - boringly, unimaginatively repeated, only this time in Bangkok rather than Vegas. This truly does not a good movie, nor sequel, make.

Insane and over-the-top as The Hangover was, it actually had a sense of credibility going for it, which, in this sequel, is thrown completely out the window. Okay, so it’s a gross-out bro-mance, you say. Who needs credibility? Well, I’d argue that it was that very credibility that made the proceedings in the first movie so damned funny. Here, all we get are intermittent gags within the now-tired formula that are genuinely, albeit infrequently, funny.

The full house I saw it with sat silently through much of the movie with smatterings of scattered laughter and a few humongous collective belly laughs. For the most part, the overall disappointment was quite palpable. Maybe the movie WILL die the horrible death it deserves, but I'm not going to put money on that.

Look, I’m all for offensive, politically incorrect humour, but this sequel managed to make even me want to become a card-carrying Bleeding Heart PC-Nazi. I’m even a huge fan of ethnic stereotypes used for gags, but this movie manages to very unpleasantly go beyond the pale, even for me. When such humour is used successfully, it casts a mirror upon ourselves and allows its characters to come to new understandings.

No such thing happens here.

In The Hangover Part II, petty bourgeois American values rear their heads far too often. Here we essentially have a group of well-to-do young men from America in a land so foreign to them that while watching this movie one gets increasingly sickened to see joke after joke tossed off at the expense of all the squalor and poverty around these characters.

In a city (Bangkok) and country (Thailand) renowned for its illegal sex tours for paedophiles and bearing the huge weight and disgrace of sexual slavery, it soon becomes draining and yes, nasty, unnecessarily offensive and downright appalling to see one joke after another at the expense, not only of the poverty around the main characters, but by extension, of those who continue to suffer under the yoke of sexual exploitation.

The endless cudgel of Asian stereotypes was funny a couple of times, but to have it play out all the way through the movie was beyond any reasonable tolerance level for such humour. Ken Jeong as the fey Asian gangster party boy Chow is, to be sure, a stereotype, but in the first outing he was used sparingly and within the context of the narrative, he was an example of an "offensive" element that seemed rooted - not only in story, but as a reasonable credible addition to the anarchy. Here, he is overused to a point of distraction. While Jeong is a brilliant comic actor, his first appearance in the sequel was pleasing - in so far as he is a delightful presence - but alas, he becomes the primary whipping boy for milking offensive stereotypes, especially in the gags involving his microscopic penis.

I feel little need at this point to list all these stereotypes. The movie does are more than sufficient job at utilizing and perpetuating them.

Frankly, the makers of this film should be ashamed of themselves. They won’t be, of course, since The Hangover Part II is almost sure to make money and thus justify the producers' unimaginative retread of the same idea in the context of thumbing its nose at cultures different than their own. If there had at least been an attempt to turn the tables on the insular ignorance of the American characters as a significant part of the humour, this otherwise boneheaded reprise might have worked in a passable fashion. That, however, might have taken something resembling intelligence - which, by the way, it takes to make great stupid comedies. (Mel Brooks, ZAZ, Farelly Brothers anyone?)

Fish out of water is one thing, but to glorify insular American ignorance and crudity without any of the characters or the audience genuinely breaking through the stereotyping and good-naturedly coming to a true understanding of the very different cultural experience they undergo is not only borderline evil, but mean-spirited and racist.

Oddly enough, the film’s producers, with the support of many cast members, decided to fire Mel Gibson from a cameo appearance in the film after his last public outburst of alcohol-and-violence-charged racially insensitive comments. It didn’t stop these people from making a film as racist and insensitive as Gibson’s outbursts. But even more hypocritical and disgusting, they were more than happy to reprise a Mike Tyson cameo from the previous film. In The Hangover, Tyson’s appearance was credible AND funny. In that film, Tyson was the owner of the tiger our crazed heroes steal. In spite of Tyson's real-life crimes, one was almost able to look past them (or even incorporate them) into the excess of both Vegas, America and Tyson himself. In the sequel, his cameo is not only gratuitous, but lacking in any sort of the wacko credibility that made it work so well the first time around.

Most regrettably, Tyson's appearance in The Hangover Part II is proof positive of how disingenuous the actions of the filmmakers were in giving Mel Gibson the boot from the cameo appearance as the tattoo artist (replaced by Liam Neeson and further replaced by Nick Cassavetes). Mike Tyson is not only a disgraced former heavyweight boxing champion, but he is a convicted rapist.

Tyson duped, forcibly confined, brutalized and raped an 18-year-old woman.

Nobody on the creative team of The Hangover Part II seems to have had a problem with that and to reiterate, Tyson's cameo was an excellent comment on the excess of Vegas and show business in general. He was playing himself and using him was cleverly rooted in the narrative. Here, there is barely a narrative, just a pallid retread job so that's really the only reason for him to be here. Gibson, on the other hand, would have been playing an actual part. That said, he might have been a good enough sport to play Mel Gibson - reduced to working as a tattoo artist in Bangkok after his numerous falls from grace. Chances are, though, nobody on this team thought about doing that. They just reacted in a knee-jerk fashion to another of Mel's rants and dumped him. Keeping the rapist was fine though.

This, of course, speaks volumes about the kind of foul, indecent and duplicitous thinking that went into the making of this film. I'm the first to defend political incorrectness when it's funny and has some sort of point beyond indulging in a few cheap laughs. Lots of cheap laughs might have been slightly preferable, but that's not the case here. It's a bad movie - period. That's certainly not worth defending. Accepting the above hypocrisy of dumping Gibson, but keeping a "good-natured" rapist in the film is indefensible to the extreme.

My hope would be that any future sequel might actually have a story for the characters from the first film and that anything that happened here could just be ignored.

I'm not going to hold my breath.

The Hangover Part II is currently in wide release through Warner Brothers.

I Melt With You (2011) dir. Mark Pellington
Starring: Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven, Christian McKay, Carla Gugino

*

By Alan Bacchus

Imagine the four young kids from Stand By Me grew up to be raging cokeheads who annually reunite in a week-long hedonistic binge fest pushing their bodies to the limit in terms of shear drug capacity. Minus the Stand By Me reference this is the starting point for Mark Pellington’s monumentally preposterous male-melodrama I Melt With You.

For Jonathan, Richard, Ron and Tim it’s time for their annual reunion, this year in a spectacular rented mansion somewhere on the California coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Immediately upon arrival the coke gets spilled out and the fun begins. Long montage scenes show the buddies getting really really high, and drunk and acting like buffoonish cavemen. This lasts for days, some locals kids from the bar even stop by to partake in the action, one of whom is played by the notorious Sasha Grey. By day the boys fish, race cars on the beach all the while doing more cocaine, and set to a every drug-related 80’s pop tune you can think of.

Pellington’s cacophony of mind-numbing visual and aural stimulation is like Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers with a dash of Enter the Void as written by Bret Easton Ellis. Unfortunately when laid over the bombastic and soulless story crafted by Pellington and his writer Glenn Porter it's as inert as a stale fart.

Admittedly it takes an hour of repetitious excessive drug use treated as a glorified tool for male bonding and machoness in order for the shoe to drop. The continual beat down of these toxic substances, and stylized montage sequences, had me half packing my bag to get up and leave. The shoe finally drops at the half way mark, when one of the friends commit suicide, a dramatic turn which admittedly piqued my curiosity. Ok, this might finally be going somewhere…

Unfortunately, though the tone shifts to sombre reflections on the nagging issues with each of the men, Pellington and his actors remain high as kites with histrionics cranked to the max. A letter written 25 years ago by the four friends fuels the next set of decisions in this second act. The men make the absolute worst decision possible by burying their dead friend in the backyard, while contemplating the contents of said letter (the exact details of which are hidden from us until the end).

The entire time Pellington intercuts more slo-motion wideangle close-ups of cocaine being hovered into their noses, flashes of preachy white-on-black text, and random stock shots of 9/11 and the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. The super-glossy cinematography is too pristine and slick for it‘s own good, lacking any kind of texture, thus rendering it all as superficial and manipulative as a Nike or Levi’s commercial.

There‘s actually some rather strong themes of brotherhood and the male ego gone awry buried in all this mess. In the second half of the picture Pellington admirably takes his characters to task for all their debauchery and immoral behaviour, but without an ounce of grace, respite or shred of realism, I Melt With You, feels as dumb as last year's Sundance bomb Joel Schumacher's Twelve.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009) dir. Jan Kounen
Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Anna Mouglalis, Elena Morozova, Grigori Manoukov and Anatole Taubman

*

By Greg Klymkiw

You know a movie about the affair between Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel is going to be as entertaining as anal fissures when the camera glides along lugubriously for no rhyme nor reason save for the pretension of its director as characters stare endlessly at each other or at nobody or nothing in particular and worst of all, when the opening set piece - an attempt to recreate the disastrous premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps is presented with all the "style" of those dull performing arts TV specials so popular in the late 80s and early 90s.

While it would be unfair to slog the rich production design and often gorgeously lit cinematography, it's as staid and overtly arty as most everything else in this movie. The picture is often gorgeous, but to what end? The drama is so mute and dull, the performances so sub-Masterpiece Theatre, the screenplay so bereft of any true passion or conflict, that the picture is little more than a foreign language Merchant-Ivory costumer (sans the occasionally trashy/arty Merchant-Ivory aesthetic).

So what do we get? A largely passion-free ill-fated romance between Coco and Igor. Coco, still pining for her dead lover Arthur "Boy" Capel, attends the premiere of Stravinsky's work. In spite of the jeers of derision from all the snooty French people in the audience, she recognizes in Stravinsky's work the same sort of commitment to expanding the boundaries of music as she is endowed with expanding in the world of fashion and perfume. Given, however, director Kounen's middle-of-the-road rendering of the ballet is, one wonders why she doesn't join the rioting Gallic upper crust types. But no, instead she offers Stravinsky and his family a safe haven in her country mansion and her patronage.

This is followed by much staring and a plethora of unmotivated camera moves.

Almost one hour into the movie, we get our first sex scene between Coco and Igor. And what a doozy! It's about as sexy as one of those unmotivated camera moves. Watching it, I longed for an episode of Red Shoe Diaries, but sooner than you can say "cum shot", Kounen cuts out of the dishwater dull gymnastics on the rug and gives us some nice shots of foliage.

Speaking of Red Shoes (minus the "Diaries" part), any movie that features ballet needs to include dance sequences that at least match if not better the great Powell-Pressburger classic The Red Shoes. If not, it's best to just forget it. Emulation of performing arts specials on television just doesn't cut it. Darren Aronofsky knew this all to well - hence, the brilliant Black Swan.

And if you're going to ask your actors to strip down and pretend to have sex, you kind of need to shoot them with some panache.

The second coital snore-fest is bookended with endless shots of Stravinsky's wife looking dour and more unmotivated camera moves, and worse yet, some incredibly hopeless still-life shots of, well, not much of anything really. A few dull conversation scenes about, not much of anything follow and Coco is off on a business trip, leaving Igor in her mansion alone with his wife and family. This, happily, gives us an opportunity to watch Igor play chess with his son, followed by a snail-paced conversation between Igor and his wife where she finally reveals, "I feel like I don't know you anymore." Seeking something even more scintillating, helmer Kounen takes us back to Coco as she spends an eternity sniffing perfumes in her lab and finally, she hits pay dirt and discovers Chanel No. 5 - certainly reason enough to celebrate and return to her country home for another dull round of sex with Igor.

At approximately 75 minutes into the picture, Coco offers Igor's wife some free perfume while Igor plays croquet with the kids. A ridiculous conversation ensues between the two ladies where wifey begs Coco not to interfere with Igor's music. This leads to wifey telling Igor she smells the decay of her own insides as if she were dead. Yup, that sure would make any man's schwance rise to the occasion. Igor and wifey stare at each other and we cut to another boring sex scene twixt Coco and Igor and more unmotivated camera moves and skewed angles during pillow talk.

When Coco makes another trip away from home we are treated to shots of Igor lying on the ground, walking around and wifey sitting forlornly on a swing.

Do I need to go on?

I thought not.

However, indulge me.

We get a dull dinner scene with Diaghlev and Nijinsky. It's actually quite a feat making a dinner party with those two light-in-the-loafers funsters boring. My hat off to our helmer.

After what seems an eternity, Igor's wife and family finally leave so Igor can romp about in Coco's love nest all by his lonesome. Coco reads a letter from wifey and Kounen brilliantly reveals an imaginary wifey behind Coco's back whispering her contemptuous thoughts into her ear. Gee whiz! I cant say I've seen that before.

Soon enough, Igor begins writing music furiously, but when he needs to saw off a piece of Coco ass, she rebuffs him. He goes back to his music, composes a masterpiece, drinks himself into a stupor and Coco loads him into a bathtub without offering even a hand job. Scintillatingly, we get to see Igor lying in the bath alone for quite some time.

Eventually, Chanel No. 5 becomes popular and Igor achieves the fame he deserves.

Both become old.

Alone and adorned with bad, heavily applied makeup to remind us they are old, 'tis only the memories of their passionless affair that keeps them going, no doubt, to their respective deaths.

And what of me? Or you, the audience?

We are left only with the feeling that we've lost 120 precious minutes of our lives watching pretentious art house drivel.

It's a wonderful life, mais non? Yeah sure! Pass me a bottle of Chanel No. 5 so I can chug it back and drown out my sorrow.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Last Night (2010) dir. Massy Tadjedin
Starring: Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes, Guillaume Canet and Griffin Dunne

*

By Greg Klymkiw

There are many detestable things about Last Night, but for me, the worst offence is that it might eventually overtake and/or be confused with Don McKellar's moving, powerful, exquisite and near-perfect gem of a film from 1998 in TV Guide listings and internet searches. That said, I suspect these fears are unfounded since McKellar's film has a universal, original quality that will far outlast Massy Tadjedin's execrable non-entity which, I sincerely believe will be long forgotten soon after it afflicts the world with its inconsequential presence. At worst, Tadjedin's picture, by boneheadedly filching the title, besmirches only itself.

Okay, so I won't torture you too much. I'll also not bother referring to Tadjedin's aborted fetus of the celluloid kind by title anymore.

A gorgeous, wealthy New York couple (Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington) in their sumptuous only-in-the-movies New York luxury apartment burst the bubble of complacency in their relationship when they argue and then, during a twenty four hour period of being on their own, are faced with the prospect of indulging in extra-marital flings with Eva Mendes and Guillaume Canet respectively. As the film progresses, (or rather, plods along), we are assaulted with interminable vacuous conversations of the should-we-or-shouldn't-we variety against the backdrop of high-end locations in NYC and Philadelphia. The couples gaze longingly at each other, make ever-so tentative moves until eventually, something vaguely happens.

Why on Earth anyone thought this would make a good picture is anyone's guess. Why on Earth anyone would bother seeing it, is yet another. And finally, why it landed a closing night berth at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival is yet another.

Three of the four leading actors (Knightley, Worthington and Canet) do their utmost to flesh out non-existent characters and while there's a pubic hair's worth of engagement on seeing them strut their stuff, one mostly feels sorry for their efforts. Eva Mendes looks great, but she seem completely out of place - her discomfort is obvious and her line readings hit the floor with resounding thuds.

The movie comes briefly alive in two instances. The first is seeing Keira Knightley plodding around in various states of undress and the second is the appearance of the truly great actor Griffin Dunne. When Knightley and Canet proceed to a fashionable resto to engage in drinkies and chit-chat with another couple, the male half of the unit is played with delicious salaciousness by Dunne, and I wondered why the movie couldn't have just followed him. It's the only interesting character in the film from a writing standpoint and Dunne commands the screen so brilliantly and daringly, that he pretty much blows everyone and everything away. It reminded me of his great sense of humour and all I could finally think about is how much I miss seeing him in movies on a regular basis. What's neat is that he's aged so terrifically since American Werewolf in London and Scorsese's After Hours - there's a cool, sexy, slightly world-weary (yet all knowing) maturity to him now.

If anything, maybe this awful movie will be enough to inspire a Griffin Dunne reunion with Scorsese.

Imagine it: Dunne, Pesci and DeNiro in a new Scorsese picture.

Imagine it while you're watching this piece of garbage.

All About Evil (2010) Dir. Joshua Grannell
Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker, Mink Stole, Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson and Noah Segan

*

By Greg Klymkiw

There are some movies you want to love - especially if you're a lover of movies, and most notably, a lover of genre movies. However, it ultimately matters very little how well intentioned, how securely the movie's heart is in the right place, how much its filmmaker shares your love for all the same things, the bottom line is always a heartbreaker - if the movie stinks, the movie stinks, and there's not too much else to be said.

All About Evil is such a picture.

This tale of revenge, murder and artistic blossoming against the backdrop of the Grand Guignol of el-cheapo splatter films, keeps feeling like it should work, but it simply doesn't. The talented child star turned train wreck, Natasha Lyonne top-lines as the much-beleagured mouse of girl, Deborah - accent on the second syllable, please. Her Dad always dreamed she'd be a star. Her Mom had nothing but contempt for her. In the end, she became a librarian while Dad continued to run his tiny little picture palace where he screened mostly movies he loved.

Upon Dad's death, Deborah tries to keep the old place going by running a repertory selection of camp horror classics of the Herschell Gordon Lewis variety. She has one loyal customer in the form of teenager Steven (Thomas Dekker) and a scraggly band of miscreants. When Mom demands she sell the theatre for its real estate value, Deborah goes berserk and viciously slaughters Mater on security cam, no less. When the footage mistakenly goes up on the screen instead of the title on the marquee Blood Feast, the audience goes nuts.

They love the surprise movie to death.

Deborah knows a good thing when she sees it and she quickly rediscovers the acting bug her Dad unsuccessfully encouraged in her to his dying day. Deborah now needs to feed her hungry public, but also feed her ego, and most importantly, her hatred of anyone who fucks her over and/or just plain offends her. She collects a motley group of like-minded souls and proceeds to make a series of gruesome snuff films. The public has no idea they're seeing real killings, however, and Deborah goes undetected.

This is pretty much the whole movie until it accelerates and explodes in an orgy of bloody mayhem.

This could have been entertaining, but there are a few things keeping it from working on that level. The most significant failing is that it's just plain bad. Worse than that, it's campy. Not that there's anything wrong with camp, but when camp is bad (and yes, there's good camp and bad camp), there's nothing more excruciating to sit through.

Not to get too high falutin' here, but I think it's apt to haul out a bit of Susan Sontag and her Notes on "Camp". Sontag, I believe, hits the nail on the head when she states: "One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naive. Camp which knows itself to be Camp ("camping") is usually less satisfying." This, of course, is exactly what keeps All About Evil from working. In fact, it's not just a matter of being "less satisfying", the movie intentionally or inadvertently tries so hard to live up to the Sontagian essence of Camp in "its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration", that it becomes extremely dissatisfying.

Writer-Director Joshua Grannell (AKA drag queen extraordinaire, Peaches Christ) pummels us with his knowing artifice to the point of boredom. Even worse, his approach seems to exemplify the more horrendous Sontagian notion that "Camp is esoteric -- something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques." Granted, filmmakers like John Waters or Guy Maddin cudgel us with esoterica, but they do so with genuine filmmaking virtuosity.

Grannell has the cinematic equivalent to a "tin ear". He is not the kind of filmmaker that has cinema hard wired into his DNA. Every detail is forced to the point of exhaustion. Waters, for example, has a crackling sense of pace, but Grannell has none. Between each ultra violent set piece, the movie plods along like some fruity Apatosaurus on downers and when the set pieces become more over-the-top, the movie simply takes a nose dive.

One of the more regrettable aspects of the movie is its nastiness. Now don't get me wrong, I love nasty as much as the next fella' - especially when it blends the kind of brilliant dark humour and dazzling imagery one finds in the best work of someone like Brian DePalma, but from a narrative standpoint, Grannell loses our empathy with Deborah completely when she goes after the matronly librarian she used to work with. There's really not a darn thing wrong with the old bird - she's kindly and genuinely concerned about Deborah's well-being. To see Deborah sewing the woman's lips shut in graphic detail pretty much flushes any shred of humanity her character might have been endowed with right down the toilet. Just because there is "artifice" involved in camp, it doesn't mean humanity must be abandoned. Then again, to the fakes who create such material and those who lap it up, humanity is just a little too cool for school.

I saw the picture during the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2010 and while I applaud the decision to show the film (camp, even if its bad, has a place within the context of such a festival), watching it was extremely painful. It was especially horrific being surrounded by a full house that included a healthy dollop of the "urban cliques" Sontag referred to. This particular urban clique is the worst sort of urban clique. They force laughs out of their bellies and I'm convinced that at a subconcious level, they're forcing themselves to enjoy the movie because they think (or desperately and pathetically want to believe) that's what is required. This rarified vantage point is, ultimately, what gives camp a bad name and in fact, encourages makers of such work to keep foisting their trifles upon us. Interestingly, the full house was not as raucously appreciative as the minority in the house who managed to annoyingly make their holier than thou anti-art presence known.

And as awful as the experience was, I'm glad to have had it. Any excuse to think about camp - something I genuinely love - is always welcome. And for me, it's important, every so often, to have an experience like this to remind me of how special and wonderful camp can be and that it takes great or pure artists to pull it off. Seeing something this inept is an extra forceful reminder of that fact.

The After Dark Film Festival 2010 edition has a number of more exciting prospects ahead including a new Neil Marshall, a new Phillip Ridley and, God help us, the remake of Mair Zarchi's I Spit On Your Grave. The schedule can be accessed HERE.

Wild Grass - Les herbes folle dir. Alain Resnais
Starring: Andre Dussolier, Sabine Azema, Anne Consigny, Emmanuelle Delos and Mathieu Amairic.

*

By Greg Klymkiw

This movie makes no sense.

Purporting to tell the story of George Palet (Andre Dussolier), a seemingly benign old man who finds an abandoned wallet near his car in a parking garage, "Wild Grass" never, at any point, betrays a smidgen of knowing what it's supposed to be about. We most certainly have no idea who the main character is. Very quickly after he finds the wallet, however, we sense he might be a psychopath as he ogles two sexy women and complains in his thoughts about their provocative garb. He even contemplates murdering one of them.

Ah, we think, a thriller.

When he examines the wallet and sees the picture of its owner Marguerite Muir (Sabine Azema), a dour, plain, oily-faced, frizzy-haired carrot top, he becomes instantly smitten with her lack of charm. We're now no longer convinced he's a psycho, but a hapless brick head.

As George mulls over what to do with the wallet - should he deliver it directly to her or take it to the police - we're delivered the most idiotic bit of information imaginable. It would seem Marguerite is a dentist AND an aviatrix. Well, in the movies, anything is possible, so we're willing to be mildly intrigued in spite of smelling more than a few unpleasant wafts of what an irredeemable piece of pretentious crap this is going to be.

Upon deciding he must take the wallet to the police, he encounters Bernard de Bordeaux (Mathieu Amairic), a compassionate desk sergeant who immediately senses that George is indeed troubled. At this point, more than a few hints have been dropped that George might very well be insane.

Hmm. Maybe this IS going to be a thriller - especially when George becomes obsessed with Marguerite and proceeds to harass her on the telephone, stalk her and demand that she meet him face-to-face. She refuses, as she has already thanked him once. However, George keeps insisting that his act of kindness DEMANDS a face-to-face meeting.

Well, he might be crazy, but perhaps he's not a psychopath. In fact, he might just be a lonely old man wanting to reach out to an individual who APPEARS in her photo to be someone who needs him - though, in reality, due to his badgering, she most definitely needs him like a cluster of genital warts on her mons veneris.

When we discover George is obsessed with meeting and seducing the frizz-haired frump in spite of being married to the young, sexy Suzanne (Anne Consigny), a wife who is devoted to him, puts up with his dour nature AND appears to not notice how old and ugly he is, we are for certain convinced he is completely out of his mind.

When he slashes all the tires on Marguerite's car in order to stop her from going to work so he can force himself upon her and then, not having the nerve to face her, he leaves a note of apology and explanation on her windshield, it becomes plainly apparent that this movie is going nowhere fast - especially when the frump begins to obsess over George.

At one point, Marguerite becomes so obsessed with George that she arranges a meeting with Suzanne and the two of them bond while - I kid you not - George seduces Marguerite's mind-numbingly sexy colleague Josepha (Emmanuelle Delos), a dentist who looks like she morphed off a Vogue magazine cover.

At this point, the film becomes so increasingly obtuse, precious and pretentious that the only way to keep watching it is to nail your feet to the floor,

This loathsome pile of artsy-fartsy garbage not only won a Jury Prize at the Cannes film festival, but garnered quite a few stellar reviews. This, I think, is more than enough proof that the fall of Western Civilization is upon us. And yes, Resnais directed the classic "Hiroshima Mon Amour", an art film of compelling, timeless beauty, but it's no reason to cut the guy some slack.

This is, purely and simply, an abominable film experience.

See it at your peril.

Better yet, just go see "Jonah Hex".

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) dir. David Slade
Starring: Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard and Billy Burke

*

By Greg Klymkiw

Wading through this vat of raw sewage, I came to the conclusion that only one of two types of people in this world might enjoy watching it - those who have a good time nailing their titties or testicles to the floor and/or completely brain dead vegetables.

Replete with endless, dull, poorly written conversations punctuated occasionally with uninspired, sloppily directed bursts of violence, I can only shake my head in disgust at how low our civilization is sinking. Call me a curmudgeon, assume I am pathetically uncool, accuse me of sounding like my father - I don't particularly care. Today's youth are pathetic - pure and simple. When I was younger, my idea of a vampire movie included great actors like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee squaring off as vampire hunter and vampire respectively against the backdrop of garish colour schemes. heaving bosoms and atmosphere thicker than Shelley Winters's waistline in the original "Poseidon Adventure".

The first instalment of "Twilight" at least had the virtue of a relatively well-directed and watchable opening 40-or-so minutes. The second helping was a complete mess. Now, due to millions of boneheads watching the previous entries, Hollywood has foisted upon us a third portion of this interminable "saga". I use the word "saga" loosely, if at all, only because the filmmakers have chosen, somewhat erroneously to include it in the title and thus, label it as such. A saga in the traditional sense would normally have something resembling epic qualities, which this film and its predecessors are sorely lacking. In fact, much of the world created by the movie feels - in spite of being set against the great outdoors backdrop of Washington State - strangely claustrophobic. The soap-operatic ruminations of the three central characters belong on afternoon television, not a big screen.

This is not to say that melodrama is out of place in vampire and werewolf tales, it is indeed the backbone of such genre items. That said, there's good melodrama and bad melodrama. The legendary Dan Curtis delivered a consistently creepy and sexy horror soap opera on his daily television serial "Dark Shadows" in the 60s and wowed us with an astounding big-screen version in the 70s called "House of Dark Shadows".

Alas, these three "Twilight" pictures are rooted in revisionism of the clunkiest kind and are so gently precious and tame that they not only drag the whole genre down, but, as stated earlier, reflect the pathetic state of today's youth for buying into such pap.

Again, we who are possessed of brain cels must suffer through the triangle established in "New Moon" involving Bella (Kristen Stewart), the mixed-up mortal with a desire to become a vampire and her romantic obsessions with the pale, thin bloodsucker Edward (Robert Pattinson) and the buff werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Lautner's pectorals and abs of steel are genuinely impressive and might have even rivalled the milky cleavage content of Hammer Horror pictures if everything else was as awe-inspiring. It's not, however. In fact, the shirtless porn on display is as wasted as John Travolta wearing those delicious form-fitting shorts in the ill-fated "Moment By Moment" where we were forced to succumb to the vomit-inducing sight of him having to swap saliva with Lily Tomlin.

This episode of "Twilight" is especially disturbing since it is helmed by a solid director. David Slade, who delivered the tense, creepy "Hard Candy" and "30 Days of Night", one of the scariest vampire pictures in years, seems largely absent here. The dialogue scenes are covered like a standard dramatic television series, the action sequences are poorly shot and choppily edited and the whole enterprise is so bereft of suspense and style, that one assumes Slade did a paint-by-numbers job in order to secure himself bankability by handing over an unexceptional platter of mediocrity to satiate the boneheads who moronically continue to make this franchise a hit.

About the only thing worth discussing is that I saw the picture in one of two new theatres in Canada that the Cineplex chain is describing as "UltraAVX" - a supposedly new and exciting approach to motion picture exhibition. I'll agree that the digital image is unbeatable - utterly pristine and crystal clear. The sound is also successfully "immersive" as described - in fact, it's so effective that at times, the bass seems to almost make you jiggle in your seat not unlike that of the 70s oddball exhibition feature called "Sensurround ".

The three other major attributes of UltraAVX are less impressive. The wall to wall screen is as advertised, but the top and bottom of the frame is not masked properly and is frankly a bit annoying as it takes one out of the supposedly immersive quality of the image. The bigger, supposedly more comfortable rocker chairs are, in fact, extremely uncomfortable - one sinks into them too deeply and the rocking effect pulls you back too far. In fact, for all the hype about this new seating, leg-room is still an issue and throughout much of the screening, an usher annoyingly paraded back and forth telling people to take their feet off the chairs in front of them. Unfortunately, the first few rows especially forced people into doing this because of the poor design of the chairs themselves. Finally, the reserved seating feature is just a major pain. If you're stuck anywhere near boneheads blabbing or eating with their mouths open (the latter an especially common and disgusting habit in movie theatres these days) then moving to a different seat becomes problematic. Luckily, I prefer the front row (which was empty) and was eventually able to move there after listening to people around me eat their popcorn more grotesquely than pigs at a trough.

Then again, maybe this new "Twilight" experience is a perfect picture to launch this new theatre since the movie is designed to appeal to undiscriminating, swill lapping hogs.

Did You Hear About The Morgans? (2009) Dir. Marc Lawrence
Starring: Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Harper, Sam Elliot and Mary Steenburgen

*

By Greg Klymkiw



There are many things wrong with the insufferable new romantic comedy "Did You Hear About The Morgans?", but its most obvious indignity to humanity is, of course, Ms. Sarah Jessica Parker. Voted by the astute readers of Maxim as "The Un-Sexiest Person Alive", Ms. Parker is, to my uncharitable eyes, the most repulsive leading lady ever to grace the silver screen. Inspired, however, by the good cheer of the Christmas season to take a more humane stance when considering the virtues of a two-legged ungulate mammal, I suppressed the title of the great novel and film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and instead, reminded myself that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and only skin-deep. With an earnest commitment to put aside my petty quibbles over Ms. Parker's looks, I decided instead to search beneath her equine visage and peel back the unsightly layer to glance deep into her very soul. And what did I find? The personality of a harridan. So much for being charitable.

Sitting through "Did You Hear About The Morgans?" I was mouth agape as I bore witness to the affable shaggy-dog Hugh Grant (as a Manhattan lawyer) revealing how incalculably love-stricken he is with this braying glue factory reject. Ms. Parker purports to portray a real-estate baroness who makes the cover of New York magazine due to her apparent prowess in selling over-priced Manhattan properties to rich people. Mr. Grant and Ms. Parker were once a lovingly married couple, but as Ms. Parker's fortunes in the real estate market rise, Mr. Grant's minimal exposure to Ms. Parker's pursed punim and castrating klafte, forces him to abandon the preferred alternative of palm action to satisfy his manly needs and instead indulge in a brief extra-marital affair. Alas, this act of dipping his wick into another vat of hot wax is the one and only straw that breaks the camel's back of their perfect marriage. (We know it was perfect because the script tells us it was.) Having been separated from his filly for three long months, Mr. Grant is desperate to get her back. He successfully rustles up Ms. Parker in her horse flesh at a swanky fund-raiser for breast cancer and begs for an opportunity to spend some quality time to talk over their situation. She reluctantly agrees.

This is where the movie gets even worse and at this point, it's not all Ms. Parker's fault. The blame can now be squarely shifted to the supremely untalented writer-director of this atrocity, Marc Lawrence - not just for the poor taste of casting Ms. Parker, but because he has rendered a work that reaches the nadir of his canon (as it were). Having written and directed the wretched "Music and Lyrics" and "Two Weeks Notice", in addition to writing (so to speak) the screenplays for "Miss Congeniality I and II" and the grotesque remake of "The Out-of-Towners" and, lest we forget, his five long years of cranking out episodes of the moronic Michael J. Fox TV-series "Family Ties", Mr. Lawrence has been rooted in the realm (such as it is) of "how low can one go?" and with this movie, manages to bore well below rock bottom.

"Did You Hear About The Morgans?" is one of the worst romantic comedies ever made - not only a paint-by-numbers rom-com, but an overblown episode of "Green Acres". And that, I fear, is an insult to "Green Acres".

When Mr. Grant and Ms. Parker witness a gangland slaying, they are shipped off from Manhattan to the middle of Nowheresville, Wyoming to serve out an undetermined amount of time in a witness protection program. The one tiny bright spot in this mess are the husband and wife U.S. Marshall team charged with guarding them, played by the attractive and delightful Sam Elliot and Mary Steenburgen. If only the movie had been about THEM. As the picture cross-pollinates with the fish-out-of-water genre, writer (as it were) Lawrence, tosses in an evil hit man hell bent on tracking our couple down to rub them out.

The predictable course this journey takes is in the gradual revelation that time in the wilderness is going to be an ideal backdrop for our lovebirds to get back together. We, the audience, then get to experience one "joke" after another as these dyed-in-the-wool big city folk learn the virtues of down home living, big box stores, air-brained small-town inbreds, and membership in the National Rifle Association. We even get to see Mr. Grant needing to use bear repellent and spray it in his own eyes -not just once, but - Whah-Whah! - TWICE!

In the parlance of many a New Yorker, "Oy, Gevault!" Can the picture possibly get any worse? You bet! We're inflicted with witnessing how the rural inbreds of Wyoming come to appreciate the joys of new-fangled big-city ways in this backwards idyll.

It is, at this point, dear reader that I must admit - with some embarrassment - to literally vomiting on the floor of the theatre auditorium. I'd prefer to say the movie initiated this unexpected expulsion, but alas, I'd be a liar - it was, in fact some poorly masticated and undigested chunks of Schneider's all-beef hot dog that I purchased from the concession that managed to come up on me without enough warning to take leave of my seat.

But, I digress.

So, where does this all go? Well, it's probably no surprise that our couple reunites and that the threat of the hit man is laid to rest when the entire town of inbreds - man, woman and - YES! - child, pulls out their firearms and rescues Mr. Grant and Ms. Parker from the cold-hearted killer.

The even bigger shock is how a weakly integrated subplot of our couple's attempts to have children turns out. Earlier in the film, it's revealed that Mr. Grant is shooting blanks during the couple's indulgence in marital duties and that adoption is being pursued as an alternative to a natural childbirth that will never happen. Nowhere in the film does it suggest that it's Ms. Parker's fault for inspiring sterility in Mr. Grant, but we know better, don't we? In any event, all wraps up sweetly when our couple adopts a baby from China, names it (I kid you not) after the small town in Wyoming where they re-discovered their love for each other AND, yes, you guessed it, Mr. Grant musters a decent shot on goal and Ms. Parker is indeed pregnant with her very own biologically-generated child.

All that finally remains by the end of the film is what our imagination can possibly conjure up for what might finally pop out of Ms. Parker's womb. Something, no doubt, that will make the creature that pops out of John Hurt's chest in "Alien" resemble Shirley Temple in "Dimples".