Gorbaciof - The Cashier Who Liked Gambling (2010) dir. Stefano Incerti
Starring:Toni Servillo, Mi Yang, Hal Yamanaouchi

*1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Do you, perchance, salivate over the prospect of watching a beautiful young Asian woman lovingly massage the dirty, stinking gnarly toes of an old Italian tough-guy-sad-sack-loser-gambler-thief who thinks he's Buster Keaton (albeit with a birth mark on his balding forehead)?

Well then, have I got a movie for you!

Gorbaciof - The Cashier Who Liked Gambling is exactly the sort of movie film festival programmers, purported film critics and pseuds-who-patronize-film-festivals-to-pretend-how-much-they-like-art-films just love to bits.

The rest of us can feel free to vomit anytime.

Starring the great actor Toni Servillo (who played the corrupt longtime Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in the fabulous Il Divo) is the title character in this film. While his world weary, hang-dog mug is fascinating to look at, especially as he wanders about like a cross between Humphrey Bogart and Rondo Hatton, adorned in cheap sport coats and greasy, slick-backed hair, the fascination only lasts so long.

On one hand, the bare bones of the story could have worked. By day, Gorbaciof is a petty clerk in a prison who takes cash deposits from visitors, processes their deposits and places them in a safe he has access to. By night, he's an inveterate gambler who patronizes the back room of an Asian cafe in order to play relatively high stakes poker with the Asian proprietor, a sleazy Italian mob-tied lawyer and many other unsavoury types. He stakes himself by lifting money from the deposits, taking a huge chance that he'll be able to replace the dough next morning - provided he doesn't lose.

That said, the cafe is run by the proprietor's daughter, played by the gorgeous Asian actress Mi Yang. Gorbaciof is smitten with her Oriental charms and when her Dad needs a gambling-related bail-out, he unwisely uses his stake money and winnings to help the unlucky proprietor out. When Gorbacioff begins losing, he gets deeper and deeper in debt with his "borrowings" and soon, he succumbs to securing loans from the sleazy lawyer. He also begins openly courting the daughter and she slowly starts to fall for him, while he lavishes her with gifts and outings.

Needless to say, there's only one way this story is going to go.

Imbued with elements of noir and 70s existential male angst in addition to Servillo's weighty presence plus some truly stunning gritty cinematography, the picture could have been a winner. Alas, several crucial elements render the film dead on arrival.

First of all, the picture goes out of its way to create a central character who is a man of few words. This shouldn't have been a problem, but the manner in which it's executed certainly is. Playing up the silent man stuff so relentlessly, it doesn't take long for it to feel like a major and obtrusive contrivance. Even the fine Servillo seems unable to carry this off since the film strains to keep dialogue from him to such a ridiculous degree that it feels forced.

Secondly, making Yang's character unable to speak Italian is another major flaw. The character quickly descends into the cliche of Asian women being docile and mute.

Thirdly, the contrivance of a love story between two people who cannot communicate verbally is not without merit, but within the context of the ethnic stereotype and the silent trait of the central character, it again feels like a contrivance.

(As a sidenote - contrivance and manipulation are not a bad thing, but they are when you can see them play out so obviously.)

Finally, there's something vaguely offensive of presenting an Asian woman so purportedly lonely and bereft of human contact that she's willing and able to submit to the dubious charms of this misfit Rice King. It could have worked so magnificently if the filmmakers had chosen to present her as someone with some spunk, individuality and the ability to converse, however the whole thing smacks of contrivance again. Oooohhhhh, two people, separated by language, find each other through the universal language of love.

It's sickening - pure and simple.

Even more sickening is when she massages his feet.

Lovingly.

I don't, however, think I need to remind you again of that repellent image. It was enough to make me want to douse my eyes with the kind of heavy-duty optical wash used in factories when horrendous accidents occur.

Even now, I am compelled to wish, as Kirk Douglas wished in The Detective Story for the ability to remove my brain and hold it under a tap of water to clean the "dirty pictures" that were put in there.

And even now, the bile rises at the very thought of those gnarly toes being stroked and massaged by those delicate hands.

This is a memory I desperately need to repress.

And so you will also.

127 Hours (2010) dir. Danny Boyle
Starring: James Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Treat Williams, Amber Tamblyn

***½

By Alan Bacchus

There seems to be a trend recently of filmmakers challenging themselves with self-imposed cinematic constraints. Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried as the most extreme (and successful) having shot an entire film in a coffin. For Danny Boyle the challenge here is to make a film set almost entirely in a claustrophobic gorge, with one character trapped in between the rocks.

The main hurdle for Boyle is not the location or the isolation of his character but making the film entertaining when the audience knows exactly what happens. For those who don’t know, don’t read on, for those who have been tracking the film since it was announced we know it’s the true story of Aron Ralston a mountaineer/adventurer/thrill seeker who accidentally fell into a gorge and got stuck in between the rocks for 127 hours before committing a shocking act of self-surgery to get himself out. As such, can this film be entertaining knowing exactly how it plays out and where it will go? Thanks for Danny Boyle’s supreme storytelling skills the answer is yes.

The film opens with a typically energetic Danny Boyle sequence, a very bright and colourful split screen sequence representing the fast paced lifestyle of Aron. We then watch Ralston at home gathering his gear for his next adventure, a solo bike ride in a Utah canyon. Extreme closeups of Ralston’s procedure tells us he’s done this before, and that the speed with which he prepares means he also taking for granted the extreme danger of his endeavour. His carefree attitude will literally crash down when a slip of the foot causes a boulder to land down on top of him jamming his arm in between the rock face.

Boyle and his co-writer Simon (Slumdog) Beaufoy carefully craft the character from Ralston’s actions. Ralston approaches his predicament with intelligent logic and a bit of trial and error. He lays out his possessions in front of him to see what tools he has to work with, measures out his foot and water supply, along with a few cries for help which he knows will go unanswered.

By the 20mins mark when Ralston gets trapped Boyle appears to have cornered himself cinematically as well. What can Boyle possibly do to keep our interest up before he frees himself? We know it’ll take 127 hours, we know how he escapes, and so the suspense would appear to be zapped from Aron’s various attempts at escape. And so here is the genius and creativity of Boyle. Like Hitchcock self-imposing restraints in Lifeboat or Rope, and even Rodrigo Cortes equally brilliant Buried, Boyle creates a number of thrilling sequences involving the small details of Ralston’s predicament which have life-threatening stakes. For example, early on Ralston drops his knife on the ground, out of reach, the retrieval of which makes for a very tense sequence.

Boyle and Beaufoy cheat a little bit as well, giving Ralston a video camera to talk into and thus narrate his inner thoughts. Boyle flashes back to thoughts of his childhood like his life flashing before his eyes. Under anyone’s else direction these scenes could have betrayed the intensity of Ralston’s isolation. But seeing Ralston’s parents, girlfriends etc lay a solid foundation of emotional attachment to his character that we desperately want to see him escape.

And then there’s the amputation sequence which we all know is coming, and which Boyle effectively teases us with in a number of ways. Boyle spares us little and leaves almost nothing to the imagination. It’s James Franco though that sells the pain to us, and it’s his resolute desire not to die that gets us through this harrowing sequence. Once out, Boyle, who always has had a terrific ear for music, lays in a fantastic Sigur Ros track to convey the jubilee of Ralston’s release. A beautiful cathartic feeling overwhelms us which sends the film out with a bang in a way few filmmakers can do better.

127 Hours is graphic and you will likely find yourself with hands covering your eyes, but with your fingers slightly open to peak through. Because while it's wholly disturbing, it's like a trainwreck, mordidly fascinating and attractive at the same time. Cudos to Boyle for choosing this film as his follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire, a modest, small scale production, but also a demanding and risky cinematic challenge.

Stake Land (2010) dir. Jim Mickle
Starring: Nick Damici, Connor Paolo, Kelly McGillis, Danielle Harris and Michael Cerveris

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Imagine, if you will, Cormac McCarthy's The Road madly copulating with Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. shooting the seed of post-apocalyptic despair that penetrates the foul egg of vampirism. And the result? The unholy vaginal opening eventually spits forth a cinematic love child that is Stake Land - an intelligent, super-cool, super-scary and super-knock-you-on-your-ass dystopic sci-fi horror picture.

It's the end of the world as we know it. A horrendous virus that's turned most of the world's population into vampires forces what's left of the non-blood-sucking-freaks into crazed survivalists.

Set in the heartland of America, the picture presents a portrait of humanity that's not so different from what already exists - ignorant, Bible Belt Christians bearing arms hole up in fortress (gated) communities - killing non-believers and only killing vampires in self-defence. They believe, wholeheartedly, that this pestilence has been wrought by God to rid the world of sinful degenerates.

Into this mess, we're introduced to the young boy Martin (Connor Paulo) whose parents have just been torn to shreds by vampires. He's rescued by the legendary Mister (Nick Damici), a no-nonsense vampire hunter who, like the character of Neville in Matheson's great novel I Am Legend, is known to all - especially the Bible-thumping survivalists - as the meanest, nastiest vampire killer of them all. And, not unlike The Road, man and boy engage in an odyssey across America in search of the "New Eden" (which is, apparently, Canada - and as a Canadian, I only take exception if the destination is Toronto, the smugly fuckling capital of the world.).

The central antagonist, the skin-headed, bible-spouting madman (with one of the best movie names since "McLovin') Jebediah Loven (played with all the relish one would want from a great screen villain by Michael Cerveris) is always on the prowl for Mister and especially, women for rapin' and a breedin'. Even the vampires seem benign compared to this nutcase.

In addition to Jim Mickle's tremendously directed suspense and action scenes, what separates Stake Land from all the rest is the fact that within the genre conventions of horror and the road movie, the writing is extremely first-rate and while I might have preferred it to be a bit less humourless, I'm thankful it didn't descend into the silly tongue-in-cheek laugh-fest-grabbing cesspool that Zombie Land annoyingly dove into.

The screenplay delivers a nasty, solid, straight-up 70s style dystopia - replete with the kind of natural social commentary that never feels like a sledgehammer. In fact, by setting much of the conflict against the backdrop of Christian fundamentalism, the screenplay does what great dystopian tales should do and provide a solid reflection of our contemporary world situation.

Written by star Damici and director Mickle, it's especially gratifying that the script distinguishes between fundamentalism and genuine faith - avoiding the kind of knee-jerk pot-shots levelled against Christianity. Into the mix, they've written a terrific role for Kelly (Top Gun, Witness) McGillis as a middleaged nun who is saved by Mister from a gang-rape led by Jebediah Loven.

Goddman!

I love that name.

Let's all say it together, shall we?

"JEBEDIAH LOVEN!"

Now don't that make you feel good?

But, I digress.

The nun uses her faith to impart the kind of level-headed wisdom missing on both sides of the fence and the character is drawn by the writers so that she's not a total hook-line-and-sinker swallower of dogma, but a genuine human being who is also faced with a crisis of faith. Finally, though, her character embraces the sacrificial notion of Christianity and provides a tremendously powerful and movie story beat within the film. It's also nice seeing a mature McGillis who delivers a complex and heart-felt performance. And yeah, I still think she's a babe!

Intelligence and artistry aside, though, this movie delivers what all true genre fans would want. The carnage is superb, the makeup effects on the vampires is first rate (l love how they look like zombies/demons) and we also get a MAJOR babe in the form of the delectable Danielle Harris who is the token female eye-candy all genre films must have.

Most importantly, and especially given the title, I for one, was utterly delighted that Stake Land features several magnificent sequences involving the driving of wooden stakes into the hearts, throats and bellies of vampires.

These days, a good stake is rare indeed.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) dir. Werner Herzog
Documentary

***½

By Alan Bacchus

I can’t believe I didn’t know this… in the opening moments Werner Herzog’s delightfully monotone German voice describes to us the discovery of one of the most influential archaeology sites of our time - a cave in France containing pristine, undisturbed cave paintings from 32,000 years ago (that’s THREE zeroes), which makes is the oldest recorded drawings/artwork of man.

Herzog gets us into the caves and shows us in 3-D these phenomenal works of art. I say works for art, because the technique made by these cro magnon men and women are astounding. First of all, the journey into the caves is a story unto itself. After moving through a dead bolted steel door, with small mobile cameras and minimal crew Herzog travels down a sharp cliff and then along a 3 foot wide steel walkway in order not to disturb the crystallized foundation of the cave. The whole cave is a work of art, the stalactites, the bones and skulls of extinct animals, including bears, tigers, and other wholly creatures.

On the walls are a series of intricately painting mosaics of animals using the contours of the caves walls to emphasize movement. As usual Herzog using his easy-going cinematic style he’s able to make even the most dry perfunctory information interesting and important. But Herzog has never been one to settle just for the information, it’s fun watching the scientists and archaeologists who have spent as many as 20 years mapping the caves and scientifically study the drawings be asked about what’s in the soul of the artists, or whether they dream of the painting.

What Herzog really wants to project to his audience is for us to look beyond the art and into the minds of the artists, to imagine their dreams, the spiritual aspect which separates man from animal and which connects us across these ages.

The 3-D is hit and miss. The low rent hand held camera create a nauseating swooshing effect, which loses all of it’s 3-D depth. But when Herzog is able to put his camera on some sticks we can really enjoy the stereoscopic space. Unfortunately within the caves, there’s not enough light to create definition and perspective as such, it’s not the best showcase of the medium.

The film though is another of Herzog’s phenomenal string of successes, doc or drama.

Autumn (2010) dir. Aamir Bashir
Starring: Shahnawaz Bhat, Reza Naji

****

By Greg Klymkiw

The proper pacing of a movie can be a seemingly amorphous goal for many filmmakers. The whole problem, I think, is in the notion of whether something is too slow or not fast enough and what precisely defines and contributes to an audience detecting, then reacting to a picture when it lugubriously shuffles along. That said, and where the confusion can come in is when even a break-neck speed in terms of cuts, movement and/or line delivery contributes immeasurably to creating a dragging effect. Audiences (and I'd argue most reviewers) aren't always aware that it's a supersonic speed that, more often than not, induces boredom and/or sore asses.

I have often tarred and feathered the cinematic output of Iran (and recently added Kyrgyzstan to my ass-numbing-by-country list), but of course, it has less to do with my desire to be obnoxious than with the fact that there ARE rules to the grammar of cinema - the biggest being that a filmmaker must ALWAYS be serving the story and its forward movement, and furthermore, serving the dramatic beats in a style and manner than hammer them home the best.

Autumn is a stunning new film from India that, for the most part, is snail-paced, but in spite of this, I cannot recall a single moment when my mind wandered or when my eye strayed to my iPhone to check email. My eyes were super-glued to the screen. I couldn't take my precious asymmetrical globes off the picture if I tried. Part of this is director Aamir Bashir's desire to tell his story in a manner in which it's all important for us to experience the minute by minute, hour by hour, day in and day out emptiness in the lives of Kashmir's young men.

Living amidst violence, terrorism, poverty and a bleak future, our central character Rafiq (Shahnawaz Bhat), after an unsuccessful try at militancy following the disappearance of his brother exists in a perpetual walking cat-nap, alternately loafing with his friends and working a dead-end job (morning newspaper delivery). Life for Rafiq moves slowly and is punctuated only by bursts of violence around him. Through the course of the film, scattered gunshots are heard, bombs go off and at one point, he and his buddies find a man on the verge of dying with a gaping bullet wound to the belly (which eventually leads Rafiq to a slightly better job after they save the man).

Though haunted by his brother's disappearance, Rafiq wishes to move on. There is the overwhelming feeling of the inevitable - that his brother has been kidnapped by the security forces and/or killed and certainly, Rafiq seems to accept this, but his parents refuse to believe their eldest son is dead. This cloud of non-acceptance hangs over their home like a heavy, dark cloud. At one point, Rafiq's father Jusuf (Reza Naji) suffers a nervous breakdown - adding more strife and tragedy to a situation foreign to most of us in the West, but a matter of course in so many other parts of the world.

This is the story of a world where death, destruction and corruption are endless and by extension, while life is cheap and can end very quickly, life, while it goes on, seems to be an endless, plodding state of aimlessness and despair.

Director Bashir captures this so eloquently through a camera-eye that seldom moves and captures the day-to-day mundane activities of Rafiq - it's as if the very act of living feels like an eternity - like death itself. Shots will often hold longer than audiences might be used to, but the detail and observation within these shots is so exquisite that we experience a highly evocative portrait of a life lived merely for the sake of survival. This is NEVER boring - it is the stuff of great drama - etched with the kind of command one usually experiences in the work of such masters as Yasujiro Ozu, Satyajit Ray or Carl Dreyer, but almost never in the work of young, contemporary filmmakers. Bashir is, by trade, an actor, but I sincerely hope he continues to find subject matter that inspires him as much as that on display in Autumn so he can give up his "day job" and dazzle us again and again with his astounding command of cinematic storytelling.

This is a story that DEMANDS a measured pace. The picture is almost neorealism in extremis and there is little by way of overt lyricism - save for the few lyrical moments in the lives of the characters; most notably when Rafiq's chum sings a haunting song as the young men laze about under the autumn sky and the lads encourage him to enter a television variety show for amateurs with talent and, most importantly, when Rafiq becomes drawn to taking photographs using his late brother's camera. The pace is what PRECISELY allows for small moments like these to take on almost mythic proportions within the narrative itself.

Too many art and/or independent films almost annoyingly wear their slow pace like some badge of honour. This is why such pictures give this slower approach a bad name - their "artistry" feels machine-tooled.

Not so with Autumn. This is one of the most stately and profoundly moving films I've seen in recent years - it is replete with compassion and humanity, using its exquisite, delicate pace to examine and remind us how precious every second of life on this earth is.

Three (2010) dir. Tom Tykwer
Starring: Devid Striesow, Sophie Rois, Sebastian Schipper, Senta Dorothea Kirschner, Karl Alexander Seidel

***

By Alan Bacchus

Tom Tykwer returns with a wholly German film, a distinct change of pace. Equal parts comedy, romance and drama but not a romantic comedy, about three people who form a sexual threesome as complicated as it gets in cinema, or in life.

Hanna (Rois) is with Simon (Schipper), a long relationship, yet they remain unmarried and certainly without the sexual spark of old. Hanna meets Adam at a conference on stem cell research, one thing leads to another and well you know. Then Simon meets Adam, by chance, shortly after he has surgery for testicular cancer. In one of the most audacious love scenes of late Tykwer shows Adam court Simon in the change room of the fitness club using Simon’s surgery scar as the first move/icebreaker, then ends the scene with the yuckiest money shot since Crash.

A farsical and supremely entertaining series of deceptions betwen Simon, Hanna and Adam ensue - like a German comedy of errors, which is probably an oxymoron.

I can’t believe this story hasn’t been done before, particularly as a Hollywood romcom. Under Tykwer’s direction he’s constantly battling between taking his characters seriously and exploiting the ridiculousness of the absurd concept. As such the potential of the concept is never quite reached. Other than the coincidental meeting between Adam and Simon, it’s a tight screenplay. Each of the characters act and react as we’d expect considering how complex their knotting situation is.

As usual it’s sharp looking and beautiful images on screen. Tykwer's compositions, camera movement, lighting are pristine and gorgeous. He doesn’t fully abandon the visual or narrative flourishes. There’s extensive split screen usage in a few montage scenes, sequences I could have lived without, but not enough to distract from the core emotions.

The finale is typical of Tykwer and doesn’t disappoint. Tykwer evens the scales on each of his characters, each has equal narrative weight, each one is wrong, each is right. No one’s really to blame for their own action. A perfect circle of accountability. There’s a philosophical completeness to this threesome as well, like three pieces of a puzzle which is incomplete unless all three are together. And in the final glorious scene, Tykwer hits home this metaphor with pure cinematic delight, like only he can.

And as far the rating goes - three stars. could it have been anything else??

Passione (2010) dir. John Turturro
Documentary

***

By Alan Bacchus

I loved John Turturro sorely neglected musical Romance and Cigarettes, and so the potential of Turturro’s take on the culture of music of the great city of Naples was a great tease. While not up to the standard of cinematic inspiration of Romance, Passione provides lovers the best slice of Italiana since Dean Martin sang 'That's Amore.'

I exagerrate slightly. Passione is nothing like anything Dean Martin did. It's kind of an unclassifyable experimental hybrid of documentary, musical and music video which acts like an commissioned artwork for the Naples tourism bureau.

In the opening, Turturro steps out in front of the camera to address the camera and tell us what we're about to see. The effect has the flavour of an old documentary, or an old trailer when it was customary for the filmmakers to audience directly.

Naples, Turturro explains to us, is a city which, historically, despite a life cycle war, invasion and volcanic eruptions, has had a rich and unique culture of music. Over the 95mins, Turturro gives us a self-guided tour of Naples through the nooks and crannies of its cobblestone roads, cramped old world streets and on the edges of its magnificent coastal cliffs and beaches, unfolding as a series of narrratively unconnected set pieces. Sometimes, it's interviews with local residents discussing their favourite singers, or a choreographed song and dance routine, maybe a band playing to camera in a garden, or sometimes it's B&W stock footage of a famous Neopolitan crooning on an old Italian variety show.

Lovers of swooning hopelessly romantic Italian music unite, to those inclined it adds up to an orgasm of neopolitan flavour, but for only casually interested parties, its sadly only something we can admire and respect but not fall in love with. We can certainly feel and admire Turturro’s ‘passion’ for the city, but his direction lacks the cinematic inspiration of Romance and Cigarettes which would elevate the film to another level.

The Ward (2010) dir. John Carpenter
Starring: Amber Heard, Jared Harris, Susanna Burney and a bunch of babes I've never heard of.

***

By Greg Klymkiw

Okay kiddies, "Let's do the math."

Veteran genre-meister John (The Thing, Halloween, Vampires, Escape From New York, Ghosts of Mars, Starman) Carpenter directing.

+

A horror film set in the 1960s where none of the babes have hair-styles remotely resembling 60s hair-styles.

+

One mouth-wateringly hot Amber (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) Heard, incarcerated in a creepy old asylum after committing arson in a nightie.

+

As luck would have it, the ward Amber gets thrown into is replete with babes (including a single-bagger woofer who grows on you and is, after all, kind of a babe, too). One of the babessucks her thumb and plays with dolls (Hubba! Hubba!) and another is a mega-sexpot (Double Hubba! Hubba!).

+

One by one, the babes are butchered.

+

Amber keeps seeing some weird chick wandering the halls, but is told it's just her imagination.

+

Amber is manhandled by burly male nurses, zapped with electro-shock therapy and gets trussed-up in a straight jacket. (Triple Hubba! Hubba!)

+

In one of the more disgusting moments in horror movie history, one of the babes is electro-shocked until... well, I won't ruin it for you, but trust me - it's pretty fucking gross!

+

The ghost is one super-gnarly monster: mucho-drippings of the viscous kind.

+

A great performance from Jared Harris as an unbelievably creepy psychiatrist engaging in (what else?) unorthodox experiments.

+

An equally great performance from Susanna Burney as an ultra-butch and thoroughly detestable ward nurse who gives Louise Fletcher a run for her money in the Nurse Ratched Mental Health Caregiver Sweepstakes.

+

Tons of cheap scares that make you jump out of your seat and, God help you, if you have difficulties with incontinence, you better bring along an extra pair of Depends Adult Diapers.

+

A kick-ass climax and a Carrie-like shocker ending.

=

One free blowjob for the Toronto International Film Festival's (TIFF) Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes for selecting the film to premiere at the venerable Hogtown celebration of celluloid and especially for getting me into the sold out midnight screening after I fucked up getting my ticket from the right place at the right time. Said blowjob shall occur once someone carves glory holes into the public washroom stalls of the new Bell Lightbox complex where TIFF is now housed. One free blowjob and rimjob for John Carpenter for making this film. Said delights for Mr. Carpenter shall occur once he finishes (I kid you not!) jury duty in El Lay (which kept him from attending the festival and doing a Q and A session).

And that, kiddies, is your Mathematics lesson for today.

Be good.

Meek’s Cutoff (2010) dir. Kelly Reichardt
Starring: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Paul Dano, Rod Rondeau

***

By Alan Bacchus

Arguably the North American Premiere of Meek’s Cutoff is one of the hotly anticipated films, at least for Toronto audiences. For those unfamiliar it’s the next feature film from Kelly Reichardt after her breakout success Wendy and Lucy, which Toronto Film Critics anointed as the best of the film a couple year’s back. This time Reichardt's working in the western genre yet applies the same observational style, a unique slow burning type of realism which historically has divided audience between brilliance and boredom.

This one is no exception. From these eyes while it's just too detached to completely satisfy me in the way Wendy & Lucy did, Meek's Cutoff makes up for its narrative deficiencies with its aesthetic voracity.

It’s exciting to see such a staunch independent auteur female filmmaker venture into a typically male genre. Kelly Reichardt has created real western (I can't recall another western directed by a female?). It’s Oregon in the mid 19th century, three families are on a convoy across the Midwestern desert plains away from the dangers of Indian war parties for greener pastures west. Leading the group is a gruff pack leader, Meek (Greenwood) contracted to guide them across the treacherous land.

In the opening the convoy is already at wits end, lost and disillusioned that Meek actually knows where he’s going. A quiet power struggle results between Meek and the other men, specifically Solomon Tetherow (Patton) who differ which the direction to go. When an indian is captured by the group they take him in, bartering food and shelter in exchange for a safe route to water. Can the indian be trusted? Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams) thinks so, a humanistic attitude which comes into conflict with Meek and the other men.

Meek’s Cutoff sits somewhere in between the extremes of brilliance and boredom. At once it’s an often stunning exercise in sustained quiet tension, on the other we wait patiently for the tension to build toward an event, action or conflict of some kind which never emerges. At the very least, Reichardt and her writer Jonathan Raymond, have crafted a completely unique western, the characters and setting are familiar, but with a stripped down dramatic core emphasizing the innate humanism in all of us. Not much happens, but there's enough value in the conviction Reichardt's hero and moral centre for us to feel the gravitas of the endeavour.

Black Swan (2010) dir. Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Natalie Portman and Barbara Hershey

****

By Greg Klymkiw

I am breathless, speechless and frankly, so knocked on my ass as I attempt to write this, that I fear that no words will ever adequately describe the elation I feel at having experienced what might be the best movie of the year, the decade and possibly one of the best pictures of all time.

I love this movie to death!

Is it that obvious?

With Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, the brilliant director of Pi, Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler, has etched in stone his right to be called one of the greatest living film directors in the world. This is such a passionate, sexy, suspenseful, artful and wildly melodramatic movie, that even now I'm obsessed with seeing the picture as many times as possible.

Even one more viewing will do in order to pinch myself to see if I am dreaming how utterly stupendous it is.

I suspect, I'm not dreaming, however - Black Swan feels like it is exactly the sort of film we'll all look back upon as a milestone in cinema history.

It's Powell/Pressburger's The Red Shoes meets Mankiewicz's All About Eve meets Verhoeven's Showgirls with heavy doses of Polanski's Repulsion - and then some!

Aronofsky etches the unforgettable tale of Nina (Natalie Portman), a ballerina driven to achieving the highest level of artistry; brutally encouraged by crazed impresario Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), thwarted by her possessive, narcissistic mother (Barbara Hershey), terrified at the prospect of failure exemplified by an aging prima ballerina (Winona Ryder) and most of all, facing the threat of extinction by Lilly (Mila Kunis), an earthy rival with less technique, but greater raw passion - something Nina desperately needs to wrench from the depths of her soul to move beyond mere technical virtuosity.

The strongest comparison point is the aforementioned Powell/Pressburger 1948 masterpiece The Red Shoes, a staggering, highly influential motion picture - the stunning ballet sequences were a huge inspiration to Scorsese for the staging and mise-en-scene of the Raging Bull boxing matches. Powell/Pressburger wanted to make a movie that captured dance the only way motion pictures truly could - not from a proscenium, but on stage - as close to the action as possible.

Aronofsky follows suit with Black Swan and in some ways he matches the Powell/Pressburger approach with considerable aplomb. Where Aronofsky's approach differs is in his use of movement. Powell/Pressburger favoured exquisite compositions from a mostly-fixed camera position with the occasional dolly or crane shot, but often creating movement through delicate montage. Aronofsky, on the other hand, moves and swishes his camera with a sort of controlled steadi-cam abandon. I say "controlled" as this is no mere display of annoying shaky-cam techniques - the handheld movements are gorgeously composed and not a single move feels out of place, indulgent or downright sloppy.

In Aronofsky's mise-en-scene, the camera floats and glides with calculated abandon. In fact, I'm rather embarrassed to admit I caught myself - several times - rocking back and forth, to and fro and in a state of amusement-park-ride bliss. In fact, I've never seen dance sequences on film that inspired me to move in my seat as the image unspooled. I seldom move - period, but that's another story and significant only in that Black Swan compelled me to not remain static and slumped into my chair. And this was not only the case with the dance scenes, but with virtually every moment in the picture.

At times it compels one to literally jump from one's seat during set-pieces of slam-bang suspense. Other moments inspire one to sit forward, eyes up to the screen and literally on the edge of one's seat - at times, in mouth-agape awe at the sheer genius of the filmmaking and at others, because the action is so thrilling that to sit back becomes near-impossible. And then there are the numerous cringe-inducing moments where one squirms and sinks into one's seat, clinging for dear life as the picture deals with the grotesquely painful physical injuries and deformities that dancers - especially ballerinas - are prone to; split, oozing toenails, dislocated joints and other such gnarly realities of the dancing trade. I have not uttered the words "Jesus Christ" so many times in one picture - in utter disgust at witnessing the physical torture these women endure. Nina in particular is afflicted with an obsessive streak to the point where she scratches at her shoulder blades and leaves blood and pus-oozing open sores. And worse, to stop herself from scratching, she continually cuts, trims and buffs her nails to a point where her fingertips, fingernails and cuticles are a raw, pulpy mess.

Jesus Christ!

And the melodrama: O, the melodrama! Some consider melodrama a dirty word. Well, anyone who does is a total knot head. It's a completely legitimate genre. There's bad melodrama and there's good, if not great melodrama. Black Swan is in the latter category. O, glorious melodrama! This great movie, replete with catty nasties of invective hurled with meat cleaver sharpness, literal cat fights, mother-daughter snipe-fests, masturbation, lesbo action, anonymous sex in nightclub washrooms and delicious over-the-top blood-letting, all add up to one motherfucker of an ice cream sundae with not one, not two, not three, but a barrel-full of maraschino cherries globbed with pools of glistening syrup on top.

The performances in Black Swan are perfectly pitched to the heights of melodrama that the film itself achieves. Miss Portman captures her character's intensity and frigidity with such perfection that Nina's gradual soul wrenching ascent/descent takes on the heft of pure tragedy. She commands the screen with such assured bravado that it's probably safe to suggest that hers will be the performance to beat in the year's upcoming awards season. Mila Kunis is gorgeous and sexy. Her chemistry with Portman crackles with the sheer electricity of opposites attracting. Winona Ryder delivers an exceptionally mature tragic portrait, full of bile, resentment and tragedy - a worthy successor and rival to the suffering bitch goddess Susan Hayward. Barbara Hershey wanders through the Grand Guignol territory of those immortal Robert Aldrich heroines of the 60s and drags us deep into the demonic bilge barrel of great movie harridans. And last, but certainly not least, Vincent Cassel is one sexy beast - the perfect ballet impresario: one part genius, one part cocksman, two parts Mephistopheles.

Some critics have referred to Black Swan as "The Red Shoes on acid.". They couldn't be more wrong. The Red Shoes is already on acid.

From my vantage point, Black Swan is pure crack cocaine, and as such, inspires more and heavier doses.

The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town (2010) dir. Thom Zimny
Documentary

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

I confess I’m not really a Bruce Springsteen fan, I don’t own any of his albums, nor am I a musician, yet I was strangely excited by this film. The fact is The Promise is a compelling film about an artist’s creative process. Whether you’re a fan or not, it’s impossible not to admire and find fascinating watching one of rock music’s great artists create one of its great albums - 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Director Thom Zimny doesn’t waste time with the introductions jumping in immediately describing the period of time before Bruce’s breakout third album Born to Run and this his fourth album Darkness on the Edge of Town. It was a three year period, which Springsteen admits could have been career suicide. After all, back in the day, a three year gap between albums from an emerging artist was almost unheard of. This gap stemmed from a creative dispute between Bruce and his former Manager over the publishing rights to his songs. After this rather dry business affairs stuff out of the way, we get into the good stuff, that is the arduous process of creating art.

Zinny has access to a goldmine of unseen archival footage intimately shot inside the studio where the album was made. Interviews with Bruce and the band in the present, as well their record producer Jon Landau (not the same guy who produced Titanic and Avatar), are intercut with the verite footage with the band in 1977 which provides a perfect synergy of omniscient perspective and in-the-moment emotions.

We get to see Bruce as a demanding perfectionist crafting his songs and his album with the precision of a renaissance sculptor. For a non-musician it’s truly enlightening to see how much attention is paid to seemingly minutes details. For example, Bruce admits to spending three weeks with Max Weinberg, the drummer, working on the tone of the drum sound. Same with the ambient live feeling he wanted to get from the album - a different type of feeling than his previous wall of sound he created for ’Born to Run’.

So its not really strange that I would love a film about an artist I’m not a fan of. The truth is, what really turns my crank are films about great artists and the creative process and The Promise does this as good any other films about this subject.

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.

The Edge (2010) dir. Alexey Uchitel
Starring: Vladimir Mashkov, Yulia Peresild, Anjorka Strechel and Sergey Garmash

***

By Greg Klymkiw

While it is unfair to condemn a film for what it isn't. one is almost tempted to do so with Alexey Uchitel's The Edge. "Almost" is the operative word, however, because its achievements in a number of areas are considerable and yet, given its setting and, in particular, the vast political ramifications of said time and place, it's somewhat disappointing that the film makes no real attempt to undo the almost criminal negligence on the part of filmmakers (both Russian and American) to tackle one of the most heinous legacies of Communism.

Most of us are familiar with Russia's notorious Siberian exile and forced labour camps via Olexandr Solzhenitsyn's monumental literary works such as "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" or his monumental two-volume work of non-fiction, "The Gulag Archipelago" among many other great works. Alas, the butchery and genocide of 60 million innocents in the Siberian death camps of the Communist regime remains a setting virtually untouched by filmmakers.

A great and sadly neglected Norwegian-British 70s adaptation of "Ivan Denisovich" by Caspar Wrede is really the only worthy film in existence dealing directly with this tragedy of immense proportions. Aside from a handful of mostly poor features and MOWs, a few documentaries and Serhey Paradjanov's unfinished feature The Confession, the Communist Holocaust perpetrated against Christian and Jewish anti-communists and socialists critical of the regime itself in the extreme northern region of the Gulag, account for all that exists in the cinema about this shameful period of Russian history.

At the beginning of The Edge, a title explaining the Russian-German pact with respect to northern labour camps devoted housing Germans in the Gulag, set up the expectations that this might be the first serious Russian film from an established filmmaker to deal with the subject of the forced incarceration of political prisoners.

Alas, it turns out not to be. In its stead is a brawny, macho adventure film about a shell shocked war hero who is relocated to command the only working train in the region and the rivalry between the two men who are the only ones with the ability to drive the sole lifeline between the Gulag and the rest of the world. Battling for rail superiority and the two most desirable female prisoners is the film's central conflict.

This overlong film is endowed with moments of greatness and cinematic virtuosity. but the screenplay by Aleksandr Gonorovsky spends far too much time dealing with the more melodramatic romance rivalries instead of what it seems to really want to do which is - to deliver a bunch of great set-pieces involving the hair-raising, break-neck steam engine races. In this sense, the script needed considerable simplification to bring it into the territory of existential male angst which, in turn. might have actually yielded far more layering instead of the hodge-podge of story strands and character relationships that merely bog things down.

All this said, when Uchitel focuses on the trains and the men who drive them (not unlike how H.G. Clouzot and William Friedkin lavished similar attention upon the trucks of nitroglycerin in Wages of Fear and its underrated remake Sorcerer), then - and only then - does The Edge truly shine. Its fierce, obsessive and relentless.

The action set-pieces which are bereft of annoying CGI effects are harrowing and exciting - all the more so because we're seeing real men drive real trains at utterly insane speeds. Even the long sequence involving the restoration of a train lost in a tangle of Taiga foliage and the subsequent rebuilding of a crumbling train trestle have the same energy as the magnificent train races.

But then there's the love interest - completely unnecessary save for passing acknowledgement. These boys love their trains - not their women. The long hunks of metal powered by fire and steam power are, in a sense (and not so subtly), extensions of their penises - dick swinging of the highest order.

This is first-rate boys' adventure stuff and if the filmmakers had left well enough alone to focus on just that, The Edge, they might have had a great slam-banging action picture instead of a good one. And that might have gone a long way to account for and forgive a film set in the Gulag that all but ignores what that region truly represents.

Than again, even that would only go so far. After all, could one imagine a film set in and around any number of Nazi death camps and all but ignore what they represent to serve the needs of a macho ass-kicker?

Our Day Will Come (2010) dir. Romain Gavras
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Olivier Barthelemy

**½

By Alan Bacchus

Young Remy is a red head which has fostered an inferiority complex - he’s pushed around by his schoolmates, his mother, his sister, even his World of Warcraft internet girlfriend. And so when Vincent Cassel playing a disaffected therapist named Patrick meets up with him, it sparks Remy’s inner nihilist which puts him on a mission to travel to Ireland and unite with his red headed brethren.

Romain Gavras (son of Costas Gavras) has created something in the realm of a French Fight Club, but without the fighting and the satire. The film works best in the first half when we see Patrick take the emasculated Remy under his wing and teaches him to stand up for himself. He starts a fight with some Arabs in a café just to see Remy's reaction. Patrick then give Remy an alter ego, assuming the guise of a kick boxer in order to pick up a couple of girls on the street. Once Remy has taken control of his life and asserted his dominance as a red head, they embark on a rambunctious roadtrip to Ireland.

Vincent Cassel is typically magnetic as the Tyler Durden figure in Remy’s life. He’s also credited as producer, which perhaps explains how he could be convinced to shave off his head, eyebrows, appear full monty and engage in a rather eye-popping three-way sex scene where he actually lights a woman’s chest on fire.

After a rather involving setup, the film loses focus fast and in the second half devolves into a series of increasingly random events and inexplicable behaviour from the characters. Patrick loses his sanity completely after the said drunken chest fire lighting incident and finishes out the film in a zombie-like daze.

Barthelemy as Remy is a good match to the Cassel aura of debauchery. By the end Gavras successfully transforms Remy into a cross bow-armed badass Travis Bickle rescuing Patrick from society in a balloon.

Gavras does manage to salvage the film with this oddball but strangely beautiful ending, the two men escaping the world and sailing off into the sunset. I’m not quite sure what it means, or how it completes their journey, but somehow it feels right.

Never Let Me Go (2010) dir. Mark Romanek
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, Charlotte Rampling

***½

By Alan Bacchus

Boy, I’m glad I knew nothing about this film going into it, because after a first act of very clever teasing I was absolutely floored by the dramatic midpoint reveal. As the buzz on this film heats up, mostly likely this dramatic moment will become known to audiences and thus diminish the experience of the film. If you can hold out reading these advanced reviews and blindly let Mark Romanek guide you through his haunting existential humanist journey it will be a joyous reward.

I’ll be as brief with the plot as possible, Karen, played by Carey Mulligan is a caregiver in present day watching an operation of one of her patients. Her narration recalls the story of her and her friends in a quaint English countryside boarding school, a particularly snobby school with strict teachers and such. Nothing we haven't seen before. Within the class are three sympathetic characters, Kathy as an intelligent and introspective younger girl, Ruth, the A-type popular gal and Tommy, an awkward wallflower prone to outbursts of rage.

There's something wrong afoot, but we can't put out fingers on it. It seems to be a storybook idyllic place with a few inconsistent additions - an electronic monitor device worn by each child, there's no parental figures, and almost no contact with the outside world. What gives?

Romanek and writer Alex Garland, who adapted the novel of the same name, make a concerted effort to keep the audience in the contained point of view of the three kids. It’s part of the clever deception going on, an intimate three-way love triangle over top of a high concept scenario, which we’re kept in the dark from for most of the movie. The core emotions are the same though, and enhanced by the limitations forced upon the characters by the science-fictiony concept.

Looking back a couple days after the screening, the concept is not as tight as it could have been and there’s a number of nagging plot holes and hanging threads. For example the arrival of a care package of broken toys which enthuses everybody is a well orchestrated creepy moment, but one which doesn’t really make much sense.

Tonally it’s the kind of movie M. Night Shyamalan used to make. The pacing is deliberate, dialogue quiet and subtle, small scale character-based intimacy against a larger backdrop of big ideas and big threats.

Like Children of Men, we are asked to accept the alternate future society as is, without the usual backstory explanations. And Romanek never diverts from this point of view. Naturally I wanted to know more of outside world, and admittedly there was much room for more salacious plotting. The film could have easily turned into a thriller like Children of Men, but admirably Romanek remains true to his tone and character-based emotions.

Andrew Garfield, who continues to impress with under-the-radar performances in British film and TV, is compelling as the man in between Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley's affections. He has a unique physicality, an immensely interesting face and a lanky gate, which adds more depth to his character than his dialogue. Carey Mulligan, like her performance in An Education, can also say as much with a glance of her expressive eyes than her words.

Like great science fiction, the speculative concepts allow us to examine our own place in the world. Never Me Let Go is almost as good as any of the great humanist sci-fi films such as THX 1138, Gattaca, The Truman Show, Moon. It’s a sombre haunting and memorable film which penetrates deep in one’s mind, body and soul.

Let Me In (2010) dir. Matt Reeves
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas

****

By Alan Bacchus

Kudos to Matt Reeves. He and the producers took a lot of slack when it was announced the critical fave and international genre hit Let the Right One In was going to be remade in Hollywood. Cries afoul be silenced. Reeves achieves a rarity of a remake being, hell yeah, I’ll say it, better than the original. And for the record, it's not really 'Hollywood', the production company in the recently revived Hammer Films, the same British B-Movie stalwarts of old.

The story is almost exactly the same with only a few minor tweeks, but tweeks significant enough to improve on the former and offer a deeper, even more penetrating cinematic experience of genre horror.

Of course, we all know the story, a young boy (named Owen here) child to a single absent-minded mother in a small remote snowcapped town befriends his new female neighbour, a young vampire named Abby. The relationship grows from curiosity into a strange pre-pubescent love affair which fosters the boy’s self confidence to stand up to the bullies in school. And for Abby, a new companionship with a mortal and replacing her former life long paternal figure, played by Richard Jenkins..

Tonally Reeves hits the same mark as Tomas Alfredson’s masterful treatment of his version of the story - and remember it was a book first and so the Swedish version isn’t technically an original either. Michael Giacchino’s glorious music score (the best he’s ever done) sets the pace, simple piano melodies and string arrangements conveying a sense of sad melancholy.

Such is the existence of Abby, who seems to have lived the life as a 12 year old girl for hundred or so years. It takes just a little tweek in revealing her backstory to open deeper more complex layers to her character. Specifically her relationship with ‘father figure‘ (Richard Jenkins), which is given more attention than the original. Reeves moves the film in a direction even the Swedes wouldn't go - that is, a tender and possibly sexual relationship between father and daughter. It’s handled ever so delicately, nothing shocking or disturbing, but a connection between the two which is genuine and heartbreaking.

Reeves amplifies the horror for a more satisfying genre experience. More blood, more suspense and bigger bloody payoffs still manage to fit in and stay true to the poetic and melancholic nature of the story. But it’s child stars Moretz and Smit-McPhee who are simply marvelous which put the icing on the cake. Neither actor trumps the other, an equal match for both - arguably two Oscar-worthy performances. And wouldn’t that be a story? Two child actors from the same movie in contention. But let‘s not get ahead of ourselves. Let Me In couldn’t have been any better than it is. A remarkable achievement considering the extraordinarily high expectations.

Outbound (2010) dir. Bogdan George Apetri
Starring: Ana Ularu, Mimi Branescu, Andi Vasluianu, Ioana Flora, Timotei Duma

**½

By Alan Bacchus

An allstar team of Golden Age Romanian filmmakers, including Cristian Mungiu, contribute to writing this latest slice of Romanian social realism. Like Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days Bogdan Apetri goes through the movements of one day in the life of a woman on a journey with the drama resulting from the minute by minute details of the task. Unfortunately, while Four Months was precise in its journey, Apetri’s film is too murky and loose to have the same emotional effect.

The lead character Matilda is introduced as a prison inmate on 24 hour leave, looking to reconnect with her 8 year old son and magically erase the mistakes of her past. She’s like a Dardenne Bros character, short on words, long on determination. Young actress Ana Ularu is exceptional. She has the type of hardened face which shows years of abuse, torment, and frustration. A steady look or stare from her has the sharp sting of a dagger.

Apetri splits the day, and thus the narrative, into three meetings with three key people. Naturally it becomes the traditional three act structure, but this is where screenwriting fundamentals ends. The first act, entitled Paul, shows Matilda reconnecting with her brother, and trying to coax him into taking her 8 year old daughter in their custody, either that or give her money to let her escape abroad and into freedom. The second act is entitled Andrei, representing her meeting with her old pimp (oh yeah, of course she’s a prostitute) and also the father of her child. He’s barely any help either, but brokers a trick from one of his higher priced hookers to pay back Matilda from some job in the past. Lastly the third chapter Toma shows the reunification with of mother and son.

Unfortunately after each chapter we never see the other characters again, leaving a number of loose ends, and unresolved plotting. By the end, we wonder whatever happened to Paul, or his wife, or Andrei or that poor hooker who was being abused by the sicko businessman. Apetri injects even more bleakness into Toma’s life in an orphanage, more sexual exploitation - as if we don’t have enough of that in Eastern European cinema. Sadly these stories are more interesting that Matilda’s ultimate reunification, which arbitrarily ends just when it was getting interesting.

Easy Money (2010) dir. Daniel Espinoza
Starring:Joel Kinnaman, Matias Padin Varela, Dragomir Mrsic

***

By Alan Bacchus

Three well developed and sympathetic characters anchor Daniel Espinosa’s grand crime melodrama, Easy Money. Already a hit film film in Sweden, it arrives at TIFF, already with the Weinstein Company repping it in the US and Alliance Films in Canada.

Jorge is a Spanish-speaking immigrant recently escaped from prison and reunited with his pal and partner in crime. In conflict with Jorge is Mrado part of an Eastern European mob whom he has a beef with in the competitive underground cocaine syndicate. The only Swede of the bunch is JW, a ladder-climbing university student secretly working as a cabbie in order to afford the expensive suits and the other high class accoutrements it takes to get in with the rich kids he idolizes. When presented with an opportunity to make some really big money, JW finds himself caught in the cocaine drug war between Jorge and Mrado.

Espinoza’s treatment of crime is in the world of Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, or Animal Kingdom version of cinema, a world treated with realism and characters painted with various shades of grey. Heroes and villains aren’t so easy to define. Espinoza’s clever to subvert our expectations and shift around his heroes and villains, double back on his characters and reveal realistic motivations for everyone involved.

The common denominator of the three is the desperate need for survival and desire for security and success. For JW, its his need to escape the life of poverty from childhood, for Mrado, it’s his young daughter he find himself protecting, and Jorge, his sister and newborn niece which prompts him to re-evaluate his priorities.

Each of the fine actors playing the roles brings freshness and deep commitment and inhabitation of their characters. Dragomir Mrsic as Mrado gives the best performance, and his best scene is a touching car ride confession after he has just taken custody of his daughter where he reveals his abuse by his father which caused him to become the hardened criminal he is today.

The social realism visual effect is laid on thick, too thick perhaps. The handheld camerawork is a given in these types of stories now, but Espinoza shoots his character so tight, all the time, the film is essentially a series of close ups. As a result the director loses the power of this cinematic tool.

With everything a close up, the world too closed in for us visually, barely allowing us time to breathe. As a result Espinoza’s realism dies out towards the end, replaced by heightened melodrama. The double-crosses, betrayals, and bloody sacrifices of brotherhood of the third act take us into a less satisfactory sensationalized crime genre. Espinoza does leave us with one last fantastic scene before he cuts to black, a terrific bookend to the opening scene which completes JW’s dramatic arc in grand fashion.

Inside Job (2010) dir. Charles Ferguson
Documentary

***½

By Alan Bacchus

Though I work in the film industry and write this film blog, I actually have a degree in economics. From my very first econ course back in school we were aware of the concept of ‘deadweight loss’. This is a calculation of profit loss due to market inefficiency, which in real world terms means price controls and any other regulated markets in the economy. This was ingrained in our minds from high school all the way up to university.

This is also the heart of the problem with the collapse of the US (and thus, global) financial markets, which Charles Ferguson makes so clear in his incendiary, comprehensive and really, the last word, on this monumental financial disaster of recent years.

There’s a palpable sense of anger from Ferguson, a filmmaker, who must have poured though reams and reams of unintelligible figures, pages of dry research papers and really heavy university textbooks in order to understand what happened. As he questions and confronts some of the smartest and craftiest men in the world, we can hear Ferguson in the background admirably go toe to toe. And now his work is our benefit, and worth much much more than the $13.00 or less it will cost to see this movie.

I’ve seen many films and journalism news segments which attempted to explain the incredibly complex chain of events which caused the collapse, from 60 Minutes to Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story nobody seemed to get it straight. And no one’s really told the whole story. Remarkably Ferguson does this in spades.

His approach reminds me of Spike Lee’s comprehensive and final word on the Katrina disaster When the Levees Broke. Inside Job has the same desperate need and desire to find the truth and expose one of the world’s worst acts of conspiracy and criminality.

Ferguson applies a distinct cinematic approach to the film. It’s evident in the opening scenes. First a prologue telling the story of Iceland’s financial collapse, which occurred remotely on its own before the US collapse, a kind of warning sign not unlike the Easter Island parable to today’s current environmental crisis. Then there’s a lengthy credit sequence featuring freeze frames and soundbites of the numerous executives, government wonks, professors etc who will appear in the film.

This background and tonal build up is key to making sense of what’s to come.
As narrated by Matt Damon, Ferguson systematically breaks down all the details of exactly what the fuck happened. All the way back to the 1930’s through the prosperity in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s to the series of collapses in the 80’s and 90’s which led to that fateful week of Sept 2008 when everything went bankrupt.

Despite Ferguson’s careful use of graphics and charts to help make clear, what the hell credit default swaps, or CDOs etc. There’s just so much information we have to process, it’s difficult to keep up even for an economics grad. But I was also reminded of Oliver Stone’s JFK, where the overkill of information actually helped prove his point of the complexity of government, business and wealth which helped effect the assassination of JFK.

We’re not meant to understand every detail in Inside Job, and it’s all there for those attentive and smart enough to understand it on the first go. But he never loses sight of the big picture, which isn‘t lost on the less-economically inclined. The recurring theme is simply - greed - the need for the individuals on Wall Street and Washington to grab that piece of deadweight loss and put it into their own pockets.

Many of the key players refuse to give interviews, all of which are noted as text in the film. Their silence speaks volumes though, which is how they managed to get away with it all. The villains he does manage to interview are typically smarmy and evasive, which furthers the frustration of the entire affair. These guys are so smart there’s actually little criminal activity going during this period. Which is the most frightening aspect, is that the collapse was all legal, which make the title of this film absolutely perfect Inside Job. This is fantastic film.

Behind Blue Skies (2010) dir. Hannes Holm
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Peter Dalle and Josefin Ljungman

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

What the world needs now, more than ever, are coming-of-age pictures wherein the mentor-figure is a drug dealer, thief and pimp. In this respect, Behind Blue Skies delivers in spades. This surprisingly sweet and thoroughly engaging item from Sweden, is a bit like a teenage My Life As A Dog, with dollops of American Pie and Goodfellas tossed into the mix for good measure.

This is a tremendously entertaining, funny, sexy, sly and even profoundly moving picture that stays with you well beyond its closing credits. There are a number of extremely good reasons for this.

First and foremost, helmer Hannes Holmes's screenplay is a real treat. Each time a plot turn felt like it was going into traditional territory, the proceedings took ever-so slight deviations - like delicious bon-bons tossed playfully into one's mouth just as it was opening to emit a yawn.

Secondly, Holmes's assured directorial hand provided a lot in the way of sumptuous visual treats in terms of the northern and southern juxtapositions of Sweden's topography in summertime - from the dull, grey beauty of endless cloudy skies in the protagonist's hometown to the brilliant blue of the heavens in what becomes his potential vacation paradise. This, of course, expertly provided perfectly appropriate backdrops to the character's life and state of mind within the context of the narrative.

Holmes's proficiency in terms of covering the action of his main story is also a definite bonus. His camera is seldom where it shouldn't be and yet, never feels by-the-numbers, nor by the same token, overtly showy. As well, his deft handling of the fine cast is equally winning.

Thirdly, the cast is magnificent! From the the delightful trio of leading players, through all the supporting character roles and finally, even to bit players and background extras, one seldom discovers a false note.

Set in the glorious 70s, the picture tells the tale of teenager Martin (the mind-numbingly gorgeous and engaging Bill Skarsgård) who lives amidst the chaos of an extremely lower middle class family. His father is severely afflicted with alcoholism. When rarely sober, he is loving and sweet, when under the influence, he's mean, bitter, irrational and abusive. Martin's mother is run ragged trying to keep the family together financially as she maintains a home care service in their cramped quarters.

When Martin is offered the opportunity to join a rich friend at a vacation resort where he'll be offered a terrific summer job, he jumps at the chance (with his mother's blessing) to get out of his stifling situation, but also earn money to help his family.

Once ensconced at the vacation hideaway, things aren't quite as idyllic as his rich friend suggests they will be. His pal abandons him for his affluent friends, he finds he's not staying in richie-rich's palatial family digs, but in the resort's squalid staff quarters (where he's forced to room with a head-banger drunk) and just when things look up (he actually enjoys his job and meets a beautiful young girl, deftly played by Josefin Ljungman, who likes him as much as he likes her), he commits an error in judgement and gets fired.

As luck would have it, his error in judgement as well as his willingness to own up to it, catch's the eye of the person who fires him, the resort's alternately jovial and cruel manager Gösta (a madly inspired naughty, moustachioed cherub in the form of Peter Dalle), who takes the lad under his wing and slowly introduces him to his secret world of criminal activity.

Money, adventure, danger and romance soon follow, but not without paying a price.

What I loved most about Holmes's film is the careful manner in which he compares and contrasts the lives of the "haves" and "have-nots" - especially in terms of what they both need to do in order to maintain a living. The "have-nots" do all the dirty work, but the "haves" are even dirtier - they just hide it a whole lot better.

This is something that will certainly strike a chord with movie-goers and I, for one, will be shocked if this film isn't eventually remade by Hollywood for the English-speaking marketplace.

Even if it is, I trust it will hardly be better than what Hannes Holmes has rendered - a fun and original entertainment!