• Errol Morris’s continuing series of Microdocs for the NYT: Eating Champion ‘El Wingador’
  “El Wingador is a man truly committed to a certain kind of excellence — or at least, a certain kind of excess. Sure, I could have picked a different eating champion, but I guess I have an affinity for chicken. It is evident that chicken is his favorite competition food — particularly chicken wings. I asked him, “Why not hot dogs?” The simple and compelling answer: “Hey, my name is ‘El Wingador,’ not ‘El Hotdogador.’ ” A New Jersey native, he is the five-time champion of the Wing Bowl and has come out of retirement to compete once again this year.”
• Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi: Why Digital is Far Superior to Film
  
  Gamble on Celluloid vs. Digital in the projection booth: “Cinephiles cry out about the loss of film citing the lower picture quality and the dangerous precedent set on the levels of their oh so precious film grain, but frankly, after being in the film exhibition business (i.e. movie theatres, for those unencumbered by the burden of industry jargon) for over a decade, I see digital as a welcome upgrade. And in some instances, a god damn savior. Here’s why.”
• Wolves in Sheep Clothing (Genre as Sartorial Satire): Robin Hardy talks the Legacy of The Wicker Man the Timing of The Wicker Tree, and 40 years of History
  While The Wicker Tree got only the tiniest of Theatrical releases from Anchor Bay last week, here is Kurt Halfyard and Michael Guillen in a lengthy (over an hour) conversation with director Robin Hardy, who is not shy with his opinions on the world and politics.
• John Anderson sits down for a chat with the legendary Douglas Trumbull
  “When the special-effects whiz and director Douglas Trumbull receives a special Oscar on Saturday — the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for filmmakers “whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry” — it could be taken as a valedictory tribute, the cap on a career that began with Stanley Kubrick and “2001: A Space Odyssey” and includes a best-picture nominee this year, “The Tree of Life.” But Mr. Trumbull, 69, is hardly finished with his contributions.”
• Josh Fox Arrested on Capitol Hill While Filming ‘Gasland’ Sequel
  “According to Politico, Fox was led out in handcuffs before the hearing began while shouting, “I’m within my First Amendment rights, and I’m being taken out.” Fox’s “Gasland” took on oil and gas companies for their policy of using hydraulic fracturing to obtain fuel from underneath layers of otherwise unpenetrable rock. The process has been accused of contaminating drinking water in rural mid-Atlantic towns, and Fox’s film is famous for showing residents set fire to the water coming out of their kitchen sinks. He was in the Capitol shooting a follow-up.”
• Cafe de Flore comes out on DVD in a couple weeks, here is Joseph Belanger talking to Jean-Marc Vallée
  “While I flat out refuse to divulge what exactly the connection is between these vastly different plots, I will say that a simple song connects them on screen and that song also served as the filmmaker’s inspiration for the entire film. The name of that song? Why, “Café de flore”, of course. When he first heard the Doctor Rockit song, Vallée thought, “It’s so epic. I’m going to make a film with this track.” And so the movie is built around this song as well as a general appreciation for music itself. This aspect of the film is the director’s most autobiographical. “Music makes me feel so good, makes me feel alive, makes me dream, makes me want to make movies,” Vallée asserts right before he starts humming the catchy accordion hook from the film’s title track to me.”
• The Hulk Persona writes (shouts) an open letter to NBC on the necessity for saving COMMUNITY
  “WE SOMETIMES FORGET THAT PART. BRANDS, NETWORKS, AND INDIVIDUAL SHOWS HAVE AN ETHEREAL, YET INESCAPABLY-PRESENT CACHET. AS MUCH AS SOME NETWORKS SEEM TO BE AT ODDS WITH THIS CONCEPT AT TIMES, THE TRUTH IS THAT THEY SPEND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TRYING TO CREATE AN IDENTITY. SO OF COURSE IT MATTERS. BUT WHY IS NETWORK IDENTITY SO NECESSARY? FOR LONG-TERM BUSINESS EFFECTS, OF COURSE. HECK, BRAND IDENTITY IS THE ONE THING THAT A NETWORK CAN RELY ON IN THE EVER-CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF TELEVISION.”

Here is an experiment. Take the name of six colours, write them in random order several times using a coloured pen that does not match the name of the colour. Time yourself reading this list of colours. Write the same list of colours using only black ink and time yourself reading the list. The mind works in strange ways, and has trouble if preconceived associations to familiar things or objects get too close to one another. Daniel Cockburn, a Toronto video artist, has just made a wild and crazy jump into features with a film-slash-brain-experiment that wants to perform a witty and colourful brain massage. While he offers various lessons in how it works, he wants to play with your cerebellum in a similar manner way that nuts and bolts of of film projection works. POV is not only an acronym for point of view, but also stands for ‘Persistence of Vision.’ As shutters push single frames in a particular motion through a film projector to form the illusion of movement on a white (or silver) screen to your brain. We will ignore the contradiction that he mainly shoots on video, which operates in slightly different act of perceptual illusion. Contradictions are what the film is about.

Cockburn wants to expand your consciousness or provide the illusion of expanding your consciousness or expand your consciousness while providing the illusion that he has not. You Are Here. The statement is both a location as well as a confirmation of existence. Different things, really. The red dot that defines your location on the map can be just as much of a misleader as a guide. The meaning of the film goes beyond the dual-nature of the title into something that is both profound and profoundly funny. It is science. It is art. It is absurd and hilarious sleight-of-hand. It is an ultra lo-fi version of Inception in which the filmmakers might as well be Leonardo Di Caprio and company (in shabbier clothing mind-you) and the audience are simultaneously the beneficiary of planted ideas and the mark of a baffling grift. A film festival catalogue once labeled You Are Here as Dr. Seuss meets Samuel Beckett, and I cannot really argue with that. It is an apt a description as you are going to get without telling you much. When it ended after an all too brief 75 minutes, I was upset. I wanted to see how many more times the filmmakers could fold their narrative in upon itself while keeping me in its spell. Riding the waves of this film before they collapsed is one of its cardinal pleasures. Like any good performer, Cockburn knows to keep the audience wanting more. Either that or everyone involved narcotics, money or the ability to keep a hold of the reigns of their ambitions. I am sure the director will never tell.

There is no way to spoil You Are Here, because I am not even sure what I have seen. The film keeps the big picture just out of reach by playing out with the rhythms of a hypnotist. A somnambulist with the quiet and disarming chant of ‘wake-up, do not get hypnotized.’ An experimental film with no plot per se, it does feature Tracey Wright (in one of her final performances) as some sort of information archivist that collects lost documents around the city and explicitly files them in her room full of shelves. In a nondescript room, a man fills out paperwork in the surrogate act of language comprehension. He admits that he *literally* has no idea what he is talking about, continuing with his gargantuan and mysterious task because it is possible (if rather unwieldy) to follow the dozen or so 10cm thick gold-embossed red volumes of step-by-step and cross-referenced instructions. Also, because more anonymous sheets will surely be slipped under the door to provide a continued purpose. In yet another room, a cluster of desk clerks direct people all over town in cabs and attempt ensure that the passengers remain in motion without meeting with one another. The movement is recorded with precision. There are other mini-narratives including a man with a cyborg-eye and an instructor who really, really loves his laser pointer. The image of a red spot or dot makes more appearances than the all the hat imagery in the Coen’s Miller’s Crossing, both films feature a love of language and a delight in double-crossing machinations. I want to believe that the film is telling me something about perception, but it also may encompass propaganda and political theory, perhaps with a little string theory in there for good measure. It is a heck of a lot more fun than Scientific American or NPR though.

It is easier to describe the state-of-mind the viewer is in while watching the movie, rather than the movie itself. The experience of watching You Are Here is felt for me like trying to simultaneously read open books by Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, Malcolm Gladwell, and Noam Chomsky while watching a bank of TVs showing Marx Brothers and Roy Andersson films on loop. The film may not look like much, bit it is a mind altering work of staggering genius. If you have gotten this far into this rambling and repetitive review, you have been given the palest of the pale imitations of what the film is like. Oh, and You Are Here. Welcome. Alas, the number of people that will take joy in this sort of grotty yet earnest intellectual pranksterism is small enough that you might have to find this video in the same passed along by hand fashion as the evil video tape in Ringu was passed around. Maybe with equally dire consequences.

Director: André Øvredal
Writer: André Øvredal
Producers: Sveinung Golimo, John M. Jacobsen
Starring: Otto Jespersen
Country of Origin: Norway
MPAA Rating: NR
Running time: 90 min.

The Minneapolis Film Festival is not exactly known for their genre fare. Though on opening night of 2011, they kicked that myth right out of the way big time with The Troll Hunter, a Cloverfield-like romp through the beautiful countryside of Norway where menacing trolls lurk through the forest at night waiting to pick off anyone unfortunate enough to cross paths with the beast(s).

Shot in a veritae, found footage style, the picture reminds very much of something like The Blair Witch project in that it is a student film crew wandering and running for their lives through the woods. The film is not scary in the slightest. It’s got excitement and thrills but if it’s terror you’re looking for this ain’t your movie. It’s more like a Jurassic Park thrill ride than anything else. Though lots of comparisons to many great films could be drawn, The Troll Hunter very much has it’s own unique vibe and subject matter. We’ve seen vampires, zombies and werewolves thousands of times over the past 30 years, but I can’t remember seeing (or even hearing about) any movie that tackles the troll mythology like this one does. And no, Troll 2 does not count.

The basic setup is that three college students are looking to do a documentary on bear poaching for a class project. The locals direct them to a ornery recluse who they all claim is likely a poacher. After some prodding and convincing, the man allows them to tag along on one of his scouting/hunting expeditions that he only partakes in at night. They quickly realize that this guys isn’t out hunting bears… but trolls.

Being an obviously low budget creature feature, obviously the CGI used for the troll effects isn’t exactly of WETA caliber. Still, for the price paid and the country of origin (i.e. resources available) these enormous creatures, some standing as tall as a mountain and others about the height of large to medium size trees look exceptionally convincing. Sure they’re not perfect, but they don’t exactly look like they were made with Adobe “After Effects” software either. The good news is that the film makers seem to realize their limitations and use creative camera tricks to ease their F/X budget. Luckily, part of toll lore is that they only come out at night, so most of the footage is dark to begin with. Because of this, the cameraman uses a lot of green night vision technology which helps conceal some of the details of the trolls that might not looks as good in broad daylight. There is some shaky cam and distant shots that also help to hide some of the defects. Lastly, there is a scene that takes place in sort of blizzard conditions which is one more way the filmmakers were able to get around some of the technical problems that they might otherwise have had. In a nutshell, everything looks pretty damn impressive.

Part of the fun of the movie is the originality at play here. As I mentioned, I can’t remember ever seeing a troll movie before. So catching up on some of the terms and mythology of the creatures is kind of a treat. As there are with zombies and vampires, there are “rules” to engaging with a troll. Smells, religious affiliation, UV light, among other things all play a role in troll hunting. On top of this we have to get up to snuff on basic troll types/names and their territorial habits. All of this is new to me and fun to learn about. Couple all of this with the unique weaponry of the troll hunter and it’s a pretty good time to watch him in action. The machine gun style of the UV light is a particularly nice touch – also a weapon utilized in Blade, here it is given sound effect and made a bit more stylish. It’s awesome.

To help with these lessons there is a small community of specialists helping out the troll hunter, from game wardens to veterinarians, they all are helping each other to learn more about these creatures and for some inexplicable reason, keeping the truth from the masses. These characters really don’t do much in the story other than to give some different people for protagonists to interact with, but they help keep the story going forward and give the audience a little bit of exposition without being too dumbed down.

As mentioned, there’s not much terror in this film. Though it’s currently not rated, if I were to give it the Andrew rating it would easily be in the PG realm. No hint of any cussing and the gore is kept to an absolute minimum (think Star Wars IV and you’ve got about the same amount of blood). It might be a little too intense for some of the really little ones but otherwise there shouldn’t be any problem taking a school age child into this one. Part of the reason for this is the whimsical nature of the entire escapade. A lot of the reaction shots from the documentary crew are played for laughs; not straight up slapstick, but constant quirky looks of fright or amusement right to the camera keep things feeling almost like something straight out of “The Office.” The deadpan and serious calmness of the main character is too much fun to take seriously. His voice never raises and he never appears to feel threatened or desperate at any point. He’s so confident and efficient in everything that he does, I’d actually prefer to have him protecting me from the Rancor over Luke Skywalker. Once you warm up to that character, he’s a ball to hang around with.

This is going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s not quite as exciting or well shot as something like Jurassic Park or even Cloverfield. It does have the benefit of feeling like new territory even though it’s made in a familiar style. The running with the shaky cam can get a bit tiresome quickly and it takes a while for things to really amp up. But once we’re firmly embedded within the troll hunter’s world, things pick up and we hardly notice the shoddy camera work. And while the film maybe could be snipped here and there to make it about 20 minutes shorter, again, once the action starts to pick up, the time flies by.

Ultimately the filmmakers made a pretty enjoyable night at the theater for almost anyone. Despite their obvious lack of budget nothing feels like it was skimped on or the audience was duped. Some of the slightly inferior effects take away nothing and in fact, help add to the movie’s charm. They deliver what is promised and for the most part it is refreshing and original. It’s not cinema mastery by a long shot, but for a genre feature that has something to offer just about everyone in the household, you’re not going to do much better.

 
[With it's United States VOD debut today, it seems fitting to revisit Kurt's TIFF review of Takashi Miike's wonderfully macho, wonderfully bloody, and simply wonderful, oldschool Samurai film.]
 

Takashi Miike doing Akira Kurosawa? Yes Please! 13 Assassins is not the goofy homage to Sergio(s) Leone and Corbucci that Sukiyaki Western Django was. Japan’s most hard to pin down auteur re-invents himself once again to offer a mainstream audience an earnest and restrained look at vintage Samurai cinema with all the honour and fighting against all odds offered by classics like The Seven Samurai. Sure Kurosawa’s masterpiece did not have amputees or large beasts of burden running on fire, so there are touches of the director in the margins, but mostly you have some of the most handsome cinematography in a Japanese picture in ages, and a scope and scale that is much further beyond what most would expect from a Miike film. How amazing that a director so prolific can manage to keep his pace for surprises! Normally, when oddball auteurs like David Cronenberg or Peter Jackson do a slick studio picture, a small part of me laments for their wilder more uncouth days. In this case, the results are too damn magnificent to ignore.

It is the mid-19th century, and the Shogunate has known peace for many, many years. The Samurai have grown soft and weak in their inactivity (and boredom), many taking to gambling and drinking. A Grand show of seppuku in the beginning moments plays as a release from failure both literal, and some deeper decay in the soul of the country. That decay is a sadistic lord, Naritsugu, who is on the fast track to real power in the Shogunate. His casual killing and raping for sport, enabled by his noble lineage, has forced the more noble (and more political) advisor to the Shogun, Sir Doi, to set a plan in motion to have Naritsug killed on the way from Edo to his own lands, as to proclaim him unfit to rule would have dangerous political ripples. Doi finds one of the last ‘old school’ Samurai, Shinzaemon, who has been seriously wronged by Naritsugu, to put a small strike team together for the mission. Since Shinzaemon is played by one of the most gifted actors working in Japan (and abroad) today, Koji Yakusho (many are familiar with his many collaborations with Kiyoshi Kurosawa, but he also occasionally steps into prestige western cinema such as Babel or Memoirs of a Geisha), there is a casual gravitas, an intense confidence, brought to the role, not unlike Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen. The gathering of ‘the team’ comprises the first act of the film and consists of finding a few of the remaining competent swordsman that are trust-worthy, and throwing a few wild-cards in there as well, including a hunter who is clearly channeling Toshiro Mifune (albeit it a tad, just a tad goofier). Shinzaemon gambles his stratagems on the psychotic target, but is soon even in more trouble when Naritsugu’s lead samurai is both highly competent and an old friendly rival in school. The second act is like a game of Go between the two Samurai leaders, and is a pleasurable appetizer to the main course of “Total Massacre.” Fortifying a town as best they can (and they can indeed), the third act is a doozy of a set piece. A siege, an ambush, a slaughter, a war. It is not surprising that Lord Naritsugu is in both awe of the slaughter, and practically cries tears of joy at the whole-sale carnage (even as, or especially as the thirteen are destroying hundreds of his men) This is the director casting us, the audience, as the psychotic in the narrative that enjoys this sort of thing (Michael Haneke is not around for comment), and indulging us at the same time.

The film acquires some welcome weightiness from all the standard genre conventions when you consider the consequences of a selfish psycho calling the shots and fate of honourable men. The film is not afraid of taking the caste system of the Shogunate to task. Yet, even noble Shinzaemon is ‘delighted’ to be able to engage in war, his purpose, within his lifetime. The crazy odds of the venture seem to excite him all the more. In spite of all the blood, mud and trampled flesh (or maybe because of it) war is exciting, and Miike never lets the audience forget it. 13 Assassins is a gloriously glossy genre picture that gives an impossible and heroic situation all the glory it is due. It is curious to see Miike do something so straight-forward and crowd pleasing. I am sure he will be off to a new picture (or three) which is as different and wacky and unconventional as is his wont. Sit back and enjoy his stop in epic myth making.

• The Sitges Festival And Director Angel Sala Charged with EXHIBITION OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY for Screening A SERBIAN FILM
  “A Serbian Film is shocking and extreme cinema and designed to be so. But child porn? That is absolutely ridiculous – the scene that tends to get people worked up occurring entirely offscreen with the violence implied and not actually depicted – and I can only hope that the courts recognize it as such and throw the case out.”
• Process of Blockbuster Sale objected to by Disney, Universal, landlords, U.S. trustee and others
  Other studios that have said in court documents they are owed millions of dollars for products shipped since September include Universal, 20th Century Fox and Summit Entertainment. Several of the objecting parties, including the U.S. trustee, argued in court papers that instead of seeking a buyer, Blockbuster should be forced into Chapter 7, a liquidation of all its assets. That would mark a dramatic end to a company that less than a decade ago dominated the U.S. DVD and VHS rental market.
• 52 Most Iconic Use of Pop Songs in Movies
  Who hasn’t heard a familiar pop song on the radio only to be transported back to the film that featured it? You probably never even paid a second thought, let alone liked that particular song before it became associated with that cinematic sequence. Yet, it was such a perfect complement to that one moment in the movie that you now know the lyrics by heart. In honor to that fleeting but powerful connection between music and film, we count down 52 of the most iconic pop songs in movies.
• If There Were an Oscar for Film Titles
  Saul Bass on Film Titles: “My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film’s story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would have an emotional resonance with it.”
• A History of Choose Your Own Adventure
  From the start, the books were full of innovative page hacks. Readers would be trapped in the occasional time loop, forced to flip back and forth between two pages. Most memorable was Inside UFO 54-40, a book in which the most desired outcome, discovering the Planet Ultima, could only be achieved by readers who cheated and flipped through the book until they reached the page on their own. At that point, the book congratulated the reader for breaking the rules.
• Playing With the Truth: Film in 2010
  AIf I were to ask you to imagine the sinking of the Titanic, what images come to your mind? What about Roman gladiator fighting in the Colosseum? What do you picture when you think of John Smith and Pocahontas, or the Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco, or the fate of United Flight 93, or the storming of Omaha Beach on D-Day? You see where I’m going with this: for many people, films based on true events serve as the primary influence on the subconscious in remembering or imagining those events.
• The Best Picture Nominees And Their Video Games Counterparts
  Welcome to our very own version of the Academy Awards, where we’ve paired a recent game with the same dramatic aspirations, themes, or capital D drama as each of the ten best picture nominees. We’ve also picked an Oscar-worthy scene from each, proving once and for all that games belong on the red carpet as much as the next sighing starlet.

You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:

I remember when I was attending university in Waterloo, Ontario back in 1993 and going to the Princess repertory cinema for a screening of The Advocate. This was a strange little film about a lawyer defending a pig (on murder charges) a court of law in 15th Century rural France. The lawyer was played by none other than Colin Firth, and he is admirably supported by Ian Holm, Donald Pleasence, Nicol Williamson and the leading lady from both Krull and Without A Clue (that would by Lysette Anthony). Coming out of the cinema, I vividly remember overhearing someone remark, “Yes, that was a Miramax film.” I had been vaguely aware of the label, if only because I was a big fan of Reservoir Dogs and was thoroughly bemused by Sex Lies and Videotape and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, both of those lengthily titled films along with the rising star of Quentin Tarantino bore the label for the film-company which would break out into the big-time in only a few short months with the $100 million hit, Pulp Fiction; a first for the indie filmmaking world. Even then, people, at least the folks who attended art-house cinemas, were aware of the prolific release of ‘adult art pictures sold in large part on sexual titillation’ by the Weinstein Brothers, Harvey and Bob.

Barry Avrich’s new documentary endeavors to give a broad overview of the brothers’ distribution company, named after truncated marrying of the parents names Miriam and Max. Miramax eventually morphed into a mini-studio fronting expensive productions from the likes of Martin Scorsese and Anthony Minghella under the Buena Vista (that would be Disney) umbrella. The focus is the larger than life producer/screamer/bully Harvey Weinstein, often dubbed the ‘Last of the Hollywood Moguls’ which is kind of amusing considering his company operated out of New York City, but hey, lets print the legend here folks. Avrich outlines the early start by the Brothers W as Buffalo concert promoters selling big-draw bands like The Grateful Dead and Stephen Stills before cutting their teeth on concert films such as The Secret Policeman’s Ball which already put Harvey on the road towards his pejorative nick-name, Harvey Scissorhands, by editing both it and its sequel together for its US release. That was 1982. Avrich then goes on to hit the major milestones throughout the 80s and 90s and aughts (mostly the 90s though) due to marketing wizardry (The Crying Game, Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient) or lightning in a bottle (Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Sling Blade, Fahrenheit 911). There is some focus on Bob and his Dimension Pictures genre-label (which payed a lot of the bills with the Scream and Scary Movie franchises (expert milking of both the original, which is coming out with a 4th sequel, and the parody for maximum box office action) for Harvey’s follies of which there are too many to name!) as well as the tempestuous relationship with Disney, particularly on controversial releases such as Kids, Priest and (this now seems quaint) Dogma. This is mostly done with talking heads, but unlike Harvey’s knack for assembling a who’s who of A-list talent to work for nothing, Avrich is stuck with C-List names to share their ‘Harvey stories.’ And everyone has a Harvey story, particularly Peter Biskind who gets a lot of screen time re-iterating points from his much more salacious and comprehensive (and lets face it entertaining) book, Down And Dirty Pictures, which covers a lot of the same ground here. If you ‘ve read that, you will not learn much from Unauthorized. The key question is whether or not results trump methods. Harvey Weinstein may have had a scorched earth policy to his staff and his competitors, but if imitation is the highest form of flattery, he caused all of the studios to have their own boutique indie label and brought a lot of middle-brow foreign films to people who feared the subtitle. Unauthorized touches on this here and there, but never fully engages it, rather indulging itself in Harvey the wiki-entry vs. Harvey the metaphor.

Back in the mid aughties I used to write a irregular column on Twitch called Weinstein Watch, which detailed the various projects acquired by Miramax, particularly Asian films, and then never released. A couple of those casualties were Tears of the Black Tiger and Zu Warriors. Zhang Yimou’s Hero would have been the biggest bit of craziness if Quentin Tarantino hadn’t pretty much bullied it out the Miramax door to a release that made the company a fair bit of profit. Alas though, Avrich is very much focused on the celebrity and Oscar product, and spares not a single minute of run-time on the angle of cultural misappropriation, which is kind of baffling. All of this is a round-about way of saying casual viewers only will find anything new here, and the delivery passes the time, but is not extraordinary in any way. Certainly a far cry from pushing films like mistaken transsexual love affairs, or pigs on trial for murder onto the unsuspecting masses. Albeit Harvey cut 10 minutes from The Advocate and changed the title from the original, Hour of The Pig, plopped on a misleading cover and cut 10 minutes to get it down from an R Rating, all the tricks of his own M.O. Harvey and Miramax deserve a few more below-the-belt punches in a documentary with the hype-laden title like “UNAUTHORIZED”. It’d be only fair.

Irish director Carmel Winters has arrived and her debut feature, a demure little film titled Snap, is a marvellous achievement from a woman who clearly has a sense of the art of storytelling.

Adapted by Winters from a scene she wrote and later developed into a one woman show, her feature film debut is a further extension of the original idea which tackles issues of family and media, creating a fascinating document on how individuals act and interact both in front of the camera and behind closed doors.

Intricately built with layers of information revealed at every turn, Snap is a film taken in with little previous knowledge as part of its winning formula is the way in which the mystery unfolds, adding a new layer to the story with each passing scene. What at first appears to be a story of a mother dealing with the fallout of her son being charged with murder slowly morphs into a tale which extends much deeper than that, revealing a family history which is perhaps more damaging than any accusation thrown at the mother.

Irish actress Aisling O’Sullivan delivers a performance of intensity and raw emotion which shows her in varying degrees of emotion, each more powerful than the previous.

Winters makes the transition from stage to film successfully with powerful, fully rendered story which lives well beyond its running time and which marks her and cinematographer Kate McCullough (who shoots the feature in a variety of formats) as two women to watch. Snap is a brilliant debut.

See VIFF screening schedule for show times.

 
Here is an experiment. Take the name of six colours, write them in random order several times using a coloured pen that does not match the name of the colour. Time yourself reading this list of colours. Write the same list of colours using only black ink and time yourself reading the list. The mind works is strange ways, and has trouble if preconceived associations to familiar things or objects get too close to one another. Daniel Cockburn, a Toronto video artist has just made a wild and crazy jump into features with a film-slash-brain-experiment that wants to perform a witty and colourful brain massage. He wants to play with your cerebellum in the same way that the perception of film works: ‘Persistence of Vision’ as shutters push single frames to form the illusion of movement. We will ignore the contradiction that he mainly shoots on video. Contradictions are what the film is about.

Cockburn wants to expand your consciousness or provide the illusion of expanding your consciousness or expand your consciousness while providing the illusion that he has not. You Are Here. The statement is both a location as well as a confirmation of existence. Different things, really. The red dot that defines your location on the map can be just as much of a misleader as a guide. The meaning of the film goes beyond the dual-nature of the title into something that is both profound and a profoundly funny. It is science. It is art. It is absurd and hilarious sleight-of-hand. It is an ultra lo-fi version of Inception in which the filmmakers might as well be Leonardo Di Caprio and company (in shabbier clothing mind-you) and the audience are simultaneously the beneficiary of planted ideas and the mark of a baffling grift. The TIFF catalogue labels the film as Dr. Seuss meets Samuel Beckett, and I cannot really argue with that. It is an apt a description as you are going to get without telling you much. When it ended after an all too brief 75 minutes, I was upset. I wanted to see how many more times the filmmakers could fold their narrative in upon itself while keeping me in its spell. Riding the wave, before it collapsed. Like any good performer, Cockburn knows to keep the audience wanting more. Or they ran out of money, drugs or the ability to keep a hold of the reigns. I am sure the director will never tell.

There is no way to spoil You Are Here, because I am not even sure what I have seen. The film keeps the big picture just out of reach by playing out with the rhythms of a hypnotist. A hypnotist that somnambulizes with the quiet and disarming chant of ‘wake-up, do not get hypnotized.’ An experimental film with no plot per se, it does feature Tracey Wright (in one of her final performances) as some sort of information archivist that collects lost documents around the city and explicitly files them in her room full of shelves. In a nondescript room, a man fills out paperwork in the surrogate act of language comprehension. He admits that he *literally* has no idea what he is talking about, continuing with his gargantuan and mysterious task because it is possible (if rather unwieldy) to follow the dozen or so 10cm thick gold-embossed red volumes of step-by-step and cross-referenced instructions because more anonymous sheets will surely be slipped under the door and provide some sort of continued purpose. In yet another room, a cluster of desk clerks direct people all over town in cabs and attempt ensure that the passengers remain in motion without meeting with one another. The movement is recorded with precision. There are other mini-narratives including a man with a cyborg-eye and an instructor who really, really loves his laser pointer. The image of a red spot or dot makes more appearances than the all the hat imagery in the Coen’s Miller’s Crossing, both films feature a love of language and a delight in double-crossing machination. I want to believe that the film is telling me something about perception, but it also may encompass propaganda and political theory, perhaps a little string theory in there for good measure. It is a heck of a lot more fun than Scientific American or NPR though.

It is easier to describe the state-of-mind the viewer is in while watching the movie, rather than the movie itself. The experience of watching You Are Here is felt for me like trying to simultaneously read open books by Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, Malcolm Gladwell, and Noam Chomsky while watching a bank of TVs showing Marx Brothers and Roy Andersson films on loop. The film may not look like much, bit it is a mind altering work of staggering genius. If you have gotten this far into this rambling and repetitive review, you have been given the palest of the pale imitations of what the film is like. Oh, and You Are Here. Welcome. Alas, the number of people that will take joy in this sort of grotty yet earnest intellectual pranksterism is small enough that you might have to find this video in the same passed along by hand fashion as the evil video tape in Ringu was passed around. Maybe with equally dire consequences.

Just in time for the release of Tim Burton’s vision of “Alice,” one which is also made by Disney but looks as seriously twisted as Švankmajer’s (in classic Burton style), BFI National Archive has unleashed a restored version of the first adaptation of Carroll’s story. Made in 1903, a mere 37 years after the story was originally published, the 12 minute adaptation was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow and at the time, was the longest film to be produced in the UK. Only 8 minutes of the original film survive and the BFI has painstakingly restored it and made it available for online viewing. I’ve now seen it twice and must say, it’s as creepy (maybe more so thanks to the man in the bunny costume) as any of the other versions I’ve seen through the years.

• Hollywood hears Roar of Women – Commercial Performance Power of Actresses has Never been Stronger
  “Traditionally, female roles in Hollywood fall into one of three categories: the mother, the ingénue and the quirky (usually unlucky-in-love) best friend or sidekick. Not this year. What we were served in 2009 were some real characters, storylines and performances we could really sink our teeth into.”
• Variety Will Kill a Bad Review of Your ‘Mediocre’ Movie For Just $400,000
  “Last month, Variety panned a thriller called Iron Cross. But the review has been disappeared from Variety’s web site, which probably has something to do with the $400,000 Iron Cross’ producers paid to Variety for an awards campaign.”
• David Lynch-ified Movie Trailers
  Well, actually David Lynch had indeed a shot at Return (Revenge) of the Jedi, but passed on it. Want to see what the trailer at least for this, as well as Friday The Thirteenth (Part 5), A Goofy Movie and more would look like? Lynch cliches abound.
• The Repo Men One Sheet Collection
  Whether or not you feel that the filmmakers are simply re-making Repo! The Genetic Opera with a more traditional style, or there should be a lawsuit, these handsome one-sheets are nifty!
• The Curious Case of Tilda Swinton
  “Below is a guided tour of Tilda’s career in movie posters. Despite her striking beauty she hasn’t been particularly well served by poster designers (fashion designers, on the other hand, have a field day with her), which makes the I Am Love posters all the more notable. Do make sure to scroll all the way down though for the superb poster for the Beijing installment of her film festival: The Scottish Cinema of Dreams in China. Pure Tilda.”
• Roger Ebert regains his power of Speech from DVD Commentary Tracks
  “Before I lost my voice due to cancer-related surgery, I’d recorded commentary tracks for some movies on DVD: “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca,” “Floating Weeds,” “Dark City” and, ah, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.” These tracks had been recorded separately from the movies, so they could be edited to fit scenes. They might be “pure” audio. I asked two friends of mine, Ronnie Sass of Warner Bros. and Kim Hendrickson of the Criterion Collection, if they still had the original digital recordings. They rummaged in warehouses and found they did.”

You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:

• Some Came Running: “Shutter Island”
  Glenn Kenny positively reviews the Scorsese’s newest opus: “So all things being equal, even the most devoted of Scorsese fans couldn’t necessarily be blamed for expecting little beyond a very very grand piece of Guignol, with inimitable style and panache but maybe not so much resonance. So I am thoroughly happy to report that, to my eyes and ears at least, Shutter Island is, in the Godardian formulation, a vrai Scorsese film, in its way the most fully realized personal work of the Scorsese-DiCaprio collabs, a puzzle picture that, as it puts its plot pieces together, climbs to a crescendo that aims to reach that perfect note of empathetic despair we haven’t seen/heard in a Hollywood picture since Vertigo. I think it very nearly gets there.”
• Top 10 Stills of 2009
  Part one of two in which InContention looks at compelling stills from 2009 films.
• Best and Worst worst date movies
  “One Slate writer brought a prospective beau to see the morbidly erotic In the Realm of the Senses, which also involves genital mutilation and which happens to be one of her favorite movies. She never heard from him again. “Just as well, since anyone who can’t roll with Realm O’ isn’t my type anyway,”"
• Robert Smith – “Very Good Advice”
  Robert Smith has turned his attention to Almost Alice, a collection of songs inspired by Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland. He’s joined by the likes of Owl City, Avril Lavigne, the All-American Rejects, and many other of your favorite artists. (The movie’s actual score was done by Danny Elfman, though Avril’s track will show up during the credits.) Take a listen to Smith’s “Very Good Advice” streaming here. It includes less tears than the original.
• When talking about your influences works against you.
  It’s fair. If you’re going to attack Tarantino, the first thing you typically do is cite him for plagiarism, which for me is missing the point — the locations and sequences he films are always slowed down to his distinctive pace. So why is Martin Scorsese celebrated for his cinephilia while Tarantino’s is held in evidence against him?.
• Avatar, the French New Wave and the morality of deep-focus (in 3-D)
  Jim Emerson wonders why James Cameron would use a shallow depth of field in Avatar, a technique that often uses blur to signal depth, in a film that already has depth through its use of 3D. He bolsters his position through references to Cahier critics’ defense of the freedom deep focus allows viewers, arguing that with so much to look at in Avatar, Cameron’s dictatorial shallow focus is inexcusable.
• Hollywood sign coverup part of campaign to purchase Cahuenga Peak
  A nonprofit group plans to cover the Hollywood sign with a banner urging “Save the Peak” this week, announcing its effort to purchase nearby Cahuenga Peak from private developers for $11.7 million.

You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:

Idiocracy ain’t got nuthin’ on this!

Logorama, which could take home an Oscar next month, probably takes the vulgarity prize (in both language and aesthetic) and would very likely make Naomi Klein (author of No Logo) cry. Along with Klein, probably a few brand managers and intellectual property lawyers. The creators are equal opportunity offenders! The ‘story,’ such that it is, follows Ronald McDonald on an OJ like cop chase through a cartoon Los Angeles where every person, building and car is constructed out of corporate logos. Yes, you can get lost just looking at background insanity, or follow a couple of Micheline Men cops trying to gun down old Ronnie and save Big Boy, the Pringles Guy and a cute Esso-gal. The animators here are having a blast, even though their symbols may be obvious (uh, kinda the point!), the energy and mayhem is infectious. Not just products and services, but film fonts and symbols, environmental groups and everything under the sun (even the open source Linux Penguin!) gets tarred and feathered with a broad brush which, appropriately is structured and executed like a modern Hollywood Blockbuster. Surely the collapse of the Western world is happening due to copyright-gone-wild and capitalist cannibalism. (Fun Fact: David Fincher, who also laid the satirical smack down on capitalism and violence in 1999s Fight Club is voice of the Pringles Man and Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker is also lending his voice to the proceedings.)

Logorama was (of course!) made and produced by an ad firm, the French H5 Design Collective and directed by François Alaux. The entire 16 minute short is tucked under the seat. Enjoy!

It appears to be list day. The Row Three best of the decade was a strange and varied consensus, namely that few lists looked alike over the 10 year span.

I don’t think it is possible to rank these films; simply here they are:

In The Mood For Love
25th Hour
There Will Be Blood
Enter The Void
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The New World
City of God
The Prestige
Miami Vice
Gerry

And 10 More:

Birth
Code 46
Synecdoche, NY
Zodiac
Paprika
Inland Empire
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Fountain
Lady Vengeance
Primer

With Hollywood’s once fresh, young faces aging with wisdom, experience and (for the most part) honorable careers, it’s safe to say there are limits to the roles Leo Dicaprio, Matt Damon, Ethan Hawke, Ben Affleck, Tobey Maguire and their seasoned comrades of this attractive graduating class will be able to snag. This inevitable ‘passing of the torch’ has been in effect since the start. 

As the next wave of Leading Men begin to penetrate the principal roles and step up to the plate, the “face” of our generation’s classic characters and the literal faces of the actors on the conveyer-belt to stardom remind me that of the changing “face” of the leading man in the late 1960′s, early 1970′s. A time in which the drop-dead mega hunks were replaced (or to be fair) challenged by a slew of talented actors who reached historic, awarded successes for their portrayals of cinema’s boldest, most memorable characters. Names like; Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Woody Allen, Bruce Dern, Richard Dreyfus and Dustin Hoffman came neck in neck with the dreamy Robert Redford, Warren Beatty and Clint Eastwood, and for the most part, took on transformative, dark roles- the anti-hero, which I’m sure most of their alluring adversaries would gladly pass on for the chance to star as a more appealing protagonist

To keep in mind, for every gorgeous Ryan O’Neal, there is a budding Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson ready and willing to take on the painful position of being the next generation’s “dream-boat”. 

Could it be safe to say that todays young ‘Stars on the Rise’ such as Michael Cera, Jesse Eisenberg, Jamie Bell and Paul Dano may very well be the newest wave of daring, young talent here to rescue us from a brewing generation of vanity projects and mindless action flicks? 

Regardless of how much Cera and Eisenberg confuse me, eventually one of them will have to give it up and let the other be the reigning master of the lovable, bumbling “underdog”. For as is, there’s just too much sickening “cute” between the two. 

The Movie Fanatic’s list of The Top 50 Hottest Young Actors try to bring attention to both the looming pin-ups boys as well as the leaders in a movement that could once again revive the industry in a time of bulky brain-junk. 

Thoughts on the futures of these fresh faces?

And who’s shoes are they lined up to fill?

See TMF’s list:

Top 50 Young Actors

One video in particular which has caught my attention is this one in which Tarantino talks about the films which he has loved the most in the twelve years he has been directing film. The list isn’t a complete surprise but features a few films which are a little more mainstream than I expected from the director (either that or I’ve been searching out some seriously twisted stuff). Surprisingly, I’ve seen, and loved, most of the films on the list which includes, first and foremost, Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Roayle, followed by Audition, The Matrix and Dogville among many others.

This feels a little like cheating. I say this because the trailer I’m about to share is not in English and though it looks beautiful, I can’t quite follow what’s going on.

Though no one will dispute Michael Haneke’s position as a world class auteur, he’s not particularly well liked. Critics may love him as do many film lovers but his often condescending way of speaking to the audience, not to mention the continuous mindfuck his movies tend to bring, can be alienating. One may not love him but he is good at what he does: making films that make you think. I expect that his most recent, the Palme D’Or winning The White Ribbon, is no exception.

Set in small town Germany between 1913 and 1914, it focuses on a group of children, teens and their families, and follows their actions when a series of strange accidents begin to occur. It sounds like a bit of a mystery mixed in with family drama and small town life but to make things even more interesting, Haneke also sets this on the eve of WWI which will likely throw politics into the already messy mix.

This German trailer suggests the film looks beautiful and the Cannes win, though not always an indication, certainly suggests something great and considering the Cannes Juries have does well in their selections over the last few years, I expect this will be great.

The White Ribbon opens in Austria on August 24th and will open throughout various European markets in the following moths. It is scheduled for limited North American release on December 25th.

Trailer is tucked under the seat!

T this is one of those twitter things. Rope of Silicon by way of Anne Thompson by way of Scanners Blog via filmmaker Baris Azman who posted the link to the Coen Brothers’ contribution to the short film anthology Chacun son cinéma made specifically for Cannes a couple of years ago which is now up on Youtube. Curiously, this short (along with the David Lynch one, here) was left off the eventual DVD release. But it is freely available for the time being. Joy!

It’s only a couple minutes long, and essentially Llewelyn Moss (although he is named Dan here) walking randomly into a repertory cinema and deciding whether or not to watch Jean Renoir‘s Rules of the Game or Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Climates (FYI, my review of Climates here).

Pontypool: Or How I Learned to Start Worrying and Fear the New Zombie

Being born in 1976 I have missed most, if not all, of what I would consider the major tide changes in horror film making here in the United States. The two closest to my heart, and in my opinion the two most important films, being Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Some might say that I was able to witness a similar precedent with The Blair Witch Project, which is a fair point to make. But I think that over the course of time since The Blair Witch Project was released has proven the film to be far more influential in the marketing of films, and specifically the rise of viral marketing, then it has influenced the horror genre.

But while The Blair Witch Project certainly was influential, Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were revolutionary by comparison. Both were low budget shock fests that relied far more on mood and atmosphere to set the table for the scares they were about to serve the audience then most of the other low budget fare of their time. Night of the Living Dead was serious whereas other horror films of the day were campy. And The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, despite its reputation, isn’t bathing in gore as many of its contemporaries were, but rather is a subtle and subdued fright fest. Neither are particularly scary by today’s standards and styles, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre relying on an general level of creepiness rarely matched in any other film, and Night of the Living Dead almost suffocating the viewer with tension. And while these two might not be the best horror films ever made, particularly in the case of Night of the Living Dead where most people, myself included, view its sequel Dawn of the Dead to be the superior film, but these two films introduced audiences to new concepts and styles in horror, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre masterfully manipulating audiences with its “based on actual events” premise. As much as I would like to discuss The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the lack of zombies in the film make it a bit difficult to directly correlate to the film that made me want to write this piece in the first place. But Night of the Living Dead on the other hand, brought about a whole new and terrifying meaning to the word zombie, which is quite relevant to what I wish to discuss.

Before the walking, brain-eating living dead zombies that flood current pop culture ever existed, the zombie was a vastly different monster. The concept of the zombie originated in the Caribbean where the belief is held that a certain kind of puffer fish is poisonous enough to cause people to slip into a death like coma for several days and the inevitable result of this being that people are often buried alive. It is believed that this technique had been co-opted by various criminal elements, and through their employment of Voodoo sorcerer’s (called bokors), that they can control these beings once they are revived from their horrific slumber. The region’s strong religious beliefs have led to the notion that anyone this happens to is at the mercy of the bokor that revives them. This practice was of course showcased in the fantastic film The Serpent and the Rainbow as well as the totally unappreciated, yet equally fantastic, Weekend at Bernie’s II. And while these films are now modern day exceptions to the norm, up until the release of Night of the Living Dead the basic premise of the zombie was someone who was powerless to resist the mind control of another person. But then Night of the Living Dead changed everything.

Since the release of Night of the Living Dead and its revolutionary seminal take on zombies, this has become a relatively stale sub-genre. There are still plenty of good zombie films being made, but there have been few innovations on the zombie concept in the decades since. Fast moving zombies, considered revolutionary by the uneducated when they appeared in Zach Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, had already been implemented in 1985’s Return of the Living Dead. The idea of worms or parasites controlling a host body, used most recently in the film Slither, was used earlier in the 1987 film Night of the Creeps, and even then it was clearly an homage to the iconic 1957 horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 28 Days Later showed perhaps the most innovation of this group by changing from living dead zombies to a viral hate plague, but even it relied on a blood born pathogen for transmission and used what would soon become the cinematic standard of using fast moving ghouls. Even the Spanish horror film [Rec] showed further innovation by sequestering the victims in the same building as the zombies rather then have them hiding in a building with the menace outside. [Rec]2 looks to increase the claustrophobia even more by using first-person camera angles to draw the viewer directly into the film. All of these are welcomed additions to the sub-genre, and when used well can make for a unique and enjoyable viewing experience, but by no means has the sub-genre done much more then implement minor tweaks on a premise that has existed relatively undisturbed for fifty years. That is, until Pontypool came along and changed everything.

Gone is your garden variety living dead zombies, instead replaced with what author/screenwriter Tony Burgess and director Bruce McDonald refer to as “Conversationalists”, but make no mistake, in-spite of this literal flourish, they are zombies. But these zombies are driven by something else. They have no desire to feast on human flesh or consume brains by the bucket full, rather, they simply want to eat your face off. Why? Because something has placed the idea in their head that it is the only way they can stop the madness trapped inside them and save themselves. These zombies are hunting for their very survival.

Now the survival instinct has never been explored to great length in a zombie film. More often then not they are driven by an insatiable desire to consume, and not to prevent themselves from dying, and this brings about the first difference from your standard zombie, in that the zombies of Pontypool are not dead! Similar to the people infected with the rage virus in 28 Days Later, these zombies are people infected with a virus that turns them into these monsters. They are compelled to defend themselves and are incapable of controlling their actions, and these mindless mimics will do whatever they can to find a victim and save themselves from certain doom.

It is this defensive reaction that separates the Pontypool zombie from all the others, and that coupled with the fact that these zombies are still alive, is what makes for the most compelling and chilling form of the zombie to date. These zombies don’t kill because they crave human flesh. They don’t hunt because they desire destruction. These zombies are sick, to the point of appearing schizophrenic, and they do not know what they are doing is dangerous and causing harm. Their humanity is still intact, they simply can no longer reach it. They attack because they believe it will help them, because if they don’t act, they will die. They are not merely acting on base impulse, but fighting for their survival, and what they believe is their remaining humanity. That is the crux of the matter, and what makes Pontypool legitimately stand alongside the titans of the sub-genre, accomplishing quite eloquently what George Romero has failed to do with his past two zombie films, by making the zombies sympathetic. And with that ingenious twist, Pontypool has potentially altered the course of future zombie films.

But should zombies be sympathetic? One of the things most frightening about zombies is how they are not sympathetic. They are simply a tidal wave of death that is impossible to escape from. You can run, you can hide, you can cut their frakking heads off, but you can never stop them. You can’t even hope to contain them. That they are this mindless, destructive, unstoppable force is what makes them so terrifying. That same herd mentality is what makes them such effective allegorical conduits as well. Most zombie films go to great lengths to imply that the zombie is a metaphor, and as such they are representing something that should be feared or looked down upon. And because of that, the idea of a sympathetic zombie is theoretically an oxymoron. Giving villain depth is typically a good thing. But giving a villain depth is detrimental when that villain’s effectiveness is directly dependent on being devoid of any individuality or substance. For years I have thought this to be an immutable fact, but Pontypool has convinced me otherwise.

The zombies in Pontypool are something far more terrifying to imagine, and more horrible to face, then their undead counterparts. They aren’t rotting shells of their former selves, lurching around with nary a thought in their brain except “Braaaaaaaaaaains!” Romero attempted to re-invent the zombie in Land of the Dead, but his version remains fatally flawed because he tried to inject humanity into something that was well established as empty and soulless. The result is a rather clumsy device that makes zombies seem silly rather than menacing, and the humans fighting them particularly inept for being unable to out think something without a working brain. Romero attempted the same thing, albeit it a different manner, in his follow up film Diary of the Dead, where he made the humans in the film out to be shallow, vacuous and entirely unsympathetic creatures. The obvious problem being that the lack of an identifiable or sympathetic protagonist does not directly correlate to a sympathetic antagonist. Instead you simply have a ton of walking corpses (some living, some not) and the sooner they all bite the dust you can go find something far more worth your time to watch.

But Pontypool doesn’t fall into these traps that Romero has been unable to avoid in his recent work. It retains the humanity of the zombies by putting up an invisible barrier that prevents them from connecting with it. For the zombie this creates a cycle of frustration as they attempt to reconnect with it, but each attempt only pushes them further and further away from what they both desire and depend on. But for the audience, and the protagonists, something far more chilling occurs. Because they can still see the person they once knew and cared for, these zombies aren’t a creature that is already lost, but rather someone struggling to survive. They aren’t monsters, but tortured souls, trapped in a Hell that exists within their own mind.

And while hiding has always been a prime component of any zombie film, with the Pontypool zombies it becomes the only rational and ethical defense against them. These people aren’t ghouls, and they certainly aren’t dead. What’s even worse? They can be cured. And while no one seems to know just how to go about curing them, that it is a possibility presents the characters with a moral dilemma absent in other zombie films. While killing these characters ravaged by disease and trapped in a walking coma might free them or ease their pain in the short term, it also removes all possibility of them ever recovering and once again leading a normal life. Thus the characters, and the audience by proxy, are left in the unenviable quandary of not wanting to harm the beings that are attempting to kill them.

And while that moral dilemma is certainly the most obvious in the film, there is another lurking beneath the surface. Hiding from a Pontypool zombie inevitably results in them dying, meaning inaction is just as harmful to the Pontypool zombie as destroying the brain of a standard zombie is. With the Pontypool zombies, they seek out a singular victim, and when they finally hone in on their prey, the process of killing it kills them. But if they can’t find a victim, they simply turn on themselves until they self-destruct in a bloody fury of frustration. So if action causes the death of these zombies, and so does inaction, then what is one to do?

The answer would seem to be, find a cure. But with really no idea how to go about it it seems a foolhardy course at best. But when faced with the potential death of you friends and family, what other course is there? But finding a cure requires something very different then you will ever see in any other zombie film, and that is actively engaging with the zombie. You must openly initiate a dialog with these zombies, in the hopes that something you say will snuff the fuse that is burning in their brain, in effect drawing them away from a rash decision and convincing them to finally think about their actions. The Pontypool zombies are not mindless creatures of evil that can be easily categorized as something that must be destroyed, but rather these zombies provide a mass of complex ethical dilemmas and issues that must be talked about if you have any hope of ever solving the plague.

And that is the beauty of Pontypool. These creations perfectly fit into the modern world, where everyone is far more cognizant of what is going around them and the danger that lurks around every corner. Faceless terrors and boogeymen can have a short-term visceral effect, making them potentially effective during a ninety minute film, but pale in comparison to the anger of those you know and understand yet struggle to ever find a common ground with. The struggle to have a dialogue with those who you fear and might harm you is a very real and dangerous fear for many people, and Pontypool has splayed it onto the screen with terrifying effect. Pontypool has mainlined this fear into the audience by creating a rich and complicated villain that can stand along side any of the giants of the horror genre. A villain that is terrifying not because of it is unrelatable, but because it views the same events as you do in a fundamentally different way. Pontypool has changed the zombie, for it is no longer a mass of fear that you can’t identify with. No, now it is someone who is much like you, only, something is stuck that makes communication seemingly impossible due to its uncontrollable delusions. And unless you can work through that issue, things won’t end well for anyone.

Ironically, the one character that seems to know what he wants and what he is, is actually the most creepy. Jason Patric is often known for more pretty-boy roles from Speed 2 to Narc, but here he inverts his carved good looks into a something borderline evil. He is cruel to others, and takes pleasure in the cruelty. A doctor of some sort (god forbid a gynecologist) one scene, early in the film, has him casually tossing the plastic model of an infant from a maternity model in his office while talking on the phone. The scene ends with him football-punting the child offscreen. But that little nugget of insight pales in comparison to the scene below where Patric regales the story of his best sexual encounter to his ‘buddies’ (Aaron Eckhart and Ben Stiller) while in the sauna. Silence follows. AWK-WARD!!! This is only one of many great vignettes (and I’ve left out the real punchline in the locker room after Patric’s monologue) in Your Friends & Neighbors, a film that was overshadowed in the Rated-R adult arthouse zone by Todd Solondz more visually graphic Happiness which was release in the same month. Neil Labute, lately, has been making more straight up studio pictures like Lakeview Terrace, The Wickerman remake (if that can be called ‘straight-up’ with Nic Cage’s batty performance) and Nurse Betty, but his one-two punch of yuppie awfulness directed from his own stage plays (In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors remains his most vital film work.