The Absolute Best of the Century (Thus Far)

When it was first suggested that each Dork Shelfer (we’re kinda like the Maple Leafs that way) write a blurb about their favourite comic book, video game and movie of the past decade, reactions were mixed. It’s the general consensus that the only thing more arbitrarily reductive than declaring the ‘best’ of the year is pretending to know what was the ‘best’ of the last ten years (if you’re thinking to yourself ‘what about the best of the last one hundred years?’ then you’re a smartass who’s missing the point). I mean, who am I to tell you that Wild Hogs will become the under-appreciated Citizen Kane of our generation?  Of course, this is by no means what we’re trying to do, but merely attempting to relay our personal impressions of what stuck out as our favourite sources of entertainment since recovering from the Y2K scare (I still keep all perishable food items at least 10 feet away from my computer at all times, just in case).

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Revisiting the High Nineties: Cannibal Double Feature

It seems that I slept through all those timely Halloween horror film recommendations last month. However, this double feature is just is applicable now as it was then, which is why I’m making these my Yanksgiving (what us Canadians call American Thanksgiving, or at least should start) family viewing picks. Because nothing says ‘Thank You’ to your fellow man more than seeing to it that his leftovers don’t go to waste.

The 70’s and 80’s saw cannibal films become a big horror sub-genre popular with the cult crowds. The early 90’s had the subject break into mainstream movies with the Best Picture winning Silence of the Lambs, though most would agree this movie has little in common with the aforementioned underground movement. A couple years later Alive was released, which was a true story with an awesome plane crash and a stranded soccer team doing what needed to be done to survive. It would be almost a decade before Hollywood returned to Thomas Harris novels for subsequent Hannibal Lecter sequels, re-makes and prequels, leaving a period in between where I can think of few man-eats-man movies other than these two often overlooked treats: Cannibal: The Musical and Ravenous.

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Cronenberg looks under King’s Dome

This past Thursday night I was treated to a very special surprise: last minute tickets to an evening with Stephen King. I estimate that no one has written a larger portion of my lifetime’s reading than this man. And as an added bonus, he was interviewed by my favourite Canadian filmmaker, David Cronenberg. I didn’t even know this event was happening in here in Toronto, where I pride myself in usually being ‘in the know’ about this kind of thing.   I’m not sure where they advertised it, but I suppose not much publicity was needed to sell out the 2200 seat Canon Theatre for this once in a lifetime opportunity.

After being introduced by George Stroumboulopoulos (this guy’s everywhere!), King came out in a typical dressed-down writer’s attire which included white running shoes, a red t-shirt and faded blue jeans that were a little too short. He then expressed his nervousness caused by having to read excerpts from his new book to a bigger audience than he had ever read to before. It’s ironic that the author who has written about nearly every supernatural fear you can think of is still subject to the most common fear of all: public speaking. Perhaps this was an attempt to make himself more relatable after entering a stage on which the cover art of over 30 bestselling novels had just been projected one at a time to continually growing applause. He then mentioned that he had dropped his pages while they were putting his wireless mic on, and then proceeded to read them out of order, as he had feared… the horror! I felt a certain poetic justice in watching the man squirm a bit after my experiences reading It when I was 13 years old. Under the Dome is a return to those 1000-plus page yarns he was spinning in the 80’s, it’s been flying off thankful bookshelves for about two weeks now.

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War Stars 101

Every day, new people are born into this world. There’s a good chance most of these people have parents, and there’s an even better chance that their parents watched at least one Star Wars trilogy while growing up. These new parents are faced with all kinds of important decisions during their children’s formative years, none more divisive and controversial than the one I’m going to address today: What order do you show your offspring the Star Wars saga in?* Do you stick to the chronology in which they were made, dictating the order be episodes IV through VI followed by I to III? Or does one honour the ‘logical’ sequence of I through VI? I have come to the conclusion that neither of these billings are satisfactory, and the best solution is to use the zig zag narrative structure popular in today’s storytelling (my theory is that this was caused by a generation of writers heavily influenced by House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ ).

Those stuck with this task can now rest easy, as I’ve done their thinking for them.  Come with me as I show you the path and why it must be this way.

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Revisiting the High Nineties: The Indian Runner

They told us what to watch then, now it's my turn.

Welcome to the first installment of what is sure to become the biggest thing on the ‘net since it stopped making those NIN-inspired up dial up noises. This will be an ongoing series of articles in which I recommend a film from the decade that gave me the love of the medium. The nineties were by no means the golden age of cinema, but it was a pretty damn good era to come of age in. I will try to find titles a lot of people may have missed, but I’ll also be encouraging you to take a second look at movies you may have dismissed the first time around while hopefully helping you discover some bargain bin gems. Our first nineties notable was directed by a man who made his name acting cool in the eighties.

Before Sean Penn was milking the Academy for a yearly performance nomination, he made his directorial debut with an extremely savvy, underrated film called The Indian Runner. The few films he’s directed since (The Crossing Guard, The Pledge and Into the Wild) have generally been well received as mature, realized projects, but I still feel this often overlooked first film is his strongest.  The year was 1991, and the barely 30 year old actor demonstrated that he was a lot more than just that, and was in fact very well versed in cinema, its past masters as well as its capacity for artistic expression.

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Foxy Wild Things

Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson battle it out for hipster... whatever.

Seeing as I’ve been in their presence for several years now, it’s still a surprise to me when I meet people who are not familiar with the phenomenon that is the hipster. Existing mainly within major metropolitan areas, they’re usually artsy, skinny jean wearing, indie-rock listening, vintage hunting, irony loving youths who, like so many generational ‘fringe’ movements, end up looking the same by trying to look different.  I’m not sure where this began, but it reaches as far as Eastern Europe, Russia even contributed a documentary to this year’s Toronto Film Fest about their own youth culture aptly titled Hipsters. Another defining characteristic is that a hipster will almost never identify themselves thusly, as this would be implying that they are part of a larger trend and not the most original person that ever lived.  One thing that keeps them secure in their individualism is liking obscure things, which is why I like to use this joke when defining them:
How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
You know what, it’s actually a really obscure number, you’ve probably never heard of it.

That being said, every now and then they can begrudgingly unite behind something that is mainstream. I predict that this Fall will actually see two such (seemingly unlikely) films battle it out for hipster supremacy. With their era-transcending outfits and love of anything postmodern, it can be said that making the old new again speaks to their more nostalgic sides; which is why the upcoming release of two children’s book adaptations will probably find their movie audiences a little older than the source material’s readers. Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (Oct. 14) and Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (Nov.16) will likely earn a fair portion of their box office return from those who usually don’t like to pay more than $10 for anything made this century unless it’s a specialty poutine.

Below I examine some similarities between these films while trying to determine which one has greater hipster cred. Read the rest of this entry »

TIFF Blog: Noah’s Film Festival Experience (Part 1?)

I can’t speak for the rest of this town’s cinema lovers, but one of the best parts of our film festival for me has always been the surprises.  Not knowing which films I’m going to end up seeing, who’s going to be at the screenings, and which ones I will like.

My priorities when choosing what to see usually range in this order:

1. Availability — As in mine… I actually get a little busy from time to time.

2. Affordability — Do I pay $40 for a movie ticket or eat for a day?

3. Accessibility — Will there be any seats left by the time I know what I’m buying?

4. Exclusivity — Will it be playing in every cinema in a couple month’s time?

5. Familiarity — Is there a touchstone I can use to contextualize the film, such as a director, actor or story I’m already familiar with.

6. Hype — Have I heard any?

This year’s festival will actually be one of those rare occasions when I’ll be quite busy.  My days will be spent guiding tourists around Toronto on a double decker bus, while my evenings will be spent driving a Cadillac Escalade for one of the festival’s party organizers.  The upside is that I’ll have money to buy tickets; unfortunately it also puts most of the event’s screenings out of consideration.

Now legend has it that the mere mention of Dork Shelf’s name had TIFF’s publicity people begging us to take the highest level of media credentials, which we gratefully accepted. This meant that I had the good fortune of spending one of my only days off before the festival officially launches viewing several pre-screenings.  I was told to show up at the theater at 10am, state my affiliation and present the necessary documentation, but I wasn’t told which films were being screened.  It would be a day of pleasant surprises indeed.

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Toronto After Dark Review: The Forbidden Door

The Forbidden Door’s protagonist is not a starving artist, but a prosperous one learning that success can be just as torturous.  The film opens on him sipping champagne while denying an art collector one of his gallery pieces, as it has already sold.  The first few shots inside the art gallery give an initial impression that this may be a visually uninteresting film.  This perception is shattered after Gambir and his wife leave the gallery, a crane shot swoops up and away, past a blazing marquee before we’re thrown into one of the coolest opening credit sequences ever (think James Bond meets Roman Polanski) and we see that director Joko Anwar has some flair to share.

I won’t try to summarize the plot which, like so many ambitious horror films, starts out strong, becomes a little convoluted, ultimately leaves the viewer thinking ‘wtf?’.  The titular forbidden door that Gambir can’t enter actually has very little to do with the plot, but is just one of several catalysts that contribute to his insanity and paranoia.  I will say that the gory moments were squirm-worthy but not gratuitous and evoked cheers from the After Dark audience.

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Moving Up: Exclusive with Defying Gravity’s Dylan Taylor

From commercial funny man (pepsi,  pizza pops, bud light), to movie slow poke (Tideland,  Charlie Bartlett), to the biggest House Party animal in last year’s under-performing (though not without its moments) original Comedy Network series, Toronto actor Dylan Taylor has been on the up and up for a few years now. You could even say he’s been getting high ever since high school but never dreamed he’d one day be taking a trip beyond our atmosphere. Okay, perhaps Dylan isn’t actually leaving earth anytime soon, but Steve Wassenfelder, the immature genius he plays on Defying Gravity, is.

“I’ve often been cast as slow, dimwitted characters. This time I’m a theoretical physicist, maybe the smartest guy on the ship, but also the youngest, which we sometimes see with my video game obsessions and juvenile attitude towards girls.”

Astronauts (Dylan in the middle) in awe at the contents of Dork Shelf.

The primary concentration of the show is a six year mission visiting seven planets manned by eight people from four countries (got all that?).  Because the show is set in the not too distant future (including flashbacks, the story takes place roughly between 2040 and 2060), much of it will be grounded in a recognizable reality. As Dylan informs us,  “the fashions on earth haven’t changed all that much and a lot of the gadgets are the same that we have now, only better.”   They seem to be taking the smart route of not expecting the audience to completely suspend disbelief and are attempting to show a lot of the realities of space travel. For example, how people and things react to zero gravity is a constant concern. “But there’s also an ominous mystery element to the mission, plus our characters have the added pressure of being seen by millions of people on earth who watch us on TV like a reality show. The writers have done a really great job planning the entire series’ arc.”

Production of the Fox TV/ Omni film co-produced series wrapped the first 13 episodes only a few weeks ago in Vancouver, with news of its early August premiere on ABC reaching the cast only a week ago.

“Just before getting the role, I was starting to get in shape, probably the best I’d been in years.”  Says Dylan, “I was a little worried because casting directors who had seen my previous work would be expecting a certain type. Sure enough they wanted me to put some weight back on for the role, which I did, but not much when they decided that after 5 years of training my character would have slimmed out a bit, like Barney in The Simpsons before he went to space. In the deeper flashbacks I’ll look more like the comic book guy.”

The great thing about a science fiction TV series, is there’s lots of room for special effects, action, comedy, romance, allegory and character development. And Vancouver is no stranger to Sci-Fi serials either (X-Files, Smallville, Battlestar Gallactica). Many of the major creatives behind the show have a pretty impressive track record going into this, including the pilot episode’s director David Straiton (House), executive producers James Parriott (Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty) and Michael Edelstein (Desperate Housewives), and of course the always likable face of star Ron Livingston which was all over one of my all-time favourite mini-series, Band of Brothers.

With so much going for it, it’s hard not to think that Defying Gravity is poised to succeed. “It’s the best thing to happen to space since Bowie, I’m hoping they get the rights to that song too.”

It will be aired on CTV in Canada and ABC Stateside. The first two episodes premiere on Sunday, August 2nd at 9pm, with a regular time slot commencing the following Sunday.