Robert Bresson, one of the most important names in classic French cinema, is often overshadowed by the New Wave filmmakers who followed in his footsteps. His filmography is often unjustly relegated to the confines of film studies classes and the shelves of Criterion DVD collectors. The TIFF Bell Lightbox hopes to bring new eyes to Bresson’s work by featuring all thirteen of his films in a retrospective called The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson.

‘Meticulous and deliberate’ best describes Bresson’s films. His shots are steady and carefully selected. The films themselves are often driven more by static images and editing than sensational plot or performances. In fact, Bresson had a tendency to use non-actors, keeping them nearly expressionless in some cases, allowing the sequence of images to get the heft and emotions of the story across.

Bresson’s career spanned forty years, from 1943 until 1983, and in that time he directed only thirteen features. Hardly a prolific output, but the thoughtful craft of his films suggests he took his time to develop ideas and stories that would best suit his style. There’s a stark quality to his films; a sense of untarnished reality. His mode is stylized, but more in perspective and situational mood than visual expressiveness. Close-ups are a big part of Bresson’s visual vocabulary, and the number of shots of hands in his films is probably unmatched by any other filmmaker. His shots often linger on characters or objects, directing the focus deliberately while allowing the audience to soak in the meanings and emotions of each situation.

Les anges du péché, Bresson’s first feature, is the story of a nun who works to rehabilitate female convicts. One woman is unwilling to accept help because she claims to be innocent of her charges. The story leads down a dark path involving revenge and murder, and while the film is perhaps Bresson’s most conventional in many ways, this actually makes it a great place to start in order to ease into his later work. The film uses professional actors, a rarity for Bresson, who would limit that after his next film, but this helps to draw in the uninitiated. Though the acting may be more normal and expressive, the plot follows a more classic structure. The major themes that would pop up in his later films are all here. The Catholic religion and the guilt associated with it; human suffering and misery at the hands of others; tragic, violent acts; attempts at redemption and salvation. The simple and direct style of filmmaking is also present, though not quite as bold as would be seen in future Bresson films.

1951’s Diary of a Country Priest is the film that would then cement Bresson’s core style. This story of a small parish priest, too young for his work and afflicted with illness, fits in perfectly with the themes already established. The cruelty he encounters in people is dismaying, and in the one case where he does help ‘save’ a woman, her untimely death gets blamed on him. His strict moral code doesn’t help him, and he’s essentially cast out by the society he so desperately wants to help. This was apparently a huge influence on Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese when they made Taxi Driver decades later.

In Bresson’s next film he uses his now fully established style to tell a strictly mechanical story. In A Man Escaped, a POW in a Nazi jail mounts an escape. There isn’t much more to it than that, but the devil lies in the details. The film gloriously exemplifies the power of human perseverance, and this comes through most clearly during a sequence in which the protagonist slowly and methodically chips away at his wooden door until he can remove enough boards to actually step out of his cell. The film isn’t bombastic about the escape — Shawshank this ain’t — but in its quiet and direct nature we get a sense of how difficult even such a mundane task would be.

The subject of his next film, Pickpocket, also makes great use of Bresson’s directness, but much like Diary of a Country Priest, the results are surprisingly emotional. The film is about a pickpocket with a dying mother who is evading arrest and still finds time to fall in love with a girl. This is also the film where Bresson first goes nuts with close-ups. If pickpocketing is like magic, with sleight-of-hand being the main tool of the trade, Bresson’s magic trick is to use close-ups to follow the hand movements of the pickpocket. The film would almost be a lesson in pickpocketing, except that even with such close scrutiny, the delicacy of the skill still makes it look like magic. The scenes of theft are ingeniously tense and fascinating all at once. Once scene in which the main character, Michel, plans and attempts to carry out a wallet theft on a subway train is extremely involving and fun to watch.

Au hazard Balthazar is like the anti-War Horse. It’s the story of a girl and her donkey separated by circumstance and treated to the cruelty and suffering that can only be felt at the hands of other people. What little hope there is in the film’s presentations of love is knocked cold by the sheer weight of the ongoing tragedy. As the donkey is passed from one owner to the next he’s a victim of society and humanity, as is the girl. The way the donkey so innocently and nobly goes through all this torment alludes to the purity in the suffering of Christ, and a thorny crown makes this all too clear. But Balthazar the donkey doesn’t suffer for the sins of humanity. Instead he suffers because of those sins. It’s a dark story, and about as depressing and affecting as any film ever made.

Not to be outdone by his own work, Bresson’s next film, Mouchette, continues the darkness and depression of Au hazard Balthazar without missing a beat. Mouchette’s father is a mean drunk and her mother is sick and dying. She’s mocked by her fellow students and bullied by her teacher. She’s taken advantage of by an older man and raped, and worse still she is judged harshly for that sexual activity. Her abusive father quashes the one ray of hope she sees when she meets in a nice boy at the fair, and when her mother passes away she finally has nothing left. It’s a difficult film to sit through and made all the more devastating by the way Bresson’s camera refuses to become emotionally involved. That distance only serves to pull the audience in, to live in each horrible moment.

Lancelot du Lac is a unique departure for Bresson, not in style, but in content. He takes the classic Round Table story and presents a highly revisionist take on the love between Lancelot and Guinevere. While his previous films often contained violence, the sheer level of gore on display in parts of this film is quite stunning. Without any sort of build-up, the film opens with images of gruesome killings and decapitations. The love story in the film gets treated with little romanticism, but complete seriousness.

Bresson’s final film might be his most amazingly prescient. L’argent begins by following a counterfeit bill as it’s passed from a rich kid to a storeowner and then to a gas man. That gas man, Yvon, tries to pay for a meal with the bill only to be arrested. His arrest essentially leads his entire life to complete ruin with extremely violent ends. The indifference and cruelty of the rich and the upper class comes to weigh down and destroy the lower class man who then resorts to needless cruelty and violence. The film is a pretty brilliant exploration of the power of money and classes in society, and how very often the misdeeds of the wealthy hurt and warp only those least fortunate. In this post-financial crisis world, L’argent proves a surprisingly relevant work on both an intellectual and human level.

The Lightbox will be presenting screenings of every one of these films and more. If you haven’t seen any Bresson or you’re already a big fan, surely these screenings are not to be missed. If you’ve never been exposed to Bresson before, it’s probably advisable to take things a little slowly. His style can take some getting used to, but as evidenced by the breadth and relatively consistent quality of his work, Bresson is a director very much worth sinking your teeth into. And what better way to begin an education in Bresson than by seeing his films presented on the big screen at the Lightbox?

The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson begins February 9 at 6:30 PM with University of Toronto professor Bart Testa presenting a brand new restoration of A Man Escaped. For showtimes, titles, and tickets, please visit TIFF.net.

Aside from the rarity of being a twin (roughly only 33 out of every thousand births are multiples of any kind), being born at the same time as another human being imparts a special bond that people born through single births simply can’t understand. Growing side by side as their bodies develop turns into growing older at the same rate and often going through the same familial issues. It’s the shared experience of brothers and sisters – complete with different personalities and personal quirks – amplified even further through closer proximity. But what happens when someone’s biological other half passes away?

This is the question director and twin Anna van der Wee looks at in her hour long documentary Lone Twin (airing Wednesday, February 15th at 9pm on TVO), a deeply personal and soul searching look her own loss and struggles to come to terms with a fractured sense of identity following the loss of her brother Dirk when they were only twenty years old. Anna, who always acted as the wild child to Dirk’s calm loner, takes stock of failed past relationships that she sees now as not working out because she was always searching for a replacement to Dirk. She talks at length about feeling alienated from her family after her parents and older sister monopolized their grief to the point where they acknowledged Dirk’s death, but not the fact that Anna was still alive, the scarring from which Anna admits hurts almost worse than Dirk’s passing.

Following a brief look at twins through history (from the Greek mythology of Cator and Pollux to the modern mythology of Luke and Leia Skywalker) and interviews with various twins talking about their deep personal bonds, Anna sets out in search of other “lone twins” and talks to experts (many of which are also twins) about personal identity following the death of such an extremely close loved one. A particularly bittersweet section of the film finds Anna talking to Graeme, a sweet and lovable Star Wars cosplayer (complete with a really awesome Boba Fett costume) who only lost his brother two years ago. With the memory still fresh, Graeme constantly wonders if he should hold back introducing himself to people as a twin since it was a huge part of his identity that suddenly doesn’t exist anymore.

The first part of the film takes a little while to get going, but as it gets more and more personal, Lone Twin offers some keen insight into a world that few people outside of those living within it can really comprehend. Anna van der Wee does a great job behind the camera telling a story equal parts personal and universal, while never shying away from people in her past telling her answers she doesn’t necessarily want to hear. Lone Twin equates losing a twin sibling as losing a family member, a best friend, and part of one’s soul at the same time, and it does a fine job showing just how awful that truly sounds.

Lone Twin airs on TVO Wednesday February 15th at 9pm on TVO.

Is there anything dorkier than having a deep, profound love for The Muppets? When the guys here at Dork Shelf (which I wanted to rename Muppet Labs for the week, but was vetoed on because apparently Bunson and Beaker like to play hardball) asked me if I could throw together a special week of Muppet related content in honour of this week’s release of the latest Muppet film (review coming Wednesday), I nearly hyperventilated and passed out from excitement. The Muppets have been involved with several of my favourite films of all time and they had a huge impact on my understanding of writing and comedy.

One of the things the Muppets have been best known for are their uncanny musical abilities. Across every major film they’ve been a part of, Jim Henson and company have created songs that touch upon almost every major genre of music from sea shanties and doo-wop to blues and straight up metal. When I set out to begin my week of Muppet immersion, I created a play list of songs to share with you guys to help get you psyched for a week full of Muppet goodness.

The rules for selecting this list were simple. These songs had to appear in a Muppet related film that was theatrically released (meaning Sesame Street movies count, but The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and TV movies don’t. Also not counting Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal because neither includes any of the classic Muppets). Before you think I am ranking these songs, know that I’m not. What I tried to do was to take a bunch of Muppet songs and put them together into a sort of “greatest hits” album that one could listen to before headed to the theatre for the latest adventure of Kermit and his pals. This is a Muppet mixtape from me to you with some of my favourites.

Track 1: “The Rainbow Connection” (The Muppet Movie)

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This is the quintessential Muppet track, and also a great starting point. If you listen to the soundtrack or watch the opening of the film, the way the score gently gives way to Kermit’s familiar banjo strumming induces chills, and the song itself serves as a sort of mission statement for the Muppets themselves. It makes the listener envision a world full of possibilities.

Track 2: “Couldn’t We Ride” (The Great Muppet Caper)

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Keeping with the same happy, but mellow vibe this duet between Kermit and Miss Piggy in their second theatrical outing builds slowly to an almost operatic refrain from all of the other Muppets joining the budding couple in a bike ride in the park that remains one of the best uses of practical effects in cinematic history.

Track 3: “I’m Gonna Always Love You” (The Muppets Take Manhattan)

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Picking up oddly enough in a park after Kermit and Piggy have had another fight in the Muppet’s third film, this sequence enters a flashback and introduces the world to the Muppet Babies with a catch as heck doo-wop number with some of the most clever songwriting in a Muppet film as Piggy describes her ambitious plans for the future (including climbing the Matterhorn and practicing neurosurgery) and how Kermit will always be a part of her life no matter what. It’s incredibly sweet, and Fozzie, Gonzo, and Scooter all kill when they come in with the hook.

Track 4: “Steppin’ Out with a Star” (The Great Muppet Caper)

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This might be one of the best “getting ready for a date” songs ever created. It’s jazzy to the point where the characters might as well be dancing on clouds, and it has arguably one of the best uses of a ukulele ever.

Track 5: “Shiver My Timbers” (Muppet Treasure Island)

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Honestly and truthfully this will be the only mention of Muppet Treasure Island this week as it’s my least favourite of all of the Muppet films by a country mile. (Short version: It doesn’t at all feel like a Muppet film. It feels like a version of Treasure Island with the Muppets shoehorned in as character for little to no reason.) But this song is simply infectious. Looking back on it now, the beat and the pirate chant feel like something a rapper like Ghostface Killa or Kanye would be crazy not to try to rap over. It’s also the darkest Muppet song of all time, warranting its inclusion.

Track 6: “I’m So Blue” (Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird)

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Like I said, theatrical Muppet releases count, and following the menace of the previous track, it’s time to take things way down with Big Bird’s torch song for his estranged friends after being kidnapped by The Sleaze Brothers (Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty) and painted blue for a part of their fly by night circus. The song is so crushing for the audience to hear that it elicits one of my favourite exchanges in any film from my childhood. (Flaherty: “Come on, be a man!” Thomas (weeping): “But I don’t wanna be a man!”) The song has an almost shoegazey feel to it as if Big Bird were channelling a less egotistical Morrissey. (I couldn’t find the actual clip from the film, but this version is actually from the film’s storybook that I had as a kid.)

Track 7: “You Can’t Take No for an Answer” (The Muppets Take Manhattan)

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The heck with sadness. Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem come in to give you some inspiration during a montage of Kermit trying to sell his off-Broadway production of Manhattan Melodies to unenthused investors. Unsung hero of The Electric Mayhem, Floyd shreds on this song like Earl Hooker. And Zoot coming in with the sax is a nice touch.

Track 8: “I Hope That Something Better Comes Along” (The Muppet Movie)

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Moving on from pain and rejection to acceptance Kermit and Rowlf play Rick and Sam while talking about the fickle nature of life and love. It’s all delightfully shrug worthy, and a great drinking song. Not that any of us here at Dork Shelf condone underage drinking, kids.

Track 9: “She’ll Make Me Happy” (The Muppets Take Manhattan)

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A heartfelt song about the healing power of love to follow the more mournful bar styles of the dog and frog, the climactic number of the musical within Muppets Take Manhattan feels like a Diane Warren ballad, but, you know, not as cloying, because we want to see Kermit and his friends happy. Sorry this one ends in Spanish, it was the only clip of this I could find, but the song’s in English and that’s what matters.

Track 10: “Saying Goodbye” (The Muppets Take Manhattan)

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After I’ve built everything up going into the home stretch of the mix, it’s time to take things down as absolutely far as they can go. Not all love can last, and here the Muppets are forced to disband for the good of their own careers. Not only is this the saddest song in any Muppet film, but even Scooter gets something touching to say. And good God, when Fozzie comes in with the final verse he absolutely GUTS the listener. He’s crying, carrying a teddy bear, and hearing the voices of his best friends. I tear up every time I hear it. I’m tearing up just writing about it.

Track 11: “Grouch Anthem” (Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird)

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Who better to give you a swift kick in the rear after being knocked down than the grouchiest of all Muppets. The opening to Follow That Bird serves as a pretty empowering anthem for the misanthrope within us all. If one were to take the song’s meaning and lived by the exact opposite of what Oscar says, the world would be a better place.

Track 12: “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” (The Muppet Movie, Muppets From Space)

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While this song from Gonzo appears in two Muppet films (including the decidedly not musical Muppets From Space), Gonzo’s night time song suggests a cautious optimism one would have after a pep talk. It’s a song about trying to go back to your roots, which leads nicely into…

Track 13: “Movin’ Right Along” (The Muppet Movie)

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…the point where you actually begin moving along and getting things done with a good friend by your side. Possibly the funniest song in the Muppet canon, and certainly the only song ever to rhyme “gone” with “Saskatchewan.”

Track 14: “Together Again” (The Muppets Take Manhattan)

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We’ve reached the proper end of this mixtape, and we go out on a showstopping number about togetherness that leads nicely into the upcoming Muppet film. It’s brief, but it sends you out on a high note, leading into a film about getting the old gang back together. It’s the track designed to pump you up for the rest of the day, and one that could easily dovetail back to the opening song should you listen to the playlist over again.

BONUS NOT ON iTUNES DELUXE CHRISTMAS EDITION

Yes, I know there wasn’t anything on the proper mix from A Muppet Christmas Carol or the new film, because I can’t stop associating the former with the holidays and the latter is a film that not everyone has seen yet, so here are a few bonus B-sides that wouldn’t make the proper album.

“Life’s a Happy Song” (The Muppets) (snippet)

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While other songs in the latest film will surely join the one’s listed above (“Pictures in My Head” and “Man or Muppet” being highly likely candidates), Life’s a Happy Song will probably stick out in audience’s minds the most. Here’s a clip from the opening number of the film.

“Room in Your Heart” / “Thankful Heart” / “Bless Us One and All” (Muppet Christmas Carol)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Muppet Christmas Carol does have some pretty great songs in it, especially considering it was the first post-Henson Muppet film. They don’t fit with what I was going for with the mix, but here are three favourites to get people into the holiday spirit.

Super Special Bonus Track Courtesy of Will (Beaker’s Ode to Joy)

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Sarah Michelle Gellar in Scream 2

Most filmmaking is a seat of the pants endeavour fraught with pitfalls and last second changes. Nothing goes according to plan, but more often that not on major Hollywood productions things tend to go more swimmingly. That is, of course, provided that they aren’t making a sequel to one of the previous year’s biggest success stories. That situation gets stickier if said film had a twist ending that threw most viewers for a loop and reignited an entire genre. It gets even tougher when the film you are making a sequel to is still in theatres and not showing any signs of slowing down at the box office when cameras are set to start rolling. Oh, and it has to be done by December of that year to cash in on the same season that made the first film so much money, meaning the sequel is coming out just a shade under a year after the original. These are the circumstances under which Scream 2 was made, and all things considered, it stands as a testament to director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson that the film managed to be almost equally as good as the original and actually far more interesting on an academic level.

Following the slowly growing success of the original Scream, Craven and his long time producing partner Marianne Maddalena signed a three picture deal with Miramax in March of 1997. The deal was to include Scream 2, a non-genre film titled 50 Violins (with Madonna tapped to star), and third unnamed film (that would almost obviously end up being Scream 3).

Williamson was brought into the fold far quicker than Craven, thanks to the outline of Scream 2 already being included with the original’s script. Arguably, he had a harder job than the director on this outing because where the original film was one of the first in the horror genre to fully exploit the dangers and pitfalls of the cellular age, Scream 2’s production would be beset on all sides by a series of internet leaks and misinformation almost from the outset. Even before casting and pre-production were finished, Williamson’s entire 30 page outline for the film had leaked onto the internet. While changes had already been made to the leaked treatment, Bob and Harvey Weinstein demanded that even further precautions be put in place from such things ever happening again in the future and that the current draft be rewritten.

Casting for the second outing was fairly easy despite not having anyone other than star Neve Campbell under contract for a follow-up. David Arquette (who played a character that was originally supposed to die in the first film), Courtney Cox, Liev Schreiber (who only had a cameo in the original as Cotton Weary, the alleged killer of Sidney Prescott’s mother) and Jamie Kennedy were all set to return, but due to the success of the original film, casting director Lisa Beach was beset by requests from big name actors interested in joining the project.

While new additions Jerry O’Connell (as Sidney’s new frat boy boyfriend), Timothy Olyphant (as obsessive cinema studies major Mickey), Duane Martin (as Gale Weather’s new cameraman), Elise Neal (as Sidney’s new best friend), and Laurie Metcalf (as the creepy Gale Weather worshiping reporter Debbie Salt) were all cast through normal channels and auditions, agents representing damn near half of young Hollywood would be banging down the doors to get their clients even the most minor of roles in the sequel to Scream.

Jada Pinkett-Smith and Omar Epps lobbied heavily to appear in the film’s now famous opening sequence. Rebecca Gayheart and Portia de Rossi, both of whom were considered for roles in the original, were able to snag roles as a pair of sorority sisters trying to court Sidney to their organization. Joshua Jackson, who was currently working on Dawson’s Creek with Williamson, and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who had just finished work on the Williamson scripted I Know What You Did Last Summer, used their connections to procure roles smaller than their growing star power would suggest they get. It seemed like everyone was happy to be a part of the burgeoning franchise no matter the pay, and while Dimension Films and Craven were happy to have them on board, it would lead to more than a few headaches once cameras began to roll due to scheduling constraints.

While it was generally seen by the public at large that Craven would be able to handle the stresses of bringing a bigger budget sequel to the screen in a small amount of time, doubts were being cast upon Williamson’s ability to keep it all together under a growing workload brought on by his recent successes. Not only had Williamson just finished work on I Know What You Did Last Summer, but he was also elbow deep in the writing of another Dimension production, The Faculty (set to roll later in the year with another all star cast of young talent and Desperado director Robert Rodriguez behind the camera), and was beginning pre-production on his long gestating Killing Mrs. Tingle, which had yet to firmly hire Williamson for his directorial debut or change its title. On top of all this was his commitment to the WB network’s Dawson’s Creek. With Scream 2 always seeming to be a priority, many wondered if the wit and scares of the original could hope to be matched.

The plot of the sequel moves the meta-humour of the original to a different location and introduces the “film within a film” motif that the following sequels would stringently adhere to, leading to a film that is tonally closer to Craven’s Elm Street send up Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Sidney has moved on to campus life at Windsor College, studying acting much like her deceased mother did. Strengthened by the events of the first film, Sidney weathers constant harassment from jokesters intent on scaring her again following the success of the slasher movie Stab. Loosely based on Gale Weather’s “tell all” book, the fictional version of Sidney’s life provides ample basis for a new killer to begin replicating the events of the first film on a grander scale. The murder of a pair of young lovers at the premiere of Stab provides the impetus for Gale and Dewey to eventually join Sidney and Randy at Windsor.

Omar Epps and Jada Pinkett-Smith in Scream 2

After the leak of the original outline for the story, changes often had to be made on the fly, with the film’s twist ending kept famously under wraps. All the security in the world, however, couldn’t stop what was about to happen once filming began. Keeping the ending a closely guarded secret meant the film had to be shot largely in sequence with the opening set piece involving Smith and Epps fateful trip to the movies coming towards the beginning of the shooting schedule. The scene, which is constructed to mirror the opening scene of the original film by setting up characters to only have them killed off moments later, required a movie theatre full of extras to chant and cheer the movie within the movie. Only hours after shooting Smith’s climactic death scene had been shot, the footage had been leaked to the internet by an extra who had smuggled a camera into the theatre. Despite streaming video still be in its infancy at the time, the bootlegged raw footage was downloaded thousands of times over.

Following this transgression, no Scream film would ever again have scenes requiring large crowds of extras. Portions of the film that required Sidney’s character to act on stage in front of an audience were quickly axed and a pivotal cafeteria scene where Sidney’s boyfriend professes his love to her (which was also the scene Jerry O’Connell was forced to read for his audition) was almost in danger of being cut. While the film still has several scenes that take place in open air spaces and at parties, the shoot turned mostly to crew members, interns, and Dimension films employees wherever possible.

All scripts from that point on were confiscated and shredded. They were reprinted on a special kind of paper originally designed by the tobacco industry to prevent pages from being photocopied or photographed. Even these copies had to be shredded immediately after scenes were filmed. Security tensions regarding the project were at such an all time high that when a reporter for Fangoria jokingly asked where the paper shredder was located during a well guarded press day on set, he was almost asked to leave out of suspicion that he would try to glue the already shot pages of the script back together again for an exclusive scoop.

If security was a main concern from a marketing aspect, scheduling was just as big of a concern from a filmmaking standpoint. With a script containing close to 40 speaking roles that has even minor characters played by familiar faces, the already tightly packed shooting schedule was constantly in danger of spiralling out of control. The biggest concessions had to be granted to Sarah Michelle Gellar, then busy at work on two other films in addition to the upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series.

Gellar’s sequence (shot to echo the opening sequence of Bob Clark’s seminal slasher Black Christmas) had to be shot away from the rest of the project at a sorority house in Pasadena, California (whereas most of the college sequences were filmed just outside Atlanta, Georgia) to account not only for the scene’s numerous steadicam shots, but also to put the least amount of stress on Gellar’s already packed schedule. Moving the shoot to Pasadena required “heaven and Earth to be moved” according to Craven, and while the scene feels oddly out of place from the rest of the film, it does add a bit more star power to a film all about making things bigger and badder than the original.

With the production moving from Atlanta to several sets at UCLA (that actually weren’t big enough to accommodate the proper shoot), post-production happened concurrently with filming. Craven, anticipating another battle with the MPAA on the sequel, shot sequences to be gorier than he even necessarily wanted them to be in a bid to make the scenes he wanted included pass on to the final cut. Shockingly, the MPAA let Craven and Patrick Lussier’s cut pass with no changes for an R-rating, citing the opening sequence as appropriately setting up the tone for the carnage to follow in the film. A few cuts were made after the film passed the censors to some of the gore in two sequences (one involving the death of a major character and another involving a car crash) simply because Craven never wanted them in the first place

The film was picture locked in late October 1997 for release approximately one month later, and that was surprisingly ahead of schedule. The buzz on the film was positively thunderous, solidifying the idea that the Scream franchise had resurrected the horror genre permanently. Full page ads were bought in every major film market to herald the film’s release. An eclectic soundtrack album designed to appeal to rockers (Foo Fighters, Everclear), indie blues lovers (Nick Cave, John Spencer), Juggalos (Kottonmouth Kings), hip-hop heads (Master P, who along with Silkk the Shocker delivers one of the most hilariously awful movie tie-in tracks ever created), frat boys (Dave Matthews Band), R&B slow jammers (D’Angelo, covering Prince), and others (Collective Soul) was integrated into the film and proved to be a successful standalone product. TV ad time was bought up for almost every NBC prime time show to exploit Cox’s high profile on one of the network’s top rated shows. It seemed a foregone conclusion that Scream 2 was going to be a blockbuster with the only question being how high the ceiling was.

Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox in Scream 2

The $24 million dollar production (ten million more than the budget of the original film) opened on December 12th to predominantly positive reviews from critics and one of the highest ever opening weekends for an R-Rated film, netting $32 million in its opening weekend. Released only shortly before a crowded holiday season that would include Titanic, Tomorrow Never Dies, Good Will Hunting, and As Good as it Gets, Scream 2 didn’t really have the legs to sustain itself as long as the original film, but it still ended up crossing the $100 million mark at the box office thanks to a late April re-release akin to the one used to milk some more money out of the original film.

Scream 2 is very much a “sequel’s sequel.” Where the first film was keen to play around with the conventions of and entire genre, Williamson and Craven created a film that acts as a logical extension of the first film while delivering more of what is expected of them after a successful first outing. The gore and body count increases in this entry, but so too does the technical mastery on the part of Craven and Williamson who remain sharper than ever despite the troubles of crafting a project on the fly.

While the overall story of Williamson’s sequel is admittedly so-so, where the writer succeeds is creating a sandbox-like world for Craven and the cast to play within. The pieces of the story don’t fit together as nicely as they do in the original and the characters are admittedly a bit more two dimensional this time out (including the returning cast members), but the characters themselves fit together quite nicely. Williamson and Craven create an almost absurdly dreamlike experience where random characters, which may or may not be important at all, float in and out of people’s lives. As such, the ending of the film is almost arbitrary. Williamson does a great job of keeping the killers in plain sight, but buried under a wealth of exposition, misdirection, and misinformation; in short, exactly what the audience expects after the conclusion of the first film.

Craven does some interesting things on a visual and thematic level to play games similar to the ones Williamson is foisting upon the audience through the use of these characters. Two of the most interesting visual touches come in from of deep focus camerawork and the costume department.

In a film with so many characters to keep track of, Craven repeatedly goes back to using deep focus shots not only for the depth of the frame, but also because the audience is intently scanning the frame for clues. A key scene where Randy receives a call while talking to Dewey and Gale is technically masterful with almost every shot including someone in the background on a phone or running somewhere to make the audience just as confused as the character. These background players can barely be seen, and the famed Ghostface outfit is almost immaterial. No one would be able to spot the killer even if they were wearing the mask, but the principal characters know that the killer is watching every move the make despite being in broad daylight with few precious places to hide.

The costuming of the film, much like on many genre films, is something that often goes unaddressed, but is something that fans of the series might find interesting. Craven, who previously clothed Freddy Krueger in particular shades of red and green that would be harsh on the eyes, read once that people wearing certain shades of light, almost denim like blue are seen as suspicious, while people who wear shades of tan are often seen as more studious and trustworthy. To this end, in Scream 2 whenever Craven wants to cast suspicion on a particular character, they are purposefully wearing or carrying something with that particular shade of blue, and when he wants the audience to know that a character is inherently good, they wear shades of brown. There are a couple of exceptions, notably Randy (who often wears blue and tan at the same time), Gale (who is almost exclusively clothed in black to signify her almost as a bringer of death), and Cotton Weary (who always wears the blue jeans, but is often seen wearing shades of white and grey for shorts before the climax). It’s a subtle, but effective technique.

Craven also gets more of a chance to get literary with his material with a sequence he largely wrote himself involving Sidney rehearsing for a stage version of Troy where she will be playing Cassandra. Famous in Greek mythology, Cassandra was endowed with the power of prophecy. She would later be deemed mad for foreseeing the fall of Troy (specifically the famed Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own death).

David Arquette and Courtney Cox in Scream 2

Sidney is almost a mirror image of the character in this film, conforming to the more Jungian idea of a Cassandra complex espoused by scholars starting in the late 1980s regarding a woman who is seen as being irrational simply because she is a woman. Her concerns are certainly valid, but she is surrounded by males (known appropriately as Apollo archetypes) that cause a distance and disconnect to the world around her. By the end of the film, which so gloriously takes place on the same rehearsal stage she was on before (set to a piece designed specifically by Danny Elfman instead of regular series composer Marco Beltrami) two of the characters in the film will mentally violate her to the point where her gradual transformation into the character will become complete. It’s an often unheralded bid by Craven to make the audience and his critics realize the parallels between acting and reality that’s more effective than the fame seekers Williamson has stocked the film with.

Another character in the film will reshape the entire franchise at the end, by helping Craven to turn the next two films in the series into a play on Aeschylus’s House of Atreus cycle. The story at the end of this sequel would move forward, away from simple interpersonal issues to a tale on the limitations of revenge and how to fight evil from within without succumbing to the evil itself.

The final moments of the film are almost unnecessarily happy in tone, but it’s undeniably designed to be a crowd pleaser to keep audiences interested in a future instalment. It isn’t so much a set up for a third film as it is Craven and Williamson gently elbowing the audience as if to say “Wouldn’t it be great to spend another day with these guys?” It smacks oddly of a sense of good will that the original film tried to steer clear of, leading to the only part of the film that feels thematically false.

In the end, Scream 3 was all but assured to go ahead as planned, but not right away this time. Williamson was far too busy and Campbell (who fulfilled her contractual obligations to the series with this film) and Craven were largely disinterested in a third outing. Williamson would go on record as saying that he always had the idea that Scream would be a trilogy, but after two gruelling back to back shoots, no one was exactly in fighting shape to get back on board right away.

The series would take a two year break before reconvening on the third instalment. It was unknown if Campbell would return or if Williamson would even be able to produce a script. Also looming on the horizon unknown to Dimension and the production staff, was a tragedy that would reshape the dynamic of the franchise for better and worse.

The Complete Scream Collection is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Alliance Home Entertainment. It has proven an invaluable asset to the construction of this series.

We would also like to take this opportunity to formally congratulate the winners of the Dork Shelf Scream Box Set Giveaway.

Our grand prize winner (receiving a Complete Scream Series Box set with mask and free six month subscription to Rue Morgue online) goes to Kelsey Allan of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. Second prize winners are Marla Pollard of Mississauga, Ontario, Susan Bannister of North York, Ontario, and Ed Kanerva. Congrats the winners and thanks to all who participated, and stay tuned for more great giveaways from Dork Shelf in the weeks and months to come!

Screenshot from the Eye Pilot - flying using only your eyes (http://damiansommer.tumblr.com)

It has buttons, says Sony’s PlayStation Move. You are the controller, says Microsoft’s Kinect. Pfft… that’s all child’s play. Have you ever flown a plane using only your eyes?

This was one among many questions posed by Locative Media Innovation Day, the first of four events held by the TIFF Nexus project at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Independent game developers and hardware hackers got together in an uncommon creative jam to build, from the ground up, new and innovative ways to interact with a video game.

“The Nexus project is really about bringing together diverse sectors that aren’t necessarily talking to each other – the game developers, the hardware hackers, the filmmakers, the digital media creators – as much as they’d like to,” says Public Programmes Director Shane Smith. “We saw a niche there from talking to them about what this building, the Bell Lightbox could provide, they wanted to connect with each other, and we thought this was the perfect hub to make that happen via this project.”

Take the Eye Pilot, a collaborative project from Toronto tinkerers Drawing with Frames and indie game builders Craig “Superbrothers” Adams (whom you might know from his work on Sword and Sworcery for the iPhone) and Damian Sommer.

Drawing with Frames had already been working with the EyeWriter – a device that allows people to draw by tracking movements from their eyes. It was originally made to enable people with a debilitating disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Los Angeles-based graffiti artist TEMPTONE, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2003, continued to draw with the EyeWriter, even as his body became almost entirely paralyzed.

Drawing with Frames also created an art presentation for Toronto’s Nuit Blanche overnight art hullabaloo earlier this Fall. While developing the installation, they partnered with Adams and Sommer to make a videogame using the Eyewriter.

The end result was the Eye Pilot, a Pilotwings-like game where you fly using the EyeWriter camera, while strapped into a mean-looking cockpit harness contraption. Look left, and your character will veer to the left. Look right, and likewise to the right. Over the course of a few minutes you’ll soar over a canyon, through a tunnel, and over a sparkling sea – all in an ethereal, washed-out palette reminiscent of Adams’ Sword and Sworcery game.

“It’s really accessible technology,” says Adams. “So if you can’t use your hands for some reason, you can still talk to the computer using your eye movements, which is sort of a beautiful thought.”

The impossibly complicated Analog Defender (bottle of Stella not included)

At another stand, created by Media Lab Toronto and game guy Alexander Martin, takes the concept of Space Invaders and makes it impossibly complex. A giant console is covered in physical knobs and switches while a screen displays gauges that give no indication of what they’re actually measuring.

Players navigate the console just to try to figure out what it does, and see any number of surprises – from firing a catastrophic death ray at incoming aliens to outright committing suicide – on the screen. It makes one feel as if they were really sitting in a sci-fi cockpit without a manual. Over the course of the night, people checking it out leave Post-it notes describing the functions they have discovered for whoever tries it out next. It’s added a social element to an old-school game – without Facebook Credits being involved.

These and other games are the result of just one part of TIFF Nexus: the Peripherals Initiative, organized by Jim and Emilie McGinley, already well-known in the local gaming scene for running their video game creation jam, TO Jam. By including hardware hackers and engineers in this endeavour, the once disparate communities are creating something new that challenges what people may consider it means to interact with games, technology and stories.

It’s just one part of the TIFF Nexus project, one of many to emanate from the new home for the Toronto International Film Festival – the Bell Lightbox at the corner of John and King Streets.

While a conference that includes indie game developers and hardware hackers might not seem the obvious fit for a film festival organization, to Smith the connection couldn’t be more obvious, or more important.

Three members of the Eye Pilot Team (video: http://www.tiffnexus.net)

“We recognize that the future of cinema is changing. Ultimately, it’s about storytelling. It’s about narrative in all its forms. That’s what cinema is, that’s what games are, it’s what interactive media is. It all comes down to storytelling,” he says.

The Nexus project is powered by more than the indie developers and hackers – it’s partnered with the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and sponsored by design-software giant Autodesk. Ubisoft is part of the project as well to represent the AAA-budget half of the Canadian gaming scene.

Judging by the packed house for the Locative Media Innovation Day, developers, students and film buffs alike want to know where technology and local minds are taking storytelling next (despite the mouthful of a title for that day’s conference).

The next TIFF Nexus conference, Women in Film, Games and New Media, takes place on December 8.  Part of that event will showcase a creative jam featuring “women creating a game that they would like to play and that they think other women would like to play,” says Smith. “Women who don’t have a background in gaming or programming, are coming together from diverse backgrounds to create a game by women for women.”

Then I was approached with the idea of revisiting the Scream films in time for Halloween. Just like Craven was hesitant to take on the first Scream film because he was burnt out on horror, I had to think twice about whether I wanted to delve back into a topic I had already spent far too much time on.

After watching all four Scream films again on Blu-ray, I find it a bit strange that I haven’t devoted more time to talking about a series of films that single-handedly revived the slasher genre with a blend of genuine terror and self-reflexive humour. So here now begins a four week long look back at the history of the now seminal series that has been slaying audiences since 1996.

Scream

Much like the first film in the Scream quadrilogy, the history of one of horror’s most successful and beloved franchises began with a phone call. Screenwriter Kevin Williamson received a call from his literary agent that his potentially groundbreaking screenplay for his Lois Duncan adaptation Killing Mrs. Tingle had fallen into what was known as “development hell.” The script, which had been purchased by a major studio, languished for so long that it looked as if it was never going to be made. It would later be bought by Dimension Films, was renamed Teaching Mrs. Tingle in light of the Columbine tragedy, and would become Williamson’s directorial debut in 1999, despite having been written in 1992.

Taking on rewrite work wherever he could get it, Williamson was barely making ends meet. In danger of losing his house and his livelihood after staking so much on the potential success of his first major screenplay, Williamson took a job housesitting for friends in an effort to make ends meet. One night, while watching a television news show, Williamson became taken by the story of a Florida-based murderer.

The unseen inspiration for the Scream films belonged to a serial killer named Danny Rolling, better known as the Gainsville Ripper. Rolling, who was captured by police in 1991, was found guilty of mutilating and decapitating five high school students and posing them to create a work of art. Rolling stated upon pleading guilty to the murders that his goal was to become a “superstar.” (He would later be connected to an unsolved 1989 murder in Louisiana with similar staging of bodies.) During his tenure in prison before his execution via lethal injection in 2006, Rolling continued to pen poetry and create paintings in an effort to be recognized as a serious artist.

Screenwriter Kevin Williamson

The idea of a killer taking “life imitating art” seriously stuck with Williamson, who would sink the last of what money he had into renting an apartment on the outskirts of Palm Springs, California for ten days in a last ditch effort to save his writing career. The move was also done to emulate one of Williamson’s favourite writers of teen films, John Hughes, who would often sequester himself for days at a time to simply write and do nothing else. If Hughes could write National Lampoon’s Vacation, Weird Science, and The Breakfast Club together in one nine day span, Williamson thought he could at least churn out one excellent script in the same amount of time.

Written in just a shade under ten days, Williamson submitted his script, titled Scary Movie, to his agent. The film was a wry blend of Williamson’s favourite slasher movie conventions (a genre he was also a huge fan of) and Hughes’ knack for crafting believable teenage characters. Williamson, who was already being lauded for his dialogue in the yet unfilmed Tingle script, returned from Palm Springs with a story about a group of small town teenagers falling prey to a serial killer who knows the ins and outs of being in horror movies. The killer would use horror movie conventions, and occasionally trivial details, to trap and stalk his prey. Utilizing the rules set forth by the horror films of the 70s and 80s that stated that promiscuous sex, investigating scary noises, and answering the phone would get one killed, the masked killer would come to claim the lives of unsuspecting teenagers who think they have the upper hand by knowing what to expect. The film would also function as a twisty whodunit with a big reveal of the killer in the final act.

Almost as soon as the script was on the market, a massive bidding war started between studios and production companies who saw Scary Movie as the necessary kick in the pants the horror genre was looking for. After almost a decade worth of diminishing sequel returns and unoriginal ideas, horror films had become persona non grata at most studios. They were cheap to make, but they almost always tanked. Even the most notable horror success of the early 90s, Clive Barker’s Candyman, didn’t exactly set the box office on fire. Freddy and Jason were dead for the time being. Michael Meyers and Leatherface were still around, but they had both been last seen in laughably awful sequels that would see Meyers become a druid and Leatherface become a cross dresser with Matthew McConaughey as a brother. Other than Candyman, the only new horror icon to be created in this dark period was the Leprechaun, and the only new film in that pipeline was set to send the diminutive gold seeker into space. This is the kind of disarray the horror world had fallen into.

The price of the screenplay kept rising in value, and studios and investors kept dropping out until only two entities remained. Director Oliver Stone, who was keen on turning Scary Movie into an extension of his work on Natural Born Killers, and Dimension Films.

Dimension was founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein as a precursor to their eventual success with Miramax Films. The first ever film released under the Weinstein’s genre imprint was 1981’s slasher classic The Burning, a film that gave the brothers much needed capital to become the studio that would be responsible for winning more Academy Awards than any other distributor from the mid-90s to the early 2000s.

Director Wes Craven

Once the Weinsteins had won the bidding war, the search for a director began. Horror maven Wes Craven always stood out as the primary choice for the film, with Dimension head Bob Weinstein heralding him as the best suspense director since Alfred Hitchcock. Craven, however, had maintained that he wanted nothing to do with the genre that made him a household name. He felt as if he had been simply been going through the motions on his past few films where he felt more engaged as a writer than as a director. Despite constant pleadings from Williamson and the Weinsteins, Craven passed on the project several times not because the quality wasn’t there, but because he was simply burnt out on horror.

After being turned down by George Romero and Sam Raimi, the Weinsteins once again approached Craven with the project, this time with Drew Barrymore attached to star as the film’s heroine Sidney Prescott. While Craven was intrigued by the idea of making a film with a star like Barrymore, it was the admonishing of teenage fans to “make one more movie that kicks ass” that led to him stepping back into the director’s chair.

It wasn’t exactly a bait and switch to get Craven to come on board when Barrymore ended up not being the lead in the film. Barrymore genuinely did agree to play the role of Sidney until about five weeks before shooting when the actress decided she wanted to only appear in the film’s opening sequence as Casey Becker. Barrymore, who was beginning to get a lot more job offers at this point following a rocky transition between her childhood career and her adult career, insisted that she loved the opening sequence more than anything else in the film and that seeing her die in the opening scene would have a greater impact on the audience.

Craven was tempted to walk away from the film after losing his star, but he had grown too attached to the material. While not exactly thrilled at Barrymore’s early departure, Craven saw the newly revised opening as a way to reference not only Janet Leigh’s appearance in Hitchcock’s Psycho, but also as a callback to his own A Nightmare on Elm Street which kills off the young woman seen in its opening sequence thirty minutes into the film.

Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott

The search for the new Sidney came down to three primary names: Alicia Witt, Brittany Murphy, and Neve Campbell. Reese Witherspoon was also approached, but she turned the film down before reading for Craven. The role ultimately went to Guelph, Ontario native Campbell, then star of TV’s Party of Five and member of 1996’s ensemble teen horror film The Craft, whom Craven thought struck a nice balance between being tough and vulnerable,

The rest of the casting was filled out mostly by people who auditioned for the parts through regular channels. Skeet Ulrich (playing Sidney’s boyfriend Billy) was seen as being “the next big thing” and was hired by Craven for looking similar to Nightmare on Elm Street’s Johnny Depp. Young actors Matthew Lillard (as Billy’s best friend Stu), Jamie Kennedy (as movie nerd Randy Meeks), and Rose McGowan (as Stu’s girlfriend Tatum) were hired for bringing a much needed sense of humour to a film that was going to take its jokes as seriously as its kills.

For the now iconic roles of news reporter Gale Weathers and local law enforcement officer Dewey Reilly, the casting process was a bit different. David Arquette was originally approached to play the role of Stu, but he felt he was a bit too old to play a teenager. Craven agreed and allowed him to read for the role of Dewey, which Arquette would turn into the much needed heart that the franchise desperately needed to function as well as it did.

The role of Gale Weathers wasn’t so much cast as it was given to the Friends actress Courtney Cox who lobbied heavily for the job after Janeane Garofalo turned it down. Cox agreed to a pay cut to be in the film simply because she was a huge fan of the script. Craven and Williamson still asked that Cox audition because based on her television work, neither was convinced that she would be able to be “bitchy” enough to play the hard nosed reporter that would gladly place her cameraman in danger in service of a great scoop.

Despite the script clearly spelling out the identity of the killers at the end of a red herring filled mystery, Williamson’s script wasn’t specific about the look or sound of the killer. All that Craven had to go on was that the killer was masked and that he used a voice box to disguise his voice. Williamson felt the majority of his creative energy should have been spent working on the dialogue, characters, and plotting. He flat out said that the look and sound of the killer was “not my problem.”

The Ghostface Killer

Craven and the special effects experts at Gregory Niccotero’s KNB drew up hundreds of conceptual designs for masks and costumes, but none really stuck. Instead, Craven turned to a mask found at a previous location scouting exercise, a simple, elongated ghost faced mask to be the most believable for the story. The mask functions as almost a blank slate, and for a film where the killer needed to be entirely obscured from the audience in every possible way it proved to be the most effective. The Weinsteins were hesitant at first, since the design of the mask was something that needed to be purchased from the rights holders, but after seeing how some of the aborted ideas looked, they granted Craven the ability to use the mask.

Also, being the first film of the new digital age to use cellular telephones as a major plot device, the focus on the killer until the big reveal was more about the sound than the look. For the sound of the killer across all four films, Craven required voice actor Roger Jackson to be on set all the days that the killer’s voice was to be heard. While a stunt double would appear on screen as Ghostface and take all the physical punishment, Jackson would be sequestered to a trailer on set and away from the actors to keep his identity secret. To this day, no actors on any of the Scream films have ever gotten a look at Jackson per Craven’s orders.

The shoot itself wasn’t without incident, as the production was forced to move from Santa Rosa, California to Sonoma after the local school board and parents objected to the extremely violent content in the film. Of particular note was the objection to the murder of the fictional Woodsboro High School principal Arthur Himbry (an uncredited Henry Winkler) which took place on school property.

The film’s lengthy climax would also prove problematic. The second half of the film takes place entirely on a single set and for continuity and budgetary purposes had to be shot largely in sequence. It was also written on the page by Williamson as a single scene with different sub-scenes and cuts to exteriors on the same property. The second half of the film took approximately 17 days with an average of 20 working hours per day to complete.

Skeet Ulrich, Jaime Kennedy, and Matthew Lillard in Scream

Once the film was finished and submitted to the MPAA for ratings approval, Craven hit another roadblock when the film was given the dreaded NC-17 rating. Censors objected to several specific moments of violence in the film, mainly in the opening sequence with Barrymore, a death involving a garage door slowly opening with someone caught in it, and a scene during the big reveal of the killers where they repeatedly stab each other. All of these scenes were easy fixes. The opening was sped up with shots of strewn entrails cleverly obscured. The garage door sequence cut away for a few key seconds, and the stabbing sequence was cut down by about thirty seconds and cropped to focus more on reaction shots. But there was still one problem the MPAA had with the film, and it came down not to violent content, but a line of dialogue.

The MPAA was not going to let the film pass because of one of the film’s most iconic lines; one that would stand as the calling card of the entire franchise and describes the M.O. of the murderers.

“Movies don’t create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative.”

The MPAA believed that they line was inherently insensitive, and in a way, a slight against their job to police multiplex fare for parents of young children. Craven and Williamson protested fervently to no avail on their own on the grounds that while cuts to the violence were somewhat understandable, changing the dialogue that the plot of this film hinged upon was outright censorship. In the end, it was Miramax head Harvey Weinstein who would make the MPAA see things his way, by convincing the ratings board that the film was actually a satirical comment on societal norms.

It was at this point where the Weinstein’s changed the name of the film from Scary Movie to Scream. No real reason for the change was given except that the brothers found the title of the movie too telling and generic. Craven and Williamson weren’t sold on the title, but as long as the film was in the can and released, they were on board.

While Harvey had done a huge favour for Craven in getting the film past the censors, Bob Weinstein over at Dimension was about to take an even bigger risk with Scream that was almost unheard of. Dimension had slated Scream for a Christmas release on December 20th, 1996 (a rare Saturday opening) opposite the similarly teen themed animated TV spin-off Beavis and Butthead Do America and the George Clooney starring romantic comedy One Fine Day. The notion was that horror movie audiences often had nothing to watch over the long and financially lucrative Holiday season. It was hoped that the modestly budgeted $15 million production (then the second largest in Dimension history following the troubled production of The Crow: City of Angels) would at least triple its investment by January before making its way to the even more lucrative home video market where Dimension titles traditionally earned the majority of their gross.

Drew Barrymore in Scream

The film opened to generally positive critical notices, but opened to middling grosses amidst a crowded field of largely family oriented fare (the live action John Hughes penned 101 Dalmations remake, Jingle All the Way, The Preacher’s Wife) with a weekend gross of $6.4 million. The traditionally long Holiday week known for giving boosted grosses to mostly all the films in release led to Scream boosting its take to almost ten million in the second weekend, but also watching it slip into fifth place. The film had served Dimension’s gamble well and made close to $30 million in the first ten days, but at the end of the holidays, things got even more interesting.

In the third week of release Scream pushed past the ten million dollar mark and rose to third place, a rarity for most three week old films, especially for an R-rated release in the dead zone of early January. The film remained in the top ten throughout the month of January, dropping as low as sixth place (but still making $7 million for the weekend) before jumping back into third place on the weekend of January 31st behind Jerry Maguire and the re-release of Star Wars. The film would not drop out of the top ten at the box office until Valentine’s Day weekend when seven new releases took spots in the top ten, but by this point Scream had very quietly amassed over $80 million and was still pulling in over a million dollars a week outside the top ten.

So successful was Scream that Dimension re-released the film for late shows in many markets on April 11th, which would shoot the film from 34th at the box office to 9th. By mid-May, the re-release was still pulling in over a million a week, and production on the now seemingly inevitable Scream 2 was fast tracked for release by the end of 1997. By early June Scream had passed the coveted $100 million mark at the box office. Scream was finally pulled from theatres on July 25th, 1997 by Dimension who wanted to focus on the upcoming sequel and home video sales of the film. It’s 219 day run on the box office charts was something unheard of in the modern age of multiplex releases that make most of their money during a film’s opening weekend. Not since the late 1980s had a film had such a long and quietly profitable run.

As for the film itself, it is nearly impossible to talk about horror films today without bringing up the original Scream. The film would inspire countless imitators (including Williamson’s own I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, and the Kevin Spacey produced Cry_Wolf) and an entire series of parodies that used the original title of the film to poke fun at nuances that were quickly becoming genre conventions (which were also ironically produced through Dimension Films and became a profitable franchise in its own right).

Scream saved not only the horror genre from the shallow grave it found itself buried in, but also saved the career of Craven as a director. Scream plays to Craven’s two biggest strengths: literary wit (although in this case the text is previously made films including his own) and the creation of tension within confined spaces. Next to Roman Polanski, one would be hard pressed to find a filmmaker as well versed in claustrophobic settings as Craven is. The opening sequence at Casey Becker’s house and the finale at Stu’s are cat and mouse tour de forces. They are scenes of sustained terror confined to one single location, a common Craven calling card also seen in The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, The People Under the Stairs and the terminally underrated Red Eye. All these films find Craven at his best as a director. He seems almost energized by limitations and he crafts his most visually stunning films when forced to work within enclosed spaces. On films with larger visual planes like Vampire in Brooklyn and The Serpent and the Rainbow, his directorial style is perfunctory at best, but here Craven has the chance to reenergize and it feels like watching the re-birth of a great director.

Williamson’s screenplay is often taken to task simply for being a bit too clever for its own good. The dialogue can come off as a bit too snappy and self-aware even for a film that is built around already knowing all the answers. Where Williamson excels, however, is with his sense of characterization and plotting. Every character in the film has a full story arc regardless of how long they survive on screen or how long they disappear from the story. These characters are all placed into a plot that makes the audience guess who the killer is based on a combination of logic and character traits. When Ghostface is finally unmasked, it is the final piece of the puzzle for this film, but it leaves a lot of ethical questions unanswered to hang a sequel onto.

There isn’t much to be said about the cast for the most part. Everyone is just really good at what they do. Campbell and Ulrich were exactly the right choices for their parts. Lillard and McGowan are a bit too over the top, but it makes sense that their characters find themselves aligned the way they do. Kennedy strikes the perfect balance of sympathy and unease as the most likely suspect for most of the film. Cox definitely shows how bitchy she can truly be, and Arquette is just barely a step away from showing audiences that he is the true MVP of the franchise with his portrayal of a good natured doofus in far over his head.

Craven and Williamson know exactly what the audience of a horror film is looking for and they teamed up to give a film that delivers no more or less what the audience expects. Williamson also knew that if the movie was a success that a sequel would be necessary.

At the end of Williamson’s draft for Scary Movie was a five page outline for Scary Movie 2, a film that would delve deeper into the role of films (and more specifically sequels) on a pop culture obsessed populace. The film was greenlit by the Weinsteins in January 1997 with a $20 million budget that would be increased by double the amount by the time the original crossed the $100 million mark. The pressure and stakes were higher, but a plan was already in place. The production of the second film wouldn’t be without problems, but most of those problems would come from outside influences rather than ones within the project. It also would have oddly more historical context than the original film.

The Complete Scream Collection is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Alliance Home Entertainment. It has proven an invaluable asset to the construction of this series.

Despite the glamour and glitz associated with the TIFF, there are few things more lovingly dorky than a major film festival. This doesn’t necessarily extend to people who work within the industry (the talent, the buyers, the movers, the shakers) or the people who have to deal with the industry types, but for film lovers a festival is no different than playing video games for hours on end or obsessively collecting action figures. Festivals are labours of love that require precise mathematical calculations; time management skills, accounting, navigational skils, forecasting. I defy anyone to say that attending a festival as big as TIFF is anything short of a spectator sport.

I say this all in loving jest, of course. I know there are casual film buffs who will only see a small handful of films and others who will just avoid the hoopla altogether, but it seems that with every passing year, the number of devoted fans seeing upwards of five or six films a day for ten days seems to be steadily increasing.

As a relative newbie to the city of Toronto – having lived here for less than a decade – I can safely say that I find myself drawn to the completionist attitude that many TIFF die hards in the city seem to subscribe to. I had attended the festival very casually for the first few years I lived here before stepping up my game three years ago. For two years I thought seeing 15 films over the course of the festival was a lot. However, after talking with people in the numerous lines I have stood in over the years I quickly realized that I was a relative novice.

In 2010, I decided to tip my toe into the pool of festival coverage. I didn’t do it as press in any formal sense, but as a paying blogger doing it out of personal interest. The more films I went to (and I went to 38 in 2010), the more I saw the allure of rushing from place to place to see films that I quite often knew nothing about. I was starting to “get it.” More importantly, I was having a heck of a lot of fun. Even if I didn’t like all of the films I had seen, the screenings themselves were always an experience worth remembering.

Still, there are people far more hardcore than I will ever be, even as someone who is technically getting paid to see as many films as possible. A quick glance at Twitter hashtags will turn up film fans loudly buzzing about films across the social media landscape. They all want the inside scoop as they interact lovingly with festival programmers, film critics, and PR people to try to make better ticket buying decisions. In many cases, it starts well before TIFF, with many people keeping a close eye on Sundance and Cannes to try to gauge buzz for the following September.

Fans will buy massive blocks of tickets in exchange for vouchers that are then put into a lottery to determine who gets the first crack at the most coveted screenings at the festival. This lottery is preceded by general freak outs and anxiety over scheduling that kicks in almost as soon as the festival is announced. Once the lottery hits, it is followed across social networks with a fervour usually reserved for the NFL and NBA drafts. People will question and complain about the schedule, but it is out of love for the game.

Then these same fans will camp outside of the festival box office overnight for the coveted “premium” tickets that can’t be ordered in advance (for galas and select events and special presentations). People begin lining up early in the afternoon the day before tickets go on sale, just so they can be the first to purchase single tickets at seven in the morning. The more technologically inclined will sit at home and click on the refresh button on their browsers in a similar fashion, leading to a yearly crash of the festival’s ticketing servers that is sadly unavoidable due to the level of devotion that many people feel.

Then there are the true warriors of cinema, the festival volunteers. These are people who largely get paid only in free movies and rapturous applause before each and every screening, but they do it out of sheer love. Festival veterans will often see the same people volunteering every year and they will develop close relationships with them for a 10 day period. It is like a yearly late-summer camp where everyone gets older, but they never lose their sense of wonder. The volunteers are the counselors and places like the Lightbox and Roy Thompson Hall are the cabins where they join to sing along in praise of cinema.

That’s enough highfalutin praise for an already huge event. I am here to help welcome you to Dork Shelf’s coverage of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. Over the next several weeks the Dork Shelf team of reporters and critics will be here to keep you in the loop about the hits and misses of this year’s festival. We have our charts and graphs ready as we gear up to run alongside the other fans who couldn’t be more excited to get this shindig underway. On behalf of everyone here at Dork Shelf, we are thankful and grateful to be fans of the festival and just as thankful and grateful to all of you who are coming to us for your festival reviews and interviews.

Now lets go have some fun.

Toronto Cartoonists Workshop member Rachel Wells, co-founder Ty Templeton, co-founder Sean Menard

It’s been a busy year for the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop. A school launched by professionals in the comic book industry with the intention of training tomorrow’s artists and authors, TCW has expanded its course offerings and continues to cultivate new talent. The second volume of their flagship product, Holmes Incorporated, launched earlier this month – a comic book written, drawn, inked and lettered by students of the workshop. In the near future, the descendants of legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and Watson, have established an agency dedicated to solving the world’s most puzzling and dangerous mysteries.

Holmes Inc. wasn’t the only comic on display this time, as the spacious new location in the heart of Little Italy allows the Workshop to double as an art gallery. Andy Belanger is showcasing his work on Kill Shakespeare #12, the final issue of the current volume created by Anthony Del Conte and Conor McCrery that’s turned expectations of classical adaptations on their heads for the past year. Prints of pages from the issue line one wall of the space, along with a gigantic cover illustration. On the other side sit sketches by J. Bone, who drew Wonder Woman Retroactive: The 70s, a DC story written by Dennis O’Neil.

While the original space was an apartment-style home adapted into a school, the new TCW is a large area suitable for gallery showings and much larger classes, including room for live models for drawing and anatomy classes. “Before we used to have classes of 22 students and eventually we’d have to start turning people away,” explains Templeton, “and now, honestly, 200 students and the football squad and the towel boy can come in.”

Holmes Inc #2 itself is a monster of a comic volume: 13 stories, over 75 pages and 22 contributors instead of last year’s 14. Templeton wasn’t modest in the praise of his students. “I was astounded that Holmes Issue 2 was a little bit better than Issue 1,” he explains. “Every one of them produced tremendous work. About six or seven of them were previously involved with the first issue, and when they came back, they did better work than the first issue. And the new people were stunningly good.”

J. Bone with art from Wonder Woman Retroactive: The 70s

The creative process even gave birth to totally new characters in addition to Templeton’s main cast of Holmes descendants, including a hulking bodyguard and transvestite called Equi-T. Templeton gave his blessings to his students to use their own characters however they like in future spin-offs, even though they first appeared in a book of his creation. “I’m very conscious of the fact that creativity should not be outright stolen from you. If you take something you love, go do it. My only stipulation is you can’t take my characters along with you, because they belong to me!”

Templeton owes much of the success of the Holmes project to the creative classroom setting. All students, whether writers or artists, present their work to all other members of the team and give and receive feedback – with no one allowed to sit in the corner and simply give a polite nod.

“Artists and writers work at home usually, and usually in a basement. It’s a very solitary job. By forcing the creators, especially in our project, to come in once a week, you get to see not only the finished page but you get to see the page in its layout form, when it’s in sketchy pencils, and you get to see the job get inked and coloured. Even if you didn’t do anything, you still get to say ‘Hey, I liked, that’, or ‘Maybe it would be better if that tree was more gnarly’, or ‘If that car had cooler looking jet packs on it’ or something. And so you feel, in a small way, responsible for every page of it.”

Besides the new location, the classes at the Workshop are operating mostly the same as before. Instructors include respected professionals in the comics industry like Ramon Perez and Leonard Kirk, as well as Templeton. The faculty isn’t restricted to those with ties to Marvel and DC, though: Holmes Inc‘s assistant editor Rob Pincombe came from a television background.

Artist Andy Belanger with Kill Shakespeare #12 cover art

Perhaps the biggest change is that Holmes, Inc. is also available digitally on several digital distribution websites such as Comixology and Drive-Thru Comics. It was a student’s idea, one that eventually convinced the self-professed old-timer in Templeton. “My problem with the digital versions are, in general, that you can’t have two-page spreads, and that the story flows differently because of the constraints of the medium. But the new new e-readers are exactly the same size as a comic book, and have a screen that reads as beautifully as a comic book.” Although Templeton sounds reluctant to make the change, online distributors were kind enough to offer Holmes Inc. #2 for free, in the interest of promising, emerging talent.

Templeton and the rest of the Workshop will keep cultivating new, local talent, including taking their classes to Fan Expo Canada. TCW will hold a “Make your own darn comic!” workshop on Thursday, the Comic Book Bootcamp on Saturday, and Templeton teams up with Amazing Spider-Man‘s Dan Slott for Superhero Stew: Create a Character. Check out Fan Expo’s comic book schedule, because TCW has their hands all over the workshops and panels.

“We want to be one of the places that you think of when you think of Toronto comics. Whatever is comics in the city, we want to be part of that.”

I love mothers; you love mothers. Perhaps not as much as Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, but certainly enough to celebrate all the moms out there by assembling a list of some of the most memorable matriarchs in film history

Mommie Dearest
An obvious choice. Faye Dunaway portrays the real life Joan Crawford, who evidently was insanely disturbed. The source material was taken from Crawford’s adopted daughter Christina; a frequent victim of her mother’s abuse, such as having her hair hacked off while being laughed at maniacally.

Mother
Not the 1996 film starring Albert Brooks and Debbie Reynolds; instead check out the 2009 Korean title of the same name about a mom who must solve the murder of a young girl after her son is indicted for the crime. Kim Hye-ja, a veteran Korean actress, plays the part to perfection.

El Orfanato (The Orphanage)
An amazing, eerie Spanish film from producer Guillermo del Toro. Laura (Belén Rueda) returns to her childhood home — an orphanage — where she has plans to refurbish it into a center for disabled children. Her adopted child Simón makes friends with Tomás – a super creepy kid who wears a burlap sack mask. Soon Simón goes missing which sets off a mystery that delves into Laura’s past. Very chilling and adept performances across the board, especially from Rueda. Also, if you wanna see what a mouth looks like after it’s been hit by a bus, you’ve come to the right movie.

Psycho
The 1960 Hitchcock classic that’s more thriller than horror; Psycho made you think differently about birds and staying in hotels. Many remember the shower slaying, but fail to recall how Marion Crane embezzled money from her boss. So, merciless killing, or justifed retribution?

Stepmom
Normally not the greatest Julia Roberts fan, but she gets the nod here due to an honest story and Susan Sarandon, who I just saw on the street last week. Bonus points go to co-star Jena Malone who at the age of fourteen sued for emancipation from her mother who was draining her savings. (On a completely unrelated note: how spectacular is the narrator’s voice in the below trailer? It belonged to the iconic Don LaFontaine, who sadly passed away in 2008. Good thing we still have Hal Douglas.)

Raising Arizona
Holly Hunter and Nicolas “Yes, I really won an Academy Award” Cage play a set of wannabe parents who kidnap a baby, then get into a showdown with a crazed biker (A lot more things happen in between.) The second feature from the Coen Brothers initially received very mixed reviews, but like The Big Lebowski, Arizona has found a loyal cult following. A fun fact for you: babies were actually fired from the set for walking instead of crawling.

Rosemary’s Baby
A truly chilling adaptation from the controversial Roman Polanski. While trying to conceive, Mia Farrow’s Rosemary falls prey to an evil chocolate mousse and a sexual assault from the devil himself.

Serial Mom
I miss Kathleen Turner. The woman from Romancing the Stone and V.I. Warshawski, who somehow made an animated rabbit lover sexy, has since been regulated to television cameos and failed Broadway productions. Let’s all remember her from 1994 when she murdered people over stolen parking spaces, and littering. Ricki Lake (yes, that Ricki Lake) and Sam Waterston join the fun in the John Waters directed film.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
Winner of the Golden Raspberry award for worst actor (Sylvester Stallone), actress (Estelle Getty), and screenplay. Also has the distinction of a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But it’s still awesome.

Throw Momma from the Train
A comedy about murdering ex-wives and mothers, starring Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal. Crystal’s films have always been enjoyable, but personally, I miss him as the Oscar host. What the hell’s he doing nowadays anyway?

You can read more of Adam’s film musings over at his blog: Cinema High.

"Oh god... did he see me? He totally saw me."

Say what you will about Nic Cage, but never doubt his willingness to play really unflattering characters. In Matchstick Men, he plays Roy Waller, a low-stakes confidence man who hasn’t had a girlfriend in 14 years, and when his last one was pregnant, he beat her up. On top of that, he has severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, kept at bay by a plethora of pills and a cleaning habit that would make his house sterile enough for surgical procedures, that is, if he wasn’t also a chain smoker. When he discovers that he has a 14-year-old daughter, Angela (Alison Lohman), he develops a passive-aggressive parenting style and eventually teaches her how to screw people out of their money.

Yeah, this guy is pathetic, and not pathetic in the kind of way that he’s continually fucking over other people in order to boost his own confidence, but in the kind of way that if you saw him walking down the street, you’d think to yourself “That guy is pathetic”. Cage invests him with facial spasms and verbal tics. Whenever he gets stressed out, he starts repeatedly groaning, like he’s uncomfortably jizzing his pants. So how does this bode for my theory that Nic Cage is the most awesome actor ever? Pretty well, actually.

Yeah, he's making that groaning noise again.

How many other “Big Fucking Movie Stars” are willing to completely debase themselves on film? This ain’t even Nic Cage’s least appealing character (see Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, etc.). Sure, Ryan Gosling’s played a guy with a dirty moustache that falls in love with a blow-up doll, but the only time movie stars do movies like this is when they think they can win Oscars. Cage does them time and time again. He can switch so easily from big-budget Jerry Bruckheimer movies, in which he’s awesome and badass, to small performance-driven  movies, where he’s pathetic and weird.

So watch this, Ridley Scott’s low-stakes con man movie, and imagine if Robert Downey Jr. Played Roy Waller: in all those scenes where Roy’s partner, Frank (Sam Rockwell), engages in verbal sparring matches with Roy, would he allow his character to be humiliated like that, or would his comebacks seem wittier, or at least more sardonic? If Russell Crowe played this role, in all those scenes where Roy loses his temper with Angela, would they seem like equals the way they do in the film, or would Waller look like an dangerously enraged Australian? All I’m saying is, it takes balls for a bankable movie star to repeatedly take roles that have no balls, and yet continue to take roles that do have balls in the meantime. Nic Cage is a strange man, and that’s why he’s great.

Rating: Four uncomfortably young-looking Alison Lohman’s out of four.

Winter’s Bone

A tiny film that came out of nowhere top win top prize at Sundance this year, this film strips bare all pretense of gloss and glamour to tell a strange and sad tale, anchored by the most extraordinary performance of the year. Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree, a girl who must take responsibility for her mother and two young siblings. When their father goes missing, she has little time to find him or risk losing their home. Set in Missouri, this is the land of serious drug abuse in a part of the United States where little employment exists. Ree will not back down from any fight, nor will she rest until she gets the answers she needs to save her family. This is a frightening world, almost post-apocalyptic in its plethora of useless things and lack of the necessities of life. Ree does not threaten anyone, nor think herself above them; but she will seek the truth that she needs at any cost. It is a stark portrait of a very real part of American that has been left behind, and how the few that strive to make things right are likely losing the battle. - Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Balada Triste de la Trompeta

Returning in many ways to the style of his early films such as Accion Mutante, de la Iglesia creates a fantastical fable about a group of circus performers who struggle through love and revenge during the last days of Franco’s reign in Spain. The film begins with a clown in drag running wild against Nationalist soldiers with a machete, and ends with a trapeze artist throwing herself off a statue, unspooling a length of cloth like the blood spilt over the preceding thirty years. In between, a young man named Javier, the sad clown, attempts to win the love of Natalia, whose husband Sergio abuses her. Extremes of violence are mirrored in the extreme lives of the circus folk, who freakish jobs and hence freakish lives become a love parody for the state of Spain during these tumultuous years. The film is a grand opera, willing to go farther and further than most historical-styled epics. De la Iglesia knows that it is only in these extremes that the truth can be found, as in an opera, and the use of the fantastical circus serves to make the grandiose into a perfect metaphor. - Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Buried

This seems like a fairly straightforward (if frightening) story on the surface: a American truck driver, working for a company in Iraq, is kidnapped and buried alive in order to be held for ransom. Armed only with a cell phone, a pen and a zippo, Paul (played by Ryan Reynolds) must try to reach someone, anyone, who can free him before his air runs out. But Cortes ups the ante by filming the story entirely inside the coffin, with all other characters only voices on the phone. This creates likely the most intense and claustrophobic film I’ve ever seen; despite the size of the screen, the viewer is right inside that coffin with Paul. And the world outside: the loving wife, the fellow truck driver also in trouble, the unfeeling corporate executive, and the semi-sympathetic officer. - Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Toy Story 3

Pixar Animation Studios, the much-loved film collective known for its animated shorts and features, continues its near-perfect streak of heart-warming, gut-wrenching and gorgeous storytelling with Toy Story 3. In the third and final Toy Story installment, Woody and the other toys face an uncertain future as their owner, Andy, prepares to leave for college. If you enjoy this film — as I’m sure you will — be on the lookout for Woody, Buzz and the gang in a Toy Story short screening with the upcoming Cars 2. - Sasha James

While not all of the biggest releases were masterpieces within themselves, many of them made movie hype fun again. Tron: Legacy, which within itself is nothing more than a pretty fun blockbuster, was more fun leading up to it, months before bantering about Daft Punk’s score, in-jokes and overall gushing. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, especially for locals, even brought back some magic into general Toronto living. My brother saw Pilgrim while home sick with mono, and seeing the appearance of the Comeau character, based on a real dude with the same name he met mere months before at a weird zine thing I dragged him to, sort of brought the watching experience to a whole other level. Game jokes and Toronto jokes littered Edgar Wright’s precious little movie, and while it didn’t find footing with general audiences, meant so much more to those who let it into their hearts. It had to come up sooner or later, but Inception is the best movie for those willing to suspend their belief on hooks so high it would make even the most brutal body modder cringe. It was Nolan’s film that made absolutely everything up, something done a lot in half-baked science fiction, but interesting to see how that pans out when an actual budget is supplied. Jackass 3D gave us the most creatively fulfilling scene to ever include a dildo cannon.

But there is still plenty of room for films that weren’t the most expensive of all time. Eli Roth did something odd and neglected to buy a bucket of blood, the result was The Last Exorcism, a film that did everything right by doing the opposite of every other fake-horror-mentary in its sect. As far as real documentaries go, I actually saw Best Worst Movie last year, but it came out this year, and for folks who have been long laughing at the depravity of b-movies may find how interesting the highs and lows of cinematic infamy can be. Rubber had Mr. Oizo/Quentin Dupieux  bring back the wonderful creative enema that is music video direction back to the big screen, something I had been longing for since Jonze and Gondry’s best days. – Zack Kotzer

The Social Network

It’s a credit to David Fincher’s filmmaking and t0 Jesse Eisenberg’s performance that the audience actually cares about Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. His character is as reprehensible and as unlikable a guy ever put to film, and yet we root for him. The film is an underdog story about a billionaire asshole. Fincher’s moody digital aesthetic, the wonderful ensemble cast, Trent Reznor’s subtle-yet-integral score and Aaron Sorkin’s too-clever-for-it’s-own-good script all come together to make a movie that is a real joy to take in. Granted, people don’t talk in Sorkinisms in real-life, but the film’s smug and self-satisfied script is a perfect fit for this Ivy-Silicon drama.  - Will Perkins

The Wild Hunt

The Wild Hunt focuses on Erik, an average Quebecois twenty-something whose girlfriend and brother are obsessed with live action role-playing games (LARP, for short). Chasing after his girlfriend after a fight, Erik dons a peasant shirt and joins the game to win her back. While the fodder for comedy is plentiful, Erik’s first glimpse of LARP manages to be genuinely charming and heartfelt — all while being terrifying as hell. - Sasha James

127 Hours

You have to hand it to Danny Boyle for taking a story that takes place mostly in one location with one character and making it one of the most engaging, visceral, and emotional movie-going experiences in recent memory. Boyle has dozens of little tricks up his director’s sleeve (some more gimmicky than others) to depict what was going on in this man’s mind when faced with death and keep us engaged in his plight.  While some found it way too graphic, I thought the gruesome climax was incredibly effective and well earned. It was a scene that I’ll never forget. It made me grin and cringe all at once, I highly recommend seeing this movie in theatres while you still can so that you can experience the different reactions of the rest of the audience, that is if you’re not too busy trying not to lose your own shit. - Noah Taylor

Exit Through The Gift Shop

Banksy: the guy with more street art cred than anyone, proves that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. The resulting film is a wonderful examination of hype versus art. - Noah Taylor

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows

I still can’t believe that the same team that made the last few lackluster Potter films managed to pull off this surprisingly entertaining entry from what I thought was one of the most boring parts of the books. But the highlight for me was definitely the animated addition of The Tale of Three Brothers directed by Ben Hibon. - Noah Taylor

I’m Still Here

Casey Affleck’s ballsy mockumentary made fools of us all, “documenting” actor Joaquin Phoenix’s supposed descent into drugs, madness and mediocre hip-hop. But what makes I’m Still Here a great film isn’t the ruse we all fell for, or the heavy-handed examination of the pitfalls of fame — it is the depraved and utterly believable performance by the film’s subject. While we now all know that the movie was an elaborate hoax/brilliant piece of peformance art, ambiguity about the film’s true nature could have made I’m Still Here an absolute classic. To have the actor reemerge several years later, without acknowledgement would have been incredible. Still, I’m happy to know that Phoenix — a legitimately talented man — did not completely fall off the wagon. - Will Perkins

Black Swan

It’s hard to find the words to talk about a movie as mesmerizing as Darren Aranofsky’s Black Swan. When I came out of the film’s packed final public screening at this year’s TIFF, I was gasping for breath. What starts as a erotic psychodrama with Freudian subtext turns into a grotesque horror film before transcending any attempt at labelling and becoming something truly unique. It’s an art film, a genre film, and a character study all rolled into one. But it’s when the stunning final ballet sequence begins that everything, the frantic camerawork, Clint Mansell’s Tchaikovsky-indebted score, the subtle visual effects, the perfectly timed editing, it all coalesces into a dazzling and magical example of cinematic showmanship. - Alan Jones

The American

Many people were misled by the marketing of this film, which suggested a generic “hitman on his final job” storyline starring George Clooney. What these people were led into was a slow, methodical, Antonioni-influenced thriller filled wall-to-wall with moral ambiguity and gorgeous cinematography of provincial Italy. Of course, Antonioni never featured a hitman screwing a hooker with a heart of gold in any of his films, and although not much happens in The American, the tension in Clooney’s character comes not from existential ennui, but from the threat posed to his life by any number of characters. This film is the perfect mixture of Hollywood archetypes and European art-film cool. Danish director Anton Corbijn got his start in photography before debuting as a director in the beautifully shot and excellently acted Joy Division bio-pic Control, but The American is by far the superior film; I hope to see a long and exciting career behind the camera from him. - Alan Jones

Shutter Island

Shutter Island is another film from 2010 that confused audiences and critics alike. Martin Scorsese’s recent Oscar and the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio had people expecting something a little less trashy than this. But here is Scorsese, a master filmmaker, making what might be the most expensive pure horror film ever made. Red herrings are thrown into the plot with abandon, characters accost the camera with grotesque wounds on their faces, and Scorsese plays tricks with the camera that are obvious, yet effective. No other film this year had critics reaching so far back into their knowledge of obscure cinema, and never has Vincent Price appeared to be so popular amongst reputable print publications. Watching Scorsese take on the horror genre is a bit like eating a master chef’s chocolate mousse — it can be hard to stomach, but if you can take it, it’s fucking delicious. - Alan Jones

Blue Valentine

Of all the movies I watched in 2010, I was suprised by how much Blue Valentine stuck with me. It’s an emotionally wrenching film that juxtaposes the beginning and the end of a relationship. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling so immerse themselves in the characters that you can’t help but feel invested in the relationship. The audience watches the couple’s sweet and wholly realistic beginnings, and then their tumultous and equally realistic break-up. If you’ve ever been in love or had your heart broken, you will be affected by Blue Valentine. Brilliant filmmaking and incredible acting. – Will Perkins

!!! – Strange Weather, Isn’t It?

Many dismissed this album from the weirdos, not taken with their new cleaned-up attitude, lack of swear words and less messy instrumentation. But I found it to be their best work yet, because now we were really getting to know who !!! are and what they’ve gone through in the last year or so. The songs became some of my favourite danceable moments of the year, their shows are always sooo much fun and sweaty and the entire album became my work-out buddy. - Jessica Lewis

Junip – Fields

The kind of album that will always let you remember where and when you first heard it: I had just moved into my new apartment, was lying on the floor of my living room trying to stream it off NPR on my iPhone. “In Every Direction” hit me so hard I could barely believe it. The album became my go-to hug and sense of relief, repeating lyrics under my breath in times of need or simply closing my eyes and swaying to the music. Plus, Jose Gonzalez is a musical wonder. - Jessica Lewis

Foals – Total Life Forever

Quite possibly my favourite album ever. Never has an album affected me so greatly. I even said so to the clerk at Criminal Records in the spring when I was buying the LP that it would be my #1, and it never faltered. I couldn’t shake it, even as I played it I was still anticipating it. The deep blue underwater, icy gazes and dark mental moments sat with me as I could totally connect. It was one of those albums that got me through a rough time with confidence and I’ll forever be better for it. They’d been a band I was always drawn to and loved, but with this they just took me over. It was one of the first albums I could really discuss with a lot of my friends as well, and new friends to boot. The album feels split in two, acts I and II, I could be revved up first and then taken down after. Guitars oh their guitars have set a force for so many other bands this year, I could hear it over and over, but nobody does it like Foals. They became a voice to a younger generation, fans pledge themselves to them in body art for crissakes, and I’m not on those levels nor do I feel that’s a sense of immaturity, but of understanding and honour. Foals and Total Life Forever meant so much to me this year, no matter how many angry outbursts they had at their Toronto date in September I shook about all that day for. I’ve taken so much from the album and there’s still so much left. - Jessica Lewis

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

The realm of rap and hip hop is experiencing a magical transformation. For far too long it has teetered on the verge of being too damn stupid, and while it has made for some damn catchy music, a changeup has been long overdue. Certainly the more artisan stuff has always existed, but it’s always been on the underside, 2010 has finally shown promise that the metamorphosis is coming. Possibly more aggressively than predicted thanks to one Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Yes, love him, hate him or super hate him, of all the vain famous people in the world, at least Kanye can stand by his craft. A fine producer and a charismatic performer, Twisted Fantasy is an explosive collaboration of intensely talented individuals. “Between Monster”, “Power”, “Hell of a Life”, “All of the Lights”, “Blame Game” and of course, “Runaway”, the entire album is nearly all new classics. Of course not all of these heralds are multimillionaires, as an even greater worth of credit is owed to the much talked about Odd Future crew. Earl Sweatshirt, Domo Genesis, Mike G and glorious weirdo Lil B, a new pack of erratic artists offer a truly unpredictable age for what was becoming a very predictable genre. The best of which is Tyler the Creator, whose style and verse is so up front, so dark, depraved and honest that it is nowhere near marketable, a fact that’s as wonderful as it is unfortunate. This general shift pushes for the weird, greater variety in aesthetics, more MF DOOM and Kool Keith than Nelly, and I’m all for it.

Rock’s doing fine too, better than fine. Ariel Pink finally left his room and while Worn Copy and House Arrest are good albums, what he did in an actual studio surprised the hell out of everyone. Including myself. Who would have known Ariel Pink would one day be kind-of-popular instead of generally-unknown? Before Today feels more like his psychological mixtape, constantly jumping between styles but always retained in this circle of roots, echoing Zappa, Bowie and Reed, Pink starts to sound more like a memory than an actual recording. Other much hyped 2010 entry is The Suburbs by indie heavyweights the Arcade Fire. While it’s not their greatest songs of all time, it is undoubtedly their most coherent experience, The Suburbs latches on to a very specific experience of youth, squeezing it until it’s exhausted and the emotion can be let go. Nick Cave’s side project Grinderman and Michael Gira’s main project Swans both delivered this year, albums Grinderman 2 and My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky are heavy and dirty as they need to be, the latter a familiar but almost exceptionally different delivery from Swans, and a listen you may find draining you in the best of ways. Zola Jesus’ Stidulum and Liars’ Sisterworld also fantastic entries from the world of sorrowed emotions.

If you hate feeling like scum and would rather have a classic flavoured fun, Free Energy’s shamelessly cotton-candy sound is as sugary sweet as the pink gum on the cover. Free Energy is pop rock in the spirit of KISS, madly jumping about like a rube, drunk girls, and all the other stuff the world offers that you hate to admit you like. For fans of dancing, Caribou’s genre-breaking freeform jazz side of electro, Swim, stands as one of the year’s absolute best, while Danger’s long awaited second release, 09/17 2007, has already made for some of the greatest fan vids ever uploaded. Some of the most electric underdogs are Fang Island, Hooded Fang and Twin Sister, the latter having delivered “Lady Daydream”, my favourite track of the year. Tadaa. - Zack Kotzer