Cinema on the Verge

With Halloween in the rear view mirror I can imagine that it’s celebrated all year long for up and coming horror director Richard Griffin who put together of Pretty Dead Things. I was lucky enough to attend the premier this past Sunday thanks to an invite from actor Donald Foley who I’ve gotten to know from zipping around the blogosphere. He plays a porn producer in the film. The event was held at the historic Columbus Theater in Providence Rhode Island, which is where the film takes place and seems to be the heart of Richard Griffin territory.

Being just a 2 hour ride away in Connecticut I figured it was worth not only making the trip to meet Don Foley in person but to see what the indie film scene up in Providence was like. I have to say, if it’s relegated just to Griffin, he’s a party onto himself even if horror is not your cup of tea. Arriving in Providence with my platonic date for the night, we were greeted at the front door by drag queens, treated to a live performance by a local band, and given a few words from Mr.Griffin himself. I was captured on camera entering the theater and asked why I was here. My response, “To see Don Foley.” They asked if I had anything to say to him, I did.

“Don keep pimping it.”

Did he? Yes, he did! As the film rolled Don got some of the loudest applause of the night. I got into it myself because my platonic date and I got into town early and had a chance to bang down some drinks before hand. All worth it. You could tell Don was on an adrenaline high for the night and without it, he’s probably drop from exhaustion. My regret is that we didn’t have the chance to talk more. It was a Sunday night and we all know what follows the next day; WORK.

So how was the movie?

Loads of fun, actually. It’s a nice blend of horror and comedy loaded with plenty of gore and raunchiness to satisfy the bloodthirsty and shock seekers, though it’s not a terribly dark film. The plot centers around a small group of adult film stars who become vampires and live on the run in and around Providence. There’s an angry pizza boy (Patrick Pitu) who was attacked by 2 of the lovely vamps in the film (Danielle Lozeau and Ashley Eaton) who seeks revenge on them. The pizza boy himself is a vampire at this point but wins the help of the cities corrupt mayor (Salvatore Marchese) to hunt the fanged beauties down. Of course there’s loads of sex (straight and gay), biting and nice shots of very attractive women in various states of undress. It’s all part of what the film calls itself, “An unsafe sex comedy.”

Likely to offend the uptight and tickle devious, Pretty Dead Things is a very solid effort by Griffin. He gets very good performances out of his actors and can keep things pacing smoothly. He’s got a good sense of when to be funny and when to tone it down, something other directors can easily struggle with.

It’s not the latest installment of Saw but Pretty Dead Things is a celebration of B-Movie fun. It never tries to be anything more and is happy to be what it is. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we one day see Griffin’s name attached to a high profile project. He knows what works.

Now if only I can get a non-platonic date for the next premier I attend…..

Quick note just to apologize for the lack of updates. There’s good reason as I’m in the midst of fleshing out my latest screenplay. It’s coming along quite well and the end is in sight. Keep checking back and thanks for stopping by.

Hard for me to believe that the the slick, ultra-violent , heist gone wrong epic from the man himself, Quentin Tarantino, will be turning 15 soon.

This film means a lot to me since it was the first time I got a good taste of independent films. I was in high school and was on a steady diet of big studio action flicks. However, the typical formula was growing stale on my young mind. One day my friends and I rented the single copy of this film at the video store. No one bothered to watch it, the clerk looked at us funny and we had no idea what we were in for. At the time it was different, funny, edgy, raw, disturbing yet……brilliant. I ran back to the video store and demanded to have the movie poster when the time came for them to take it down.

I got it and kept it with me into college. People would sneer, asking what the hell was Reservoir Dogs? I explained and people would shrug it off as if to say they hadn’t the time for B movies. Now everyone and their uncle has taken a page from the Tarantino school of violence.

He had an impact, this is where it started.

It’s never easy sitting down and using limited resources to create your dream film and it’s perhaps more difficult to establish a festival showcasing these films. Generating buzz and getting participants can be a taxing endeavor. Some are out of the gate with blinding star power while others bare more humble beginnings.

Dubai International Film Festival

This festival started in 2004 and is an effort to not only establish Dubai as a film hub but bridge the inter-cultural gap between Arab and non-Arab worlds through the medium of film. Given the recent tensions between the west and middle east over the last few years, such an effort is welcomed.

A team representing the DIFF has just concluded a tour through Toronto and Los Angeles in an attempt to raise the number of participants to the effort. So far they’ve drawn continued interest from studios like Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Mirimax.

The festival will be held in Dubai from Dec. 10 to the 17th with a slate of 102 films in which half will be Arabic. Also there’s Dhs 1.2 million in prize money up for grabs for any Arab and UAE filmmaker. Not too shabby.

This one will continue to grow very quickly as the stars were out in full force since the inception.

Flashpoint Film Festival

With Sunny Jamaica as the backdrop, the Flashpoint Film is set to feature the best and brightest in Caribbean film making. The second outing for this festival has hit some delays with the passing of one of it’s founders but is ready to roll on Dec. 1st to the 3rd at the Caves, Negril.

Like the DIFF, planners for the Flashpoint Film Festival are attempting to make inroads with both Hollywood and international film makers. In a recent article in the Jamaica Gleaner, Festival co-founder, Paul Bucknor, told of the technological upside, “We want to be the front-runners of a new digital film revolution in the Caribbean.” No doubt, the advances in technology have indeed made such declarations possible. Making films has become far more affordable and, according to Bucknor, “There’s nothing to stop us from making good films except our abilities.”

I totally agree. This is a humble but hopefully fruitful second outing for the festival. What they lack in star power when compared to the DIFF, they make up for with heart and determination. This is a region of the world that we need to see some more great films from.

I have no doubt they’ll deliver.

Alive and Lubricated is another film by Jason and Brett Butler that explores the world of suburbia and all of it’s passive trappings. I previously reviewed another feature put together by this duo from Canada called Bums, which I enjoyed and felt it showed a great deal of promise for these filmmakers. I have to say that after watching Alive and Lubricated, I’ve now become a fan.

The story focuses on Dickey (Jason Butler) who’s just been dumped by his girlfriend Rachel (Lena Morris) and seems to be going nowhere in his life with a dead end video store job. He’s got some friends, Ben (Craig Greenham) who talks a good game but can’t hold a relationship with women and Willy Boy (Brett Butler) who stuck living with his parents. All of these men, like so many other single men out there, want the benefits of sex without the heartache.  The kind of heartache that always surfaces after the implosion of a relationship. The old safety nets of porn and booze are an ever looming presence in the film. It’s something almost every man has watched at one time or another and it creates a nice shield for getting sexual gratification without the emotional hassle. But is it really just an excuse? Other characters in the film have resorted to escort services and massage parlors but gratification there is fleeting and often the women are described as “fat” or unattractive. At the very least, they were able to get their rocks off.

The men of Alive and Lubricated like to spend their time together talking over beers. In the quest to get laid there are humorous comparisons to sports figures and TV shows. You know they (Butler brothers) were going deep when they make mention of former baseball player Steve Balboni. If you’re a baseball fan like I am, then you’ll get a chuckle out that scene and the point they’re trying to make. There’s bragging amongst these men. A constant game of trying to one up one another. The problem is that they’re so far down in the dumps that they need to be supporting each other instead of taking jabs. Stories are told of their sexual prowess but why aren’t they’re more women around them?

Speaking of women, there’s Rachel. Fresh off dumping Dickey, she still want’s to be friends. The problem with this arrangement is that Dickey has to endure stories of her being with other men. He’s not prepared to hear any of it nor does it seem like the final nail is in the coffin as far as their relationship goes. She’s an attractive, liberated woman. She’s not afraid to verbally challenge Dickey’s friends in regards to the questions of love and sex. Can the 2 be separated and can they be enjoyed if so? Is it a collision course with disaster and must sex always be meaningful?

I’m a single man and can totally relate to why Brett and Jason Butler set out to create what they did. The film is funny and should be right up the alley of many Kevin Smith fans. Yes, it’s a rough around the edges and other critics around the web have come down on things like the acting or lapses in the script. But this is the beginning of a long road for Brett and Jason. I look forward to seeing more from these guys.

Bums is the type of comedic film that you have to admire for the simple fact that it’s creators, Brett and Jason Butler, put it together for next to nothing. And I don’t mean a paltry 1 million dollar budget here.  I’m talking hundreds of dollars or maybe a couple of thousand plunked down to make it happen. That’s very little, if anything, in the movie world.

This, in essence, is what independent film making is all about. You have an idea, a script a, decent DV camera and a few actors with a couple a friends sprinkled in and you put the plan in motion. You put everything you have into it and maybe you strike gold and maybe you don’t. But sometimes the risk, the journey and knowledge gained from a modest production put you in a spot where you can swing again from a higher ground and nail it. Again, it’s best to approach Bums with an appreciation that these guys aren’t bankrolled by MGM or Paramount, nor are they getting subsidized by the Sundance institute. They simply have the will to make a film under limited resources and make the most of it. It’s why I started this blog and, again, it’s something to admire. And with that, I’ll begin my review.

Bums takes place in suburban Canada and, like most suburban environments, has a habit of paralyzing people with complacency despite the minds will to be bold. We begin with Dave (Jason Butler) trying to talk himself into breaking up with with his girlfriend, Jill (Tessa Sproule), in his car that’s parked by her house. He eventually walks to the door with swagger and confidence and breaks the news to her. He feels she’s a slut, she thinks it’s over her love for the Beatles. Afterwards, Dave embarks on his first day in a while as a single man. He’s met by his friend Dan (Brett Butler) who’s been single for a spell but down on his luck in the dating department. In the meantime, Jill and her friend Heather (Karen Suzuki) contemplate their hatred of dating men and spew bitterness toward all their past relationships with them. If you’re single and hit the bars looking to meet someone, you’ve seen these women. They’re ready to attack at even the slightest glance and appear to be having a miserable time yet look like a million bucks.

These 2 women have built an airtight defense about how any faltering of a relationship with a man is strictly the mans fault with little or no responsibility on them. They freely discuss wanting men but quickly emasculate them by saying how none of them ever were good enough to satisfy them in bed. They’ll speak of independence and even passive aggressively flirt with lesbian trysts, as we see here in Bums, but would never actually do it. The reality is that they’re afraid of being hurt and won’t let anyone in to experience what they truly want. While Jill and Heather drink the day away, (this film is just a single day in the lives of these characters) Dave and Dan make their way to score some hash from a bathrobe wearing dealer named D.O.P (Jeremiah McCann) and it’s here where we’re introduced to a philosophical young woman named Lucy (Tammy Gerus). Between the toking, pop culture references are made because in the suburban world, it’s inhabitants find meaning and live vicariously through them. It’s easier to cling to the events that unfolded on TV than take a risk.

The characters in Bums are funny and spout some witty and humorous dialog. It’s only upon closer examination that what many of them declare or claim to be are simply masks to cover their abhorrence to being alone. The film touches upon the unhealthy need to be with someone just to be with someone and committing to someone because it’s right. There are 2 characters that, by simply being themselves, find more reward in this single chronicled day than others. I really liked Bums. It reminded me of many episodes that I’ve gone through with my friends and the opposite sex and I estimate that I’ll have more adventures like this to follow. I laughed because the ground it was covering was familiar to me and I don’t mean in the sense that Jason and Brett Butler were rehashing old material. They’ve taken elements of what we see in something like a Kevin Smith film and give it their own personal touch. There’s split screen camera work and other editing touches here and there but what really won me over was the fact that these guys were having fun and telling a funny story about being young, unsure and, at times, Bums. If you’ve ever been single and bar hopping with a wing man or woman, you’ll find a lot to like about this film. Because let’s face it, we’ve all been there.

While it lost out on an Oscar win for best foreign language film, Paradise Now by Harry Abu-Hassad still deserves a long hard look by any film lover with an eye on current events.

The film revolves around 2 young Palestinian men, Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman), who’ve been friends since childhood and live dead end lives in the city of Nablus located in the West Bank. They work as mechanics for an out of the way garage that overlooks the rundown city. Hopelessness is all around them, they spend their days drinking tea and smoking water pipes. There’s anger at their situation and there’s frustration when the anger subsides. There’s a naiveté about them as well. They’re clearly in awe of the Palestinian resistance and the prospect of going to heaven as a “martyr.” All in all, both men feel that it’s better to die rather than live with what’s around them and the choice of death is by suicide bombing. Said and Khaled feel that to show weakness or inferiority to their sworn enemy of Israel is worse than death. And by killing themselves along with Israelis, they are now both equals because they and their victims are dead. Like eager children they ask at one point in the film what will happen after they have detonated the bombs. A leader for the group, in a very matter of fact way, says that 2 angels will swing by and pick them up and they’ll see for themselves when it happens. Both men believe it and are promised that their families will be taken care of financially after the mission is carried out. They come from poor families.

Said meets a beautiful woman named Suha (Lubna Azabal) while working at the garage. She’s worldly, having traveled and learned from it. It’s clear that she’s attracted to him and he to her. There ’s an opportunity for romance but duty calls. Said and Khaled have been selected to carry out a suicide mission in Tel Aviv the very next day. Time is short and Said decides to make one last visit to Suha in the dead of night. His excuse is to drop off the keys to her car which is getting fixed at the garage he works for. Amazingly she opens the door, half asleep but ready to invite him in for talk over some tea. She asks him if he watches movies, he claims there’s no cinema since the last theater was burned down, he partook in it’s destruction. She asks what did the cinema ever do to him and he admits it did nothing. He simply states that they were angry over something the Israelis did and the theater just happened to be there. Eventually they took their anger out on it. He then asks her if she’s proud of her father and what he did; it turns out he was a legendary “martyr” or suicide bomber depending on how you view these things. She assuredly states that it would be better for him to be alive and bring about change another way than be dead.

Those views are examined from every conceivable direction in this excellent Palestinian made film. This is a story about choices, about letting go of the past in hopes that it may bring about a better future. The characters in the film that support the efforts of suicide bombing are caught in a cycle that’s not just destroying Israelis, but themselves. The symbolism of this is very apparent when the mission goes wrong and Said runs back into Palestinian territory unable to remove the bombs fastened to him. There’s also the obvious problem that these 2 men aren’t ready to die at all. At one point, while making a final farewell video, Khaled stops his political rhetoric to warn his mother that she should get her water filters from another store because she’s paying too much going to her store of choice. It’s a small thing but it’s obvious that these men ought to be home, helping their families.

Despite these warning signs, Said and Khaled still believe that they have no other option than to die in a blaze of so called martyrdom. It’s resistance, and resistance, according to Said, must continue for the sake of the Palestinian people. Resistance is their way of showing might against the tanks and jet fighters of the Israeli army. But the battle may not won by showing might, but by showing restraint. Unfortunately, in reality, both sides are airing on the side of showing power through violence. To some, it may be justified but it’s not a means to an end and it never will be. The shots of Said blank face and the lost, exauhsted look in his eyes bring on so many implications that support such a point.

And that’s what makes this film so brilliant. It’s not out to justify suicide bombing nor is it out to place all the blame squarely on the shoulders of Israel. The real change will come when men like the characters of Said and, to a much lesser extent, Khaled (see the film and know why) realize that even in the worst of times, there’s more worth living for than dying for.

I recently had the pleasure of writing some reviews 5 films that are, in some way, connected for a great movie site called I Spit On Your Movie. If you like cult and horror films, this is the place to be.

I chose to write about 5 great, but overlooked, vampire films. You can read the reviews here.

A young woman named December struggles to find her identity while taking care of her ailing father and working as a waitress.

I wonder how the premise to Brick was pitched to producers. It’s basically a film noir set in a high school underworld played completely straight. The characters talk the type of slang you’d see in 1940’s detective films without the slightest hint of current vernacular. Sure it takes place in the present but throw a fedora on the protagonist Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and you’ve got a character that would make “Chinatown’s” Jake Gitties blush with envy.

Brick takes place in a southern California town where the local high school houses an array of future underworld figureheads in training. There’s the shady theater starlet Kara (Megan Good) who uses her dramatic chops to manipulate and connive her way up the social ladder. There’s Dode (Noah Segan) who hasn’t got a thing going for him and would basically be your homeless drunk or drug fiend in a more adult version of this film. Crime lords like The Pin (Lukas Haas) supply the drugs that keep the social circles happy and coming back for more and are assisted by bodyguards like Tugger (Noah Fleiss). And the worldly yet mysterious femme fatale Laura (Norah Zehetner) who works overtime to seduce our hero and loner Brendan. He doesn’t have many friends except for The Brain (Matt O’Leary) who has his ears open and finger on the pulse of what’s going down in school hallways. He’ll often provide the necessary intelligence and backup for Brendan’s investigations if you can call them that.

Brendan’s latest adventure is a personal one involving the death of his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravine) who is found dead by him in a massive storm drain. 2 days earlier she hit Brendan with a mysterious call in which she babbled to Brendan hysterically about a brick. Brendan tries in vain to win her back and get he to ditch the new social circle she’s begun to roll with. It’s the dangerous lot I described above and a hardened young lad like Brendan can clearly see she’s in over her head. But she won’t go back and pays the ultimate price, but how and why? And what is this brick anyway? This is where the homage to 40’s style noir kicks into high gear. Brendan can talk smack with the best of them, fight hand to hand with the toughest of them, negotiate his way through clandestine meetings, and evade attempts on his life by people who want him off the trail.

I sat through this film bemused and in awe that such worldly or hardened kids would result in a very satisfying viewing experience. An example; Laura who hosts a lavish party at her parents mansion while playing jazz music (no Jessica Simpson or boy band music) over the stereo and spouting poetry to her guests who actually appreciate it. She possesses the sophistication and refinement of women twice her age. This would normally result in the suspension of disbelief collapsing and me shutting the film off. Even the idea of high schoolers indulging in such activities would be laughable in the hands of anyone else except Writer/Director Rain Johnson. He’s done something very interesting here and I’m willing to bet that others will attempt it and fail miserably.

I’m not saying every high school kid is as dumb as a brick (no pun intended) because that simply isn’t true. I’m merely saying that the traits on display by these well developed characters are things most of us get with age. The film doesn’t care about this and simply tells it’s story with twist after twist in the tradition of classic nior. Adults, by the way, are nothing more than an obstacle in this film’s story development. You’ve got Richard Roundtree as Assistant V.P Trueman who’s the angry police chief of sorts and that’s it as far as significant adult characters go.

Absurd, ridiculous, unbelievable and foolishly bold, Johnson still gets this things to fire on all cylinders. I raise a glass and give a long nod of respect to you.

Well done.