Mark Your Calendars

Because I'm making a concerted effort to get my shit together I present the schedules for October and November. Please note that screenings now happen on Wednesday nights, except for October 26 which is a Tuesday since Cinemuerte starts on the Wednesday that week.

Also, I am accepting suggestions for the second annual Den of Sin Xmas Massacre...

This is for the Nerdy Girls

Enjoy.

filmgurl's VIFF picks

Despite not being given press accreditation, I was able to score some ticket vouchers through work and do plan on attending and reviewing a number of films. Listed below is what I have tickets for so far:

Sun Sep 26 9:30pm: A Hole In My Heart -- New film by Lukas Moodysson ("Fucking Amal"). Sure to be heartbreaking.

Mon Sep 27 8:45pm: Pink Ribbon -- Documentary on Japanese subgenre of softcore movies where many respected Japanese directors started out.

Fri Oct 1 9:45pm: Izo (!) -- Miike Takashi film about a time traveling samurai. 'Nough said.

Sat Oct 2 4:00pm: The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess -- Remember her? Bruce MacDonald ("Roadkill", "Hard Core Logo") made a movie about her. And Hugh Dillon is in it.

Mon Oct 4 9:30pm: Terkel in Trouble -- Danish computer animated feature described as being kinda like "South Park", only darker.

Tue Oct 5 7:00pm: Time of the Wolf -- Michael Haneke's ("The Piano Teacher") take on post apocalypse.

For theatre locations and other info check out the Vancouver International Film Fest website

It's Baaaaack....

Yes, it's true. There will be a Cinemuerte VI. It will run from Oct 27 - 31. The program has been announced and is viewable here. It's kinda like Christmas in July for the boy and I since much of what is playing is stuff we missed at Fantasia. Especially exciting is the Canadian premier of "The Manson Family" (previously "Charlie's Family") with director Jim Van Bebber in attendance. Those who caught the work print of "Charlie's Family" at last year's Torture Garden will especially not want to miss it. A true work of art it is both fascinating, disturbing, intelligent and exploitively graphic.

Other highlights include the latest Miike Takashi new-school Japanese horror movie "One Missed Call", a bizarro Japanese indie called "Gusher No Binds Me", the Indonesian action overload "Lady Terminator" and a (rare) uncut print of the 1973 TV movie "Frankenstein: The True Story".

I will likely be all over the festival as I fully intend to volunteer for the fest and document it for Film Threat so I hope to see lots of you there.

Foods For Thoughts

I have always preferred the British school of film criticism and analysis over most of what is going on over here. When given a choice between a film book published here or in the UK, even if the subject is North American in origin I will always choose the British option. American film journalism is either exclusively intellectual or vapidly gossipy, and Canadian film journalism either apes American examples to the point of parody (because the fact is no one cares what Nicholas Campbell ate for breakfast, if they're even aware of who he is), or only appeals to the 200 people the constitute the Canadian "industry". However, in the UK even the fluffy "entertainment" sections of British newspapers include numerous intelligent, well researched and intriguing articles. I found a great one recently from The Independent about the new trend of transgressive sex and violence in contemporary French film. It is a very good primer on the subject and is able to put the trend in the context of both French film history and French art in general.

While I was searching for the article to link to, I stumbled across The Guardian film section which also includes some intriguing articles, especially in the context of re-examining Hollywood and American celebrities that we take for granted in North America as being "stars". I recommend checking them both out as I hope to do so more in the future.

The rest of September

Being that school is back in session we have noticed a considerable drop off in attendance, but I'm hoping that once we get into a better rhythm with the schedules things will improve. So, here is the program for the second to last week in September.

Tuesday September 21/04
Back to Classics... classic perversion that is!

7pm: Doctor X [1932] -- Thanks to the financial triumph of "Dracula" at the box office, movie studios in the thirties were desperate to jump onto the horror bandwagon, some with more success than others. The engineers of the Hays Code frantically tried to play catch up, but things still fell between the cracks. This was MGM's Michael Curtiz's shot at things, and he didn't shy away from anything: sadism, blood, implied incest... it's all here folks. Also notable for Fay Wray ("King Kong") and the use of an early two-colour Technicolor process.

9pm: Freaks [1932] -- Extremely controversial when it was released and something of a hot button to this day, many people consider this Tod Browning's ("Dracula") masterwork (well it certainly wasn't "Dracula", IMHO). A beautiful but cruel trapeze artist marries a circus midget in an attempt to inherit his fortune. When the rest of the side show learn of her treachery, they inflict an even crueler vengence. Surreal and troubling still. Features real side show freaks.

I'm back, baby!

So I finally got off my lazy duff and finished the columns for Film Threat I'd been sitting on, so D.o.S. #14 is available here now.

Also, in an effort to make our lives less chaotic and allow me more time to plan The Big Day, the Boy and I have decided to make movie night every other week as every week was really starting to grind us down. That means that screenings in September are on Tuesday Sept. 7th and Tuesday Sept. 21. There is a partial schedule up on the left now with the rest to follow shortly.

Other events I'm looking forward to include covering the first Vancouver International Hip Hop Film Festival Sept 1 - 5, The Vancouver International Film Festival Sept 23 - Oct 8 and Cinemuerte VI Oct 27 - 31.

"Whoever Wins, We Lose"

Boy do we ever. Being that we're trying to scale down movie night and make it a little more compatible with the rest of our lives we opted to make this week a field trip (read: I didn't have to vacuum) and since it was the boy's month he picked the movie: "Alien v. Predator". Why is yet to be determined, but I supposed he still held some hope that it would at least be fun despite having spent the better part of a year complaining about how much it was going to suck. Luckily neither one of us had to pay for it since he had his coupon from the "Predator Special Edition" DVD he'd just bought and I snagged the coupon from our copy at work. I did not go in expecting to hate the movie, but I didn't expect it to be very good. The best I could hope for was fun, which is what a surprising number of critics had said. These critics had better get their heads out of their asses quick because they might suffocate. It was easily one of the most tired, boring, unsuspenseful "action-horror" movies I had ever sat through. The complete lack of gore also didn't help, since that was pretty much the only thing that may have made it passably enjoyable. But no, no joy, no gore, no fun. Yes, part of the reason it sucked so hard was because it had the gaul to piss all over one of the best horror movies of all time and two of the better action movies of all time. It says a lot that the scariest moment belonged to a penguin. Luckily there was no techno (a hallmark of the films of Paul W. S. Anderson) but at least that would have helped make the (BAD) attempts at camp make sense. Nothing made sense, we never got to know the characters except for Lance Hendrickson (who could read the phone book and I'd watch) everyone was so stupid you just waited for them to get hacked to bits in a really grizzly fashion, but the filmmakers buggered that too since you never saw anything. The whole thing was just too fucking stupid. The dialogue was redundant, the characters braindead, the deliberate use of actors with accents annoying (this isn't Classic Trek for fuck's sake), arrggh! The rest of our group had managed to sneak in a couple of mickeys of SoCo, but I sadly had to stay sober (against my better judgment) as a result of my ongoing stomach difficulties. This did not stop me from being a giggly annoying fuck the entire movie. Afterwards I offered to hold down the boy so that our poor friends who had paid good money to witness this piece of shit could each get a shot in but most of them declined, taking responsibility for their own bad judgment. A bitch session was held in the round on Granville street directly outside the theatre where possible solutions for the general crapiness were bandied about. Our conclusions? The following, alone or in combination may have helped:
1. One or more pro Wrestlers, new skool or old skool.
2. Ice Cube
3. A character we could give a crap about.
4. The Thing (John Carpenter's)
5. Alien penguins
6. Keith David
7. Tits, or at least a Predator/Sanaa Lathan make-out scene...

Got Some Spare Time Between Now and October?

For some reason I've been sent a link for Vancouver International Film Festival Volunteer Forms, so if you've got some free time and like movies then this is a great opportunity. I on the other hand will hopefully get a press pass so can just kiss my lazy butt.

Interesting considering I had no idea what I was doing...

Which random shout by the guy from Teen Girl Squad are you?